Former, and perhaps future, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney raked in some serious cash — $1.6 million — for his political action committee during the first half of 2009, despite the recession.

Romney, who dropped out of the 2008 presidential campaign after poor showings in the early primaries despite raising huge sums of money, is considered one of the untainted potential candidates for 2012. Problems saddling fellow Republicans like outgoing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Nevada Senator John Ensign have put their presidential aspirations in question.

In addition to trying to stockpile some cash in case he decides he will make another White House bid, Romney donated $5,000 to Missouri Republican Representative Roy Blunt, who is running for Senate in 2010, and Republican Bob McDonnell, who is seeking Virginia’s governorship.

Romney also gave $1,000 to Representative Mark Kirk, who has been weighing a bid for President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat in Illinois.  Kirk has wavered on whether to run for the open seat being vacated by Democratic Senator Roland Burris.

One of the biggest recipients of Romney’s largess was the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, which got $10,000.  He served as governor of neighboring Massachusetts.

Romney’s PAC ended the six-month period with almost $850,000 in cash on hand.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Romney at the 2008 Republican National Convention)

Reaction among Republicans to Senator Arlen Specter’s decision to defect to the Democratic party ranged from somber disappointment to outrage, and now the Republican National Committee hopes to capitalize on that anger.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele sent an e-mail to supporters expressing his outrage and disbelief that Specter was blaming his fellow Republicans for leaving. He beseeched party members to send in donations to help defeat Specter in the 2010 election.

“He simply believes he has a better chance of saving his political hide and his job as a Democrat,” Steele said in the e-mail. ”He loves the title of senator more than he loves the party — and the principles — that elected him and nurtured him.”

In Steele’s bid to gin up donations, he told supporters: “Some will use Specter’s defection as an excuse to fold the tent and give up. I believe that you are not one of those people. When Benedict Arnold defected to the British, George Washington didn’t fold the tent and give up either.”

Specter, who has broken with Republicans on several key votes, said that he decided to switch parties because the Republican party swerved further to the right and he recognized he would not likely survive a primary challenge against a more conservative Republican in Pennsylvania.

He was greeted at the White House on Wednesday with open arms by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden — which will likely spark more cash appeals from Republicans.

Specter and Obama acknowledged that the two would likely differ in the future. To that end, a key test vote will come later on Wednesday when the Senate votes on the Democratic-authored fiscal 2010 budget blueprint. Specter opposed the Senate version earlier this month.

“I know the decision Senator Specter made yesterday wasn’t easy.  It required long and careful consideration, and it required courage,” Obama said. ”But I know that it also reflects an independence that has been the hallmark of Arlen Specter’s career since the days he arrived in Washington.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Specter speaks to reporters at the White House with Obama and Biden looking on); Illustration of Specter courtesy of Paul Szep

If you thought Sarah Palin was going to just fade away, you clearly weren’t listening when she said the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was lipstick. 
 
The Alaska governor, who was the Republican nominee for vice president in the race that John McCain lost to Democrat Barack Obama last year, is already laying the groundwork for another run at something.
 
She has started her own political action committee, SarahPAC, complete with a website. And she’s learned a trick from Obama — the site’s main feature is a page where you can put down your name and donate $25 or $5,000 or more. 
 
“Welcome to SarahPAC, Sarah Palin’s official PAC,” the site says. “Dedicated to building America’s future, supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation.”
 
“SarahPAC believes the Republican Party is at the threshold of an historic renaissance that will build a better future for all,” the site says. “Health care, education and reform of government are among our key goals.”
 
The site’s home page shows Palin against a backdrop of Alaska’s sweeping mountain vistas.
 
While declaring it is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee, SarahPAC has a full biography of the former vice presidential candidate.
 
It notes she made history by becoming the first woman governor of Alaska and the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket.
 
“Gov. Palin has a long record of achievement and experience in public office,” it says, including her service as governor, her time as mayor of the town of Wasilla and her stint on the Wasilla City Council.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell (Palin campaigns for Senator Saxby Chambliss in Georgia in December)

WASHINGTON - The 2008 campaign is over and while President-elect Barack Obama shattered pretty much every fundraising record in the book, he’s still looking for a buck or two.

