The political action committees launched in November by John Bolton, former United Nations ambassador, have raised nearly $2 million so far, National Review reports.
The haul includes an impressive $1.1 million raised in the first quarter of 2014. As of Tuesday, the PAC had $318,000 cash on hand and the super PAC had over $1.1 million cash on hand. Though a good portion of the money came from top-dollar donors—Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus and conservative philanthropist Roger Hertog among them—over 7,000 small-dollar donors also contributed online and via direct mail. The group also boasts backers in all 50 states. […]
Bolton’s effort is symptomatic of a larger pushback within the Republican party against the war-weariness left over from the Bush years and an increasing skepticism of foreign entanglements among some of the party’s most outspoken politicians. In North Carolina, for example, the hawkish Emergency Committee for Israel is spending money to unseat Republican congressman Walter Jones, who has opposed increasing America’s presence in Afghanistan and strengthening sanctions against Iran.
Bolton said when he launched the initiative last November that he intended to test the hypothesis of many in the political class that "Americans don’t care about foreign policy."
