Republican National Committee « From Eternity To Here

Because Pam Bucy won’t allow “Big Tobacco” and corporate interests like pharmaceutical and insurance companies to own this state- they’re pumping in a lot of money to help the man who will- Tim Fox. Perhaps ironically, the buying of the chief law enforcement official of Montana doesn’t seem to bother Republicans….

The Missoulian:

A national Republican committee has bought more than $580,000 worth of television and radio advertising as part an independent expenditure effort in support of Tim Fox for attorney general.

The Republican State Leadership Committee Inc., based in Washington, D.C., purchased the ads, according to advertising purchase information obtained by the campaign of Pam Bucy, Fox’s Democratic opponent. About $534,000 is for television ads, while the rest is for radio.

Buying independent expenditure advertising in support of a candidate is legal, but coordination between these groups and the candidates is prohibited.

The committee’s total ad buy is more than what both Fox and Bucy have raised in their campaigns combined to date. Bucy has raised about $270,000 to Fox’s $232,000 so far.

“Frankly, I just think this is incredibly disrespectful,” Bucy said in a phone interview Tuesday. “It’s definitely out-of-state corporations trying to buy this election.”

The GOP group, which spent $30 million in 2010 in support of down-ballot state Republican candidates nationally, expects to top that level in 2012, spokesman Adam Temple said. So far, in the 2012 cycle, it has raised $21.4 million nationally and spent $15.8 million.

The top five national donors to the Republican State Leadership Committee in the 2012 cycle are Blue Cross/Blue Shield, $2.4 million; Reynolds American (a tobacco company), $705,000; Devon Energy, $600,000; Altria Group (the parent company of Philip Morris and other tobacco companies), $489,399; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, $475,399, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonpartisan, nonprofit group.

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