Money & Politics Column
Cheeseheads frugal in presidential race
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Wisconsin has 1.8 percent of the nation’s population, but accounts for just .8 percent of the nearly $1.2 billion that has flowed to presidential contenders.
Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/federal-election-commission/)
Wisconsin has 1.8 percent of the nation’s population, but accounts for just .8 percent of the nearly $1.2 billion that has flowed to presidential contenders.
Already these expenditures by outside groups, coupled with prodigious spending by the candidates, make this the most expensive U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin history.
At a campaign stop near Philadelphia early in his 2010 bid for governor, Republican Tom Corbett announced, “We’ve got to raise money,” calling this his campaign’s “No. 1” priority. That same July day, a $1.5 million contribution arrived — from Wisconsin. Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, calls this well-traveled donation a prime example of “an elaborate money-laundering scheme” used by the RGA with success in a number of races for governor in 2010 — one that is legal.
If words matter, and they ought to, “lobbyist” is not the right one to apply to Tommy Thompson.