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February 3rd, 2016 
Awake Goy Here’s what super PACs aren’t this presidential election: a guarantee of success for any candidate.
Take Right to Rise USA, the super PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, which has raised and spent more money than any other super PAC active in the 2016 presidential race.
Despite this, Bush has languished in the polls. The last poll sponsored by The Des Moines Register before Monday night’s caucuses showed Bush earning just 2 percent of the expected vote.
Most of Right to Rise USA’s $118 million haul was collected before Bush officially announced his candidacy and while Bush was traveling the country helping the super PAC raise funds.
Documents filed Sunday show the pro-Bush super PAC’s largest donor during the fourth quarter of 2015 was C.V. Starr and Co., a financial firm headed by Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, a former chairman and CEO of insurance giant AIG. The company donated $10 million in October.
Another major donor is the Oklahoma-based firm Rooney Holdings, which has given $2.3 million to Right to Rise USA. The company’s president and CEO — L. Francis Rooney III — is a veteran GOP fundraiser and served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Vatican City.
Thanks in part to the largesse of such wealthy supporters, Right to Rise USA raised more than three times as much as Bush’s campaign last year.
Right to Rise USA has spent more than $60 million to date. Most of that money has been targeting voters in the critical early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, which hold their presidential nominating contests in February.
The group has accounted for more than 1 in 4 TV ads on the GOP side of the race, according to aCenter for Public Integrity review of data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG, a firm that monitors broadcast TV ads as well as those on national — but not local — cable.
Republicans Scott Walker, Rick Perry, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal and Lindsey Graham all dropped out of the presidential race last year despite having super PACs in their corners.
Republican Party front-runner Donald Trump has disavowed super PACs — which he has called a “scam.” A billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star, he raised less money last year than most of his rivals: $19 million, including nearly $13 million of his own funds. He has benefited from his unique celebrity status, coupled with endless — and free — media coverage.
While Trump initially vowed to self-fund his campaign, he has raised nearly $6.6 million from other donors. About 75 percent of that sum has come from donors giving $200 or less.
Source Article from https://www.popularresistance.org/super-pacs-lead-election-spending-as-white-house-race-nears/
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