“A Political Party Of Their Own”: RNC Discovers A Problem With The Koch Brothers’ Operation
The more Charles and David Koch provided the resources for a massive political operation, the more it seemed as if the far-right billionaires were creating a political party of their own. The Kochs had an army of field organizers, blanketed the airwaves with political ads, and even had their own voter lists.
All of this, of course, raises important questions about the role of money in the political process, and just how much influence wealthy interests can wield in a democratic system. But as Yahoo News reports today, for the Republican National Committee, the Koch brothers’ power is raising very different kinds of questions.
The Yahoo News report notes, for example, that in the 2014 election cycle, the RNC and the Kochs’ operation struck a deal to share voter data, though the arrangement evaporated once the season came and went. Now, however, the two sides are sharply at odds, creating what one Republican operative described as “all-out war.”
Interviews with more than three dozen people, including top decision-makers in both camps, have revealed that the Kochs’ i360 platform for managing voter contacts – which is viewed by many as a superior, easier-to-use interface than what’s on offer from the RNC – is becoming increasingly popular among Republican campaigns.
The RNC is now openly arguing, however, that the Kochs’ political operation is trying to control the Republican Party’s master voter file, and to gain influence over – some even say control of – the GOP.
Katie Walsh, the RNC’s chief of staff, told Yahoo News, “I think it’s very dangerous and wrong to allow a group of very strong, well-financed individuals who have no accountability to anyone to have control over who gets access to the data when, why and how.”
I can appreciate why fights over data may seem like the ultimate in inside-baseball, but this is a fight worth paying close attention to.
Remember, for many modern campaigns, this data is the foundation for any successful endeavor. The more reliable and comprehensive the data, and the easier it is to use, the more effective the targeting, messaging, advertising, and grassroots organizing of any major campaign.
In this case, as one might expect, the Republican National Committee controls the Republican voter file, but the Kochs’ operation seems to have discovered that it really doesn’t need the Republican National Committee – the Kochs have their own platform to manage the data, and their own relationships with campaigns that want to make use of the data.
If that’s the case, some of you may be wondering why the Republican National Committee is needed at all – and you wouldn’t be the only one. From the Yahoo piece:
The core issue, from Priebus’ point of view, is one of loyalty and allegiance. The RNC is a permanent entity, committed to the Republican Party without question. The Koch network is too independent from the party to be trusted with possession of the GOP’s most valuable core assets. If the Kochs – whose political history is steeped more in libertarianism than it is in any loyalty to the Republican Party – decided next week to use their database to benefit only their massive multinational corporation, they could do so. […]
The Kochs’ political arm, Freedom Partners, which oversees i360, views the issue as one of capability. Koch aides – several of whom used to work at the RNC – want to win elections, and in their view the RNC has inherent challenges to helping the party win. Party committee fundraising is severely limited by federal election law, while building, maintaining and enriching a database is expensive.
The other angle to keep in mind is just how striking it is to see Republican officials discover their heretofore non-existent concerns about outside money and the political process. The RNC’s Katie Walsh didn’t even rely on anonymity – she straight up told Yahoo News, on the record, that she believes it’s “dangerous” to extend too much power to “well-financed individuals who have no accountability to anyone.”
Ya don’t say. We might want to think twice before turning over parts of the democratic process to unaccountable, wealthy players with their own agenda? I’ve heard similar concerns for many years, but I don’t recall them ever coming from RNC officials.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 11, 2015
“The ‘I Don’t Wanna’ Caucus”: Who The Hell Gave Republicans A Monopoly On Morality And Spending Of Public Dollars?
Of all the arguments put forth against everything from the Affordable Care Act to social safety net programs, the “I don’t want to pay for X” argument from the right has to be the most asinine. The upcoming decision on the Supreme Court’s King vs. Burwell case – which could yank subsidies out from under anyone using the federal health care exchange – is a prime example.
As Robert Schlesinger has pointed out, the lawsuit’s proponents are relying on a known falsehood about the intent of the law because they don’t want taxpayer support going to people who otherwise couldn’t afford health insurance. It’s “I Don’t Wanna” as a Supreme Court test case.
Newsflash to the right: I don’t want to pay for a lot of things either, starting with Exxon subsidies, Bush’s wars and the millions we paid to sociopaths to come up with torture techniques for the CIA. Who the hell gave you a monopoly on morality when it comes to spending public dollars? Do you think you’re the only ones who object to where our tax dollars go? Because if we only have to pay for the things of which we approve, I’ve got a long veto list.
The I Don’t Wanna Caucus is willfully oblivious to the fact that a whole lot of people pay for them, too. Texas is more than happy to accept Federal Emergency Management Agency money – they actually got more than any other state in 2011 and 2012 – at the same time Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deploys the state guard against an imaginary Obama takeover and sues the federal government over the environment and health care.
Here in Colorado, as the Colorado Springs Gazette has reported about its home of El Paso County, “The county is more dependent on federal money than most other places in Colorado and the nation … Federal spending accounts for one-third of the local economy.” Yet Colorado Springs would rather have its parks go brown and its streetlights fade than increase taxes locally to pay for them.
The I Don’t Wanna Caucus is not only ideologically hypocritical, it’s also irresponsible. The I Don’t Wanna Caucus of Colorado Senate Republicans killed our highly-successful program that slashed the teen birth and abortion rate by providing free long-acting reversible contraceptives to low-income women. Every $1 invested in the program saved the state $5.85 in Medicaid costs. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment estimates that the program could have saved Colorado $49 million to $111 million in Medicaid dollars per year in birth-related costs.
Likewise, insurance is cheaper than no insurance. People without insurance end up in the emergency room, where they have to be treated and where the cost shifts onto someone else. Guess who pays for that? People with insurance. But now, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, hospitals saved at least $7.4 billion in 2014, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
All of us have someone else paying for us in some form or another, through paved roads and clean drinking water and home mortgage tax deductions. Those of us without kids subsidize schools and teachers for other people’s children. Living in a civilized society means we all share in the cost and responsibility. Living in a civilized society also means we all pay for things we find morally objectionable – conservatives and liberals alike.
Because the alternative – the I Don’t Wanna Caucus – doesn’t belong in a first world country.
By: Laura Chapin, U. S. News and World Report, June 12, 2015
“Let’s Talk About What Makes Governing Harder”: The Problem Is One Political Party Catering To An Ever Decreasing Group Of Voters
By now almost everyone has weighed in on the article in the NYT by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman about Hillary Clinton’s strategy for winning the 2016 presidential election. Chuck Todd and his friends at First Read adopted the conventional wisdom of the Washington D.C. pundit class with their response titled: This is the Way to Win Elections (But it Makes Governing Harder).
Campaigns see an America more polarized than ever, and winning is all about coming out ahead in this polarized world. But it makes governing harder than it already was. Bottom line: Campaigns don’t engage in persuasion anymore. They simply look for unmotivated like-minded potential voters and find an issue to motivate them. And if someone wins office by not having to persuade a voter who actually swings between the two parties, there isn’t any motivation for said elected official to compromise.
Of course Ron Fournier joined that chorus immediately with his entry titled: The Right Way and Wrong Way to Win the Presidency.
My problem with this approach is that it works only until Election Day, when a polarizing, opportunistic candidate assumes the presidency with no standing to convert campaign promises into results.
Naturally, David Brooks agrees.
…this base mobilization strategy is a legislative disaster. If the next president hopes to pass any actual laws, he or she will have to create a bipartisan governing majority. That means building a center-out coalition, winning 60 reliable supporters in the Senate and some sort of majority in the House. If Clinton runs on an orthodox left-leaning, paint-by-numbers strategy, she’ll never be able to do this. She’ll live in the White House again, but she won’t be able to do much once she lives there.
