The super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign raised $7 million in August. Restore Our Future spent $21M

The super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign spent more than three times as much as it took in last month.

Restore Our Future raised $7 million in August – the second straight month its fundraising has dipped – even as it spent $21.2 million, mostly on ads attacking President Barack Obama, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.


That makes August the biggest spending month by far for Restore Our Future. And its escalating presence on the airwaves seemed intended to fill a void left by Romney’s own penny-pinching strategy, which has held back on advertising buys.

Restore Our Future finished August with $6.3 million in the bank – its lowest reported cash on hand tally – leaving it in a potentially tenuous position for the stretch run.

In an encouraging sign, the super PAC reported $1 million donations from a pair of new donors: Robert Parsons, the founder and chairman of the domain name registry GoDaddy, and Odyssey Re Holdings Corp., a reinsurance company headquartered in Stamford, Conn.

Restore Our Future also reported a pair of $500,000 donations – one from Blanco Rio Ltd., a holding company run by a pair of Texas investors, and Richard Roberts of New Jersey, who indicated he was an advisor to Mutual Pharmacy Co.

Odyssey Re is a subsidiary of the Canadian holding company Fairfax Financial, which would be banned from giving directly under U.S. election laws prohibiting foreigners or foreign companies from donating to U.S. campaigns or committees. But because Odyssey Re is U.S.-based, it appears to be permitted to donate to federal committees permitted to accept corporate donations, such as super PACs, despite an effort to ban such donations after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision legalized corporate ad spending.

“Current law allows any U.S. company to use funds from its U.S. operations to make these types of contributions,” explained Nancy McLernon, CEO of an association called the Organization for International Investment, which represents U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. But, she cautioned donation decisions “must be made solely by American executives” – a safeguard she said is “aimed at protecting against foreign influence in the U.S. political system, while still ensuring equal rights for the over five million American workers U.S. subsidiaries employ.”