Photograph by Richard Ellis/Getty Images

Comedian Stephen Colbert serves food with his sister Elizabeth Colbert Busch during a campaign fundraiser breakfast at ILA Hall on Feb. 24, 2013 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Former South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Sanford and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch each raised more than $300,000 for their campaigns for a vacant House seat in the Charleston area, a reflection of their high name recognition.

Sanford raised $334,000 through Feb. 27, according to a filing yesterday with the Federal Election Commission. Donors included billionaire energy executive David Koch, Wyoming investor Foster Friess and Fred Malek, the founder and chairman of Thayer Lodging Group Inc.

Colbert Busch, a business development official with Clemson University and an older sister of the political satirist Stephen Colbert, took in $319,000 from donors including Charleston mayor Joe Riley and state Democratic chairman Dick Harpootlian.

Colbert Busch’s campaign received $500 from Trevor Potter, a lawyer who advised a super-political action committee that Stephen Colbert promoted on his Comedy Central program.

Sanford, seeking a political comeback after acknowledging an extramarital affair with an Argentinian, is among 16 Republicans seeking South Carolina’s 1^st District seat in the March 19 primary. If no candidate wins a majority, a runoff will be held April 2 between the top two vote-getters.

Some of Sanford’s rivals for the Republican nomination are partially self-funding their campaigns.

John Kuhn, a businessman and former state senator, loaned his campaign $500,000, or 91 percent of his $550,000 in campaign receipts. Teddy Turner, a son of billionaire media executive Ted Turner, provided $245,000 of the $376,000 he raised. State Senator Larry Grooms loaned $100,000 to his campaign, which raised $324,000. Curtis Bostic, a trial lawyer and former county councilman, was the source of $100,000 of the $187,000 he raised.

Colbert Busch, one of  two Democratic candidates, is likely to win her party’s nomination outright and advance to the May 7 special election.

Original post is Sanford vs. Colbert’s Sister: $300,000-Plus in S.C., with Koch, Friess by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Americans for Prosperity Group activists attend a rally in Manhattan on Sept. 20, 2012 in New York City.

President Barack Obama has made it clear that he despises the tax-exempt nonprofit groups that play in politics.

Yet now his own campaign is becoming one of them.

The nonprofit Americans for Prosperity — a frequent target of Obama’s criticism — decided the “moment of sheer hypocrisy was too blatant to pass up,” AFP spokesman Levi Russell said.

So the group made an online video.

The jaunty minute-long spot, which will be circulated on friendly blogs and through AFP’s social media sites, intersperses clips of Obama mentioning Americans for Prosperity, him decrying nonprofits in politics and news segments about Obama’s new nonprofit.

“Well, that’s a change in tune,” a narrator says. The video concludes, “President Obama, let’s get real. It’s time to stop the hypocrisy.”

Obama for America, which spent $737 million to get the president re-elected, is converting from a political committee into a tax-exempt nonprofit. Aides involved in the project have told reporters that the group, now called Organizing for America, will voluntarily disclose donors.

Like Americans for Prosperity, it isn’t legally required to do that. AFP President Tim Phillips said his group spent more than $125 million on the 2012 elections, including an effort to try to oust Obama.

AFP has drawn attention because of its ties to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, who founded it a decade ago. The brothers, worth a combined $89.8 billion, have contributed to numerous nonprofits that help fund the anti-tax Tea Party movement.

Original post is Anti-Obama Nonprofit Calls Out Pro-Obama Nonprofit: ‘Hypocrisy’ by Political Capital.

Hundreds of supporters signed the American Energy Alliance bus. Photograph by Allie Robinson/Bristol Herald Courier via AP Photo

The Center to Protect Patient Rights funneled $62 million into a series of nonprofit groups for the 2010 elections. The sources of the money were hidden from public view, Bloomberg reports.

The center was headed by Sean Noble, a former congressional aide with ties to energy billionaires David and Charles Koch.

Now the groups that Noble funded have launched an effort to kill the federal tax credit for wind energy, which competes with the Kochs’ business.