Obama’s campaign sent out an appeal on Monday, almost a week after the election, seeking to help retire debt incurred by the Democratic National Committee. As a thank you, the campaign offered to throw in a commemorative 2008 victory t-shirt for contributors who give $30 or more.

“The Democratic National Committee poured all of its resources into building our successful 50-state field program. And they played a crucial role in helping Barack win in unlikely states like North Carolina and Indiana. We even picked up an electoral vote in Nebraska,” said the e-mail appeal sent to millions of Obama supporters.

The DNC has about $15 million in debt to retire, according to a party official. Democrats ended up picking up 22 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, with three still too close to call. In the Senate, Democrats picked up six seats so far, with three races not yet decided.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Obama on his flight to Washington to meet President George W. Bush.)

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush will make a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Friday, attending a closed-door fundraiser in Oklahoma City to benefit Republican hopeful John McCain and the Republican National Committee – but the candidate will not be there.

Despite being a prolific fundraiser during his first seven years in office, Bush has only attended a handful of events this year and almost all of them have been closed to the press, which experts have attributed to his low job approval ratings. His last appearance was in Gates Mills, Ohio, near Cleveland, in late July.

Bush attended three closed-door fundraisers during a fundraising swing for McCain in late May, but they only appeared together at one event and then in public for a brief minute afterwards at the airport before Bush departed.

Still, Bush said in an interview this week with Fox News that he didn’t particularly feel left out of the campaign season.

“It’s interesting to observe the race,” Bush said, according to a transcript of the interview. ”You know, sometimes I long to be out there campaigning, but everything comes to an end.”

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Bush and McCain at the Phoenix airport in May)

DES MOINES, Iowa - Republican presidential candidate John McCain conducted a whistle-stop tour through the Iowa State Fair on Friday but Freight Train was unimpressed.
 
The Arizona senator did what all politicians do at the fair. He pressed the flesh. He mounted a soapbox, actually a microphone placed behind bales of straw, and munched on some pork chops on a stick.
 
He may have won some votes when he praised the fair and its 1 million-plus visitors as true to the heartland of America. But he didn’t win over Freight Train.
 
The prize boar — all 1,259 pounds of him — stayed resolutely asleep throughout his visit, resting his enormous bulk on a bed of sand.
 
“I saw the new champion and world record-breaker boar, Freight Train. He’s in good health. I can tell you that,” McCain later said at a fund-raiser.
 
“I lament and had thought with some nostalgia about last year’s winner Big Red who is no longer with us. But perhaps I had part of him in a pepperoni pizza — who knows,” he said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Ilya Naymushin (A wild boar stands in an open cage at a zoo in the Siberian city of Krasnoyark in 2006)

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush, despite record low job approval ratings, made a rare public appearance on Wednesday to help Michigan Republicans raise money for the November campaign and he used it to mock the campaign themes of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
    
Bush never mentioned Obama’s name but used the Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s name 11 times throughout his 22 minutes of remarks to about 300 supporters in Livonia, Mich.
 
Obama has repeatedly used the words “hope” and “change” as themes of his campaign and to bash the Bush administration in his bid capture the White House in November. But Bush tried to turn the tables on Obama using his own words against him.
 
“The other side talks a lot about ‘hope,’ and that sums up their Iraq policy pretty well: They want to retreat from Iraq and hope nothing bad happens,” Bush said. “But wishful thinking is no way to fight a war and to protect the American people.”
 
On change, Bush said Democrats once favored lower taxes, believed in “common sense American values” and that “America should pay any price and bear any burden in the defense of liberty — but they have changed.”
 
“This isn’t the kind of change the American people want,” Bush said. Americans want change that make their lives better, their country safer. That requires changing the party control of the Congress.”

