Who Paid For Mitt Romney's Data Mining?

     It's not surprising that Romney, the most secretive candidate in modern American history, has been able to raise all his millions from his Pity the Billionaire donors by a secretive data mining scheme.

     "Mitt Romney’s success in raising hundreds of millions of dollars in the costliest presidential race ever can be traced in part to a secretive data-mining project that sifts through Americans’ personal information — including their purchasing history and church attendance — to identify new and likely, wealthy donors, The Associated Press has learned."

     "For the data-mining project, the Republican candidate has quietly employed since at least June a little-known but successful analytics firm that previously performed marketing work for a colleague tied to Bain & Co., the management-consulting firm that Romney once led."

  http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20120824ap_exclusive_mitt__romney_uses_secretive_data-mining/

     What a shock-it's another Bain crony!

     The head of Buxton Co. of Fort Worth, Texas, chief executive Tom Buxton, confirmed to the AP his company’s efforts to help Romney identify rich and previously untapped Republican donors across the country.

      The Romney campaign declined to discuss on the record its work with Buxton or the project’s overall success.

      The Romney campaign is not being forthcoming? That's so out of character. This raises some legal questions as well:

      "There are no records of payments to Buxton from Romney’s campaign, the Republican National Committee or a joint fundraising committee. Under federal law, companies cannot use corporate money or resources, such as proprietary data analysis, for in-kind contributions to campaigns."

      So who exactly payed for this data mining? Has the Romney campaign broken federal law? It is certainly a troubling question.

      "Romney’s campaign has also been secretive about how it raises its money, and most fundraising events have been closed to the press. Unlike Obama, Romney’s campaign has declined to publicly identify the names of major fundraisers, known as bundlers, who have helped amass much of its money. Details of this project have not been made public until now, as payments to Buxton aren’t reflected in federal campaign expense reports."

       "Buxton is not listed as a vendor in any of the campaign’s reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission, although some campaigns do not report expenses until the vendor sends them a bill."

       So his secrecy extends to his filings to the FEC. Again, this in it's own way is as troubling as so many other things Romney has failed to observe full disclosure on.