SECRET DONORS: Here’s how Marco Rubio’s campaign benefits from MILLIONS in dark money!

The Associated Press unloaded a hit piece against Marco Rubio about his “anonymous donors” this morning, and it only slightly mentions the other candidates getting the same kind of support.

Still, this kind of stuff should be important to Americans wanting to know who is influencing the politicians they might be voting for:

The Florida senator is benefiting in unprecedented ways from a nonprofit group funded by anonymous donors. While other presidential candidates also have ties to secret-money groups, the Rubio arrangement is the boldest.

Every pro-Rubio television commercial so far in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina has been paid for not by his campaign or even by a super PAC that identifies its donors, but instead by a nonprofit called Conservative Solutions Project. It’s also sending Rubio-boosting mail to voters in those same states.

Rubio is legally prohibited from directing the group’s spending, and he has said he has nothing to do with it. But there’s little doubt that Conservative Solutions Project is picking up the tab for critical expenses that the campaign itself might struggle to afford.

Although Rubio is rising in national polls, his fundraising has so far been dwarfed by that of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. By the end of June, Bush and his super PAC had amassed $114 million — more than quadruple what Rubio and his super PAC collected.

Ahead of what is expected to be a new and disappointing fundraising report next week, Rubio’s aides have stressed that their thriftiness gives them a competitive advantage over campaigns with more money.

Left unsaid was that a secret-money group is giving him at least an $8 million assist, according to information provided by advertising tracker Kantar Media’s CMAG.

This is one of the reasons that Trump is so popular. While we’d like to believe that millionaires and billionaires put their money into candidates because they actually believe in their policies and causes, it’s far more likely that they do it for some expected payback when they’re in power.

Expect this to become an issue that el Trumpo might harp on if the thirsty Cuban becomes more of a threat in the polls…


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