Who Are the Hedge Fund Mavens Behind Romney's Super Pac? - East Idaho News
News

Who Are the Hedge Fund Mavens Behind Romney’s Super Pac?

  Published at

Getty P 011012 RomneyClapping?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1328198877021Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The Super Pac that’s been working to get Mitt Romney the GOP nomination raised $30 million last year, and 10 percent of it came from just three guys who run hedge funds in New York City.

Paul Singer, Robert Mercer and Julian Robertson each donated $1 million to the Super Pac Restore Our Future, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in support of Romney.  They are the top donors to the group. Two other wealthy donors, John Paulson and Edward Conard, were already reported to have given $1 million each as well.

The Super Pac is the ideal body of influence for these benefactors.  When candidates raise money for their campaigns, the most cash they can take from a supporter is $2,500 (for the primary election and then for a general election, or $5,000 total).  But because those rules don’t apply to Super Pacs, following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, all politicians can solicit giant donations from rich people.

President Obama has his own Super Pacs — and super-wealthy supporters — bankrolling his re-election run.

In Romney’s case, Singer, Mercer and Robertson, are working to get the former governor elected. They weren’t available for comment for this story. 

Singer, the founder of the hedge fund Elliott Management, gave his million to the Pac in the middle of October.  Described by associates as a good-humored billionaire with libertarian leanings, Singer was instrumental in the New York effort to allow gays to marry. His gay son married his partner in Massachusetts, where Romney was governor.

“This is not someone who believes in these issues in spite of being conservative,” said Ken Mehlman, a former Republican National Committee chairman and re-election campaign manager for George W. Bush, who came out as gay in 2010, worked with Singer on the marriage effort and saw Singer as recently as a couple of weeks ago. “He believes in it because he’s a conservative.”

Mercer, the head of the giant hedge fund Renaissance Technologies Corp., was briefly in the news before the 2010 midterm elections when Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio accused him of funding anonymous attack ads against the Oregonian. Financial disclosure documents later confirmed that Mercer had donated to the group that ran the ads.

Mercer, who made his $1 million contribution to the pro-Romney Super Pac in late July, declined, through spokesman Jonathan Gasthalter, to comment on the donation.

And Julian Robertson, whose office said he was traveling through March and was unavailable to talk, was called the “wizard of Wall Street” as he grew his hedge fund, Tiger Management, to become the biggest in the world.  Robertson, who sent his million to the pro-Romney Super Pac in late November, is said to be worth $2.4 billion.

Restore Our Future is also getting loads of help from other “free enterprise” masters — such as hedge fund manager Chris Shumway ($750,000), private-equity firm chairman Miguel Fernandez ($500,000), and private-equity firm co-CEO Steven Webster ($500,000) — whose donations were disclosed Tuesday night hours before a deadline.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION