The fundraiser includes a town hall for $50 admission as well as a higher priced reception. Bachmann’s campaign said the goal is to help Bachmann win the Iowa Caucuses next year.

“While weekly polls have fluctuated between front runners, I am the only conservative candidate who has been consistent and straightforward in seeking the Republican nomination. With your help, we won the Iowa Straw Poll and we can win the caucus,” said an email to Bachmann’s supporters. “We are also doing all we can to invest resources and expand our reach in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and other key states. By attending this event in Minneapolis, you will help us keep up the fight in Iowa and continue to grow our base of grassroots support all across the country.”

And the earlier date of the caucuses has necessitated a faster fundraising pace. “With the date of the Iowa caucus moving up, it is critical that we double the pace of my campaign in order to be successful in Iowa. I’m counting on the involvement of my Minnesota friends and supporters like you at this critical time.”

Bachmann sent out a campaign video for the event:

Ticket prices for the town hall and reception begin at $50 just for the town hall and $5,000 for a private reception.

Latham raised $337,025 in the third quarter, including $215,900 from political committees and $121,125 from individuals. Boswell took in $142,192 in that same period, including $95,750 from political committees and $46,336 from individuals.

Latham spent $90,650 and had $1.72 million on hand at the end of the period, while Boswell spent $54,226 and had $375,966 on hand at the end of the period.

National political observers are watching the race for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District closely, according to a recent article from Politico. Some think whoever wins in the newly-drawn district could be a bellwether for which party will control Congress.

Politico also identified the fundraising race in Iowa’s 3rd CD as one of 10 FEC reports to watch.

Boswell has served in Congress since 1997, and Latham since 1995. Latham moved south to challenge Boswell rather than battle U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) in the newly-drawn 4th Congressional District.

Former Iowa First Lady and 4th Congressional District candidate Christie Vilsack is among a handful of House and Senate candidates who “are distinguishing themselves as breakout fundraising stars in the still-developing 2012 campaign season,” Politico reports.

Reporter Alex Isenstadt writes:

Vilsack has quickly established herself as one of the most formidable Democratic fundraisers, raking in more than $750,000 in her first six months of campaigning. Vilsack, the wife of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and a former Iowa first lady who was an influential player in the state’s political circles, is tapping a nationwide fundraising base — holding fundraisers in New York City and Northern California. GOP Rep. Steve King, Vilsack’s opponent, had raised a little more than $200,000 through June — and another subpar haul should set off alarms in Republican circles.

Last week Politico identified Vilsack and King’s fundraising in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District race as among “10 FEC reports to watch.”

Vilsack is running against long-time incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve King in the state’s newly-drawn 4th Congressional District, which encompasses the northwest portion of the state.

She holds $540,000 cash on hand, and has raised about $754,000 since announcing her candidacy in April.

King, a Kiron Republican, has not yet announced his fundraising totals for the third quarter. In the second quarter he raised $210,071, spent $161,197 and had $229,972 on hand.

Vilsack has traveled throughout all 39 counties of the district, her campaign said, laying out her plans to double the number of apprenticeships in Iowa and nationally and advocating for flood relief.

“I am truly humbled by the Iowans from every walk of life who are supporting our campaign,“ Vilsack said. “We can tackle the great challenges facing our nation and ensure that Iowa’s children have the economic opportunity to raise their own families here—but only if we put an end to the partisan game playing that puts politics before people.”

The deadline for candidates to report fundraising totals is Oct. 15.

The NOM rallies — in Manhattan, Albany, Rochester and Buffalo — were held simultaneously and live-streamed on NOM’s new website, which offers many different opportunities to donate money. Rather than consider defeat in what they have dubbed a “war on marriage,” NOM has instead pledged to overturn the state’s decision by attempting to pass a ballot measure amending the state constitution to restrict marriage to straight couples.

What happened on Sunday, and will continue to happen as more same-sex couples receive marriage licenses, has given marriage-equality advocates all over the country confidence that — if NOM is right and the marriage issue is a war -– they are on the winning side.

But NOM is pushing forward with its “let the people vote” plan, which should prove to be a lengthy endeavor given the earliest date such a proposal could go on the ballot is four years from now. Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Kevin Nix recently told The American Independent that NOM’s four-year plan will likely be difficult to pull off.

“Time is NOM’s enemy,” Nix said in an email. “A bipartisan supermajority of New Yorkers support marriage equality today. Four years from now … this supermajority will only be stronger and more bipartisan. New Yorkers – and all Americans – move in one direction on this issue – toward equality, not away from it. The ship has sailed.”

