Yesterday, I saw this little blurb on vpap about a newly registered PAC, Citizens for the Commonwealth. I took notice and checked out the donors: all Republican contributors, based on their prior donations. $275,000 – that amount of money could make a significant difference in just about any race.
Today, I saw this post about the first beneficiary of the new PAC: Republican incumbent Senator Jay O’Brien, who received a $60,000 donation in his efforts against Democratic challenger George Barker. That prompted me to take a look at the SBE website, where I see that another $100K has been donated to this PAC. Locating their payouts is a little more difficult in that you have to wade though the large, pre-election reports here.
Nevertheless, I’m keeping my eye on this – and so should everyone else. We all know how significant a role large contributions at this stage in the game can play. There’s no way to stop the contributions, but we can certainly shine light on them.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I hear Bob McDonnell is the one behind this. He’s apparently getting money to their targeted conservatives in tight races – keep an eye on this.
Vivian, you should point people to the VPAP page with ‘late large donations’. These are usually telling, and are required to be reported within 72 hours.
Unless you did and I missed it. Man, am I tired!
McDonnell has a bit of experience with this kind of thing, doesn’t he?
Mark – vpap uses the SBE data. The $60K mentioned above isn’t showing up on vpap yet but it is on the SBE site, although it takes a bit of digging to find. (And if it is on vpap, I can’t find it.)
Bob McDonnell has his sights set on being Governor in 2009. I hope people have long memories about his conduct on election day 2009.
Of course, this is dwarfed by Tim Kaine’s PAC, Moving Virginia Forward, which in the same time frame collected $560k, $250,000 of which came from a single donor, Randal J. Kirk, a venture capitalist who previously gave $100,000 to the same PAC. His contributions to date are about $560,000 to Democratic candidates and PAC, and $27,000 to two Republican state senators, both from Kirk’s area of the state (Roanoke and Bristol).
Different animal, AEM. The Kaine PAC is known. This one popped up out of nowhere.
So what? Every PAC has to start sometime.
So what? Try looking back at the 2005 elections and see what happened with the late coming PAC contributions to campaigns, in particular Bob McDonnell’s.
Again, so what? Is it illegal? Is it immoral?
What’s the problem?
If you don’t see a problem with late money trying to influence elections, then we have nothing to talk about.
Your Mr. Kirk just donated $250,000 of “late money.”
Why is that NOT a problem, but Richard Sharp’s donating $200,000 IS a problem?
Apples and oranges, AEM. It is one thing for donors to contribute to an existing PAC – as a matter of fact, it’s expected – late. It is quite another thing for a new PAC to be established at this stage in the game.
Apparently, you didn’t follow the 2005 races very closely. This was a big issue.
What difference does it make when a PAC is established? The Democrats can set up PACs just as easily as the Republicans can.
Why was it such a big deal in 2005? Does it matter which PAC the money comes through?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102302205_pf.html
Richard Sharp, the former chairman of Circuit City and co-founder of CarMax, has created Citizens for the Commonwealth, with initial contributions of $275,000 and the expectation of raising more.
…
The effort by Sharp, a major donor to President Bush and Republican causes, demonstrates how both parties increasingly view Virginia’s legislative races as crucial training grounds for next year’s races for the U.S. Senate and the White House.
$200,000 was from Sharp. Three others contributed $25k each.