WASHINGTON - A deep-pocketed casino mogul is pouring a $10 million infusion of cash into a group backing Mitt Romney's cause just as the Romney campaign makes its largest ad buy since becoming the all-but-certain GOP challenger to President Obama.Billionaire Sheldon Adelson made the $10 million contribution to Restore Our Future, an independent group running ads that support Romney's campaign, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. They spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday because they were not authorized to discuss Adelson's plans publicly
At the same time, Romney's campaign is spending $3.3 million to run television ads this week in seven battleground states. The ads began running Wednesday and will continue through the week in Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia, according to officials who track ad purchases.
Meanwhile, addressing about 100 executives at the Business Roundtable quarterly meeting in Washington on Wednesday, Romney urged business leaders to ignore Obama's appeals for another four years and focus on the nation's high rates of joblessness. He said Obama's rhetoric in an economic speech he will deliver Thursday in Ohio should not mask what he called a failed record.
"My own view is that he will speak eloquently, but that words are cheap, and that the record of an individual is the basis upon which you determine whether they should continue to hold on to their job," Romney said. "We have 23 million Americans that are out of work, or stopped looking for work or underemployed. That is a compelling and sad statistic. These are real people."
The candidates plan to give dueling speeches in Ohio on Thursday.
Romney will discuss the agenda he would pursue in the first 100 days of his administration, said senior campaign strategist Russ Schriefer. His plans include expanding the Keystone pipeline, cutting regulations and government spending, overhauling the tax code, and granting each state a wavier to allow states to opt-out of the federal health care law.
While Romney's team has run ads outlining what a Romney administration would do in its first days, his campaign largely left televised attacks to Restore Our Future and to Crossroads GPS, a conservative-leaning group tied to former President George W. Bush's longtime political director, Karl Rove. Both groups have been running negative ads against Obama in battleground states for several weeks.
Restore Our Future is staffed by former Romney advisers. The group has spent at least $46 million on ads backing the former Massachusetts governor during the Republican primary and since he emerged as Obama's presumptive challenger.
So far, the vast majority of independent groups have supported Republican candidates. Priorities USA Action, formed by former Obama White House staffers to promote Obama's reelection effort, has struggled to raise money and keep pace with its GOP-leaning counterparts.
Adelson and his family contributed $21 million to a super PAC promoting Newt Gingrich during the Republican nominating contest. Gingrich suspended his campaign last month and endorsed Romney.
Since then, Adelson has told associates he would continue contributing to Republican causes but would consider giving only to groups with nonprofit arms that are not required to disclose their donors. Restore Our Future runs such a nonprofit in addition to a super PAC that is required to disclose its donors. It was not immediately clear whether Adelson's contribution went to the super PAC or the nonprofit.
Adelson and his wife, Miriam, are among the most generous super PAC donors this election cycle, the first in which billionaires have a green light to give unlimited sums of cash to groups that support their favored candidates.