This is a classic case of the media’s addiction to “both sides do it” as a way of explaining gridlock in Washington. It is a lie they tell themselves (and us) about what is going on in order to claim a false sense of balance in reporting to appease conservatives who constantly decry the “liberal media.” The fact that it is a lie matters less than their desire to prove that claim wrong.
So let’s take a moment to deal with the facts. As I pointed out before, the positions Hillary Clinton has articulated enjoy broad support among voters – including independents. In reacting to the same article, Steve M. dug up some of the actual numbers.
Americans support gay marriage by a 60%-37% margin, and 58% want the Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage nationwide — and Hillary’s is a “liberal position”? There’s 72% support for legalization of undocumented immigrants — and her position on immigration is too left-wing? And when I Google “bipartisan support for criminal justice reform,” one of the first hits is a post with precisely that title from, um, FreedomWorks — but Clinton’s out of the mainstream? Oh, please.
So if Clinton is talking about issues that enjoy 60-70% support from Americans, where is the polarization coming from? What stops elected officials from compromising to address their concerns? Do you suppose it has anything to do with a Republican Speaker of the House who finds it hard to even utter the word “compromise?”
Let’s take a close look at just one example to make the point: immigration reform. Typically Democrats have prioritized a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in this country while Republicans have prioritized border security. Not that long ago, a bi-partisan group of Senators got together to compromise by drafting a bill that included both priorities. With Democrats still in control of the Senate, it passed there. But Speaker Boehner refused to bring it up for a vote in the House. Part of Hillary Clinton’s agenda in her campaign is to support the Senate’s bi-partisan approach to immigration reform.
So let’s be clear about what makes governing harder: the problem is that we have one political party that is catering to an ever-decreasing group of voters that completely rejects any form of compromise to their agenda. When/if folks like Chuck Todd, Ron Fournier and David Brooks figure that one out – they will finally be able to start telling the American people the truth.
By: Nancy LeTournau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, June 9, 2015
“The Learning Curve For Bush Remains Steep”: The Problem With Jeb Bush’s Saber-Rattling
As promised, Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush delivered remarks in Berlin yesterday, and the former governor did exactly what he intended to do: he shook hands with Chancellor Angela Merkel, he avoided any obvious mistakes, and he lambasted Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But in his remarks, Bush also chided President Obama’s foreign policy in a way that’s worth considering in more detail:
“Ukraine, a sovereign European nation, must be permitted to choose its own path. Russia must respect the sovereignty of all of its neighbors. And who can doubt that Russia will do what it pleases if aggression goes unanswered?”
This is a standard argument in Republican circles. Putin’s aggression went “unanswered,” which only emboldened him and other bad actors around the world. It’s up to the White House to step up in situations like these, and Obama didn’t.
The problem, of course, is that the exact opposite is true. Obama didn’t allow Putin’s aggression to go unanswered; Obama acted quite quickly to impose tough economic sanctions on Russia, which have taken a real toll. Indeed, it was the U.S. president who rallied international allies to isolate Putin diplomatically and economically.
Bush may believe these actions weren’t enough, and he would have preferred to see more. Fine. But he then has a responsibility to tell U.S. voters now, before the election, what kind of additional steps he has in mind when confronting a rival like Russia. If economic and diplomatic pressure are insufficient, is Bush on board with a military confrontation?
(Incidentally, if Bush is looking for actual examples of the United States allowing Russian aggression to go unanswered, he might look at his brother’s inaction after conflict erupted between Russia and Georgia in 2008. He could also look at Reagan’s reaction to Russia killing 269 people, including an American congressman, by shooting down a civilian airliner.)
That’s what ultimately made Jeb Bush’s saber-rattling yesterday so underwhelming: it was largely hollow.
At one point yesterday, Jeb said U.S. training exercises in the region wasn’t “mean” enough. Really? What would a “mean” Bush foreign policy look like, exactly?
