Wealthy conservative Joe Ricketts will not bankroll a super PAC’s effort to revive the issue of President Obama’s inflammatory pastor Jeremiah Wright in the presidential election, the political action committee said in a statement Thursday.
Ricketts reportedly was considering giving $10 million to the Ending Spending Action Fund for ads exploring Wright’s relationship with the president. But he is now distancing himself from what was called the “Ricketts Plan” after The New York Times reported it Thursday.
“Not only was this plan merely a proposal — one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors — but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,” Ending Spending Action Fund president Brian Baker said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, in response to the Times story, said he didn’t agree with the strategy of making Wright a campaign issue.
According to the super PAC’s spokesman, the wealthy Republican donor agrees.
“Mr. Ricketts intends to work hard to help elect a President this fall who shares his commitment to economic responsibility, but his efforts are and will continue to be focused entirely on questions of fiscal policy, not attacks that seek to divide us socially or culturally,” he said.