Jeb Bush has announced his first fundraising haul for the election season --$114 million. That's an impressive haul, though there should be some penalty for him raising the bulk of it before he ever declared his candidacy.
The LA Times reports that $103 million of that $114 million Jebbie received was via his SuperPAC, which means none of us will ever know who his donors really are, since the IRS is powerless to regulate these things now.
Bush’s campaign said today that it raised a total of $11.4 million in the 16 days last month between the announcement of his candidacy and the end of the fundraising quarter. The super-PAC supporting his candidacy, Right to Rise USA, said it had raised $103 million since it began operations in January.
That exceeds the Bush operation’s unofficial goal of a decisive $100 million-plus showing in the early race for deep-pocket donors. Unlike with donations directly to campaigns, which are capped, super-PACs can accept unlimited amounts of money so long as they don’t coordinate directly with the campaign.
Of course, Jeb did coordinate with that SuperPAC until 16 days before the first reporting deadline, just like Scott Walker is still doing. As long as they're not a candidate, they get to coordinate operations. So they all behave like candidates but delay their "official" announcement for as long as they can.
Let the Money Games begin!
