Republican Megadonor Foster Friess ‘Reaching Out To’ Rich Friends To Support Romney’s Super PAC

By Scott Keyes and Annie-Rose Strasser 

 Jun 18, 2012 at 11:40 am

WASHINGTON, DC — Uber-wealthy Republican donor Foster Friess isn’t content just giving his own money to support Mitt Romney; he’s now lobbying his rich friends to open their checkbooks as well.
Friess, an investment manager worth upwards of $500 million, gained notoriety earlier this year as the moneyman funding Rick Santorum’s super PAC. After Santorum dropped out, Friess (along with other wealthy donors like Sheldon Adelson) switched to supporting Romney’s presidential campaign.
ThinkProgress and TPM’s Benjy Sarlin ran into Friess at the Faith & Freedom Conference over the weekend and asked what his plans were going forward. After bemoaning the fact that big Republican donors hadn’t done more to coordinate resources and message before, Friess said he had now “reached out to a number of potential donors” about supporting Romney’s super PAC. He declined to name names, leaving it at the fact that they’re “big donors.”

SARLIN: Now that the general election is underway, do you keep in touch with the other big donors, Sheldon Adelson, Bob Perry, and the people who are now doing the general election? Do you guys have a friendly, encouraging society?
FRIESS: There should be more of that. I find when I’ve done certain projects like I put up a little video and I found four other people putting up the same message. Well we could’ve pooled our resources and done a much better, more professional than our somewhat-amateurish video. I wish that would happen more but it doesn’t and it should.
SARLIN: Have you reached out to any of the other big donors about trying to work together a little more?
FRIESS: I’ve reached out to a number of potential donors who aren’t involved so much before to help Gov. Romney with his Restore Our Future PAC and to try to encourage some of the same things for Gov. Romney as I did for Rick Santorum.

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Thanks in large part to extremely wealthy conservatives like Friess, Republican-aligned groups are far outpacing those supporting Democrats. In fact, a single casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson, just gave $10 million to Romney’s super PAC and has said he’s willing to spend a “limitless” amount of money to defeat President Obama in the fall.