He added, “To deal with Putin, you need to deal from strength. He’s a bully, and bullies don’t – you enable bad behavior when you’re nuanced with a guy like that. I think just being clear – I’m not talking about being bellicose, but just saying, ‘These are the consequences of your actions.’”
So Bush envisions a “mean” policy lacking in “nuance” that delivers “consequences.” But he hasn’t explained in detail what such a policy might look like.
The Florida Republican’s first foray into foreign policy was in February, and at the time, it went quite poorly. Four months later, it seems the learning curve for Bush remains steep.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 10, 2015
“The Only ‘Marginal Behavior’ Is His”: Rush Limbaugh’s Finding Out He’s Not Normal, And It Scares Him
I am not normal.
This, I learned from a news story 35 years ago. The details have faded with the passage of time, but the gist of it remains clear. Some expert had crunched a bunch of numbers in search of the “average” human being, the planetary norm, and found that she was an 8-year-old Japanese girl, living in Tokyo. I don’t fit that profile; I’m willing to bet you don’t, either. So as a matter of statistical fact, I’m not “normal” and neither are you.
I’ve always found that story a useful corrective whenever I am tempted to declaim too haughtily on what is or isn’t normal. I offer it now to Rush Limbaugh in the vain hope it will help him rethink his assault last week on the woman who used to be Bruce Jenner. Granted, the story was about planetary norms and Limbaugh was ranting about American social norms, but the principle still applies.
As you doubtless know, Jenner’s transformation into a woman named Caitlyn has been quite controversial. She has been praised for her “courage” by President Obama and called “brave” by Ellen DeGeneres. At the other extreme, one David French, blogging for the National Review, dismissed her as a “surgically damaged man,” while a Matt Walsh on Glenn Beck’s website, The Blaze, called her a “mentally disordered man.”
And we have recently learned that, back in February, Mike Huckabee cracked about wishing he could have identified as female when he was in school so he could have showered with the girls. As inadvertently revealing as that “joke” feels, it is Limbaugh’s response that really helps us understand why those who are threatened by, and viscerally angry about, Jenner’s transformation, feel as they do.
As Caitlyn made her debut on the cover of Vanity Fair, the talk-show host fumed that Republicans should reject her, even though she identifies with the, ahem, big tent party. Liberals, he complained, are trying to “redefine normalcy.” He went on to say that nowadays, “conservatives and Republicans are the new weirdos, the new kooks, and that is part of the political objective here, in normalizing all of this really marginal behavior. I mean, if less than 1 percent of the population is engaging in it, it’s marginalized behavior; it isn’t normal.”
One might argue, citing Miles Davis, Steve Jobs, Rosa Parks, Stan Lee, Sally Ride, Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, and a thousand other rule breakers and innovators, that “normal” is overrated. But put that aside, take Limbaugh at his word, and the fear undergirding his complaint becomes plain. He and those like him look at Caitlyn Jenner and wonder: “If this is normal, what does that make me?”
It’s worth noting, in light of Limbaugh’s fears, that the country’s opinions on social issues like this are shifting, and not in his direction. Gallup recently reported that America is moving sharply left on the moral acceptability of everything from gay rights to stem cell research. I’m aware of no polling on Jenner’s transformation, but who would be surprised to find that there is widespread approval?
Not that freedom should be a popularity contest (most of us agree now that Jim Crow is wrong, but it was also wrong back when much of the country thought it was right), but it is better to have the wind behind you than against you. Ask Limbaugh, who now finds himself pushing against that wind and finding that the only “marginal behavior” here is his. That must be chilling to a man so obsessed with defining and defending “normalcy.” He should get used to it.
Because these days, what isn’t normal is the small minded need to stigmatize those who walk a different path through life. What isn’t normal is the bigot’s siren call to our basest and most baseless fears. What isn’t normal is hatred and terror of the new.
Poor Rush. It turns out that what isn’t “normal,” is him.
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist, The Miami Herald; The National Memo, June 8, 2015
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