Yes, We'll Have Mitt Romney To Kick Around For Years And Years

After getting his ass kicked as a serial flip flopper with no core values, Mormon Mitt Romney withdrew from the race for the GOP presidential nomination and started a Political Action Committee, the Free and Strong America PAC, ostensibly to help other Republican candidates. Romney, who became stinking rich by playing accounting games as a vulture capitalist (Bain Capital) used the PAC to scoop up a hefty $2,220,532 but only donated $135,200 to GOP candidates most of it in small and inconsequential amounts to cash-strapped right-wing candidates who went down to defeat last month. Among the big losers Romney gave small amounts to were a gaggle of some of the most extremists in American politics:

Dean Andal (R-CA)
Lou Barletta (R-PA)
Tim Bee (R-AZ)
Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Keith Fimian (R-VA)
John Gard (R-WI)
Steve Greenberg (R-IL)
Chris Hackett (R-PA)
Andy Harris (R-MD)
Melissa Hart (R-PA)
Jennifer Horn (R-NH)
Joe Knollenberg (R-MI)
Kieran Lalor (R-NY)
Lyle Larson (R-TX)
Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
Wayne Parker (R-AL)
Steve Pearce (R-NM)
William Sali (R-ID)
Bob Schaffer (R-CO)
Tim Walberg (R-MI)

Interesting that the challenger he didn't help, Joseph Cao (R-LA), just won an "impossible" race against a corrupt Democratic incumbent, William Jefferson. Cao, a lifelong independent, wasn't taken seriously by the GOP Insider Establishment and if there's one thing Romney wants to be more than anything, it's part of that. He didn't max out to any of them and some got only token amounts. So where's all the money he sucked up from donors who thought it would go to GOP candidates? Well... it is going to a GOP candidate-- Mitt Romney, for his 2012 presidential run. According to today's Boston Globe Romney's using the dough to staff up for '12.

Republican Mitt Romney is laying the groundwork for a possible White House campaign in 2012, hiring a team of staff members and consultants with money from a fund-raising committee he established with the ostensible purpose of supporting other GOP candidates.

The former Massachusetts governor has raised $2.1 million for his Free and Strong America political action committee. But only 12 percent of the money has been spent distributing checks to Romney's fellow Republicans around the country.

Instead, the largest chunk of the money has gone to support Romney's political ambitions, paying for salaries and consulting fees to over a half-dozen of Romney's longtime political aides, according to a Globe review of expenditures.

Romney founded the Free and Strong America Committee shortly after dropping out of the 2008 presidential primary. He filled its coffers by telling conservative contributors around the country that their money would be used to support Republican candidates and causes.

According to the Globe analysis, he spent $244,000 on contributions to congressional and other candidates between April and the November elections. He has spent more than twice as much on staff salaries and contracts to hire professional fund-raisers, who are compiling contributor lists that will serve Romney well in a future presidential campaign.

In essence, Romney is financing a political enterprise that he can use to remain a national GOP leader and use as a springboard should he decide to launch another presidential bid for 2012.

...[T]he committee's track record of spending most of the money on other expenses, such as Romney's political staff, raises questions about written fund-raising solicitations he has made that were mailed to potential contributors, including this one:

"It is more essential than ever that conservative candidates and organizations have the resources they need to get their message out to voters," Romney said in the fund-raising appeal. "Because of your help, my political action committee... is supporting over 70 candidates this election cycle. Your continued support today will ensure that they have the assistance they need to win."

Technically, he didn't break any laws, but nonpartisan campaign finance watchdogs are warning donors to watch the slippery and dishonest Romney. Right now he's polling third after Huckabee and Palin. No wonder people are abandoning the GOP in droves. Actually in the most backward, superstitious and uneducated states areas of states like Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Utah, and Texas, the GOP is very healthy and on it's way to being a competitive regional power. But in normal parts of America... it's pretty much over, at least for now. In California 5 previously red strongholds have reported new registrations numbers that show there are now more Democrats than Republicans: San Joaquin, Stanislaus Alpine, Ventura and San Bernardino. Meanwhile Del Norte, San Diego and Trinity counties are all a matter of months away from Democratic majorities. Statewide there are 2.3 million more Democrats than Republicans.

GOP analyst Tony Quinn: "There are almost no areas in the state that can be considered safely Republican anymore." In fact since 2004 the GOP has shed over 317,000 voters in the state while the Democrats have picked up over 560,000.

Although Romney is now almost universally loathed in two of the states he is most associated with-- Michigan, where his father was governor, and Massachusetts, where he was governor-- and can't even dream about competing in California (even though California has more Mormons than even Utah!), he is expected to do well in the theocratic-oriented Mormon areas and can count on Utah, Idaho and Wyoming to back his bid for the GOP nomination.