Even so, NOM has said it would commit $2 million in New York, specifically to defeat the four Republican and three Democratic state senators who voted to legalize same-sex marriage in June after voting to ban it in 2009. On July 19, NOM announced it is spending $150,000 on mailers to send to the districts of those New York senators who “betrayed voters on marriage.” And this weekend the organization rolled out a newfundraising campaign made possible by one “generous donor.” Actually, it’s a challenge: Every time someone Facebook “Likes,” Twitter “Follows” or sends a text message about something on NOM’s website between now and Sept. 1, NOM will earn $1, up to $100,000, from this anonymous donor.

For its other anti-gay-marriage efforts in state legislatures and nationally, the Associated Press recently reported that NOM has pledged to spend $20 million by the end of the year.

In an email, NOM chairman of the board Maggie Gallagher told TAI that her organization is on target to raise at least $15 million by the end of fiscal year 2011, and possibly $20 million. She said NOM raised and spent $13 million in 2010.

“Our fundraising target evolve as our needs evolve, which is partly a result of our goals, and partly what we need to respond to pro-SSM [same-sex marriage] goals,” Gallagher said.

NOM’s massive growth

If NOM meets its $20 million target, that means in four years, the organization, whose stated goal is to ban gay marriage in every state where the issue comes up, will have grown by 3,900 percent. From a single donor in 2007, NOM has since acquired more than 50,000 donors, Gallagher told TAI.

“It’s been fairly rapid growth,” she said.

NOM’s first fiscal year began June 1, 2007, and ended Dec. 31, 2007, with $518,667 in total revenue and $472,840 in total expenses, according to the group’s exempt organization business income tax return from 2007 (PDF), provided on NOM’swebsite. Gallagher told TAI that they began the year with only one donor.

NOM began with eight officers, only two of whom were paid: then-Executive Director/now-President Brian Brown ($57,292) and then-President/now-Chairman of the Board Maggie Gallagher ($8,333).

In fiscal year 2008, NOM reported $2.97 million in revenue, a 529 percent increase, according to the group’s 2008 tax return (PDF). The officers remained the same, but this time, secretary treasurer Neil Corkery made it to the payroll, earning $24,000, and the two highest-ranking officials got pay bumps –- Brown earned $130,208; Gallagher $26,875.

In fiscal year 2009, NOM’s revenue rose to $7.4 million, according to its 2009 tax return, the most recent that is available to the public. NOM’s expenses were reported to be $7.5 million. All paid officers got a raise: Corkery made double, $48,000; Gallagher earned $92,500, more than three times her salary in 2008. Brown earned $154,167.

To supporters who subscribed to NOM’s email list throughout 2008 and 2009, Brown -– and sometimes Gallagher –- regularly emailed solicitation for donations, asking for small amounts of money (“Can you give $50, $500, or even $5,000 to support marriage? Can you afford to pledge even $1 a month to support marriage?”) and emphasizing the importance of grassroots fundraising.

“NOM is a grassroots organization that depends on the contributions of thousands of ordinary Americans to make our voices and values heard,” Brown wrote in an email dated Aug. 7, 2009, adding that at that time, the group’s donors had grown from 8,000 to 30,000.

However, as The American Independent has reported in the past, the NOM has historically received most of its funding from a few large donors. And the amount of individual high-dollar donations has increased from year to year.

From 2007 (PDF) to 2008 (PDF), NOM reported receiving $471,549 and $2,967,495, respectively, in “gifts, grants, contributions, and membership fees.”

According to the list of donations at or above $5,000 provided in the 2007 tax return, NOM reported receiving $492,500 from 15 people. The average donation was approximately $32,800. The median donation was $20,000.

In 2008, NOM reported receiving $2,161,000 from 52 donors. The average donation was $40,000. One single donation was $450,000. These large donations represent approximately 73 percent of NOM’s “gifts, grants, contributions, and membership fees” in 2008.

In 2009, even larger contributions came from even fewer sources. NOM reported receiving approximately $7.1 million in donations that year. Only 14 individuals donated amounts at or above $5,000 for a total of approximately $5.5 million, representing about 78 percent of the total donations. The average of these donations was nearly $40,000. Approximately 68 percent of all the donations from NOM’s supposed 30,000 donors in 2009 came from just three individual groups, in the amounts of $1.1 million, $1.2 million, and $2.5 million.

“AT NOM we are 500,000 people who believe in standing up straight and tall together for God’s truth about marriage in Maine and all across this great country,” wrote Brown in an email to subscribers dated Aug. 26, 2009.

