Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies — the conservative nonprofit advocacy group founded with assistance from GOP strategist Karl Rove — wants you to believe that Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is too close to Big Finance. However, last month, the group criticized her for being too close to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Warren has called Crossroads GPS’ new ad “factually wrong and morally wrong.”

Who is funding these attacks? For its part, Crossroads GPS is not legally required to publicly disclose its donors, but its sister organization — a super PAC known as American Crossroads — is. And American Crossroads has significant ties to the finance sector and other wealthy business interests.

Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, called the pair of Crossroads GPS-produced ads some of the “least effective” ads he has seen.

OpenSecrets Blog. “Given her liberal ideology, a viewer could believe that Warren had some sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, but to make her somehow sympathetic to big bankers and Wall Street? That strains credulity.” “Rarely do you see such diametrically opposing attacks made by the same group within a short period of time,” Sabato told. “Given her liberal ideology, a viewer could believe that Warren had some sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, but to make her somehow sympathetic to big bankers and Wall Street? That strains credulity.”

For her part, Warren helped create the President Barack Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — a new regulatory body that many finance sector interests spent heavily to oppose Republicans objected to the idea of nominating Warren to lead the new group, which was created as part of the Wall Street Reform legislation signed into law by Obama last year. Instead, top Democrats recruited her to challenge freshman Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.). Since launching her U.S. Senate campaign in August, Warren has pulled in more than $3.15 million — with a whopping 57 percent of that sum coming from small-dollar donors who each contributed $200 or less. According to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, Warren has raised just 3.5 percent of her war chest, or $110,050, from interests in the finance, insurance and real estate sector. By contrast, the finance, insurance and real estate sector is Brown’s No. 1 supporter. Since Brown jumped onto the national stage in 2009 when he began running to fill the Senate vacancy created in the wake of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death, Brown has raised about $23.6 million. According to the Center’s research, Brown has relied on the finance, insurance and real estate sector for about $1 out of every $8 he’s collected. The people and political action committees associated with the financial sector have given Brown $2.9 million since 2009. That’s 12.4 percent of his total war chest. Nothing is known about the donors to Crossroads GPS, a deep-pocketed organization, that, along with its sister group American Crossroads, plans to spend $240 million during the 2012 election cycle. But the finance, insurance and real estate sector accounts for $1 out of every $9 that American Crossroads has raised.

As a so-called super PAC, American Crossroads, which is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a political committee under section 527 of the U.S. tax code, is legally required to disclose its funders.

Last year, the group raised $28 million, and through September, it has raised another $6.7 million, according to the Center’s analysis of the group’s filings with the IRS and Federal Election Commission.

No other super PAC raised more.

Of the nearly $34.7 million American Crossroads has raised since its inception in March of last year, $3.8 million has come from the finance, insurance and real estate sector, according to the Center’s research.

That includes big-dollar contributions such as:

Jonathan Collegio, the communications director for both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, downplayed the groups’ finance sector support when asked about it by OpenSecrets Blog.

“Media reports show that the Crossroads groups have raised more than $95 million since inception last year,” Collegio wrote in an email to OpenSecrets Blog. “So by your calculations, financial services comprise 4 percent of those contributions.”

Collegio also argued that OpenSecrets Blog was “mixing apples and oranges” by examining the finances of American Crossroads and asking whether it was ironic that Crossroads GPS criticized Warren for being too close to the finance sector in an ad.

He declined to comment about whether Crossroads GPS, which does not publicly disclose its donors, had raised more than zero dollars from interests in the finance, insurance and real estate sector. He also declined to elaborate on the distinctions between American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS when it comes to producing advertisements and messaging.

One stunning observation based on the calculations offered by Collegio: If the two Crossroads groups have raised $95 million since March of 2010 and American Crossroads has reported raising $34.7 million to the IRS and FEC, then donors who prefer the anonymity offered by Crossroads GPS have funneled about $60.3 million into the group.

That’s about two-thirds of the money the two groups have raised.

And between January and September alone, the two groups have raised $25 million, the Associated Press reported. Yet, American Crossroads reported raising just $6.7 million to the FEC during that same time.

Thus, nearly three-fourths of the money the two groups have raised this year has been through Crossroads GPS’ dark-money machine.

Other wealthy business interests have also ponied up significant amounts of cash for American Crossroads:

B. Wayne Hughes , the chairman of Public Storage, was American Crossroads’ first official donor. He has contributed a total of $3.5 million to American Crossroads, according to the Center’s research.

, the chairman of Public Storage, was American Crossroads’ first official donor. He has contributed a total of $3.5 million to American Crossroads, according to the Center’s research. Robert Rowling , the CEO of TRT Holdings, has donated $3.5 million to American Crossroads since March of 2010. (His company has contributed an additional $2.5 million from its treasury.)

, the CEO of TRT Holdings, has donated $3.5 million to American Crossroads since March of 2010. (His company has contributed an additional $2.5 million from its treasury.) Trevor Rees-Jones , the president and chief executive officer of Dallas-based Chief Oil and Gas, has given American Crossroads $2 million.

, the president and chief executive officer of Dallas-based Chief Oil and Gas, has given American Crossroads $2 million. And Texas billionaire Bob Perry, no relation to GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, alone gave American Crossroads $7 million in 2010 and has given the group $2.5 million so far this year.

Combined, these four men — and their associated companies — account for $21 million of the $34.7 million that American Crossroads has reported raising. That’s about $3 out of every $5 the group has raised.

Collegio said financial assistance from such wealthy interests did not undermine the organization’s credibility among middle-class families.

“We don’t view entrepreneurs, their businesses and the free enterprise system as opposed to middle-class families,” Collegio told OpenSecrets Blog. “We view them as the engine of job growth that helps middle-class families.”

Sabato, of the University of Virginia, worries that the deep-pocketed, anonymously funded advertising campaigns of Crossroads GPS and other groups are harmful to American democracy.

“Regulating the flow of money has become next to impossible,” Sabato told OpenSecrets Blog.

“In the public’s interest, the most important objective must be to disclose where political money has come from and where it is going,” he continued. “Hidden money is dangerous money.”



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