Thanks to the financial floodgates opened by the Supreme Court's decision in the now-infamous Citizens United decision, campaign spending in the 2012 election cycle is projected to reach a record high.
The decision, along with subsequent lower court rulings, enabled creation of so-called super PACs, which are independent campaign groups that are allowed to solicit and spend unlimited amounts of money in support of their preferred candidates or political issues. Independence, however, is a term that is quite loosely enforced in this case; while the super PACs can't officially coordinate strategy with a candidate's campaign, that doesn't mean that candidate's friends, former employees and business partners can't donate and help operate the committee. Nor does it prevent the candidate from asking their friends to chip in.
The Mitt Romney-supporting super PAC, Restore Our Future, is one of the best funded and active groups; thus far, it has spent over $18 million this election cycle. Largely, it has received donations from wealthy interests and former associates of the candidate; it has received 12 separate $1 million donations, including multiple seven figure deposits from employees of Bain Capital, the financial firm Romney founded. Romney, for his part, encouraged the creation of the Super PAC and attended more than one donor event.
In the video above, in order to give them the publicity they deserve, we put their faces to an attack ad that they helped fund.
