Romney smiling with group of imaginary friends
(Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Mitt Romney is going to have to step up his game if Texas Gov. Rick Perry gets in the race. Romney has largely made a laughingstock of himself with his, shall we say, "evolving" positions on whatever you ask him about, as well as his rather pointed inability
to even come up with a position on other issues.
There seems to be one constituency that Mitt Romney is cleaning up in, however: invisible companies that nobody ever heard of, that make no products, and have no apparent employees.
A political committee tied to Mitt Romney received two separate $1 million donations from companies located in Provo, but the companies don't appear to do any substantial business. [...]
Companies called Eli Publishing and F8 LLC contributed $1 million each to Restore Our Future. The companies share an address in downtown Provo and the super-PAC received the money from both on the same day.
The giant sums of money is surprising enough, but Eli Publishing and F8 LLC don't seem to do any business. They incorporated with the state, but they have no presence on the internet and when Fox 13 went to their address, we found only an accounting firm whose employees weren't aware of the companies' activities.
The people behind those companies have been identified as Provo businessmen Steve Lund and Jeremy Blickenstaff, respectively. An earlier invisible company, one that also donated a cool million bucks, was revealed to be the work of a former Bain Capital executive and Romney supporter, Ed Conrad. I say "work," but it seems the actual company didn't do any:
Conrad only came forward after watchdog groups demanded a federal investigation into a defunct firm, W Spann LLC, that donated $1 million to independent pro-Romney group Restore Our Future before dissolving itself after only a few months in existence. Campaign finance experts suggested that the corporation may have violated laws restricting donors from hiding their contributions under another name. Given little evidence of other activity at the company, watchdogs say the firm may have also violated laws requiring organizations that devote the majority of their resources to political activity to register with the FEC as a political action committee.
This all seems very odd, but I can understand why Mitt Romney would do quite well with imaginary companies. They may find his imaginary positions quite compelling, and their imaginary employees likely are thrilled with all the imaginary jobs Romney created as governor (his record of actual job creation, on the other hand, was dismal, thus explaining his poor performance among the non-imaginary workforce).
As for the companies themselves, creating imaginary products is a fine American tradition, practiced by the finest minds of Wall Street, as well as scammers and snake-oil salesmen for generations. As added bonus, Romney can save a lot of time by visiting all the imaginary factories at once, from the comfort of his own mind, rather than trudging around the country like other candidates do.
And the best part? They may be imaginary companies, but the cash they've been giving him is very, very real.