Opinion: Bunny Mellon gave John Edwards’ cause some chunk of change

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Ages ago, way back before this year’s Iowa caucuses, The Times’ Dan Morain wrote an article in this newspaper noting that a woman in her 90s called Rachel L. ‘Bunny’ Mellon had made a $495,000 donation to an independent campaign group that was supporting Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

Now that the official Jan. 31 fundraising report deadline has passed, the conscientious Morain went back to check the required campaign statements filed with the Internal Revenue Service. And, wow, the full scope of Bunny Mellon’s generous support for Edwards pops out at you.

She gave fully $3.48 million to the Alliance for a New America, which....

aired many television ads on behalf of the former senator during the primary campaigns.

Those donations by Mellon make her the second largest individual donor to such independent campaign groups during the entire calendar year of 2007. First place, of course, goes to liberal billionaire George Soros, who gave slightly more -- $3.5 million -- to the newly-formed Fund for America, which we wrote about here the other day. (UPDATE: Soros gave $3.5 million total to such funds, but $2.5 million went to the Fund for America and $1 million went to America Votes.)

Nick Baldick, a former Edwards aide who oversaw the group, declined to comment Monday on Mellon’s largesse. The Alliance for a New America raised money from organized labor, Mellon and a few other wealthy individuals. It’s no longer active.

The donation came from Mellon and her Oak Spring Farms LLC, the New York entity that holds Mellon’s pharmaceutical and banking fortune.

But until she delivered the $3.48 million to the Alliance and $4,600 to Edwards’ presidential campaign, she’d not been active in politics for a decade, and then gave only a token amount to an animal rights group.

Mellon’s immense gift came at a time when Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was criticizing the advertising and advocacy efforts by such independent campaign groups, known as 527s, for any candidate. Back then, an aide to Obama called the $495,000 gift ‘questionable.’

Imagine what they’d call it now, even with Edwards now being a former candidate as well as a former senator and trial lawyer.

-- Andrew Malcolm