Campaign Funds, Super Pac | featured news

Leaders of some of the new groups are taking advantage of the mammoth donations and the lack of oversight to write themselves big paychecks or hire their own companies. The Red White and Blue Fund, a "super PAC" backing the presidential bid of Republican Rick Santorum, paid more than half a million dollars last month to a newly formed direct mail firm.

At a time when it’s become a cliché to say that Occupy Wall Street has changed the nation’s political conversation -- drawing long overdue attention to the struggles of the 99% -- electoral politics and the 2012 presidential election have become almost exclusively defined by the 1%. Or, to be more precise, the .0000063%. Those are the 196 individual donors who have provided nearly 80% of the money raised by super PACs in 2011 by giving $100,000 or more each.

Super PACs, outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited corporate money to help elect or defeat candidates, have spent heavily to influence the presidential race. This chart shows the amounts raised in 2011 by some of the most active candidate-aligned super PACs and the cash they had remaining in the bank at the end of the year.

The super PAC supporting Jon Huntsman’s aborted presidential bid raised $2.7 million – $1.9 million of which came from his father. The group, Our Destiny PAC, was seen as an example of how a single donor could use the new breed of political group to float a cash-strapped candidacy.

"Super PACs" have spent about $27.5 million to influence the presidential election, a good chunk coming from an independent group supporting GOP front-runner Mitt Romney.