Rove-backed super PAC snags $2-million donation

American Crossroads, the conservative super PAC co-founded by Karl Rove, pulled in $2.6 million in less than two months, fueled in large part by a single mega-donor.

The group now has more than $5.6 million cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

All told, American Crossroads and affiliated group Crossroads GPS -- a nonprofit 501(c)4 that does not have to disclose its donors -- have raised nearly $25 million through Aug. 31, spokesman Jonathan Collegio said.

As a super PAC, American Crossroads can accept unlimited donations from individuals, labor unions and corporations, and most of the money raised this time came from a single giant check: $2 million from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry. Perry, who gave an additional $500,000 to the group earlier in the year, is the single largest donor to super PACs so far this election cycle.

That’s standard for Perry (no relation to Texas Gov. Rick Perry), whose deep pockets have long subsidized Republican candidates and causes. He earned notoriety in political circles as one of the primary funders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign that aired attack ads against Sen. John Kerry in 2004. In the 2010 election cycle, he gave $7 million to American Crossroads and another $7.5 million to the Republican Governors Assn.

Perry is the latest entrant to American Crossroad’s six-figure club. Jerry Perenchio, former CEO of Univision, gave $2 million to the group in April and Dallas businessman Robert Rowling kicked in $1 million in May.

Also noteworthy on the most recent donor list is Ken Griffin, a Chicago-based hedge fund manager who was a major fundraiser for President Obama’s 2008 campaign. Since then, he has voiced frustration with government spending in the Obama administration.

Griffin declined to comment on his plans for political giving in 2012 when contacted by The Times earlier in the summer. But his $300,000 donation to American Crossroads, given at the height of the debt ceiling crisis on Aug. 1, might provide more fodder to the perception that the finance industry has cooled on Obama.