Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Speaker of the House, attends the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination owed $4.7 million at the end of 2012, including almost $650,000 to himself, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Gingrich raised $24.8 million for his campaign, including $151,814 in individual donations during the last three months of 2012, most of which was in amounts of $200 or less. He was paid $320,167 from a direct mail firm renting his mailing list. Gingrich ended the year with $75,046 in his campaign bank account.

It can take years for unsuccessful presidential candidates to finish off their debts, if at all. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently paid off the money she owed from her unsuccessful 2008 Democratic presidential campaign. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who sought the Republican nomination the same year, still had creditors waiting to be paid as of the end of September.

In addition to the $647,519 unpaid Gingrich loan to the  campaign, his other debts included $991,072 to Moby Dick Airways, an air charter company; $35,000 to a former House colleague, J.C. Watts, for consulting; and $16,526 to another unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, businessman Herman Cain, for consulting and travel. Cain endorsed Gingrich, a fellow Georgian, for president after ending his own candidacy.

Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who owed $2.3 million after leaving the presidential race in April, pared down his campaign debt to $732,035. He still owed $482,988 to his former chief strategist, John Brabender, and $15,000 for sponsoring Tony Raines’s Ford Fusion in NASCAR’s Daytona 500 auto race in Florida last February. The race car, with Santorum’s campaign logo adorning the hood, finished 19th.

Santorum finished 2012 with $126,274 in the bank. He raised $23.6 million for his campaign. He also rented out his mailing list, earning $100,000 from his own leadership political action committee and $294,608 from an outside firm.

Original post is Gingrich’s Debt $4.7 Million — Presidential Campaign Owes Candidate $650,000 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Will Kincaid/AP Photo

Democratic candidate for North Dakota's U.S. Senate seat, Heidi Heitkamp, holds up the Oct. 20, 2012, Fargo Forum, on Nov. 7, 2012, in Bismarck, N.D. The paper had Berg leading Heitkamp in the state by ten points.

There wasn’t much of a post-election hiatus for the American Bankers Association.

The Washington-based lobbying group sent $59,500 in campaign contributions to federal candidates between Nov. 7-19, most of it to help incoming members of Congress retire campaign debts they incurred to win House and Senate elections on Nov. 6, it said today in a filing to the Federal Election Commission.

ABA’s PAC sent $5,000 each to three North Carolina Republicans on Nov. 7, including Mark Meadows and Richard Hudson, who won their House seats comfortably, and David Rouzer, who conceded Nov. 28 to Democratic incumbent Mike McIntyre after a recount.

Also getting post-election donations were Democrats John Delaney of Maryland, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Dina Titus and Steven Horsford of Nevada and Tim Kaine of Virginia  and Republicans Andy Barr of Kentucky, Chris Collins of New York, Jackie Walorski of Indiana and Keith Rothfus of Pennsylvania. Heitkamp and Kaine won Senate seats, while the rest were elected to the House.

The PAC sent $10,000 on Nov. 12 to Representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a member of the Financial Services Committee who leads its subcommittee on financial institutions and consumer credit. Capito, who overwhelmingly won a seventh House term, announced Nov. 26 that she will run for the Senate in 2014.

Here’s a list of all donations the American Bankers Association made to federal candidates during the Oct. 18-Nov. 26 filing period, according to its FEC filing.

Original post is Bank PAC Helps New Members of Congress Retire Campaign Debt by Political Capital.