Republicans face an uphill battle retaking control of the House of Representatives because numerous lawmakers are retiring or seeking another office, while in the Senate they must defend 23 seats and Democrats have only 12 seats to guard.

Bush has made numerous appearances on the campaign trail to help Republican candidates raise money, but almost all of them in the last few months have been behind closed doors (the White House says their policy is to keep fundraisers at private residences closed to the press). Last week Bush made a public appearance in Washington to help the Republican congressional and Senate campaign committees raise some $21.5 million.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Livonia, Mich. 

- Photo credit: Jim Young (Bush speaking to supporters at a fundraiser in Michigan.)
 

PHILADELPHIA - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, who regularly uses language to reinforce his modern-guy credentials, seems to have set  that aside when he explained how he won’t be cowed by Republican attacks.
 
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a fund-raiser in Philadelphia on Friday, employing a phrase that could have been lifted from a gangster movie.
 
“Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans,” he said, referring to the city’s  football team.
 
The Republican Party quickly responded that the comment undermined Obama’s claim to represent change.
 
“Why is Barack Obama so negative? In the last 24 hours, he’s completely abandoned his campaign’s call for ‘new politics’, equating the election to a ‘brawl’ and promising to ‘bring a gun’,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant.
 
“It’s clear Obama is going on the attack to distract from the fact that since winning the nomination, his friend and fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, was convicted, and his vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson, was forced to resign,” Conant said.
 
The punch and counterpunch suggest another tough-guy phrase that has slipped into the political dialogue: “Bring ‘em on.”

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Photo credit: Reuters /Luke MacGregor (Knives are on display at New Scotland Yard in London on May 29, 2008)

BUCYRUS, Kan. - Ah, the power of the presidency on the campaign trail.

President George W. Bush swooped in on Thursday to help Kansas State Sen. Nick Jordan roughly double the amount of money he has raised for his campaign to knock off Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore.

Jordan has raised about $388,000 through the end of March according to Federal Election Commission records. That’s in contrast to the almost $1 million that four-term Moore has raised in an effort to keep his seat in a fairly moderate district that includes numerous suburbs of Kansas City.

Bush helped Jordan and the Kansas Republican Party raise at least $435,000, with the lion’s share of the money going to the candidate, according to his campaign manager Dustin Olson.

But in a sign that Bush’s low popularity ratings could be a drag on Republican candidates, the fundraiser was closed to reporters so no images of the Jordan and the president were shot. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/George Frey

PARK CITY, Utah - Republican White House hopeful John McCain wants help from President George W. Bush to raise money for his campaign, but has done plenty to downplay the unpopular president’s presence on the trail.
 
Bush headlined three closed-door fundraisers in Arizona and Utah on Tuesday and Wednesday, hauling in millions of dollars for McCain but there was only a brief public glimpse of the two men together, for less than a minute. Plus, McCain skipped two of the events.
 
Bush’s fundraiser in Arizona with McCain was originally scheduled to be open to  reporters, but McCain’s campaign keeps its fundraisers closed to the press so the event was moved to a private home to keep it out of the public eye.
 
McCain’s campaign also refused to release any details about how much Bush was helping raise at the three events, but the one with McCain present brought in roughly $2.5 million, according to sources close to the campaign who declined to be identified.
 
Details from the other two fundraisers were scarce, though the one Wednesday evening in the posh ski resort area of Park City, Utah, was hosted by Mitt Romney, a former investment banker who had been a McCain rival in the hunt for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
 
Democrats have tried to paint McCain as no different than the current White House occupant, arguing that the Arizona senator would represent a “third term” of Bush if elected to the White House in November, citing his steadfast support of Bush’s plan for the Iraq war and making tax cuts permanent.
 
In addition to limiting public exposure with Bush, McCain has differed with him on how to address climate change and said he would pursue nuclear arms reduction talks with Russia and China as part of a foreign policy that brings back “broad-minded internationalism and determined diplomacy.”
 
The growing distance between the two brings up the question of how McCain will handle Bush at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul in early September.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (McCain sees Bush off at the Phoenix airport after a private fundraiser.)