Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino mogul, has written a $5 million check. 3 billionaires who'll drag out the race

Meet the three billionaires who could drag out the GOP presidential primary, bloody up front-runner Mitt Romney and weaken the odds of defeating President Barack Obama: Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess and Jon Huntsman, Sr.

The three men are contributing millions of dollars to a trio of outside groups flooding the airwaves in early voting states with brutal ads attacking Romney and ads backing the candidates they would prefer to win the Republican nomination.


Adelson, a Las Vegas casino mogul, wrote a $5 million check — and has considered giving much more — to a so-called super PAC backing Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign.

Huntsman, Sr., who made his fortune at the helm of an eponymous chemical and manufacturing company, reportedly invested millions in a super PAC supporting the presidential bid of his son, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr.

And Friess, a Wyoming mutual fund master, acknowledged to POLITICO that he is a major financial backer of a super PAC supporting Rick Santorum called the Red, White and Blue Fund and is preparing to give more, but declined to say how much he has given or plans to give.

Operatives say that without the super PAC air cover funded by these deep-pocketed political patrons and their associates, their favored candidates would have a tough time keeping their bare-bones campaigns going as long as they have — let alone beyond the next couple of contests in South Carolina and Florida.

The prospect that these candidates could carry on is a testament to the new world of campaign money ushered in by a pair of federal court rulings in 2010: A single wealthy donor can now prop up a presidential campaign with unlimited cash, even if the candidate is getting little traction with voters.

“I guess if Newt’s got $5 million, it makes sense that Rick [Santorum] should have a little bit,” said Friess, who has known Santorum since the 1990s and shares his conservative views on social and foreign policy issues. He became among the first major donors to the Red, White and Blue Fund because, he said, “I believe that Rick Santorum is the most electable candidate. And I’m just thrilled to be able to have played a role so far.”

Friess did not shy away from the characterization that the $537,000 spent by the Red, White and Blue Fund in Iowa — which dwarfed the $22,000 spent by Santorum’s campaign on ads in the state — helped propel Santorum to a close second to Romney in the state’s caucuses. But Friess laughed off a story on the liberal Daily Kos headlined “Meet Foster Friess, Billionaire Who Bought Iowa for Santorum.”

“I told my wife ‘Wow, I got a bargain,’” he said, noting that the super PACs and campaigns supporting Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry spent far more and asserting that such a headline “completely discounts that Rick Santorum went to 381 town halls” in the run-up to the caucuses.

Friess conceded that Santorum lacks a big donor network that can compete with “the cadre of pals like Perry or Romney” has, who have filled the coffers of super PACs backing their respective campaigns.

The propping up of super PACs by Adelson, Friess and Huntsman, Sr., has some establishment Republicans grumbling privately that the men may be hurting the party by setting the stage for a long and damaging primary battle that won’t block Romney from winning the nomination but will leave him limping into a general election tilt.

Some have even made veiled threats of retribution, if the men don’t back off.

But allies of Gingrich, Santorum and Huntsman dismiss the concerns about a long and damaging primary as self-serving efforts to align big donors behind Romney. And they point to the protracted and bitter 2008 Democratic presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to prove that such battles can actually help the party.

The idea that a competitive primary should be avoided “goes back forever and it’s a specious argument that has no basis in fact,” said Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich aide who’s now running the Adelson-backed pro-Gingrich super PAC, which is called Winning Our Future.

In fact, Obama’s allies have at times seemed to be working in tandem with Romney’s Republican foes, particularly the pro-Gingrich super PAC backed by Adelson, which is called Winning Our Future. It’s spending millions of dollars in South Carolina airing hard-hitting ads derived from a half-hour documentary that depicts Romney as a cold-hearted vulture for his days heading an investment firm called Bain Capital.

Adelson hasn’t seen the documentary or the ads, said a spokesman, who declined to comment Wednesday on the hand-wringing by Republicans worried about the impact of his super PAC giving.

But last month, when he was talking with operatives about opening his checkbook wide to Winning Our Future, Adelson told POLITICO that his political efforts were motivated by his support for Gingrich, rather than antipathy toward any other candidate.

“I’m a guy who practices loyalty,” said Adelson, a 78-year-old worth upward of $20 billion, who’s been friendly with Gingrich since the mid-1990s, when the former Georgia congressman was speaker of the House. They’ve bonded over a shared enmity for labor unions and support for Israel, and Adelson was the biggest donor — giving $7.7 million — to Gingrich’s main political vehicle over the past few years, the now-defunct fundraising juggernaut American Solutions for Winning the Future.

