Weekend of secrecy for big GOP donors

Charles and David Koch.

/ Koch Industries/MIT

(CBS News) It's going to be a big weekend in the world of big conservative money: Both Mitt Romney and billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch are holding hush-hush events with wealthy donors designed to keep the dollars coming in.

Romney's three-day retreat, which is being held at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, is an opportunity for about 700 Romney's biggest fundraisers to get some face time with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. (Many of them are "bundlers" - wealthy and well-connected individuals who call on their family, friends and associates to max out their contributions to Romney and the GOP - who have raised in the area of $250,000 for Romney.) Some of the biggest names in the Republican Party, and many of the top contenders to be Romney's running mate, are also coming to Park City: CBS News has confirmed that attendees will include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Republican strategist Karl Rove, former Reagan chief of staff James Baker, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker.

Republican strategist Mary Matalin, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and former Utah governor Mike Leavitt are among the other big names expected to attend. The Romney campaign would not discuss who is attending the retreat, which is not open to the press. Spokespersons for two top contenders for the vice presidential slot - Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie - told CBS News the politicians were invited but would not attend for scheduling reasons. CBS News has also confirmed that Olympic champion figure skater Dorothy Hamill, who participated in the Romney-run 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, will attend.

Romney was not expected to compete in terms of fundraising with President Obama, who broke records in raising nearly $750 million in the 2008 cycle. But he has largely kept pace thanks in part to his personal engagement with wealthy donors, which has come in the form of dozens of intimate meetings around the country and, as the New York Times notes, invitations to his summer home at New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee. The Romney campaign, which has garnered a reputation for aggressive and prompt engagement with potential donors, outraised the Obama campaign $78.6 million to $60 million in May. 

While Romney and his Republican allies are busy cultivating donors in Utah, the Koch brothers will be in San Diego holding a convention designed to help them generate hundreds of millions of dollars to advance conservative causes. At least we think they will: The event is shrouded in secrecy, and neither representatives for Koch Industries nor a number of expected attendees contacted by CBS News would even confirm that it is taking place.

Word got out last week that it was indeed happening, when Minnesota television station owner Stanley Hubbard confirmed its existence - and San Diego location - to Politico. In an apparent attempt to head off protesters and potential infiltrators, organizers and attendees will not say exactly where the convention will be held; a San Diego alternative newspaper is holding a "Find the Koch Brothers Confab" contest in order to figure it out. (CBS News' attempts to confirm the venue have thus far been fruitless, though we have our suspicions.) Liberals have their own version of the Koch brothers' confab called The Democracy Alliance, where security is similarly strict; both events are awash in security personnel looking to escort uninvited guests (such as reporters) off the premises. 

Organizations tied to the Koch brothers are reportedly planning to spend nearly $400 million on the 2012 campaign cycle, and their conferences are largely designed to garner contributions to the cause. Last year, Mother Jones infiltrated a Koch conference in Vail where Christie was a speaker and recorded Charles Koch thanking donors who had given more than $1 million; the list, which is here, includes more than thirty names. According to a leaked invitation, Koch conferences have attracted conservative heavy hitters such as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Govs. Jindal and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Rep. Ryan, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  

The semi-secrecy of the Romney retreat and extreme secrecy of the Koch conference mirror the secrecy that currently exists in the world of campaign financing. The Romney campaign, unlike the Obama campaign, refuses to disclose its bundlers, which makes it more difficult for the public to assess what his biggest donors might expect in exchange for their money. The Koch brothers funnel money into groups like Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit "social welfare organization" that does not need to disclose its donors because it is incorporated as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit with the Internal Revenue Service. (More on that here.) And while the super PACs that the Supreme Court freed up to spend unlimited amounts to influence the election do have to disclose their donors, they can simply funnel donations through 501(c)(4) groups - which in many cases are their sister organizations - effectively allowing the super PACs to get around that pesky disclosure requirement. (There is also anonymity on the other side of the spectrum: The Federal Election Commission does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 in an election cycle.)

