Running for president is an expensive process.
And being president is an aging experience.
Donation helps Romney get some skin in the presidential game
Which makes the bond between Republican candidate Mitt Romney and Utah businessman Steve Lund look like a near-perfect union.
Two companies linked to Lund — a founder of Nu Skin, which specializes in anti-aging creams — have donated $2 million to Romney’s primary campaign. Sums like that would until recently have been the prize of the general election. But they are playing a new role in primaries this year, thanks to the evolution of committees known as super PACs.
At first blush, the bonds between Romney and Lund look more than skin deep. Both are successful businessmen who have turned small companies into billion-dollar enterprises — Romney by buying cheap companies and Lund by selling expensive skin creams. Both served in leadership positions of the Mormon church. And both are family men who have used their success to do good — Romney by building a career in public service and Lund by running a charity for African children.
But Lund, 57, is no Romney when it comes to public life. Friends say he doesn’t relish attention, and he did not return repeated requests for an interview.
Indeed, the seven-figure donation to help Romney’s campaign may be the loudest statement he’s ever made.
Friends say Lund eschews most of the trappings of wealth, although he collects religious paintings and owns a valuable original copy of the Book of Mormon. He is a fiscal and social conservative who has known Romney for at least a decade and lives in the university town of Provo, Utah, with his wife, Kalleen. His largest previous political contribution was a $20,000 check to the Republican National Committee in 2008, according to federal and state records.
“I’m sure he’s wishing this donation was not known to the world,” said Corey Lindley, a former Nu Skin executive and friend of Lund’s.
But Lund’s name now joins an elite list of big presidential donors, who in the past have been rewarded by ambassadorial posts and plum administration jobs.
Following the money
Public records do not show who owns the companies donating the funds. Lund is the registered agent for one; his son-in-law for the other. The Restore Our Future PAC backing Romney, which accepted the money, declined to comment.
The PAC disclosed the two March 31 $1 million donations linked to Lund from two companies, Eli Publishing and F8. In an interview last month, Lund told a Fox television affiliate in Utah that there was an accounting advantage to giving the money through Eli Publishing, a company he founded in 1997.
Utah state records show that F8 was started by Lund’s son-in-law, Jeremy Blickenstaff, a lawyer who has never given a campaign donation and who owns Blickenstaff’s Toy Store in Provo, which sells candy by the pound and rare varieties of soda. He did not return a phone call.
Advocates for transparency in elections have criticized the contributions for their obscurity, saying it would be a violation of election law if either man used the corporations simply as a pass-through to donate his own money.
- Spam
- Obscene
- Duplicate
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