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Editor's note: Tracking another Super PAC
By Bill Allison Oct 15, 2010 3:45 p.m.Michael Dubke gets around. He's a partner at Crossroads Media, LLC, which buys airtime for political ads for Super PACs and candidates. He "exercises control" (the Federal Election Commission term) over Partnership for America's Future, which buys ads from Crossroads Media. He founded Americans for Job Security, which also buys ads from Crossroads Media. Another Crossroads Media client is Alliance for America's Future, run by Mary Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Richard Cheney. Cheney's former political director, Kara Ahern, works for Alliance for America's Future, filing its disclosures with the FEC. She's also custodian and assistant treasurer for Partnership for America's Future. Her boss there, treasurer Barry Bennett, is a director of Alliance for America's Future.
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More cash spent on attack ads than ones supporting candidates
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 15, 2010 3:37 p.m.When all the independent influence is added up, Republicans have a $21 million advantage so far over Democrats, a review of Federal Election Commission data shows.
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Paper trail shows ties between newly registered 'Super PAC,' other groups
By Aaron Bycoffe Oct 15, 2010 3:14 p.m.Earlier this month, Partnership for America's Future filed a letter with the Federal Election Commission declaring that it will take contributions of unlimited amounts and spend them on independent expenditures. According to its website, the organization is "dedicated to supporting efforts designed to elect Republican candidates to office during the 2010 election cycle." In the process, the recently-minted Super PAC is supporting and supported by a web of Republican operatives and institutions that have played an outsized role in the 2010 elections.
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Outside spending hits the $200 million mark
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 14, 2010 1:12 p.m.Spending by outside groups trying to influence the mid-term elections increased by a staggering $78 million in the last week, pushing the total spent by non-profits, labor unions and party committees to more than $200 million this cycle. That's an 80 percent increase from 2006, the last mid-term election.
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Contractor Super PAC Alaskans Standing Together backs Murkowski
By Ryan Sibley Oct 13, 2010 1:46 p.m.Alaskans Standing Together, a Super PAC that takes unlimited contributions from any source, raised $805,000 in contributions from nine federal contractors, all of them Alaska Native corporations, and is spending its money—$595,000 so far—to support the state's incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
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Editor's Notebook: Following the muddled money
By Bill Allison Oct 7, 2010 3:03 p.m.Over the weekend, I came across a new group in our Follow the Unlimited Money tool called CSS Action Fund. I googled the group and didn't find anything about it; by Monday they'd set up a website. Curious, I asked Ryan Sibley, who's been all things post-Citizens United for us, to see what she could find out about the group.
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'Grassroots' group grows mainly in offices of D.C. law and PR firms
By Ryan Sibley Oct 7, 2010 11:54 a.m.A political committee called Citizens for Strength and Security Action Fund--usually abbreviated as CSS Action Fund--claims to be active across the country promoting the best solutions to America's problems, but the limited disclosures available about the group suggest that it's a creature of the beltway. The organization, which made its first noise in the 2010 mid-term elections by spending $640,000 supporting Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash in late September, shares a Washington, D.C. address with similar advocacy groups and lists political pros as its main players.*
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Crossroads connections visualized
By Lindsay Young Oct 6, 2010 12:10 p.m.Crossroads Media has a slew of conservative leaning political organizations as their clients spending millions in the run up to mid-term elections on ad buys. The company has processed more than $10.6 million worth of ad placements this election cycle (not all that money ends up with Crossroads Media--the bulk goes to the television, radio, cable and other outlets that run the advertisements it places).
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Outside groups spend $13 million in the last six days
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 4, 2010 3:56 p.m.In the past six days--Wednesday through today--outside groups have spent more than $13 million to influence the mid-term congressional elections, including broadcast ads, robo-calls, get out the vote campaigns and mailings.
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NRCC spends big, flexes power
By Ryan Sibley Oct 4, 2010 11:23 a.m.The National Republican Congressional Committee reported spending more than $800,000 on one day, Friday Oct. 1, in opposition to 30 Democrats. The NRCC has spent almost $13.7 million in independent expenditures to oppose Democrats so far this election cycle, tops among all groups as of this writing.
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Beyond Super PACs: Political groups up electioneering spending as mid-terms approach
By Anupama Narayanswamy Sep 30, 2010 2:43 p.m.Outside organizations have so far reported spending more than $18 million to run issue ads mentioning candidates within 30 days of primaries and 60 days of the general election--a 31 percent increase over the last mid-term election cycle. Corporate trade associations, labor unions, environmental groups, proponents of traditional values and even a group that opposes big money in politics have run ads in the run up to November 2, reports from the Federal Election Commission show.
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Sunlight tools helps connect the dots between independent expenditures and ads
By Lindsay Young Sep 27, 2010 3:14 p.m.Just over a month away from the midterm elections political ads are mustering strength and each advertisement is only one small piece of a larger network of money, power and influence. The Sunlight Foundation has two new tools to help track this political influence: Follow the Unlimited Money, a user friendly way to track advertising and other kinds of electioneering, and Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor that tracks the end result of some of the political spending powered by citizens reporting.
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Abortion issues dominate independent expenditures in California Senate race
By Lindsay Young Sep 24, 2010 1 p.m.In the Senate race between Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina of California, 87 percent of the independent expenditures relates to abortion issues. Among these two candidates, pro-life groups so far have spent $186,000, while pro-choice spending amounts to $41,000, according to a review of our independent expenditures database.
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Outside groups spending record amounts on mid-term elections
By Ryan Sibley Sep 23, 2010 12:06 p.m.Since January 2010, spending by outside organizations to influence congressional elections totals some $57 million--up more than $20 million from a comparable time period in 2006, the most recent non-presidential election cycle--according to reports collected by the Federal Election Commission.
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