Citizens United has struck again -- an anonymous donor has given $10 million to Karl Rove "to run ads attacking President Obama and his policies."
Click the link, and there's a photo of Sheldon Adelson on top, part of a related photo gallery about "the big spenders behind the SuperPACs."
Coincidence?
I think not.
Adelson gave Gingrich's SuperPAC at least $16.5 million, and kept that longshot campaign alive, for a while.
Now that it's clear that Rmoney will be the nominee, Adelson has switched sides.
At a recent private dinner in Las Vegas with RNC chairman Reince Priebus and major Jewish Republican donors,
Adelson family members privately sent strong signals to Romney allies that they’d donate millions of dollars, perhaps on par with their support for Gingrich.
Adelson has been hedging his bets for months:
Romney himself met with Adelson in early February while campaigning in Nevada before the GOP caucuses, and Romney representatives have been in regular contact with Adelson for months; they had won the casino mogul’s assurances that he would make significant financial contributions to the campaign and a pro-Romney super PAC if Romney wins the nomination.
Adelson is a "fervent Zionist," and has said that he supported Gingrich because of his "full-throated defense of Israel."
But most national politicians, of both parties, support Israel right or wrong.
In Rolling Stone, Rick Perlstein explains that Adelson is not a one-issue donor -- he also likes politicians who hate labor unions.
Rmoney fits that bill, given that most of his Bain LBO takeovers involved screwing union workers hard.
And that Rmoney has been as anti-union as anyone during the GOP primary campaign.
Adelson is not just a two-issue donor. Perlstein notes that Adelson's company makes 75 percent of his money from casinos in Macau, aided and abetted by Chinese criminal syndicates.
That's currently under investigation by the Department of Justice; Adelson is betting that that investigation will go away if a president he's given $10M-plus to is elected.
Maybe Adelson didn't give $10M to Rove to help Rmoney this month; there are, alas, several wingnut billionaires who can cut such a check to a wingnut candidate's helpers.
But as sure as water is wet, Adelson will give Rmoney more than that, one way or another, before the year is out.