They include Americans for Prosperity, American Energy Alliance, 60 Plus Association, Club for Growth and Americans for Limited Government.

The ad opposes the “deplorable practice of using the tax code to favor certain groups over others.”

The groups are silent, however, about the billions in tax breaks that the oil and gas industry receive every year.

Original post is Koch Network Rides to Rescue of … Koch Business Interests by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel J. Groshong/Bloomberg

Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. and chairman of Sands China Ltd.

Casino executive Sheldon Adelson, who with his wife have given $36 million to super-political action committees in 2012, contributed $5 million to the host committee that helped stage the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, in August, new Federal Election Commission reports show.

Among Adelson’s other donations is $10 million to Restore Our Future, the super-PAC backing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Adelson is under federal investigation over charges that he violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with his casinos in Macau, a  Chinese territory.

David Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries Inc. and a major donor to conservative causes, contributed $1 million. Koch is chairman of Americans for Propserity Foundation, whose sister organization has said it plans to spend at least $125 million in support of Romney and other Republicans this year.

Original post is Adelson, Koch Among Donors to Republican Convention by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Canadian citizen Shona Holmes, right, with members of the House Republican leadership Rep. Roy Blunt, left, Minority Leader John Boehner, Rep. Judy Biggert, and Minority Whip Eric Cantor about Holmes's travel to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona for surgery to remove a cyst in her brain that was causing her to go blind.

Blocks from where Democrats are holding their convention this week in Charlotte, a Canadian resident is warning of the dangers of President Barack Obama’s health-care law.

Shona Holmes is in town to promote an Americans for Prosperity ad. The nonprofit backs Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and was co-founded by billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch. Its latest ad, called “Replace,” is part of a $27 million Americans for Prosperity ad buy in swing states including North Carolina that expressly calls for people to vote Obama out of office.

Holmes said she sought treatment for a brain tumor in the U.S. rather than wait several months for health care in Canada, a delay that she said would have put her life at risk. “To protect Americans patient-centered care, we must replace president Obama,” an announcer says in the ad.

Holmes made a similar claim in Americans for Prosperity ads in 2009. She has also testified before Congress and appeared at rallies related to the health-care law.

Some groups have questioned both Holmes’s personal story and the tie between Obama’s health-care law and the Canadian system.

One difference between them: The U.S. health-care law doesn’t implement a single-payer system in which all Americans are covered by the government. Canada does.

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips said the two plans are “not exactly alike, but they’re relatively similar.”

“The history of greater government involvement in other countries is that wait times do increase,” he said.

It is an “exaggeration” to say Holmes would have died from her condition, a top Canadian neurosurgeon said in a July 31, 2009, report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Holmes was diagnosed with Rathke’s cleft cyst, a benign, slow-growing tumor that’s not known to be fatal. Back home, Holmes was vilified as a traitor and received death threats, according to a July 30, 2009, report in the Globe and Mail.

At today’s press conference, Holmes said Obama supporters “attacked the messenger rather than listening to the message.” She said she has endured “an avalanche of criticism” because Canadians “are very defensive of our health-care system.”

In addition to highlighting its new ad in Charlotte, Americans for Prosperity will hold a rally this evening outside the convention center there. And the group is starting a bus tour this week from Charlotte. Holmes said she’ll be in Charlotte all week to do interviews.

The group also held events during the Republican National Convention last week in Tampa. Co-founder David Koch and fellow board member Art Pope were honored by their group for their contributions to business.

Lisa Lerer contributed to this report.

Original post is Koch Group Brings Canadian to Charlotte to Attack Obama by Political Capital.

At a rare and brief impromptu press conference today during an AFP event in his honor during the Republican National Convention, a reporter asked him about being labeled an enemy of the Democratic Party.

“We live in a country that believes in free speech,” said Koch, 72. “I have a right to speak out.”

Republican outside groups have spent more than $141 million in this year’s presidential race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Outside groups helping President Barack Obama have put up about $79 million.

