Foster Friess: 'Contraception’s been very, very good to me'

Republican mega-donor Foster Friess on Friday pledged to support Rick Santorum for president again in 2016, but he also demonstrated he’s not quite over a contraception controversy that caused headaches for him and his candidate last year.

Widespread suggestions that Santorum and other socially conservative Republicans were prosecuting a “war on women” highlighted Democrats’ messaging superiority and willingness to treat politics as a “blood sport,” Friess told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

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“It took advantage of all the low-information women voters out there who just follow Joy Behar and had no idea that Rick Santorum and Mother Teresa believe that contraceptives are against the Catholic teaching,” Friess said. “But a lot of the women out there, they were — I guess, what’s the proper word I want to use? — they were seduced that this is a war on women.”

Friess, a pioneering mutual fund manager who retired to Wyoming with a net worth of several hundred million dollars, donated $1.7 million to super PACs supporting Santorum’s 2012 bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The cash played a pivotal role in launching and prolonging the former Pennsylvania senator’s cash-strapped campaign, which won surprising victories in key nominating contests during a primary battle with eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Friess also emerged as a prominent traveling surrogate for Santorum and became one of the faces of a new breed of big-money politics in which a single donor can essentially float a presidential campaign with unlimited contributions in outside groups, including super PACs.

But Friess also tripped up Santorum during the height of the primary with a television interview in which he was asked about whether the candidate’s conservative stances on contraception and other cultural issues could pose problems with general election voters.

“I get such a chuckle when these things come out,” he told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell. “And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly,” he said in a comment that dominated the news, forcing Santorum to disavow it and Friess to apologize.

On Friday, Friess said he had no regrets and planned to support Santorum if he ran again and to also support congressional candidates in 2014.

“Whether it’s a super PAC route or not, I have been blessed with wealth and, I believe, a responsibility to use it properly, and I think getting the correct people in office who believe in America and believe in the American dream so there can be more Steve Jobses and more Mark Zuckerbergs and more Foster Friesses,” he said.

But he also said Republicans need to rethink their tactics, suggesting there should be more investment in ground organizing and messaging.

“For President Obama to keep his offices open with paid people and paid staff for the last four years was brilliant,” Friess said.

Republicans need to act more forcefully to challenge liberal mischaracterizations of their stances, he added, citing Behar’s claim that Santorum “says he’s going to take [contraception] away” and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s claim that Friess and other conservatives are trying to roll back women’s rights, reproductive rights and privacy.

“Well, I have four kids,” Friess told reporters Friday. “They’re two years apart. And contraception’s been very, very good to me. My family is two years apart and so how the Democrats got away with this, I think is another indication of the flaw of the Republicans. No one confronted that. No one confronted that and said this is a bald-face demagoguery.”