2012 mega-donors: Quit picking on us

And now some are pushing back hard against the attention, asking: Why us?

“This idea of giving public beatings has been around for a long time,” said Frank VanderSloot, a wealthy Idaho businessman who donated $1 million in corporate cash to the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney and says he’s raised between $2 million and $5 million for the Romney campaign.

VanderSloot, who is also a national finance co-chairman for Romney, was among eight major Romney donors singled out on an Obama campaign website last month as having “less-than-reputable records,” and he thinks the purpose is clear – intimidation.

“You go back to the Dark Ages when they put these people in the stocks or whatever they did, or publicly humiliated them as a deterrent to everybody else – watch this – watch what we do to the guy who did this.”