The co-owner of Koch Industries, Koch said his primary political interest is promoting fiscal responsibility. Last month, he opened his Southampton, New York, home for a fundraiser for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

He and brother Charles Koch, 76, typically give to nonprofits that don’t identify their donors. The two are the seventh and eighth richest people in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, together worth more than $70
billion.

The Koch brothers helped start and give money to Americans for Prosperity, which plans to spend $100 million for this election year. The group this month purchased about $25 million in television advertisements that specifically call for people to vote against Obama.

Koch is attending the convention as a New York delegate. He and fellow Americans for Prosperity board member Art Pope, a businessman and North Carolina delegate, were honored as entrepreneurs at a reception held by the nonprofit with at least 200 attendees that included cocktails and appetizers.

Koch was greeted as a celebrity when he entered with an entourage of at least half a dozen people. Members of the media snapped photos while attendees posed for photos with him and circled to shake his hand.

Lawmakers in attendance included Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who was elected with the support of Tea Party activists and Koch Industries, and retiring Arizona Senator John Kyl. This week, a reporter snapped a photo of Koch dining with Johnson in the private room of a Tampa restaurant.

Johnson said reporters have asked him what the two discussed over dinner. His response to that question: “We talked about saving America.”

About an hour into the mixer, Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips kicked off the remarks portion of the evening by introducing Koch and Pope.

“I know President Obama may attack them,” he said, “but we love them.”

Original post is David Koch Explains Political Giving: ‘Right to Speak Out’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Americans for Prosperity Foundation chairman and Koch Industries Executive Vice President David H. Koch during the Defending the American Dream Summit in Washington, DC.

Tampa during convention week is awash in politicians, big donors and journalists. And sometimes they all choose the same place for dinner, as billionaire industrialist David Koch learned last night.

A group of reporters including Slate’s Dave Weigel spotted Koch and Republican Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, a millionaire businessman elected in 2010 with help from Koch Industries and tea party interests, in a private room at the well-reviewed SideBern’s.

(You know you’ve picked a good place to eat when one of the richest men in the world is at a table nearby.)

Koch, 72, and his brother, Charles Koch, 76, co-own Koch Industries, one of the largest closely held companies in the world. The two are currently Nos. 7 and 8 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, together worth more than $70 billion.

David Koch is in Tampa as a New York delegate and will be honored at an Americans for Prosperity event on Thursday (he co-founded the group.). He and his wife, Julia, hosted a fundraiser for Mitt Romney last month at their beach home in the Hamptons. It was closed to the press. And David and Charles Koch typically prefer to route their political money through nonprofits, including Americans for Prosperity, that don’t disclose donors.

So Tampa represents a rare stepping out for David Koch. Judging by the look on his face when freelance reporter Matt Laslo snapped his photo, he’s not altogether thrilled about it.

Original post is Spotted: David Koch Dines with Wisconsin Senator by Political Capital.

In a 30-second spot that debuted last night and will run for two weeks on CNN and MSNBC, pictures of Charles and David Koch are displayed as a male narrator says the “billionaire oil tycoons” and their special-interest friends are spending $400 million “to buy this year’s elections and advance their agenda.”

The $500,000 ad campaign, supplemented by a website and online ads, is being waged by Patriot Majority, a group allied with Democratic super-political action committees that back President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional candidates.

Patriot Majority’s president is Craig Varoga, a Democratic strategist who has worked for past Democratic presidential candidates including Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Varoga says the intent of the national ad campaign is to introduce a wider audience to the Koch brothers, saying they’ve quietly funded Republican causes for decades.

The twist? Like Koch-backed groups including Americans for Prosperity and the 60 Plus Association, Patriot Majority is organized as a nonprofit, so it doesn’t disclose its donors and has limits on how much of its budget can be devoted to political activities.

Varoga wouldn’t identify the nonprofit’s donors or say how much money it plans to spend this year.

“We didn’t make the rules, we just play by them,” he said. A related super-PAC of the same name, which was active in 2010 and not in this election, counted unions as its top contributors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign-finance tracker in Washington.

