FYI - Koch is supporting Romney in 2012.

[Pirate Smile]

It's always good to know where Koch is aiming his profligate spending.

The Republican nomination fight should be quite a battle. We can only hope (and help) they damage themselves and the eventual nominee greatly in the process.

I'm sure the amount of spending for the 2012 election is going to make the grotesque amounts spent in 2010 look like a pittance.

GOP mega-donors look toward 2012

As the 2010 campaign draws to its raucous close, the Republican Party's biggest donors are slowly beginning to choose sides, with some still looking for a strong alternative to a populist conservative movement that makes them uneasy.
The big New York, Texas, California and Florida donors who traditionally play a key role in choosing the GOP nominee lined up behind George W. Bush in 2000 and, largely, John McCain in 2008.

This year’s early favorite appears to be Mitt Romney, donor sources confirmed to POLITICO, who has already lined up quiet commitments from more than a dozen top names, among them billionaire David Koch and his wife, Julia, financier and former Goldman Sachs partner Lewis Eisenberg, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and Ogilvy Government Relations Chairman Wayne Berman.

-snip-
“Most long-standing donors are worried about a candidate, or multiple candidates, coming forward who are too extreme,” said a major Republican donor with long ties to the party. “You’ve got a lot of people that don’t want to support the tea party movement.”

-snip-
To date, Romney is far and away the leader in the committed heavy-hitter category, posting a $1.7 million haul this past quarter. Largely shut out of the big-money chase by McCain and Giuliani in 2008, he’s making up for lost time.
Koch, the libertarian billionaire who’s also been funding some tea party activities this cycle, recently hosted a meet-and-greet for Romney at his home in the Hamptons with about 150 people, according to several attendees.

Romney also has commitments from some of the biggest names in Republican donor circles. In addition to Koch, Berman, Eisenberg and Johnson, he’s got on his side Donald and Muffy Miller, hedge fund titan John Paulson, Related Companies Chairman Stephen Ross, Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci, hedge funders David and Ginny Knott, Bush Ranger Patrick Durkin and former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Richard Breeden.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44065.html#ixzz15BYlMssa

Looking to 2012, Republicans Vie for Big Donors

By MICHAEL LUO
Published: November 12, 2010

Mitt Romney is not running for president, yet. But a handful of big donors have each contributed in the realm of $100,000, or more, to Mr. Romney this year through a network of state political action committees he has set up that enable him to avoid federal campaign finance limits.

-snip-
The money, which has gone to the politicians’ “leadership PACs,” is not allowed to be used to fuel a presidential run, but it often acts as seed money to help raise a potential candidate’s national profile and provide financing to other politicians who can help him later. The contributions can also build an infrastructure of staff, offices and donors that can be later transformed into a full-fledged campaign, but this kind of spending also carries the potential of tripping over campaign finance laws.
The outsize contributions are possible because while donations to federal PACs are limited to $5,000, many state-based entities have no such limits. Some can also take donations from corporations and unions, which federal PACs cannot directly do.

The generous giving to the state PACs is just one aspect of the 2012 money race, which is well under way. In recent months, many of the candidates-in-waiting have been actively cultivating the kinds of major donors needed to finance expensive presidential bids.
Mr. Romney has been by far the most assertive, according to interviews with a half-dozen top Republican fund-raisers, already pushing for commitments from major donors should he formally decide to run.
Over the summer, Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, invited top bundlers of campaign checks from key states to his vacation home in New Hampshire on several occasions to help firm up their commitments. Mr. Romney has already lined up an array of prominent supporters, including a billionaire, David Koch, who has donated heavily to conservative causes over the years, and Robert Wood Johnson IV, the billionaire owner of the New York Jets and one of the party’s most coveted fund-raisers.

-snip-
Richard Marriott, the hotel executive, and his wife, Donna, have together given Mr. Romney $225,000 this year mainly through the state-based affiliates of his federal PAC, Free and Strong America, in Alabama, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Other major Romney contributors include Edward Conard, a former executive with Mr. Romney at Bain Capital, who donated $100,000, and Hushang Ansary, a Texas oil-and-gas investor and former Iran finance minister, who contributed $95,000.
The network of state PACs Mr. Romney has set up seems intended to give him leverage in some important early-voting states but also to take advantage of permissive campaign finance rules. Alabama, Iowa, and Michigan, for example, do not cap contributions to these kinds of PACs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/us/politics/13donate.html?_r=1&hp

Romney in the Hamptons with David Koch

Mitt Romney had a major fundraiser event in the Hamptons yesterday at the home of mega-businessman David Koch and his wife, I'm told by several sources.

