Fiscal conservative Romney no miser on campaign spending
Big chunks given to consultants, staffers and advertising firm
From a $15 service fee for its travel agent to $31,500 to rent the Boston Red Sox's Fenway Park for a celebratory barbecue, the Republican presidential contender was anything but fiscally conservative in spending money as fast as he raised it between April and June.
One Utahn profiting handsomely — albeit indirectly — from Romney's run is Don Stirling, whose e-mail sent last year to potential contributors created controversy about whether The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was helping build support for Romney.
Stirling is no longer directly paid by Romney's campaign. But he manages Rainmaker Sports & Entertainment, based in Sandy. And Romney's campaign pays Rainmaker $15,000 a month for what disclosure forms describe only as "finance consulting."
New disclosure forms filed with the Federal Election Commission show the Romney campaign paid $75,000 to Rainmaker during the past five months.
Stirling and Rainmaker did not immediately return phone calls about that payment Tuesday, so more detailed information about what kind of work it does is unavailable.
Rainmaker's offices are at Miller's office tower at Jordan Commons. Miller also did not return calls Tuesday about Rainmaker. Of note, Miller and Roney are big donors to the Romney campaign and its precursor political action committees. Miller gave them at least $12,300 and Roney gave them at least $7,300, according to FEC records.
Last year when Stirling was a paid consultant to Romney, he wrote an e-mail to Deseret Book President Sherri Dew — which was later leaked to the Boston Globe newspaper — where he implied the LDS Church and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve suggested using lists of the BYU Management Society to organize Romney support.
The e-mail also said that church President Gordon B. Hinckley knew of that effort and did not object to it.
That led to national controversy in the press about whether the church was endorsing and helping Romney. In response, the church issued statements saying its leaders were not involved in fund-raising, and that it is commited to neutrality in party politics.
At that time, Jared Young, director of communications for Romney's presidential political action committee, wrote, "Don Stirling is an old and dear friend of Gov. Romney. He got over-enthusiastic and overstepped his bounds. The Commonwealth PAC has taken appropriate action to make sure it doesn't happen again."
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