Remember the almost comically awful ad that a pro-Romney Super PAC with ties to Gary Bauer aired last week in North Carolina during the Democratic National Convention? Well, Mother Jones is reporting that its primary funding source has been identified:

Bauer’s super-PAC has raised a war chest of more than $750,000 this election cycle, and nearly two-thirds of that haul has come from a single, mysterious source: a generically-named company called Corporate Land Management, Inc., which has given the group $500,000 in donations. In the age of Citizens United, more and more donors have tried to obscure their giving by funneling their donations through hard-to-trace companies and LLCs. . .

Incorporation papers, however, identify the director of Corporate Land Management Inc. as Tim Horner. Horner is also the President of Premier Designs Inc., a jewelry company started by his parents that touts its philanthropy on behalf of Christian causes. The address for Corporate Land Management listed in records filed with the Federal Election Commission is the same as Premier Designs’. Horner has personally given almost $50,000 to Republican candidates and causes over the years, and he’s been a regular benefactor of Bauer’s, according to FEC records.

In addition to the Campaign for American Values, Bauer runs a PAC called the Campaign for Working Families, to which Horner has donated $29,500 since 2004. Horner also donated $1,000 to Bauer’s ill-fated run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. Mother Jones‘ calls to Premier Designs Inc. went unreturned.

Interesting. Also noteworthy is the fact that Bauer aimed his ad not at white Southern evangelicals, but at the base of the Democratic Party:

Bauer’s hope is to peel off religiously conservative, but politically liberal elements of Barack Obama’s base. “Significant portions of President Obama’s coalition reject a redefinition of marriage,” Bauer says. “I think it’s  worth reminding those voters that they may like him on other issues, but have they thought through what his election would mean on that particular issue?”

Seems like an exercise in futility to me — polls consistently show that jobs and the economy, not marriage equality, are voters’ primary concerns in this election. And unlike the base of the Republican Party, which seems to be motivated by an intense dislike of President Obama as opposed to a burning passion for Mitt Romney, Obama’s Democratic base appears to be pretty fired up about re-electing this pro-equality president. Looks like Bauer’s tragic attempt to use marriage equality as wedge to divide Democrats was a failure.