Joe Miller files FEC complaint against Murkowski supporter AST

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Joe Miller filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission Wednesday over a political action committee that's supporting Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, whom Miller defeated in the state's GOP primary, in her write-in bid to hang on to her seat in the U.S. Senate:

In his complaint, Miller argues that several of the Native regional corporations that have donated to Alaskans Standing Together (AST) are federal contractors, they're barred from participating in politics.

[...]

Alaskans Standing Together has pumped $1 million so far into Murkowski's race. The National Republican Senatorial Committee today and yesterday disclosed it had devoted an additional $311,942 to campaign advertising on Miller's behalf. He got another $54,283 from Sen. Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund today, for a total of $236,635 from the conservative South Carolina Republican.

A closer look at Murkowski's relationship with AST is here.

- JP

SarahPAC has its best fundraising quarter ever

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Politico reports that Gov. Palin's political action committee (PAC) had its most successful three months of fundraising ever, receiving more than $1.2 million in contributions from July through the end of September:

That total – which is nearly 50 percent more than her previous high mark, achieved in the second quarter of this year – was disclosed in a report filed Tuesday morning with the Federal Election Commission by SarahPAC, Palin’s leadership political action committee.

Palin, who has encouraged speculation that she may seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, wasn’t left with much in the way of political infrastructure after the 2008 campaign and her 2009 resignation as governor of Alaska. But SarahPAC’s brisk fundraising, combined with strategic investments that seek to convert her popularity among conservatives into a massive donor base and a network of allied politicians, all would serve Palin well should she decide to seek the 2012 nomination.

Tuesday’s report shows that a good portion of SarahPAC’s $93,500 in donations went to candidates or groups in states that will play a key role in the 2012 primary. It made $10,000 donations to Kelly Ayotte’s Senate campaign in New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation primaries, and to the state GOP in Iowa, where the presidential caucuses will kick off the primary season – and wherePalin spoke last month to party leaders and activists who will play a determinative role in deciding the caucus results.

Also getting big donations were tea party heroes who Palin helped lift to unlikely Senate primary victories, including Christine O’Donnell of Delaware, Joe Miller of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sharron Angle of Nevada, all of whom received $5,000, except for O’Donnell whose campaign received $10,000 and Angle, who got $2,500.

Perhaps more significant for Palin’s own operation was SarahPAC’s substantial investment in fundraising, which has helped her build a base of mostly small donors. The report shows SarahPAC spent $205,000 on direct mail solicitations, $38,000 on internet fundraising and $40,000 on finance consulting.

SarahPAC spent a little more than $1 million in the quarter, finishing with $1.3 million in the bank. It received almost 25,000 contributions, with an average donation of around $50, according to the report.

(More)

The AP's coverage of this story, via the Washington Examiner, is here. Links to the FEC forms filed by SarahPAC are here.

- JP

Politico: SarahPAC steps into the big leagues

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Politico's Kenneth Vogel reports:

A new financial report filed Sunday evening showed Sarah Palin’s political action committee has taken its fundraising to a higher level – and suggests that she has begun building a more sophisticated political operation in place of a bare-bones organization powered mostly by her rock star status and scrappy on-line presence.

The report, filed with the Federal Election Commission, shows that Palin’s political action committee raised more money in the second quarter of this year – $866,000 – than it had in any previous three-month stretch since Palin formed the group in January 2009.

The committee, Sarah PAC, also spent nearly twice as much – $742,000 – as it had in any previous quarter, the lion’s share of which went to the type of list-building and fundraising (including its first major direct-mail campaign) that typically undergird top-tier political committees. It also reported its biggest-ever round of donations to candidates – $87,50 – and its highest outlays for travel costs, including $17,000 on private jet fare to crisscross the country for high-profile political speaking gigs, and speechwriting. It also showed continued payments for that speechwriting as well as foreign and domestic policy consulting, and its first ever payments to a scheduler.

In short, for the first time since the 2008 campaign when she was the vice-presidential running mate to GOP presidential candidate John McCain, Palin is supported by a political operation befitting someone considering a presidential run.