Due to recent rulings that NOM must disclose its big-name sources, in recent campaign emails, Brown has not promised donors anonymity but has pushed the group’s self-appointed grassroots identity. In an email dated July 14, 2011, Brown solicited donations to reverse New York’s recent same-sex marriage legalization:

“I am asking you today to fight back against those who want to decriminalize polygamy, penalize conscience, normalize infidelity, and reward lying,” he wrote. “Please be one of the 100 who contribute $10, the ten who contribute $100—or give more for marriage today!

Smart Politics notes that Bachmann’s cash haul in the first quarter of 2011 is a 447 percent increase from her 2009 numbers.

“If that pattern holds this cycle, Bachmann’s $1.7 million raised in Q1 2011 puts her on pace to raise $52 million for the 2012 cycle – or nearly four times the amount of money she raised during her record-setting 2010 campaign,” wrote Smart Politics.

And that would be a record.

“This last time I ran — which is now my third term — I was the number-one fundraiser in the history of the United States Congress because Nancy Pelosi made me the number one target for defeat,” she said at a campaign stop in South Carolina. “Our average donation was $45, and we raised more money than anyone in the history of the country. The reason for that was a broad section of America said, ‘You go girl! We want someone who’s going to take on President Obama and Nancy Pelosi.’”

Bachmann is accurate when she says she raised the most money in the 2010 cycle; in fact she raised more money in one congressional campaign cycle than any candidate in history.

She missed the mark a bit when she said that Pelosi made her a number-one target. The Democratic campaign apparatus may have made her a top target in 2010, but Nancy Pelosi never did.

TAI spent two afternoons with Karger last week when he was in Washington, D.C., for the Victory Fund’s Gay and Lesbian Leadership Conference. While Karger’s chances of gaining the 2012 nomination may be slim, he could play an outsized role during the nomination cycle. Much in the way that Ron Paul challenged doctrinaire Republican views during the 2008 Republican campaign, Karger could serve as the alternative voice during debates that forces other candidates to face issues they may rather avoid.

Karger is a long shot candidate by any definition of the term. He holds low name recognition, does not fundraise at the same level as other potential candidates and will face difficulty winning over any socially conservative voters. His qualifying experience comes not from elected office but from his career as a political consultant; he has worked on numerous campaigns, including Ronald Reagan’s presidential bids, and he was a senior executive at The Dolphin Group, a consulting firm most famous for creating the Willie Horton ads in the 1988 presidential campaign.

He may not stand much of a chance of winning, but Karger is the closest thing to an official candidate in the field at this point. He has a presidential exploratory committee, and made headlines recently when he began airing ads in Iowa — a full 14 months before caucus day. He is making his tenth visit to New Hampshire this week and has been to Iowa five times throughout the year, only trailing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Iowa appearances.

Karger’s current ambitions are focused solely on proving his initial viability as a candidate in order to qualify for the nomination debates next year. “I’ll do whatever it takes to put pressure on these debate organizers, and I’ll pick my battles,” Karger said.

“I had two goals for this year: one was to satisfy the leadership,” he said, discussing the leaders of the LGBT rights movement who he hopes will support his campaign. “I had to prove that I was serious because everybody said, ‘oh it’s a stunt’, which is a natural assumption with my personality and background, but it’s not. And number two, [to show] that I am credible. A lot harder to prove, but I think I’ve accomplished it with the kind of attention I’ve gotten and the devotion [to traveling to Iowa and New Hampshire].”

No matter what Karger says about — or how others perceive — his presidential run, he is aware of the reality that his candidacy would largely revolve around forcing other Republicans to address gay rights. “If I do nothing else, to kind of make this issue, to put a face on this issue as opposed to what happened in previous elections like 2004 where the gay community was getting used as a political tool to strengthen the president’s reelection,” he said. “If I can do that I’ll have done quite a bit.”

He hopes his candidacy can help other generations of LGBT individuals feel comfortable with their identity. Karger largely stayed in the closet throughout his consulting career. He lived a double life, spending his days organizing campaigns for conservative politicians, but in his personal life, supporting gay rights activism.

He recounted one incident early in his career that taught him the importance of keeping his identity hidden in his professional life. In 1978, he made a political contribution to the No on Prop 6 campaign, a measure which would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in California public schools.

“I took it upon myself, I’m 28 years old, I’m working for the Republican conservative running for attorney general by day, and by night, I’m helping the Republican’s opposition,” Karger said. “And I wrote a check for $100 … to this campaign. It was to get the sponsorship of the Los Angles County Young Republicans.”

