Factions and Election Strategy

Jaime Fuller writes at The Washington Post:

When it comes to electing Republicans, the two sides of the party aren't quite at odds, though. They just have different methods for achieving the same end. To reiterate the Conservative Victory Project logic for how to choose candidates: "we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.” Americans for Prosperity thinks the same thing — it tends to think less conservatively about how risky they can be with picking conservatives. In the race to replace Max Baucus in the Senate, Americans for Prosperity has spent $400,000 supporting Montana Representative Steve Daines, who has a considerable lead in the GOP primary. His opponent, Champ Edmunds, is staying in the race despite his long odds, because "Montanans deserve a conservative choice on the ballot ... Steve Daines votes are in line with establishment Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell." In the GOP primary for a senate seat in Texas, Americans for Prosperity has not thrown any money behind Steve Stockman, the representative who has called incumbent John Cornyn, who has a 94 percent rating from Americans for Prosperity, a raging liberal. The Koch's outside group has a good track record with knowing how much conservative they can get away with.

Crossroads: Fundraising in 2013, Suit Against FEC

Politico reports:

The trio of conservative groups headed up by GOP consultant Karl Rove pulled in a combined $6.1 million in 2013, according to numbers obtained by POLITICO.

The super PAC American Crossroads took in about $1.6 million in the second half of 2013, while the nonprofit Crossroads GPS raised $1.1 million. The super PAC alone has $2.7 million cash on hand going into 2014.

A third group — the super PAC Conservative Victory Project — did no independent fundraising, aside from a $10,000 transfer from American Crossroads.

It’s a major comedown from the 2012 presidential race, when American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS together raised a whopping $325 million and poured money into competitive Senate races and presidential battleground states.

Typically, donor interest is much lower in non-presidential cycles. The two Crossroads groups raised about $7o million in 2010 — though much of that poured in during the final months of the election.

The Washington Times reports:

Two campaign finance watchdog groups on Friday sued the Federal Election Commission over the panel’s decision to dismiss a complaint against the conservative Crossroads GPS, co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove.

The suit grows out of a 2010 FEC complaint filed by Public Citizen against Crossroads for what critics said was a failure to register as a political committee and disclose its donors, despite spending massive amounts on political advertising in the 2010 election cycle.

In a statement released Friday, Public Citizen and the Campaign Legal Center contend that Crossroads GPS fits the legal definition of a political committee — a group that receives or spends more than $1,000 during a calendar year to influence elections and whose major purpose is to support or oppose federal candidates.

The FEC commissioners deadlocked 3-3 along party lines on a vote in December over whether to investigate charges American Crossroads had violated guidelines for a “social welfare” organization by engaging in political activity.

Super PACs, Dark Money, Dark Money Mailboxes

Politico reports on new super PACs that got lots of attention but have raised little money.

Republicans for Immigration Reform, started by former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and GOP rainmaker Charlie Spies, launched with much fanfare at the end of 2012. Gutierrez described it as “something real that could have an impact on the outcome of the election,” and he was dubbed the “GOP’s pro-immigration moneyman.”

But by the end of June, the super PAC had brought in about $190,000 even though immigration has been a hot issue all year. It received contributions from some big-name donors, but like many other GOP super PACs, it ultimately brought in a not-so-impressive haul.

...

Republicans for Immigration Reform is still doing better than Rove’s Conservative Victory Project, which reported raising $5,660 — all of which was transferred from another Rove-affiliated super PAC American Crossroads.

Conservative Victory Project launched with a story in The New York Times, and its goal, to get involved in GOP primaries to make sure fringe candidates don’t make it to the general election, was criticized by tea party and right-wing groups for weeks and was expected to spark a civil war within the party.

Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for the group, says CVP hasn’t kicked off fundraising yet, but it’s started a discussion that will in itself serve the GOP. “The announcement sparked a critical conversation about the importance of candidate quality, which we believe will pay dividends in 2014 and beyond,” he said in an email.

The Center for Responsive Politics has gathered data on 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) groups:

Looking at overall spending reported to the IRS for the three-year period from 2009 to 2011, at least 27 dark-money groups active in the 2010 midterms reported election-year expenditures that were more than the combined total of the two off-years, 2009 and 2011. On average, during this three-year period, more than 70 percent of the groups' expenditures came during the election year.

...
Dark money mailboxes are nonprofits with no direct federal political spending of their own and no substantial programs, staff, or volunteers. A majority of the spending by these groups goes for grants to other politically active nonprofits. (CRP has detailed the activities of several dark money mailboxes in our Shadow Money Trail series.)

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From a practical standpoint, dark money mailboxes serve two purposes. First, they add another level of opacity in a system where the sources of funds that ultimately are spent on politics are already difficult or impossible to find. If the IRS were to investigate, say, the 60 Plus Association's sources of income, it would also have to investigate the provenance of the money given out by three of its largest donors: the Center to Protect Patient Rights, TC4 Trust and Free Enterprise America, two of which are now defunct.

