THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And the Romney SuperPAC is already violating campaign finance laws. Not the obvious one about all the coordinating between the PAC and the campaign, but the one about third parties recycling candidate ads.

A Romney-supporting super PAC claimed this week that it did not violate federal election regulations against unlawful coordination when it recycled an official Romney campaign ad from 2007 — but a campaign finance watchdog tells Raw Story that they’re attempting to explain away a violation they’re not even accused of.

It’s not the coordination statutes their ad violates, but prohibitions against republication of official campaign materials, Campaign Legal Center attorney Paul S. Ryan said Friday.

Ryan’s group insists that what the Restore Our Future PAC has done is patently illegal, noting that federal regulations barring third party groups from re-using campaign materials are abundantly clear, and illustrate that the Restore Our Future PAC is flagrantly skirting the law.

The super PAC’s ad, released Thursday and set to air in two states, is virtually identical to an official ad put out by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2007. It features one of Romney’s former business partners, Robert Gay, recalling a story of how his daughter went missing and Romney shut down his entire company and hauled 50 employees to New York City to search for the girl.

A key difference between the ads in 2007 and today: the original ends with, “I’m Mitt Romney, and I approved this message,” while the 2012 version ends with, “Brought to you by Restore Our Future.”

Ryan told Raw Story that Federal Election Commission rules state “very clearly” that financing the republication of “any campaign materials prepared by a candidate or an agent of the candidate” is flatly outlawed. That’s even the case if they claim to have purchased the rights to the campaign materials from a third party, which is precisely what the super PAC claims to have done.

Laws are for little people, besides Mittens is friends with some NASCAR team owners.