American Crossroads, a Republican organization founded with the encouragement of Karl Rove and former RNC chief Ed Gillespie, is reaping the benefits that come with receiving criticism from an administration polling below 50%. Since the White House began attacking the conservative group last week for not disclosing their donors, the organization has raised $13.3 million — destroying their original fundraising goals and allowing them to target traditionally “low-risk” Democrat House seats.
“There is no question that the increased visibility that the White House has given us in the last week has increased our fundraising,” Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio told The Daily Caller. “We have blown past our original $50 million fundraising goal and have increased our projection to $65 million by November 2.”
To date the group has raised $56 million.
Many of these donations came as a positive response to the administration’s targeted vitriol. A $250 donation from an unnamed physician, for example, came with the comment, “President Obama made me aware of you and I’m sure I’m not alone. Good luck and get the GOP as many as they can win.”
Another donor wrote, “Keep up the good work. Don’t be intimidated by threats from Obama and the Democrats. The more they do it, the more we will contribute.”
“President Obama referred me! I, too, am tired of the bullying by the federal government. So, please accept my small donation as a token of my appreciation for all of your efforts towards stopping the most destruction government ever to take residence in Washington!” penned another.
In the wake of such a large influx of money, American Crossroads, its affiliate Crossroads GPS and two other conservative groups will be collectively dedicating $50 million to defeat Democrats in a “House surge.”
This week the group is laying down $2 million in eight house districts including NY-20, NY-22, NY-25, OH-18, HI 1, CA 3, IN-2, FL-22. “These are seats where Democrats until now thought they were safe. One of them, for example, NY-22, has not had a competitive campaign since 1992,” Collegio said.
Maurice Hinchey the Democratic incumbent for NY-22 responded to American Crossroad’s announcement in a release, urging his opponent, Republican George Philips to reject the help.
“In this economy, we need someone who stands with the middle-class — not someone who is backed by secretive foreign and corporate special interests. That’s why I’m going to do everything I can to ensure that voters in the 22nd District see through the lies and the smears and look to where this message is really coming from – big corporates special interests who want to elect George Phillips to move their anti-middle class agenda forward,” he said.
A Philips campaign spokesman told TheDC that Hinchey’s claims were out of bounds.
“We will certainly be looking into any and all persons or groups who endorse our message of reform and our grassroots campaign to send new, fiscally conservative representation to Congress, but we are clearly not going to reject any assistance out of hand based solely on these hysterical claims,” the spokesman said.