Dark-money mailboxes have been tied to questionable activities around the country. In California, millions of dollars were funneled through a daisy chain of three nonprofits, including the Center to Protect Patient Rights, in what the California Fair Political Practices Commission called "campaign money laundering."

Also, dark money can be used to diminish the likelihood of IRS scrutiny. Large contributions from one individual or corporation can trigger an audit to evaluate whether or not the recipient organization is serving the financial interests of the donor, a major no-no in the 501(c) world. To get around this, a donor, or small set of donors, can establish a constellation of nonprofits that then channel contributions to the same ultimate destination.

Crossroads Fundraising

Byron Tau writes at Politico about Crossroads fundraising in the first half of 2013:

American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS and the Conservative Victory Project jointly posted a $3.37 million fundraising haul.

In the first six months of 2013, American Crossroads — the Rove-founded super PAC — raised $1.85 million, while Crossroads GPS — the 501(c)(4) nonprofit — raised $1.45 million.

The Conservative Victory Project — a super PAC founded to intervene on behalf of the most viable candidate in GOP primary fights — had no donors other than a few transfers from parent group American Crossroads. A person familiar with the group’s plans said that Conservative Victory Fund was still in a”start-up phase” and had not done any active fundraising.

The combined cash haul for all three groups is off from the group’s 2011 fundraising pace. At a similar point in 2011, American Crossroads alone posted a $3.3 million haul, while Crossroads GPS does not disclose its donors and is not required to file a mid-year report. The group could not immediately provide a mid-year 2011 total.

At USA Today, Fredreka Schouten adds:

"Our fundraising results so far are roughly comparable to where we were at this point in 2011, when you consider the absence of a presidential election this cycle," Collegio said in a statement. He said leaders have yet to "make any hard fundraising requests" this year of contributors, but said there's "growing donor enthusiasm" about winning control of the Senate.

American Crossroads' largest donation of the year — $1 million — came from Contran Corp. Its owner, Texas industrialist Harold Simmons, is a longtime Republican donor.

Another prominent Republican super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, also showed slower fundraising — collecting just shy of $600,000 from Jan. 1 through June 30. The group, which works to elect Republicans to the U.S. House, raised $11.3 million during the 2012 election cycle.

Rove Explains the Conservative Victory Project

At a NCPA luncheon in Dallas yesterday, Karl Rove spoke about the Conservative Victory Project.  The Dallas Morning News reports:

“We’ve given away at least five seats in the last two election cycles, maybe more, because of poor candidates,” Rove said. “Our donors said ‘we’re happy to write big checks, but we’re sick and tired of writing checks for campaign that can’t win.’”

But critics, including leaders of the anti-tax group Club for Growth, contend that Rove and the new group represent the Republican establishment’s effort to push out conservative, tea party candidates.

Rove, disagreed, saying American Crossroads had a strong record of funding tea party candidates and other conservatives.

“It’s not a question of ideology,” Rove said. “The quality of candidates matters.”
Rove mentioned missed opportunities last year to win Senate seats because of Republicans Todd Atkin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana as examples of why the Conservative Victory Project was needed. They both were sunk after making bizarre comments about women. Rove also cited Christine O’Donnell, the 2010 Senate nominee in Delaware, as a losing candidate that should have been vetted by Republican leaders.

“My posterior was shredded a little bit by donors wondering why we are writing checks for people who then turn around a run such lousy campaigns.”

Rove and American Crossroads were symbols of the awful year Republicans had nationally.
“Yeah, I’m personally responsible for it all, I tell you,” he joked as NCPA President and CEO John Goodman tossed him questions.

Conservative Victory Project and Donor Reassurance

Why did the Conservative Victory Project announce that it would try to prevent the nomination of Akin-style candidates?  Though some conservatives are angry, Michelle Cottle notes at the Daily Beast, the announcement does address widespread concern that party groups need to learn the lessons of 2012.

Rove’s donors were no exception to this trend, meaning he needed to do something to unruffle their feathers. Fast. “This is all about the donors,” says another veteran strategist. And what better way to make a statement to donors than to formulate a brand-new strategy and splash it across the front page of the paper of record? Message: lessons learned. Course correction set. “This is a follow-the-shiny-ball strategy,” the strategist argues. “It’s smart to get donors focused on the future, focused on a new mission right away as opposed to waiting.”

As for the backlash among purists, some political watchers assume this too is all part of the larger plan. How better to reassure anxious donors that their distaste for Akin-like candidates is shared than to poke a stick in the eye of the party’s anti-establishment forces—and, for good measure, to do so in the newspaper that symbolizes all that hard-core conservatives despise? Rove isn’t an idiot, Republicans point out. He may have simply calculated that it was worth the short-term beating in order to show his donors some love, and thus live to fight another day.