The pro-Mitt Romney superPAC's ad war against his two main opponents cost it $14 million in January, The New York Times reports. The group, Restore Our Future raised $7 million, $5 million of it from just 25 people and corporations. Some of its biggest donations from Marriott and Walmart heirs, with smaller donations of $500,000-a-piece from "Joseph W. Craft, an Oklahoma mining executive; Bruce Kovner, a billionaire hedge fund founder from New York; and David Lisonbee, the founder of a Utah vitamin supplements company," according to The Times' Nicholas Confessore.
While that's a lot of money from very few people, Romney's competitors' super PACs are getting their money from even fewer sources. PayPal founder Peter Thiel donated 73 percent of the $2.3 million Ron Paul's super PAC raised. Sheldon Adelson, whose family has given $10 million to Newt Gingrich, recently promised to give $10 million more, if only to hurt Rick Santorum.
What did the Romney supporters buy with their donations? A whole bunch of negative ads. In Florida, for example, Romney and his allies ran a single positive ad, on a Spanish radio station.
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Elspeth Reeve



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