George Soros has been dethroned as the country’s top political donor:
Bob Perry, the Houston homebuilder who led the drive to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s war record in 2004, has replaced George Soros as the biggest donor in U.S. politics.
Perry, 74, has given at least $9.2 million to groups backing Republican House and Senate candidates, Federal Election Commission records show. In 2004, Soros, 76, was the top contributor, giving at least $27 million in an effort to defeat President George W. Bush.
Perry is targeting congressional races in states such as Georgia, Oregon, Iowa and West Virginia that may have slipped off the radar of national party leaders. “You’re dealing with a much more rifle-shot operation” than in 2004, said Kent Cooper, co- founder of Washington-based PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks campaign spending. “Play the long shot and your payoff is much bigger.”
The results will be tabulated next week…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, writes a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.