In this election cycle, the Republicans appear to have a significant advantage when it comes to outside group spending - though because 501(c)(4)s and related organizations only have to file with the IRS once per year, it's impossible to know exactly how much money is flowing into the system. The Obama campaign, which says it expects to be outspent overall, estimated Wednesday that Romney, the Republican National Committee and the outside groups will spend $1.225 billion on ads alone before November.

Meanwhile, Romney and Mr. Obama continue to spend much of their time traveling the country to attend fundraisers, many of them closed to the press. CBS News' Mark Knoller reported earlier this month that the president has participated in 160 fundraisers since filing for re-election last April, and he has a number scheduled for next week; Romney, whose campaign frequently holds fundraisers it doesn't let the media know about, plans to follow his weekend retreat with his big donors in Utah by heading to Phoenix, Arizona for another fundraiser on Monday.

Caroline Horn, Rebecca Kaplan, Laura Strickler, Jenna Gibson and Chris Leyden contributed to this report.

[madwomanhere]

America has alway allowed big business to influence government, it's just that now the gloves are off. Just remember that money can't win elections unless you do what it tells you to do. At this time, many people are promoting progressive candidates at the local level. It's going to take time, but this can still be turned around. We should each be studying the candidates and the issues. http://hammy64000.com

[occupy_cbs]

Mitt Romney ran a company whose special skill was teaching other companies how to increase profits by shipping jobs overseas.

Now, because he wants to be president, he says that he will stop companies from doing that by raising the tariffs on items made by Chinese workers, the ones who got the jobs his company created for them back when he was running Bain Capital.

The irony is, of course, that tariffs are actually just taxes. Romney will raise taxes on goods which are being produced in China. Goods which would not even exist had not guys like him taught American companies to outsource American jobs to other low-paying countries in the first place.


So even more ironically, mitt romney plans on lowering taxes for those multi-national corporations he helped offshore jobs for, while raising tariffs (taxes) on goods from China so it's more expensive for the American consumer -- a punch to the gut of the middle class!

[occupy_cbs]

Dan1715: "This country will not be right until we get rid of people like..........



...............................................................mitt romney and his vulture capitalists that met him in Park City, UT.


Romney's Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas

Mitt Romney's financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/romneys-bain-capital-invested-in-companies-that-moved-jobs-overseas/2012/06/21/gJQAsD9ptV_story.html

[occupy_cbs]

A Washington Post examination of securities filings shows the extent of Bain's investment in firms that specialized in helping other companies move or expand operations overseas. While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.

Bain played several roles in helping these outsourcing companies, such as investing venture capital so they could grow and providing management and strategic business advice as they navigated this rapidly developing field.



What did mitt romney and the romney campaign say about this?

"Romney campaign officials repeatedly declined requests to comment on Bain's record of investing in outsourcing firms during the Romney era."

They actually said absolutely NOTHING, because it was TRUE!

[occupy_cbs]

Dan1715: "You keep forgetting some simple facts. Obamacare is going to grow the government."



While all you want to do is keep posting off-topic ranting about Obama "growing the government," when I just proved you wrong, you're conveniently forgetting that the SCOTUS decision on PPACA is due this week, so your latest rant is a moot point until then!

Besides danny, the PPACA grows the private-sector of the for-profit health care industry much more, by adding 32 million Americans, than the small part of government that will be added for oversight!


Getting back to the real topic you seem to want to bypass, why can't you address these BIG DONORS of romney, and why romney simply cannot answer ANY SPECIFICS on any of his right-wing proposals that will obviously benefit the wealthy and corporate America???

[occupy_cbs]

Oh, and danny, your conservitard ideology and constant support of the romney's oligarchic plutocracy is completely bankrupt and ludicrous!

[occupy_cbs]

And danny, stop with your republican talking points and hypotheticals, and stick with the FACTS like these from drudge:

Government Shrinking Under Obama
May 7, 2012

For the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration. In the first quarter of this year, the real gross domestic product for the government -- including state and local governments as well as federal -- was 2 percent lower than it was three years earlier, when Barack Obama took office in early 2009.

http://www.drudge.com/news/156533/government-shrinking-under-obama

[darwufche]

What else has he got to hide from the American people?

