[EL] Romney/Outside Spending

Mon Mar 18 08:57:11 PDT 2013

I thought that the "sitting duck" argument was confirmed when reports came
out of Romney's need to take out a loan during the primaries to stay afloat:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/romney-camp-used-20m-loa
n-to-handle-summer-cash-flow-woes/2012/09/18/0794c824-020a-11e2-9367-4e1bafb
958db_story.html

The loan from the Bank of Georgetown, first reported Tuesday night by
National Review Online and confirmed by a senior campaign official, provides
a telling glimpse into previously unknown money troubles within the Romney
camp over the summer. Romney has relied heavily on wealthy donors but has
had persistent difficulty raising money among grassroots donors, who could
have helped buoy his finances during the long summer before the Republican
convention in Tampa.

The campaign has paid back $9 million of the loan so far, with $11 million
remaining on the debt side of the ledger, said the senior campaign official,
who was not authorized to publicly discuss the campaign's finances.

Federal Election Commission reports to be filed Thursday will show a debt of
$15 million, which was the amount outstanding on Aug. 31, according to the
campaign. Romney, who loaned more than $40 million of his fortune to his
2008 bid, has not given his 2012 campaign any loans, officials said..

Neither Obama nor Romney is participating in public financing this year,
however, which apparently left the Romney campaign in a pickle: They were
running dangerously low on primary funds, but were not allowed to tap a
cache of general election money that it began accumulating in late spring.
The campaign came up with a variation on the approach used by McCain:
Getting a bank to agree to loan $20 million with unused general election
funds as collateral, according to the NRO account.

"We took advantage of the law as it exists to secure this line of credit,"
an aide told the conservative Web site. "We were able to stay competitive in
a period when we were looking at a tilted playing field." .

The loan could help explain why the Romney campaign appeared to react
timidly this summer to a wave of attack ads from the Obama campaign and a
super PAC supporting the president, Priorities USA Action, which aired a
series of brutal spots portraying Romney as a heartless corporate raider.
Romney left more of the broadcast duties to outside allies who were
disjointed in their messaging, and also did relatively little to lay the
foundations for a ground operation to match Obama's.

Adam C. Bonin
The Law Office of Adam C. Bonin
1900 Market Street, 4th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 864-8002 (w)
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(267) 242-5014 (c)

adam at boninlaw.com

http://www.boninlaw.com <http://www.boninlaw.com/> 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick
Hasen
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2013 11:39 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/18/13

RNC Chair: No More August Presidential Conventions, Blames Campaign Finance
Rules <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48449>  

Posted on  <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48449> March 17, 2013 10:21 am by
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>  

Mike Allen quoting <http://www.politico.com/playbook/>  RNC Chair Priebus on
"Face the Nation:"

"[O]ne of the reasons why Mitt Romney was a sitting duck for two months over
the summer is under the campaign finance law, he couldn't use money he had
already raised until after he received nomination for president in August. I
believe that our primary process is way too long. I think our calendar needs
to be looked at. I think our debate calendar needs to be shrunk. I think we
had way too many debates with our candidates slicing and dicing each other
and I think they had to wait too long to get to the convention. I'm calling
for a convention in June or July. We're going to set up a commission that's
going to make that decision. I'm going to be a part of that. I'm going to
chair that commission, but no more August conventions."

I will be interested to hear from others whether Romney was a sitting duck
those few months, or whether Super PAC and 501c spending on his behalf was
freely flowing during that period attacking Obama.

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