“I wouldn’t step away from Gingrich because I think another candidate is the best. I think that Gingrich is the best candidate and he’ll make the best president,” Adelson said in a telephone interview. “That doesn’t mean that the other guys would make lousy presidents, OK? But on a scale of one to 10, I got to make a priority of who I think will make the best president.” If Gingrich doesn’t win the nomination, Adelson said, “I would certainly support the Republican candidate. The idea is to avoid another four years of Obama, because this won’t be the same country.”

While Adelson described himself as “the kind of guy that would prefer to stay under the radar,” both Friess and the elder Huntsman have taken more public roles in the campaigns of their beneficiaries.

Friess campaigned with Santorum in the days before the Iowa caucuses, speaking on behalf of the former Pennsylvania senator at a local event, then scoring a prime spot on stage behind the candidate during his triumphant speech after his second-place caucus finish.

A longtime donor to social conservative causes dear to Santorum, Friess and his wife Lynn, both 71, built a $15.7 billion investment management firm. He told POLITICO that he is putting together a challenge grant to encourage other wealthy donors to give to the Red, White and Blue Fund, which he said received a $1 million check Wednesday.

The group intends to announce Thursday that it has bought $600,000 more in ad time in South Carolina, bringing its total buy to about $800,000 in the state, which is considered fertile ground for Santorum’s socially conservative message. The ads — combined with a Santorum campaign buy in the Palmetto State fueled by a post-Iowa fundraising surge — offer a distinctly different feel for a campaign that has scraped to get by.

The Red, White and Blue Fund’s ads have been positive, pro-Santorum messages to date, and, though Friess conceded “negative ads are more impactful five to one,” he said he’s told the operatives running the super PAC that “any money that I’m connected to, I want the ads to be dignified, and I want them to be honest. I’m fine with contrast ads, but I’m very, very adverse to some of the ads that I think are destructive.”

Suggesting he was uncomfortable with Winning Our Future’s attacks on Romney, he praised Santorum for being “the only competitor who didn’t jump on that bandwagon to stomp on Romney.”

Jon Huntsman, Sr., has been a presence throughout the campaign of his son, and they appeared most recently together on stage at a Manchester, N.H., restaurant during a Tuesday night party celebrating the son’s third-place finish in the Granite State.

Our Destiny PAC, the super PAC supporting Huntsman, aired more than $2 million worth of ads in New Hampshire supporting Huntsman and ripping Romney. And while Huntsman has declared himself “ mighty thankful” for the “air cover,” he also has said he and his father do not discuss Our Destiny or campaign strategy — communications prohibited under election rules barring coordination between campaigns and super PACs.

The elder Huntsman “communicates daily with his son” and “continue[s] to be a major contributor” to Our Destiny, said Fred Davis, a veteran GOP adman who is a key adviser to the super PAC.

But the father has “no official role” and “no unofficial role” with the super PAC, Davis said, adding that neither Huntsman, Sr., nor any of the other donors have any input in the PAC’s decisions.

“Only the board [has],” he said. The donors are told only “that they are helping the candidacy of Jon Huntsman. They trust the organization and professionals to spend the money wisely,” Davis said.

As for concerns raised like those raised by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that the flow of unlimited cash to outside groups “will lead to corruption and scandals,” both Adelson and Friess said they neither want, nor expect anything in return for their support of Gingrich and Santorum, respectively, though Friess cracked that he might want to be ambassador to Zimbabwe.

But Romney allies and others in the conservative establishment in recent days have suggested that the super PACs supporting Huntsman and Gingrich could be vulnerable to Federal Election Commission complaints alleging violations of the coordination rules.

Friess called the FEC rules “goofy government regulations” but said he’s not worried about being targeted by a coordination complaint, explaining he neither knows “what the [Santorum] campaign is doing” nor tells Santorum “what I’m doing or what I’m thinking” about the super PAC. Nor is he worried about scrutiny from Santorum opponents, he said, proclaiming “so far, I’m getting a big kick out of” the attention brought by his donations to the pro-Santorum super PAC.

But Adelson’s camp seemed less amused when asked about recent comments by a top Romney surrogate, former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, who seemed to signal the possibility of retribution from Romney supporters.

“Does he think people don’t remember when you attack them and pay for the attacks in the primary? Especially when one of the parties receiving that attack is the same investment community that he likes to go to to finance his expansions,” Sununu railed on Fox News. “There’s just no common sense in this process, and you kind of feel sorry for people that aren’t that bright.”

While Adelson spokesman Ron Reese said his boss is “no more concerned about” heightened scrutiny resulting from his super PAC donations “than he is about having his iced tea in the afternoon,” he did take a swipe at Sununu.

“Mr. Adelson is one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs and has risen from humble beginnings to become one of the wealthiest people on the planet,” said Reese, “so apparently there’s still some hope for the ‘not so bright’.”