When Mitt Romney raised between $6 million and $8 million last night, he had Spencer Zwick to thank for it. Zwick, who has been called Romney’s “sixth son,” is the campaign’s national finance chair and a close Romney aide of many years.
There’s no doubt he’s been successful at raising big money for Romney, and he’s being handsomely rewarded for it via fees to his company paid out from the money he helps bring in. Romney’s latest campaign finance reports show he paid almost $1.3 million last month to Zwick’s firm, SJZ LLC. The month before the same company earned $900,000 from the campaign, and the month before that $320,233. February was even better, netting almost $1.7 million. Overall, at least $8.5 million.
Zwick has benefited in other ways from his ties to Romney as well. He started a private equity fund with Romney’s son Tagg that got $10 million in start-up capital from Mitt and Ann Romney. To raise more money for the firm, he tapped the same donor network he used as Romney’s campaign finance chairman in 2008, and likely the same one he’s using now.
Between then and now, he was helping Romney’s leadership PAC, which was essentially the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign-in-waiting, earning several hundred thousand dollars. He also made a few thousand dollars consulting for the Republican National Committee during the 2008 cycle.
As Bloomberg Businessweek’s Lisa Lerer noted in her recent profile of Zwick, he’s been with Romney for a long time, serving as aide to Romney the Olympics chief, Romney the governor, and then the presidential candidate. He was Romney’s 2008 finance chairman at just 28 years old.
Earlier this month, when the Romney campaign announced a big fundraising haul, Zwick said, “Voters are making an investment because they believe that it will benefit the country.” It seems Romney’s campaign has invested in Zwick as well.
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