Romney spending big bucks in Utah

Another fund-raising strategist who did not return phone calls was Don Stirling, manager of Rainmaker Sports & Entertainment (where his partners are Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and Blake Roney, chairman of Nu Skin Enterprises.) Rainmaker was paid $75,000, or $15,000 a month for the past five months for "finance consulting," reports show.

Last year, Stirling created a national controversy when the Boston Globe newspaper received and published a leaked copy of an e-mail that Stirling had sent, while working directly for Romney's campaign, that raised questions about whether The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was helping raise funds and build support for Romney. Both the church and Romney campaign denied that was the case.

A group of Romney backers that included Stirling apparently went too far in seeking support from alumni of the LDS-owned Brigham Young University. They sought to use alumni lists from the BYU business management school to solicit support, giving the color of church support.

However, the church remains neutral in all political races, and Stirling and others had to back away from the BYU connection.

Spencer Zwick is Romney's campaign fund-raising staffer, a former Utahn who got to know Romney when he was his driver during the Salt Lake Olympics. Zwick has several connections to Utah, including his father, Elder W. Craig Zwick, a member of the LDS Church's First Quorum of the Seventy. Spencer Zwick did not return telephone calls for comment.

New strategies

One fund-raising strategist who returned a phone call was Max Farbman. He is a well-known political consultant/fund-raiser, used extensively by several Utah politicians, including former Gov. Mike Leavitt, who had Farbman basically run his extensive political action committees during his 11 years in office.

"I'm doing fund-raising strategies across the country, not just in Utah," Farbman said. "The vast majority of my work is outside the state."

Also willing to talk to the Morning News about a new Web tool — used both for fund raising and to help residents do grassroots political work — was Tricia McGarry. She was a vice president for mediaFORGE, which developed special Web software and services Romney is using. MediaFORGE just sold those operations to Cobalt Communications Group, of which McGarry is president and owner.

Romney had paid mediaFORGE $139,000 for services.