Sarah PAC, a so-called leadership political action committee, relied largely on small donors for its fundraising haul between the beginning of April and the end of last month, according to the report, which shows more than $1 million in the bank at the end of the quarter.

SarahPAC also conducted its first direct mail campaign during the second quarter. The PAC's treasurer Tim Crawford says that through the mail effort and continued online fundraising, Sarah PAC added about 8,000 new donors in Q2, raising its total number of contributors to more than 25,000. Crawford adds that the PAC also has more than 200,000 email address on its list:

“Essentially when we started last January, we started from scratch,” Crawford said. “We didn’t have a big base of people coming out of the presidential campaign. Everybody knew that there was this massive amount of support, but she didn’t have it, because all that stuff was property of the McCain campaign. But now, I think we’ve got a pretty formidable thing going on, and it grows every day,” Crawford said.

Sarah PAC reported $87,500 in second-quarter contributions, including donations to candidates Gov. Palin has supported in contested GOP primary victories this year in states that will be key in the 2012 race for the GOP presidential nomination, such as Nevada, where Senate candidate Sharron Angle received $2,500. In South Carolina, congressional candidate Tim Scott was the beneficiary of $5,000 from SarahPAC, and in Iowa, gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad also got $5,000. The PAC also distributed $5,000 in Iowa to the reelection campaign of Sen. Chuck Grassley, whose support the entire field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates will be vying for.

Palin’s endorsements and her PAC’s accompanying contributions have helped her forge a burgeoning reputation as queen-maker whose coveted support has been credited with helping a group of female Republican candidates – “mama grizzlies,” in her parlance – to victory.

But Sunday’s report shows more goes into her endorsement decisions than just her gut instinct.

In fact, the PAC continued paying a Sacramento-based researcher named Andrew Davis to vet most candidates before Palin endorses them.

The PAC also paid $5,700 for speechwriting to Lindsay Hayes, who previously penned speeches for the McCain-Palin campaign, and before that for former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. And Sarah PAC continued paying $10,000 a month to a consulting firm run by former John McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann to provide consulting on “national and international issues” to Palin.

Read the full Politico analysis of the SarahPAC FEC report here.

- JP

SarahPAC raised $2.1 million in 2009, mostly from small donors

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Sarah Palin's political action committee raised about $2.1 million in 2009, $1.4 million of in the last six months of the year. SarahPAC has $900,000 cash on hand:

"We are thrilled. Common sense Americans know the direction we need to take this country and that Sarah Palin will be instrumental in taking us there this year. We look forward to the journey ahead!," said Meghan Stapleton, senior adviser and spokesperson.

They are solid fundraising numbers that show the Republican mega-star's organizational strength.

By comparison, fellow 2012 GOP nomination front runner Mitt Romney's PAC raised about $800,000 more for the year and Tim Pawlenty's PAC raised nearly $1.3 million in the last quarter of 2009.

Most of SarahPAC's money came in the form of small donations, as the former governor's PAC didn't hold large fundraisers:

SarahPAC officials feel they did the majority of this while Sarah was writing her book and raised most of the money with the help of the Internet and small events.

"We are excited as we feel that we've just begun to tap the governor's support. More than 14,000 everyday men and women contributed more than $2 million to SarahPAC last year with little effort on our part. The money came in through the Internet and a handful of fundraisers and we are grateful for everyone's support," said Tim Crawford, SarahPAC treasurer.

Political columnist Chris Cillizza says Sarah Palin's PAC raised money on a par with the political action committees of other Republicans considered to be top contenders for the party's 2012 presidential nomination:

While Palin's six-month total is roughly comparable to the $1.3 million Minnesota. Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) raised in just the final three months of the year through his Freedom First PAC and approximately $800,000 less than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Free and Strong America PAC collected in 2009, her aides suggested she did very little active fundraising.

Sarah PAC sent no direct mail -- a potential treasure trove of small-dollar donations for the former governor who is beloved by the grassroots of the party -- and raised the majority of her money via the Internet and small events. For the 11 months that Sarah PAC has existed, she has received contributions from more than 14,000 donors.

