Expenditure Profile: American Media and Advocacy Group

Introduction

Rank: 5

Clients’ expenditures: $27 million*

Principals: Unknown

Year founded: 2012

Website: None

Clients

• American Action Network
• Congressional Leadership Fund
• Ending Spending Action Fund
• The Government Integrity Fund Action Network
• Citizens for a Working America Inc.
• Character Counts Political Action Committee Inc.

Background:

American Media and Advocacy Group was a favorite media buyer for several top conservative Citizens United-related groups active in the 2012 election.

Through Dec. 6, American Media was paid more than $27 million to buy advertising in several battleground states. The lion’s share of those receipts — nearly $18 million — came from the American Action Network, the conservative nonprofit run by Norm Coleman, the former U.S. senator from Minnesota, and its super PAC arm, the Congressional Leadership Fund.

The firm also purchased nearly $7 million of media time on behalf of the Ending Spending Action Fund, the super PAC run by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs.

Despite its high-profile clientele, American Media toiled in relative obscurity during the 2012 election. The firm has no website and little information about the group has been published. Federal Election Commission reports show it shares office space and administrative staff with a network of political consulting groups in an Alexandria, Va.

Among them is the well-known bipartisan political consulting group Purple Strategies, run by longtime Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. Representatives at Purple Strategies failed to reply to the Center’s repeated inquiries regarding its affiliation with American Media.

Last Updated: Jan. 18, 2013

* Total consists of independent expenditures made to the firm in the 2012 election cycle as reported to the Federal Election Commission.