Mitt Romney’s Not-So-Midas Touch

A little over a week ago, The Atlantic blogged that Mitt Romney is about to create a political action committee. From what we hear, Romney has enlisted Peter Flaherty (his deputy campaign manager) and Steve Roche (one of his chief fund raisers) to assist in the effort.

According to The Atlantic, the purpose of the PAC would be to raise money for Republican candidates everywhere — and, no doubt, set up a second run for the White House in 2012.

Sounds like a good deal for Republicans, right? Not quite. The GOP should be a tad concerned about who receives Romney’s PAC money. A quick review of Slick Willard’s past donations is less than inspiring.

Let’s just say the man knows how to back a winner a warm body.

According to the Federal Election Commission, Romney has made a number of routine donations over the years, including $26,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2006, and another $25,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2007. It’s the contributions to individual candidates, though, that are the most amusing.

▪ From 1997-98, Romney contributed a total of $1,250 to Matt Amorello‘s failed bid for Congress. Later, Amorello served under Governor Romney as the Chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. That ended well.

▪ In 1998, Romney gave John McMullen $1K to challenge Vermont Senator Pat Leahy for his seat. McMullen didn’t even make it to the general election; instead, he lost the Republican primary to a retired dairy farmer. In 2004, McMullen won the GOP nomination, but was trounced by Leahy, who was re-elected with 70 percent of the vote. Ouch.

▪ Also in ’98, Romney donated $1K to Peter Torkildsen, who was attempting to reclaim his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Torkildsen had lost to John Tierney in ’96 and wanted a rematch. The second time around was even worse for Torkildsen, who lost by 12 points in ’98. (Today, Torkildsen serves as the chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party.)

▪ In 2002, Romney contributed $1,000 to Matthew Kinnaman‘s bid for U.S. Congress. Kinnaman got destroyed by incumbent Rep. John Oliver, who won Massachusetts’ District 1 with 68 percent of the vote.

▪ This is where it starts getting fun: In 2004, he gave $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Four years later, he was screaming “Washington is Broken.” Apparently, $2K just doesn’t fix as many problems as it used to.

▪ In 2006, Romney contributed $4,200 to Rick Santorum‘s re-election bid. Just a year earlier, Santorum, then a United States Senator from Pennsylvania, bashed Boston by connecting our “liberalism” to the Church Pedophilia Scandal. Santorum, mercifully, was defeated.

▪ Later in 2006, Romney managed to outdo himself by contributing $2,000 to then-Virginia Senator George Allen. Allen, you may remember, lost his shot at re-election the moment he opened his mouth and “macaca” slipped out. This donation was especially curious since, at the time, Allen was considered by many to be a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, while Romney was planning his own run for the White House. Not only did Romney dole out money to a potential competitor, he opened up his wallet for an offensive, incompetent one.

▪ Finally, and this is the biggest blunder of all if you ask us, Romney contributed $42 million of his own money to some poor sap who didn’t come close to winning the GOP nomination for president in ’08.

At that point, after all the mistakes in his past, you’d think he’d be able to recognize a loser when he saw one.