American Crossroads

TAMPA, Fla. - A little more than a year ago, Frank VanderSloot contributed $1million to a "super PAC" supporting Mitt Romney. Now, the Idaho-based health products executive is a sought-after donor at the Republican National Convention as he makes the rounds of independent groups backing the GOP ticket. On Monday, VanderSloot and his wife met privately for an hour and a half with Karl Rove, the former top advisor to President George W. Bush and the strategist for the GOP heavyweight group American Crossroads.

Todd Akin, after defying party leadership with his decision to remain as the GOP candidate in the Missouri Senate race, has a new problem that could derail his rogue candidacy: money. The Missouri congressman had already been outspent more than 4-to-1 by his Democratic opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, before he thrust himself into the national spotlight by declaring that women can't get pregnant from "legitimate rape. " Tuesday's coordinated effort to persuade Akin to drop out of the race saw the deep pockets that Akin could have relied on -- the National Republican Senatorial Committee and outside groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS -- pledge that they won't spend a dollar to help him win. So Akin is calling on small-dollar donors to help "fight the party bosses.

WASHINGTON - Another ominous sign for embattled Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin: the heavyweight conservative groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS are pulling out of the state and halting their advertising against Akin's opponent, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. “The act speaks for itself,” Crossroads spokesman Nate Hodson said Monday. Akin caused a furor Sunday after suggesting in a television interview that women who have experienced “legitimate rape” can biologically prevent a pregnancy.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Connie Mack IV won the Florida Republican primary Tuesday night and will take on Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in what will be one of the most contested U.S. Senate races of the year. Mack, a four-term congressman who is married to Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs), handily defeated retired Army Col. Mike McCalister and former Rep. Dave Weldon in a Republican primary that was never much of a contest. With 35% of the vote counted, Mack had almost 60% of the vote, according to the Associated Press.

Priorities USA Action, the “super PAC” supporting President Obama, raised $6.1 million last month, its co-founder said Friday. Bill Burton, the group's senior strategist, announced on Twitter that June was the best fundraising month yet for the Democratic group, which has been active on the airwaves in slamming GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney's tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital. In an interview on Bloomberg Television's “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” which will air this weekend, Burton said the group has raised $20 million in the cycle so far and also secured $20 million in commitments for future donations.

WASHINGTON - During their long campaign to loosen rules on campaign money, conservatives argued that there was a simpler way to prevent corruption: transparency. Get rid of limits on contributions and spending, they said, but make sure voters know where the money is coming from. Today, with those fundraising restrictions largely removed, many conservatives have changed their tune. They now say disclosure could be an enemy of free speech. High-profile donors could face bullying and harassment from liberals out to "muzzle" their opponents, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

President Obama's much-anticipated speech about the economy Thursday was supposed to distinguish his vision of the future from presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney's, and it did. As I wrote in my last post , Obama made a case for spending more -- on education, infrastructure, research and other pursuits that benefit the country in the long run -- and taxing more to pay for it. Not surprisingly, he prefaced that message with yet another recap...

Virginia's heavyweight Senate match between two former governors could be one of the clearest tests of a Republican campaign strategy of tying Democratic candidates to President Obama this fall. In the race for Virginia's open Democratic Senate seat, Tim Kaine, a close Obama ally and the president's first Democratic national chairman, is facing Republican George Allen, who lost the seat in 2006 after a campaign gaffe that captured the rise of YouTube as a political weapon. Allen secured the Republican nomination this week against light primary opposition.

Apparently, it just feels like really negative campaign. Media watchers at Kantar Media have been counting ads in the presidential race and their tally shows a surprising near-even split between positive and negative ads. Elizabeth Wilner at the firm's Campaign Media Analysis Group notes that 51% of the 63,793 general election spots were positive, while 49% were negative. The group tracked ads aired from April 10, when Mitt Romney became the presumptive GOP nominee, to May 24. “The results defied the [conventional wisdom]

President Obama's reelection campaign for weeks has been portraying Mitt Romney as a heartless profiteer who enriched himself in corporate buyout deals that spawned bankruptcies and thousands of layoffs. On Tuesday, Romney and his allies struck back. In twin Web videos, Romney and American Crossroads, a “super PAC,” blame Obama for layoffs at renewable energy firms subsidized by the government. Romney's video cites job losses at Solyndra, First Solar and SunPower.