Although we won’t know for sure until mid-October’s campaign finance reporting deadline, it seems certain that Lenore “Miss Daisy” Broughton has spent at least a quarter-million dollars to boost the otherwise-somnolent conservative cause in Vermont through massive underwriting of the new superPAC, Vermonters First.

The Vermont media has made little effort to explore Broughton’s background, beyond a few cursory unreturned phone calls. She’s been identified as the backer of the defunct True North Radio and the still-breathing True North Reports, and as a generous donor to conservative political causes, but that’s about it.

We’re talking about a person who’s trying, single-handedly, to sway the course of this year’s campaign. And presumably establish a conservative force to be reckoned with in the future. (Possibly even taking over the nearly-bankrupt Vermont Republican Party, in fact.) You’d think that someone in the Vermont political media would take some time to delve more deeply into her background and intentions.

Especially since, even if you can’t afford a 24-hour stakeout at her home, it’s not that hard to find a decent quantity of information by spending a good hour with The Google. I didn’t find out anything about her professional life, or even a photograph; but I did get a fuller picture of her history as a political donor than has been reported anywhere else.

Topline: Over the past 15 years, she’s spent at least $2.5 million on conservative causes and politicians.

Details after the jump.  

According to Federal Elections Commission online records, she has given more than $500,000 to conservative politicians and political organizations over the past 20 years. The money went overwhelmingly to the far-right end of the political spectrum; pretty much all the usual Tea Party suspects are on her list. Allen West, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Richard Mourdock, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Tom Coburn, among many others. She’s also given at least $7,500 to the Right to Life PAC, and $15,000 to the Right to Work Committee PAC.

Those are her political contributions, some of which has been reported in the Vermont media. But there’s also something called the Broughton Fund, based in Chicago. Between 2001 and 2008, the Fund gave more than $1.7 million to ultra-conservative nonprofit organizations. Where did the money go?

In the early 2000s, there were plenty of donations to conservative Jewish causes, most notably around $200,000 for “Toward Tradition,” a group headed by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who’s been called the Christian Right’s favorite Jew because of his wholehearted support for its agenda. Toward Tradition was notoriously linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Most embarrassingly, Rabbi Lapin ginned up a bunch of fake “awards” for Abramoff, to help him gain membership in an exclusive private social club in Washington, D.C.

But enough about the good Rabbi. The Broughton Fund also gave lots of money to conservative educational organizations. She funneled hundreds of thousands into the Vermont Student Opportunity School Fund, which gives scholarship money to parents who wanted to send their kids to private schools or homeschool them.

Other notable gifts: a single infusion of nearly $300,000 into the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit whose goal is to “train conservative activists and leaders.” And $25,000 to the Bill of Rights Institute, which apparently produces archconservative “educational” materials on American history.

(Honestly, the stuff that qualifies for nonprofit status in America.)

The Broughton Fund’s activity came to an abrupt end after 2008. Over the last four years, it has continued to exist at a minimal level. A few thousand dollars in its accounts, and no donations.

Hmm. What happened at the end of 2008? Oh yes, Barack Obama won the Presidency.

Maybe that made her mad. From 2009 through the present, Broughton has spent her money on straight politics. No more nonprofits — not even partisan entities thinly disguised as nonprofits.

There’s a curious pattern to the Fund’s giving. For a year or two, it will focus its attention on a particular cause or single organization. After a year or two, it moves on to something else. Often, there’s a single large gift to an organization and nothing further. And, of course, she virtually abandoned the Fund in 2009. She seems to be a woman of serial enthusiasms.

Her latest, of course, is Vermonters First, headed by Tayt Brooks, International Man of Mystery. (I wonder if her other Young Republican rentboy, Rob Roper, is feeling any pangs of jealousy. After all, the crappy website he operates with her money, True North Reports, might soon be yesterday’s newspapers.) Her pattern of brief and generous enthusiasms might mean that she won’t be around for the long haul of Vermonters First — which would obviously not exist if it weren’t for her — but on the other hand, she certainly has the ideology and the deep pockets to keep it an active participant on our political scene.

She can clearly give it much greater resources than the bedraggled VTGOP itself.

Hint to Vermont political journalists: Miss Daisy may not be returning your phone calls, but she is associated with the Vermont chapter of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 movement, and she’s apparently even attended some of the group’s events.

Well, they have a Taxpayers’ Picnic coming up on Sunday October 7 at the Champlain Valley Expo. If you political reporters have nothing better to do, why not hang around the gathering? You might actually see the Sugar Momma of Vermont Conservatism in the flesh.

One other tip. The Broughton Fund’s President is Lenore Broughton. Its Vice President is John Camm Broughton, presumably a relative, and apparently a freelance photographer in Burlington. Maybe he’d answer a phone call, even if Lenore is feeling a bit shy these days.