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December 14, 2011

Mitt Romney… brought to you by?

By Jeremy Miller

Super PACs, Political Candidates, Mitt Romney

Yet again it seems Mitt Romney (and his supporters) are doing everything in their power to hide the full truth from voters. In the latest instance a pro-Romney Super PAC (Restore Our Future) is going through legal gymnastics in an effort to conceal the identities of its biggest donors.

From yesterday’s Washington Post:

An organization that is spending millions of dollars to back Romney has changed the schedule it will follow to report donations to the federal government, a step that means it can postpone disclosing the names of its financial backers until after the Florida primary on the last day of January.

This means it’s entirely possible (although not likely given the recent polls) that Mr. Romney could have the Republican nomination completely sewn up without his Super PAC ever telling voters who’s paid the millions of dollars for ads aimed at convincing voters the former Massachusetts governor is a good guy.

What if ROF is funded by money from the Koch Brothers? Or Donald Trump? Would caucus goers in Iowa, or the independents who vote in New Hampshire’s open primary view the SuperPAC’s ads in a different light if that information was made public? We’ll never know.

Welcome to the Wild Wild West of presidential primaries created by the disastrous Citizens United decision. The useless Federal Election Commission has had more than a year to put guidelines in place to better regulate Super PACs like Restore our Future, but instead sat on its hands and did absolutely nothing.