He did not disclose that donation to his Republican employers at the time, but the contribution became public through campaign finance disclosures after the campaign. Two years later, that contribution came back to haunt Karger when he was working on the Senate primary for a conservative Republican candidate Ray Hanzlik.

“Ray got a letter from one of my detractors from the Young Republicans, saying ‘how can you have someone like this working for you who supports the homosexual agenda,’ and had a copy of the campaign [donation] page that had my name in there, and then a couple newspaper stories about the event and the Young Republicans,” Karger said. “He [Hanzlik] just throws this down on my desk and says ‘you should know who your enemy is, this doesn’t affect me one iota, but I want you to have it.’ And I still have it. It really sent a chilling effect on me and kept me — I never gave another contribution of $100 or more, since that’s the [reporting] threshold, for many years. It kept me more in the closet I think. It scared the hell out of me, because I could easily be fired. It’s difficult situation in Republican politics to this day.”

Karger did not come out to the general political world until after he retired from his position at The Dolphin Group in 2004, fully investing his time to gay rights activism. Through Californians Against Hate — the group he founded to work against Proposition 8 — Karger has been at the forefront of opposing the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and linking anti-gay funding to the Mormon Church. He has organized boycotts of businesses that contributed to anti-same-sex marriage campaigns and filed frequent complaints to force these campaigns to disclose their sources of funding.

As he has switched from an activist into a potential candidate, Karger has turned his attention to pushing for the repeal of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bans openly gay citizens from serving in the U.S. armed forces.

“This is kind of a political football that people’s lives are being tossed around, 14,000 people have already been discharged under “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” it costs $355 million for the government, so it’s ridiculous. It’s discriminatory, the president should have done it with a stroke of the pen and not be enforcing it,” he said. “I fault Republicans in the Senate because I think there was a breakthrough with some of the moderates who were willing to do the right thing and they’re unfortunately tied to the leadership.”

The focus of his potential campaign may be primarily directed at LGBT civil liberties, but Karger would challenge the other presidential candidates on a host of other issues if he qualifies for the nomination debates.

He could create headaches for current frontrunner Mitt Romney. “I fully embrace his Romneycare for Massachusetts,” Karger said when asked if he agrees with the former Massachusetts governor on any issues. Karger opposed the federal health-care reform bill but said he supports state-based systems such as the measure Romney shepherded through as governor, which was substantively the same as the national bill.

His policy views are certainly unique among Republican ideology. Karger, a longtime member of Republican Majority for Choice, is staunchly pro-choice.

“There are no moderate voices out there; there are no other possible potential candidates who are even pro-choice. Even some of the libertarians are not,” Karger said. “I think that is extremely important, a major Republican issue. To me keeping government out of people’s private lives, that’s a basic tenet of the Republican Party.”

Karger breaks ranks from the party platform on a number of other issues as well. He gives lip service to the general conservative principles of smaller government and a strong national defense, but when he is forced to discuss specifics, there are few moments where he would agree with the rest of the field’s stated positions. He opposes Obama’s troop expansion in Afghanistan and advocates for removing soldiers from the ground while using advance military technology from a distance instead.

If he were in the White House today, Karger would extend the Bush tax cuts for one year, but he is unsure what he would prefer in the long term (these comments were made prior to the deal reached between the Obama administration and Senate Republicans Monday night). However, he does not share the zeal of his fellow Republicans for tax cuts for the rich. “I’m not for giving tax relief to the super rich,” he says. As to Republican claims that the $250,000 annual income marker is too low to describe a family as rich, Karger said, “it’s not exactly middle class.”

As for what Karger would do to help stimulate the economy and restart jobs he only offers vague comments about being an optimistic figure in the White House who would encourage consumers to get out and spend money again. He would like to cut down on government bureaucracy, but is unable to name anything specific. “The issue area is newer to me,” he said, but explains that he has been meeting with experts in various fields to bolster his credentials while he is still in the “exploratory” phase of the campaign.

Karger’s willingness to admit when he does not have enough information is notably refreshing in a landscape where politicians are prepared to spin any question lobbed their way. But this very attribute that is charming in a one-on-one situation would damage any possible sense of legitimacy if it continued through presidential debate appearances. He could run circles around people speaking on LGBT civil rights issues, but the seasoned campaign veterans he would face have honed messages on any major policy points.

