WASHINGTON, Oct 18:
Companies including Duke Energy, AT&T and Bank of America spent millions of dollars to help stage both the Republican and Democratic conventions, despite restrictions by th e Democrats on corporate funding for their event, financial disclosures showed.
The Democratic convention last month marked the first time the party, seeking to set an example, had set limits on sources of funding. It banned donations from corporations and lobbyists and capped individual donations at 100,000 dollar.
Technically complying with the corporate money ban, several large corporations contributed free-of-charge goods and services to the account funding the Democratic National Convention. Scores more donated to a separate fund, New American City, exempt from those limits because it was meant to finance activities “of ongoing value” to the host city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and not the Democratic event itself.
Republicans had no similar restrictions on donations for their convention in late August, and brought in money from dozens of corporations as well as some of the biggest individual givers – topped by billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson gave the largest sum, 5 million dollars, to the Republican event. The second-largest sum, 4.4 million dollars, came from Florida financier William Edwards and one of his companies, Marketing Solutions Publications Inc.
The biggest financial backers of the Democratic convention, where President Barack Obama officially accepted his party’s renomination on September. 6, were labor unions, contributing almost 3 million dollars. Unions are a traditional source of cash for Democrats.
Obama is being challenged in the November. 6 election by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who accepted the Republican nomination at his party’s convention in Tampa, Florida, on August. 30.
In all, Republicans raised 55.3 million dollars for their convention, spending 52.4 million dollars and ending with little debt.
On the Democratic side, the main “Charlotte 2012” fund sponsoring the convention raised $24.1 million, according to the filings. It took out a 10.9 million dollars loan and organisers still owe almost that amount after spending 29.9 million dollars.
The New American City fund, which had no funding limitations, raised 19 million dollars and spent 19.6 million dollars. It also holds 1.3 million dollars in debt. —
(agencies)
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