The line forms here for Rudy Giuliani campaign refund checks
This could be Rudy Giuliani's own brand of national economic stimulus.
Unwinding his once-promising campaign, the one-time Republican front-runner has been handing out ref
und checks amounting to $3.16 million in February alone to more than 1,400 of his high-end presidential campaign donors.
In a campaign finance filing today, monitored by The Times' Dan Morain, Giuliani discloses that he raised a total of $64.94 million for his campaign and spent $56.95 million on the ill-fated candidacy that collapsed after his Florida loss without a single election victory at the end of January.
In fact, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas beat the New Yorker in a couple of places, winning more delegates with less money and, as we reported here this morning, still having more than $5 million cash in hand and not a single cent of debt as of Feb. 29.
For that nearly $57 million Giuliani won a single delegate in Nevada, actually one delegate since we don't know his/her marital status.
In today's filing with the Federal Election Commission, Giuliani discloses....
that he still has $3.1 million in debt, including $151,000 owed to Giuliani Security, the security firm he founded, and $65,000 to Giuliani Partners, another of his enterprises.
But his report also shows that he's returning many of his contributors' donations, most of them in $2,300 chunks to more than 1,400 donors. Under federal law, donors are limited to giving $2,300 to a candidate's primary and $2,300 to the general election campaigns. Since Giulianii did not quite make it into the general, he must return the donations for that unforthcoming effort.
Among the people who thought the former mayor was the likely GOP nominee and are now due the $2,300 general election donation refunds:
William E. Simon, who heads an investment firm; a half-dozen members of the Fertitta family, which controls Las Vegas-based Station Casinos; Texas energy billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who may have been his largest single fund-raiser; and Paul E. Singer, who along with others affiliated with his New York hedge fund, Elliott Associates, bundled more than $400,000 for Giuliani’s candidacy.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Don Emmert AFP/Getty Images
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Can you explain how companies cna bundle this kind of contributions wiht $2,300.00 limits on contributions?
"who along with others affiliated with his New York hedge fund, Elliott Associates, bundled more than $400,000 for Giuliani’s candidacy." please email me your blog posting on this question.
thanks
Posted by: tim, minnesota | March 20, 2008 at 09:06 PM
At what point was Rudy Giuliani EVER a front runner? I think I'm confused on the definition of 'front runner'. Can you please clarify?
(Sure, Adam. He lead all the national polls for the first half of 2007 and into the summer.)
Posted by: Adam | March 20, 2008 at 11:55 PM