The L.A. Times is reporting that a close friend and financial backer of Rudy Giuliani was the "mystery financer" of a GOP plot to split California's electoral votes, and make it easier for a Republican to win the 2008 presidential race.
He is New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. He said he provided the $175,000 to initially finance the petition drive to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot. But as The Times' Dan Morain revealed in an exclusive story on this website last night, the drive has foundered on internal disputes and lack of further financing.
The petition drive's backers had remained a mystery since the effort was first revealed here in a July Top of the Ticket item. Democratic critics portrayed it as a power grab to wrest away some of the state's electoral votes, which have all gone to the Democratic candidates for the past four presidential elections. Some 19 of the state's 53 congressional districts would seem likely to vote for a GOP presidential candidate, enough to swing some recent national elections.
A Giuliani campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said today that Singer's donation "was completely independent from our campaign."
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