Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney use the power of PACs to stump
The also-rans continue to run, thanks to the magic of political action committees.
Hillary Clinton is traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles today holding fundraisers on behalf of her party’s presidential nominee, Barack Obama. Mitt Romney was in Nevada last week and continues to travel the country often on behalf of his party’s nominee, John McCain.
No longer candidates, they're now surrogates. To pay their way, they're using money raised in $5,000 increments in their political action committees.
After spending $105 million, including $44.6 million of his own money, on a failed effort to capture the GOP presidential nomination, Romney created Free and Strong America, a political action committee to help McCain and other Republicans win on Nov. 4.
He has raised $1.56 million, spent $1.1 million and had $474,000 in the bank, according to the latest Federal Election Commission reports filed last month.
Clinton jump-started her HillPAC after she ended her presidential campaign in June. She raised $670,000 and spent $476,300 this summer, and ended August with $201,000 in the bank. Clinton spent $220 million on her losing campaign, not counting nearly $10 million in unpaid presidential campaign bills, plus $13.1 million she loaned her campaign.
Romney and Clinton each are relying on presidential campaign donors to pay for their latest undertakings. Romney is collecting $5,000 from friends from his investment days, as well as newer backers including cattle rancher and racehorse owner John Harris of Harris Ranch in Coalinga.
Clinton has received $5,000 from Hollywood figures including Cheryl Saban, Berry Gordy and Clarence Avant.
Also giving are wealthy San Franciscans including Susie Tomkins Buell, her husband Mark Buell and Walter Shorenstein, along with Brian Greenspun, a longtime Clinton friend who owns the Las Vegas Sun and is a board member of Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times.
In an interview today, Greenspun said he continues to give to Clinton because she is one of the most “able Americans and politicians in this country.” As such, he said, she does a better job than he could of deciding which candidates are worthy of support.
“I trust her and I trust her judgment, and if I could give her more money, I would,” he said.
-- Dan Morain
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 
Subscribe to this Blog
Between the Dem-slanted polls and the media's love affair with Obama, I can barely stand to read or watch anything on this election. Then you add McCain's refusal to call out those guilty of the Freddie/Fanny debaucle, and it's just frustrating. Thank God for Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin...these people give me hope for the country and the Republican Party. Those two should be the ticket.
Posted by: Mary | October 08, 2008 at 08:28 AM