America Rising is...Rising
The former high command of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign plans to gather in Washington next week to boost the new GOP super PAC America Rising, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO.
The July 23 event is advertised as a “Happy Hour with Matt Rhoades and Team Romney (‘08 and ‘12) to celebrate the launch of America Rising PAC.”
Rhoades, the former Republican National Committee research director who managed Romney’s 2012 race, is one of the primary founders of America Rising.
The group was launched earlier this year as a Republican counterpart to American Bridge, the Democratic outside group that gathered opposition research and tracking footage on Republicans throughout the last election cycle.
Mother Jones reports:
The biggest anti-Hillary money-grabber is America Rising, a Republican super-PAC created to research and track Democratic candidates on a year-round basis. Run by Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, America Rising planted its anti-Hillary flag last month with the creation of StopHillary2016.org, a website dedicated to raising cash for America Rising.
For $5, online donors get a Stop Hillary 2016 bumper sticker—before there is anything to stop. And this past week, America Rising hosted a "Stop Hillary"-themed fundraiser in Manhattan. "The Clinton machine is extremely powerful, and we have seen it in action time and time again," Rhoades wrote in an email to supporters. "We need to stop it before it is too late."
The group has yet to file any reports on how much it's spent or raised.
Tim Miller, a spokesman for America Rising, would not say how much money the Manhattan event brought in, but he adds, "Absolutely we will continue with Stop Hillary efforts." He says it's never too early to start fundraising to fund opposition research efforts for 2016. "One of the biggest lessons learned from 2012 is that President Obama gained an advantage from having a head start on the GOP competition, and we need to remedy that in 2016," Miller says.