The Kochs — the seventh and eight richest people in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — are co-owners of Koch Industries Inc. based in Wichita, Kansas. The closely held company has business interests in consumer products, chemicals and minerals, in addition to oil.

In a statement posted online,  Koch Industries, which is co-owned by the brothers, called the Patriot Majority ad “dishonest” and said Obama’s allies “choose to attack and demonize private citizens and job creators who disagree with them on the direction this country is going.”

Another option: The Koch groups could  pay for an ad that questions the motives of Patriot Majority’s backers.

Original post is Secretly Funded Democratic Group Targets Koch Brothers for Secrecy by Political Capital.

Photograph by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

David H. Koch, executive vice president at Koch Industries Inc., at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Americans for Prosperity will honor billionaire industrialist David Koch and North Carolina businessman Art Pope — two of its founders — during the Republican convention in Tampa, according to a news release today.

The reception, called “A Salute to Entrepreneurs Building America,” will be held Aug. 30. Koch, a major Republican booster who held a fundraiser last month for presidential contender Mitt Romney, will be in town as a New York convention delegate.

AFP is pitching the reception as a response to President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated comment, “You didn’t build that.”

David Koch is co-owner, with his brother, Charles, of Kansas-based Koch Industries, one of the largest closely held companies in the world. Pope runs Variety Wholesalers Inc., a closely held company in North Carolina. David Koch and Pope help guide AFP, according to tax documents, an organization they helped start more than eight years ago.

Americans for Prosperity also plans a bus tour to highlight Obama’s “failing agenda.” That’ll launch in Charlotte during the Democratic convention.

AFP and its companion foundation are organized as nonprofits, meaning they don’t have to disclose their donors and are restricted in how much of their budget can be spent on political activities.

Yet they’re making a big investment in this year’s presidential race. AFP President Tim Phillips estimated the group will spend $100 million this year, the majority of it on ground activities such as voter outreach to promote smaller government and less spending. Those themes dovetail with the messaging of Republican candidates including Romney.

More directly, AFP is airing $25 million worth of television advertisements in presidential battleground states this month that expressly call for Obama to be voted out of office. The group also is spending at least $7 million on issues ads they say are meant to put pressure on Democratic senators and representatives whom they view as wasteful spenders.

Original post is Koch Group to Honor Koch During Republican Convention by Political Capital.

Photograph by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

David Koch, executive vice president of chemical technology for Koch Industries Inc., center, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Billionaire industrialist — not to mention major financial supporter of Republican causes — David Koch has been named as one of Mitt Romney’s delegates to the convention later this month in Tampa.

Koch, 72, is one of 95 delegates chosen to represent New York. The Wichita, Kansas, native and his wife, Julia, have a Park Avenue residence in Manhattan and a beach retreat in Southampton, where the couple recently hosted Romney for a fundraiser.

Koch is “deeply honored and humbled” to have been chosen as a delegate, he said in a statement posted today to a Koch Industries Web site.

“As Americans, we all have a role to play in the democratic process,” the statement says.“From learning about the issues to participating in campaigns and voting, this is an opportunity – and a right – to help chart the course for our nation.”

But will he actually head to Tampa? Yes, spokesman Robert Tappan confirmed.

Charles Koch, 76 and chairman and chief executive officer of Koch Industries, is not planning to attend. David Koch is executive vice president of the closely held holding company. David Koch is the eighth richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and Charles Koch is the seventh richest — each worth an estimated $35.8 billion.

Even before David Koch travels to the Republican National Convention, his presence will be felt throughout the election cycle: Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit political issues group the brothers launched in 2003, plans to spend at least $100 million before Election Day. David Koch is chairman of the companion Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

While AFP wants to spend most of its money on ground troops to get out the vote, this week it began what could amount to a $25 million summertime television ad campaign that specifically urges people to deny President Barack Obama a second term.

AFP activists also plan to be in Tampa during the convention.

Original post is David Koch Named as Romney Convention Delegate From New York by Political Capital.