SarahPAC's disbursements in the last 6 months of the year, listed here, went to the campaigns of Doug Hoffman, John Kasich, Sen. Jim Demint, Sen. Tom Coburn, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Rep. Michele Bachmann and others.

The full set of reports SarahPAC filed with the FEC is here.

- JP

SarahPAC also donates to Bachmann, Blackburn, McDonnell

Friday, we reported that SarahPAC had made contributions to the campaigns of Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch and Rob Portman, based on a CQ Politics post by Jonathan Allen. Today it was revealed that former Governor Palin's PAC also donated to the campaigns of more conservative Republicans Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn and Bob McDonnell, according to a Politico report by Kenneth Vogel.

Bravo Zulu, Sarah Palin.

- JP

SarahPAC Donates to Portman, Graham, Hatch

From Jonathan Allen's Notepad at CQ Politics:

"Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's SarahPAC has donated money to the campaigns of Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah, as well as to Republican Ohio Senate candidate Rob Portman, according to a Friday filing with the Federal Election Commission."

"The exact amounts of the contributions were not reported, but Palin had to list the names of candidates she had financially supported to make SarahPAC a bona fide political action committee."

It had already been widely reported that SarahPAC contributed to Senators John McCain and Lisa Murkowski. Former Governor Palin's PAC recently had to reduce its donations to each those campaigns from $5,000 each to $4,800 each in order to qualify as a "multi-candidate" political action committee, but the technicality has now been satisfied:

"According to the report SarahPAC filed on Friday, she crossed the five-candidate threshold on Aug. 12 with a donation to Portman. SarahPAC gave to Graham and Hatch on July 14."

Portman is a fairly solid conservative, but SarahPAC's contributions to the campaigns of Graham and Hatch are certain to raise some conservative eyebrows. We can think of a couple of plausible explanations for those donations.

Word on Scuttlebutt Street is that both Graham and Hatch had donated to SarahPAC when it was first rolled out, so the political favors have now been returned. It is also a fact of political life that Sarah Palin cannot realistically hope to capture the Republican presidential nomination -- if she wants it -- without the support of such insiders as Graham and Hatch. It's simply a case of paying the political piper.

While some conservatives are sure to be disappointed by the donations to two pols they consider to be Vichy Republicans, the relative few who will be genuinely outraged probably weren't that firmly entrenched in the Palin camp to begin with. On the other side of the coin, the donations will quite likely sit well with moderates and independents, two demographic groups which Sarah Palin knows she must improve her standing with in order to win a general election.

- JP

Will they taunt her a second time?

The action by McCain campaign staffers to purchase clothing for Gov. Palin that she never asked for and didn't think she needed, and then give the bill to the Republican National Committee may have been boneheaded, but it was legal. The Hill reports:

The FEC dismissed a complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) against Palin and the RNC, ruling that the approximately $150,000 spent on clothing for the governor and her family was permitted as coordinated party expenditures.

National political parties are allowed to spend a limited amount of general election funds on behalf of and in coordination with presidential candidates.

In a letter dated May 15 and addressed to Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, FEC Assistant General Counsel Susan Lebeaux said it had reviewed the allegations, found no violations and had closed the file April 30.

"There is no reason to believe the Republican National Committee and Tim Morgan, in his official capacity as treasurer, or Governor Sarah Palin violated" the law, Lebeaux wrote.

Despite the name, CREW is a liberal front group, and the overwhelming majority of its complaints have targeted Republicans. In fact, Roll Call has reported that CREW frequently attacks "groups and individuals who are the foes of CREW’s donors." Executive Director Melanie Sloan has ultra-partisan Democrats John Conyers, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden on her resume as former employers.

Understandably, CREW was not happy with the FEC ruling. Word is that Ms. Sloan is weighing two options as possible responses to the decision. It is rumored that CREW will either pick up its remaining marbles and go home, or else it shall taunt the RNC and Gov. Palin a second time.

Now we know where the "Alaskan Anklebiters" got their bright idea to file baseless "ethics" complaints against Gov. Palin.

- JP