Con Artist Newt Gingrich raises $2.7 million in the first three months of the year

Newt Gingrich, who has toyed with a possible 2012 White House bid, raised nearly $2.7 million in the first three months of the year for his political committee — almost as much as the groups headed by his prospective rivals for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, brought in combined.

Gingrich, the former House speaker, has used his committee, American Solutions for Winning the Future, to pay political staff and consultants, build its email list, fundraise and travel the country. Those activities are considered necessary to lay the foundation for a presidential bid, and are similar to how Minnesota Gov. Pawlenty, and former Govs. Romney of Massachusetts, Palin of Alaska and Huckabee of Arkansas have used their committees.

But American Solutions has a major fundraising advantage over the others. As a so-called 527 group, it can accept unlimited contributions from people and corporations. The groups fronted by Romney, Palin and Pawlenty, on the other hand, are federal political action committees subject to contribution limits of $5,000 per-person-per-year and barred from taking corporate cash.

And American Solutions took full advantage of its fundraising flexibility in the first quarter, accepting 10 checks of $15,000 or more, including some from companies whose interests overlap with the issue advocacy portfolio pushed by American Solutions.

For instance, this year, the group accepted $250,000 from Devon Energy Corporation, an Oklahoma natural gas and oil producer, and $100,000 from Arch Coal of St. Louis, according to a filing this month with the Internal Revenue Service, detailing its contributions and expenditures for the first three months of the year. American Solutions has aired ads opposing proposals to limit carbon emissions and establish a market on which pollution allowances could be traded, and also has pushed for increased domestic oil production.

According to a POLITICO analysis of all American Solutions’s IRS monthly, quarterly and semi-annual filings dating back to its creation in October 2006, the group has raised a little more than $40.9 million. The group’s Chief Operating Officer Dan Varroney told POLITICO that non-contribution revenues not reflected on those reports left American Solution with a surplus of more than $400,000 at the end of March.

Varroney predicted that American Solutions, which has a 1.5 million-address email list and has been courting tea party activists, is poised for growth headed into the 2010 midterm elections.

“I see a massive acceleration on the fundraising side,” he said, rejecting the premise that American Solutions is geared towards positioning Gingrich for a 2012 presidential run. “Not at all,” he said. “Our focus is clear cut: to save America.”

The group’s IRS report shows that its impressive cash flow has allowed Gingrich to maintain a robust political operation.

In the first three months of the year, for instance, Gingrich’s group paid a staff of around 20 full-time employees, and spent $297,000 flying Gingrich and his traveling party around the country on charter jets, plus more than $26,000 on chauffeur service. It also made payments totaling $177,000 back to American Solutions for “telemarketing,” while paying Infocision, an Akron, Ohio, firm, $1.1 million for “direct marketing” — both typical descriptors for fundraising expenses.

Romney’s PAC, Free and Strong America, brought in $1.6 million and contributed $52,000 to federal candidates and committees in the first three months of the year. Pawlenty’s Freedom First PAC tallied $568,000 and contributed $27,000. Sarah Palin’s PAC raised $400,000 and contributed $9,500, while Huckabee’s Huck PAC brought in $273,000 and contributed $13,500.

In recent weeks, he has turned up the heat on his criticism of President Barack Obama, who he accused of leading “the most radical administration in American history,” and also on Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts signed into law a healthcare plan that Gingrich called "the forerunner of Obamacare."