[occupy_cbs]

Actually, he's still hiding his 2011 tax return, and ANY SPECIFICS on any of his policy proposals!

[occupy_cbs]

Dan1715: "So, you want government growth?"


No danny, it's the hypocritical ditthoheads that keep praising bush's need to expand government beyond belief, and fail to see how government has shrunk under President Obama! The FACTS are not your friend, and all you have is very sick political rhetoric with your off-topic posts that I feel I must address.


Under Obama, a Record Decline in Government Jobs
January 6, 2012

Over all -- including a decline of 12,000 public sector jobs in the Labor Department report for December -- government employment is down 2.6 percent over the last three years, compared to a decline of 2.2 percent in the early Reagan years. That is a record.

Since the federal government started tracking the statistic in 1955, there have been only six years when government employment declined. They have come in threes: 1981, 1982 and 1983, the first three years of the Reagan administration, and 2009, 2010, 2011, the first three years of the Obama administration.

There is no reason to think Mr. Obama is as happy about the reduction in government workers as some Republicans. But like it or not, the Obama administration has turned out to be anything but a big-government one.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/under-obama-a-record-decline-in-government-jobs/

-----

Government Shrinking Under Obama
May 7, 2012

For the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration. In the first quarter of this year, the real gross domestic product for the government -- including state and local governments as well as federal -- was 2 percent lower than it was three years earlier, when Barack Obama took office in early 2009.

http://www.drudge.com/news/156533/government-shrinking-under-obama

[occupy_cbs]

The private sector grew faster in the first three years of the Obama administration than it did in three of the previous five administrations -- the exception being Bill Clinton's administrations, when private sector growth was more rapid. In both of George W. Bush's terms as well as in the first three years of the George H. W. Bush administration, though, the private sector grew more slowly.

I know, I know, those damn facts are getting in the way of the republican talking points again. While I'm personally against these facts because I believe the defunding of government at the state and local level is keeping the economy down by taking spending power from millions of consumers who happen to work for the government, its hard to make a case that Obama is a big spender when compared to his predecessors. Private sector jobs are back to the same level they were when Obama was elected but public sector jobs are down. Does the right want to do anything about it, or do they faithfully believe that private police, fire, and schools will pick up the slack for these unemployed?

[occupy_cbs]

Dan1715: "You keep forgetting some simple facts. Obamacare is going to grow the government."



While all you want to do is keep posting off-topic ranting about Obama "growing the government," when I just proved you wrong, you're conveniently forgetting that the SCOTUS decision on PPACA is due this week, so your latest rant is a moot point until then!

Besides danny, the PPACA grows the private-sector of the for-profit health care industry much more, by adding 32 million Americans, than the small part of government that will be added for oversight!

[occupy_cbs]

oneStarman: "HIDDEN MONEY from SECRET DONORS behind the Guarded Gates of Exclusive Clubs where the public and reporters are Kept Out. Man of the People"



Yep, this is just a typical weekend for the oligarchic plutocracy, planning their further enslavement of the American people, by buying all politicians and justices, and having their lobbyists like ALEC write all our legislation that benefits them at our expense!

[thebob-bob]

They're called "Founders", just like early investors in a company. The business plan? Takeover America, strip it of its assets. pay off the Founders and executives, and leave the company trashed. Bain Capital may have had a few successes but for the most part, they got their money and fees and the takeover target was left bankrupt. Kind of like what Republicans did to America during the Bush years.

[occupy_cbs]

Yes, good analogy between the termites at bain capital destroying lives and the republican locusts that swarmed during the bush years, and have reformatted their attack under mitt romney.

[robert1129]

Very simple...These guys want to buy America and Romney is there Agent. But they do not want us to know they are before the election.

[donretired]

Rummy donors are the Koch brothers and big oil wanting more tax breaks so they can pocket more money from the working class. They want to ship more jobs to China too. So vote for the GOP and than you can work for $5.00 per hour 12 hours a day seven days a week with no benefits. If this is what you want vote for them.