The PAC Pack: The Men Behind the Money Behind the Candidates

Jan. 31, 2012 -- intro:Money has always been one of the more significant parts of elections, although the 2012 cycle has kept campaign finance lawyers, experts and critics busy because of the introduction of so-called super PACs. These political groups can raise as much money as they want, and then spend unlimited amounts on ads to sway the election toward the candidates they support.

Super PACs can be lifeboats for some candidates who have trouble raising money the old-fashioned way (soliciting donations while being bound by legal limits). In some cases, the aid of a single rich benefactor can help an underdog candidate win a state's primary.

This is a guide to some of the most generous donors to super PACs.

quicklist: 1title: Joe Rickettsurl: 15479174text: Ricketts is a lot of things: founder of TD Ameritrade, crusader against earmarks, bison meat tycoon, owner of the Chicago Cubs, hyper-local news dabbler and conservative political player, among other things.

Recently, Ricketts was thrust into the national spotlight after a plan for an expensive ad buy that tied President Obama to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was leaked to the New York Times. Through his own super PAC, Ricketts disapproved of the tactic and disowned responsibility for the plan.

Ricketts is a libertarian, according to his brother, Jim Ricketts, who runs a group that teaches poor students in troubled areas around the world. Much of the money for the group, Opportunity Education, comes from Joe Ricketts, who gives $5 million every year, his brother said.

Politics runs in the Ricketts family, though not in the same direction. His son Peter ran for Senate and works for the Republican National Committee. His daughter supports the Obama campaign. Ricketts's grandfather was the mayor of a small town in Nebraska. His brother ran for office in Colorado, and his brother's son is on a school board.

Many Democrats are probably already familiar with Ricketts' fingerprint on campaigns. The Ending Spending Fund super PAC spent more than $250,000 in the recent Senate primary in Nebraska, supporting the eventual surprise winner, Deb Fischer.

Before that, he donated more than $1 million to the fund in the 2010 midterm elections.

In his charge against congressional spending, Ricketts said in a video that lawmakers who get earmarks for their districts are "hooligans."

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quicklist: 2title: John Paulson and Edward Conardurl: 15479174text: It's no surprise that the two biggest donors supporting Mitt Romney have a background similar to the candidate's. The self-made, hedge-fund master John Paulson, pictured here, and the investment banking director Edward Conard have so far donated $1 million each to Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Romney.

Forbes lists Paulson, 55, as the 18th-richest person in the country. He bet big against the housing market in 2007 and walked away with $3.5 billion. He broke a record in the hedge-fund industry in 2010 by earning $4.9 billion, although the next year he lost a lot of money by making bad bets on Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard. So far this year, he has done better, possibly because he has put his money on the chance that the economy will recover.

Although his $1 million to the Romney-backing PAC puts him at the top of the biggest givers, it's but a particle of a fraction of his net worth, which is $15.5 billion.

"We contribute to candidates and organizations that support U.S. economic growth and leadership," Paulson said in a statement to ABC News.

Conard, 54, has a direct link to Romney through their past: He was a managing director at the private-equity firm Bain Capital, which Romney founded, from 1993 to 2007. (Romney left Bain in 1998.)

Conard identified himself in August as the previously unknown person who gave $1 million to Restore Our Future through a newly created company, W Spann LLC. Two campaign finance groups that advocate for disclosure, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, had asked the FEC and the Justice Department to investigate the matter while Conard's donation was anonymous, underscoring the secretive nature of super PACs.

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quicklist: 3title: Bob Perryurl: 15479174text: In the 2004 cycle, a group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" claimed that John Kerry was exaggerating his military service in Vietnam, becoming infamous for negative advertising and bringing about the term "swiftboating." The biggest donor to that group was Texas homebuilder Bob Perry, whose company, Perry Homes, contributed $4.45 million.

Now, Perry is giving to the pro-Romney PAC Restore Our Future (he has given $500,000 so far), although he has also sent $2.5 million this cycle to American Crossroads, the political "527" group that was the brainchild of Republican strategist-mastermind Karl Rove and former Republican Party chief Ed Gillespie. Perry gave American Crossroads $7 million in 2010.

American Crossroads, which acts like a super PAC, technically supports no candidate but rather spends money on ads savaging President Obama.