About 150 people attended, I'm told, and the host list was a wide array of Republican donors — including Lew Eisenberg, Woody Johnson, former McCain 2008 backer Wayne Berman, Related Companies' Stephen Ross, and financier Donald Marron.

It's an impressive group of bigwigs for Romney, who's aggressively raising for his PAC.

UDPATE: One source says there was no money ask, and it was a meet-and-greet event. Either way, it's a crowd of prominent names.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/maggiehaberman/0810/Romney_raises_in_the_Hamptons_.html

We are only two months away from when Hillary announced she was running for President in January 2007. We are already in the 2012 campaign season. It may be time to focus some of the guns outward instead of simply continuing the circular firing squad.

[Enrique]

1. should be interesting to see how they handle Romneycare

the Kochs funded wild attacks against Obamacare, how will they address the fact that it's a lot like Romneycare?

[Pirate Smile]

2. I know. I'm going to love the attacks on him by Republicans over it.

Between the Romneycare attacks and the Mormon attacks (either out in the open or under the radar), I don't know that he can win the nomination OR, if he does win the nomination, I hope they inflict lethal damage to his campaign.

I wonder if it will be like Hillary's Iraq War vote where it is always there like an anchor, pulling him down - and he certainly is no Hillary when it comes to campaigning. It's hard to be so phony all the time.

[karynnj]

3. Don't forget the attacks because he drove with his dog in his crate on the roof of his car

For a very long trip - I think MA to Canada. One of his sons told it as a "funny" story.

[PBS Poll-435]

7. Never Forget Seamus. nt

[StevieM]

4. I think the GOP nominee will be Mike Pence. If not, then I think Romney will hold on to win.

It's not like the Obamacare attacks are based on anything substantive. They're against a mythical government take over. So all Romney has to do is remind people that he didn't socialize medicine, like Obama supposedly did. That should persuade a lot of Republican voters. But I think Pence will be surprisingly strong, perhaps even winning South Carolina, and setting up a head-to-head showdown on Super Tuesday.

Steve

[Pirate Smile]

5. It will undercut the attacks against Obama on health care and I'm not sure they are willing to give

it up.

We know their arguments against Obama's HCR were ridiculous but they actually believe it. It will be interesting to see if by them being forced to come to grips with having Romney as their nominee they have to peel back some of the layers of crazy they have pasted over the Health Care Reform that Obama and the Democratic Congress actually passed.

I still would place higher odds on Romney winning the nomination then anyone else. I just hope he gets damaged a lot on the way there. Perhaps a Tea Party or some other RW third party candidate to siphon off votes from him would run.

[molly77]

6. This is great. True fundamentalists think Mormons are a cult.

[Pirate Smile]

10. It is going to be quite a show.

[Ikonoklast]

11. No way the "Christian" Right lets the Mormons get anywhere near the White House.

Koch Brothers may have more money than God, but they cannot purchase the control over every frothing at the mouth self-ordained 'pastor' from thundering out "Mormons are agents of Satan, and do not believe in Jesus Christ!!!" every Sunday from the pulpit.

The only way Mittens will ever see the inside of the Oval Office is on a tour.

[bigdarryl]

8. I have been saying for some time noe Romney would be the nominee

because he came in second and it's his turn know thats how the GOP does things remember Bush beat McCain in 2000 and then McCain was the chosen one in 08

[Pirate Smile]

9. Normally it would be him - and it very well may but there is also a coming Civil War in the GOP so

who knows exactly how it will end up.

I'd prefer we not provide them an assist by doing some of it ourselves.

[flamingdem]

12. Oh goody, gold plated magic underwear, will the wingers support a mormon? nt

[cadmium]

13. Saw this coming. 2 things: 1.Glenn Beck rally with

Sarah Palin was a way of prepping conservative christians to accept a Mormon. 2. Sarah Palin is getting a lot of negative attention from the press. This is the kind of thing the Romney people excel at.

[Pamelita]

14. Koch is super-wealthy

super-wealthy individuals love the Republican Party.

[Odin2005]

15. If Romney is the Puke Nominee then we win.

The Baggers will go 3rd Party and split the vote, they HATE Romney.