POLITICO's Maggie Haberman emails that she's solved a lingering mystery from the now-nearly-forgotten summer storm around a planned Islamic center in Lower Manhattan.
Robert Mercer, the co-CEO of the giant hedge fund manager Renaissance Technologies, appears to have financed the ad campaign entirely himself, through a $1 million contribution on July 26 to the New York State Conservative Party, according to a filing today by the party's housekeeping account. Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long confirmed to Haberman that Mercer was the source of the ad money.
Mercer had maxed out to the account of Rick Lazio, but the Conservative Party's ads firmly attached the issue to Lazio and kept it top of mind in August in New York.
The account also shows a $40,000 payment to Arthur Finkelstein, Lazio's consultant.
Mercer's contribution is peanuts by the standards of Renaissance, which claims it manages $15 billion, but it's a large political contribution by any measure -- particularly to a longshot candidate in a primary fight -- and it was by far his largest of the cycle. Mercer's other effort of note was reportedly a $300,000 effort to unseat Rep. Pete DeFazio of Oregon, who wants to regulate the controversial high-frequency trades that are part of Renaissance's business.
Regulating Wall Street wasn't a central issue in the New York campaign, but Haberman writes that some hedge fund figures were worried that the state would intervene in trading, and the ad buy could have been a signal to Andrew Cuomo of their willingness to spend millions attacking him over the issue.
The campaign of Carl Paladino made an issue of the "secrecy" in funding the ads, but a source familiar with the buy insisted that Mercer aimed simply to support Lazio and wasn't "anti-" anyone.
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