American Crossroads

American Crossroads, the massive political action committee that helped propel Republicans into the House majority last fall, is planning to spend $120 million on a 2012 election cycle it is casting as a "David and Goliath" struggle between well-funded Democrats and underfunded Republicans. The group's chairman, Mike Duncan , told reporters Friday morning that 2012 would be the most expensive campaign cycle in history. He said that the so-called "super PAC" would go after President...

The conservative group Americans for Prosperity is mobilizing to pressure lawmakers not to delay cuts in government spending that are set to take effect at the beginning of next month. The campaign, dubbed the Spending Accountability Project, will build on technology and techniques that the group deployed to criticize President Obama's policies ahead of his 2012 reelection. The group's activists will use campaign tactics including phone banks and door-to-door canvassing with tablet computers to...

Interest groups closely linked to both parties revealed a bevy of financiers who wrote six- and seven-figure checks to back Republican and Democratic candidates in disclosure documents filed over the weekend. The filings come at the start of a presidential contest that is expected to be awash in spending by monied interest groups — a contrast to the 2008 election cycle, which largely offered a reprieve from interest-group spending backed by wealthy donors. The big contributions, which largely come from a handful of...

All the votes in the 2012 presidential election have been counted, but one aspect of the race will continue to linger for some time: legal challenges to the way third-party groups spent money during the campaign. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or Crew, filed the latest salvo in that battle Thursday with a complaint to the Federal Election Commission, and a corresponding letter to the FBI. The group takes issue with spending by Crossroads GPS, the conservative nonprofit...

Nearly all of the independent advertising being aired for the 2012 general-election campaign has come from interest groups that do not disclose their donors, suggesting that much of the political spending over the next six months will come from sources invisible to the public. Politically active nonprofit groups that do not reveal their funding sources have spent $28.5 million on advertising related to the November presidential matchup, or about 90 percent of the total through Sunday, a...

Corporations appear to be embracing, albeit slowly, new campaign rules that allow them to make direct contributions to political groups. The super PACs that have been playing a significant role this election season are getting more of their funding from corporate coffers — 23 percent, according to an analysis of federal records. That is up slightly from 19 percent in the 2010 cycle , when super PACs were first formed following the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision...

An anonymous donor gave $10 million late last year to run ads attacking President Obama and Democratic policies, escalating the money race that is defining the 2012 presidential campaign. And in the new, free-wheeling environment of independent political giving, the identity of this donor, like many others, is likely to remain a permanent mystery. The donation went to Crossroads GPS, the conservative nonprofit group founded with the support of political strategist Karl Rove. Another...

OPINION | In politics, a candidate's identity is a contest of contending images, one from which not even the president is excused. Just turn on the television. Over the last two weeks, you could see President Obama saluting the troops at Bagram Airfield, discussing same-sex marriage , or boogieing down with Ellen at a commercial break. The final image was courtesy of an attack ad recently released by American Crossroads, Karl Rove's Super PAC. Pointedly titled "Cool," the ad highlights President Obama at...

Two advocacy groups tied to GOP political guru Karl Rove said Tuesday that they plan to raise $120 million to spend against President Obama and other Democrats in 2012. The announcement suggests that the American Crossroads "super PAC" and its nonprofit sister group, Crossroads GPS, are likely to assume a leading role among Republican interest groups over the next 20 months. The two groups raised more than $71 million in their first year, outspending all other outside...

In contrast to the first presidential debate, where moderator Jim Lehrer was criticized for allowing Mitt Romney and President Obama to speak over him, vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz won praise for pushing Paul Ryan and Vice President Biden for more specific answers. The Washington Post's Dan Zak described the scene on stage Thursday night: A pro debated a novice Thursday night on national...

In the post-mortems of the 2012 election campaigns, it is already being written that the much-feared super PACs — those ostensibly independent, billionaire-funded outside organizations and their hundreds of millions in negative ads — turned out to be a bust. At the center of the wreckage stands Karl Rove, the GOP strategist and supposed dark genius who for more than a decade has figured in the mythos of both parties. With more than a little glee, Democrats and even some Republicans say the electoral defeat of so many...

After more than a decade working side by side, the two men rarely talk these days. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Steven Law, his trusted former aide, remain a powerful combined force in Washington. Law heads American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, conservative groups whose $300 million budget has allowed them to outspend every other interest group in this election, as well as the Democratic National Committee. Together, the two groups have matched the Romney campaign in...

With the Senate majority potentially in the balance, tens of millions of dollars have poured into more than a dozen states for the final push in an unusually large cluster of competitive races. Each side committed several million dollars more to tight Senate campaigns that had been anticipated battlegrounds since last year, particularly Virginia, Wisconsin and Montana, but late movement in several races forced the hand of some groups to finance ads in states where the race had long ago seemed settled.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney outraised President Obama by $21 million in the first half of October, taking advantage of a strong first debate and tightening polls to overtake the incumbent in the money race, officials said Thursday. The influx of $111.8 million from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17 left Romney and the Republican National Committee with nearly $170 million in cash on hand, aides said. Obama and the Democratic National Committee said they raised $90.5 million during...

Political fundraising has changed since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, and the transformation is visible these days in the in-boxes of wealthy donors from both parties. An e-mail from a GOP fundraising consultant inviting participation in a fundraiser held last week in Palm Beach reveals the new price points and the new intensity occurring in the tight presidential race. The e-mail invitation solicited participation in a super PAC reception to benefit...

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and American Crossroads, an allied interest group, are barred by federal law from working together on political advertising. But it's perfectly legal for them to hire the same company to run Internet ads. That company uses some of the same employees to represent the two clients, and the same databases to store information on people it will target with ads. By all accounts, Romney's campaign and the group spending millions of...

Have conservative groups bungled their chance to help defeat Barack Obama? Fueled with tens of millions of dollars in unlimited contributions, a network of GOP super PACs and nonprofit groups began the year with heady talk of bringing down President Obama with a ceaseless barrage of attack ads. But judging from the latest polls, the effort hasn't gone very well. Obama is holding a narrow lead over Republican nominee Mitt Romney nationally and appears to be widening his advantage in key swing...

RICHMOND — The race for president in Virginia is neck and neck, but a crucial contest for political cash is a blowout. Virginians have given nearly $4 million to conservative super PACs in the 2012 election cycle but just $76,000 to liberal versions of these political action committees, according to an analysis by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in politics. Donations to super PACs skew conservative nationally, partly for reasons of ideology, partly because Republicans had...

In contrast to the first presidential debate, where moderator Jim Lehrer was criticized for allowing Mitt Romney and President Obama to speak over him, vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz won praise for pushing Paul Ryan and Vice President Biden for more specific answers. The Washington Post's Dan Zak described the scene on stage Thursday night: A pro debated a novice Thursday night on national television, and both men were schooled by the moderator across the table.

Turn on a TV in Virginia and there's one message that Republicans want voters to hear: Timothy M. Kaine loves taxes. With just weeks before the commonwealth's marquee U.S. Senate contest, Kaine's opponent, fellow former governor George Allen (R), and conservative groups are shifting their strategy to increasingly link the Democrat to tax increases. They are betting millions of dollars in advertising that the issue is Kaine's biggest vulnerability. Republicans more frequently attacked Kaine...