Beyond expanding his ability to respond to the issues of the day, Karger faces a number of challenges in order to be seen as a viable presidential candidate. However, his consulting experience may give him an edge in conducting a headline-grabbing campaign necessary to boost name recognition as an underdog candidate.

“I need to be creative and I need to do things very differently,” he said. Different is definitely one way to describe his strategy to date. His campaign hands out swag — including frisbees — that is covered with “Fred Who?” a direct acknowledgment of the fact that he is currently unrecognizable to voters. He has already begun running ads in New Hampshire and Iowa, likely far before any other candidate will enter the airwaves

“Normally, you’ve got to be a little cautious in a campaign, but when you’re a longshot you generally throw caution out the window; what do you have to lose?

“I got a lot of my inspiration on a lot of what I’ve done, like announcing [his possible candidacy] in New Orleans, like this [ad] from David Plouffe, because in that book he said we have nothing to lose so we took chances,” Karger said. Plouffe served as Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, and his book “The Audacity to Win” has been described by many as an instructive manual on how to wage an insurgent campaign (even Newt Gingrich gave the book credit recently).

Fundraising will be the largest hurdle to overcome for a Karger campaign to gain any traction. “That’s languishing, and I’ve not really asked, I’ve not done what I’m about to do. I wanted to wait until the midterms were over and now the holidays,” he sayid. “After the first of the year is when I’m going to start doing that. It’s my least favorite part of it. Again, I have to prove that I’m serious, because why would people contribute to what looks like Fred going around and riding in parades and doing all this.”

He has set his sights significantly below the figures other candidates are likely to spend, but his preliminary budget still requires a high sum. “It’s a modest budget by presidential candidates, but it is a hell of a lot of money, $5 or $6 million. But I can do my two state strategy initially and I can make a big impact.”

It’s now eminently clear that, despite some initial hesitation from GOP operatives, Republicans are not walking away from O’Donnell’s race in Delaware. Or, perhaps more accurately, despite the fear and loathing of many establishment Republicans, they’ve been proven powerless in containing the excitement among conservatives over the GOP’s latest insurgent candidate. The news will likely galvanize Democrats to pour more money into the race as well, meaning little Delaware might be poised to break some spending records this year.

The complaint — which The Atlantic’s Chris Good links to in full here — makes two claims, one of which is basic, the other a bit more complex. First, it argues that Tea Party Express and the O’Donnell campaign have engaged in message coordination over the outside group’s advertising. This is your basic “you can’t share strategy, messaging, or resources, etc.” kind of allegation.

Second, however, the complaint argues that Tea Party Express solicited donations that were specifically earmarked to support the O’Donnell race, and that such fundraising is illegal. The Delaware GOP is making this case by arguing that federal campaign law considers earmarked funds to be the same thing as contributions to a candidate, and that Tea Party Express therefore solicited individual contributions to the O’Donnell campaign that were in excess of contribution limits.

Because the Tea Party Express didn’t actually donate its earmarked funds to O’Donnell, my guess is that the FEC, especially in its current riven state, probably won’t agree with the Delaware GOP on this one. But if it does, Good notes that it’ll have a major impact on a number of outside groups, not just Tea Party Express, that engage in the same fundraising practices.

The main source of his power, however, is his prolific fundraising, and here’s where Politico buries the lead. The article calls him “uniquely adept” at soliciting big contributions, and notes that his “clout is also derived from his serious interest in running for president in 2012, a point he is making clear in private conversations.” But the principle cause for the RGA’s success is structural in nature, not personally related to Barbour at all:

Barbour has a huge advantage over Republicans in Washington when it comes to raising money. The RGA is a 527 organization, which unlike the RNC or the federal PACs, can raise money in unlimited sums from individuals and corporations, the latter of which have been barred since 2002 from giving to party committees. That’s enabled drug makers and energy companies, for example, to give millions to Barbour’s RGA.

If your group is allowed to raise millions from individual donors and corporations, while the national parties and their Senate and House committees must stick to strictly capped donations from individuals and PACs, it’s easy to see how you might come to be regarded as “uniquely adept” at fundraising — but hardly fair. To be sure, Barbour’s reputation for fundraising also tracks back to his successful chairmanship of the RNC in the 1990s, but that was before “soft money” donations to the national parties were banned in 2002.

Heck, I’m mortified when it comes to asking people for money but I imagine that even I could outperform the RNC with the comparative advantages the RGA currently enjoys. Nonetheless, Barbour’s success at the RGA is earning him front page profiles and bolstering his chances at making a credible run for the Republican nomination in 2012.