Sarah Palin Committee raised 733,000 dollars in six months

Washington, July 14 (ANI): Outgoing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's Political Action Committee raised almost 733,000 dollars during the first six months of 2009, out of which the fundraising committee had 450,000 dollars in cash on hand, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission.

"It was a great first half. Just to put it in perspective, we did it with one event and one e-mail from the governor back in February," Politico quoted Meghan Stapleton, a spokeswoman for Palin's PAC, as saying.

Stapleton noted that SarahPAC was actually "dark," meaning it took in no money, from a period in mid-April until early June as Palin focused on raising money for her legal-defense fund instead.

Palin has been hit with a series of ethics complaints since last year, allegations which she cited in her July 3 news conference announcing her resignation.

Stapleton said Palin has no plans yet for further fundraising and will not focus on that until after she has left governor's office next month.

Although Republicans hope that Palin will prove to be a campaign-finance ATM, but she hasn't exactly been a big fundraising help for them.

Since its formation in late January, SaraPAC appears to have made just two political contributions -5,000 dollars to Palin's 2008 running mate, Senator John McCain, and 5,000 dollars to Alaska's Republican senator Lisa Murkowski.

The majority of the money raised by SarahPAC, so far, has come in the form of donations less than 200 dollars each.

According to its FEC records, SarahPAC's biggest expenditure during the reporting period was 103,000 dollars it spent on EDonation.com, a Virginia-based firm that specializes in online fundraising.

When Palin leaves the governor's office at the end of the month, she'll be able to use SarahPAC to underwrite the cost of politically related travel and appearances, and to donate up to 10,000 dollars each to federal candidates. (ANI)