Kenneth P. Vogel
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/koch-brothers-2014-elections-102555.html#ixzz2rWLG6Pwc
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This year, the Kochs’ close
allies are rolling out a new, more integrated approach to politics.
That
includes wading into Republican primaries for the first time to ensure their
ideal candidates end up on the ticket, and also centralizing control of their network
to limit headache-inducing freelancing by affiliated operatives.
The shift is best
illustrated in the expansion of three pieces of the Koch political network
expected to be showcased or represented at the three-day meeting in Palm
Springs, whose evolving roles were described to POLITICO by several sources.
• Center for Shared
Services: a nonprofit recruiter and administrative support team for other
Koch-backed groups, which provides assistance with everything from scouting
office space to accounting to furniture and security.
• Freedom Partners: a
nonprofit hub that doled out $236 million in 2012 to an array of
conservative nonprofits that is now expanding its own operation so that it can
fulfill many of the functions of past grantees.
• Aegis Strategic: a
political consulting firm started last year by Koch-allied operatives who will
recruit, train and support candidates who espouse free-market philosophies like
those beloved by the Kochs, and will also work with nonprofit groups in the
Koch network, like Freedom Partners, with which it has a contract to provide
policy analysis.
The Koch network raised an
astounding $400 million in the run-up to 2012, spending much of
it assailing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. After the Election
Day letdown, the Kochs did an in-depth analysis to find out what went wrong
and what they could do better. Among the areas identified for improvement were
greater investments in grassroots organizing, better use of voter data and more
effective appeals to young and Hispanic voters, according to sources.
Still, the big question was
whether the donors who attend the conferences would keep stroking big checks or
scale back their efforts. There’s no way to measure that definitively, since
most of the groups in the network don’t disclose their finances regularly or
reveal their donors. Early indications, though, suggest enthusiasm is high.
Groups in the Koch network —
led by the brothers’ main political vehicle Americans for Prosperity — spent
$25 million between the summer and early this month on ads bashing
Democrats over Obamacare, which have been credited for hurting Democratic senators who are vulnerable in
2014.
James Davis, an official at
Freedom Partners told POLITICO that his group has expanded rapidly, “and we
expect to continue to grow.”
The 2014 potential of AfP,
Freedom Partners and the other groups in the network depends in large part on
the reception they get at this weekend’s gathering – the annual winter
installment in the Kochs’ long-running series of twice-a-year meetings.
Koch Industries spokesman Rob Tappan declined to comment on the Palm Springs
meeting, but the company’s website includes a statement describing
the events as bringing together “some of America’s greatest philanthropists and
most successful business leaders” to “discuss solutions to our most pressing
issues and strategies to promote policies that will help grow our economy,
foster free enterprise and create American jobs.”
Many of the right’s most
generous benefactors – folks like Minnesota media mogul Stan Hubbard, Wall
Street investor Ken Langone and Wyoming mutual fund guru Foster Friess – are
regulars. The gatherings, which attendees call “seminars” and are typically
held at tony resorts, routinely attract some of the top operatives and biggest
names in Republican politics, as well as rising stars tapped by the Kochs’
operatives.
The last seminar, held in August outside Albuquerque, N.M., drew
Rep. Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, New Mexico Gov. Susana
Martinez and Iowa state legislator Joni Ernst, who is running in a crowded GOP Senate primary.
The seminars typically
conclude with pledge sessions that can raise tens
of millions of dollars.
In 2012, that cash mostly went into a pair of non-profit conduits — Freedom
Partners and the Center to Protect Patient Rights — whose operatives then doled
it out to a range of nonprofits blessed by the Koch operation, including some
groups asked to make presentations to donors at the seminars.
But several sources
suggested that Freedom Partners’ growth and expansion into a more central
strategic role within the network means that the roles — and possibly funding —
of the Center to Protect Patient Rights and other groups in the network will
diminish. In other words, Freedom Partners will bring in-house many Koch
network functions that had been outsourced.
That could reduce the chances of a
repeat of situations like that which the Center to Protect Patient Rights and
one of its beneficiary nonprofits found themselves in California, where they paid
$1 million last year to settle an investigation into alleged campaign
finance violations. The settlement stipulated that the violation “was
inadvertent, or at worst negligent,” but the investigation brought unwanted
attention to the Kochs, who repeatedly stressed that they had no involvement in
the matter and distanced themselves from the operative who ran the
Center to Protect Patient Rights, Sean Noble, explaining that he was just a
consultant.
Freedom Partners, by
contrast, is run by Marc Short, a former Koch employee, and staffed by other
Koch loyalists, although Koch Industries issued
a statement saying the group “operates independently of Koch
Industries.” The group, established in November 2011, is technically a business
league, and its members pay at least $100,000 in annual dues. “Our membership
has grown out of concern that the administration’s policies are hurting Americans
by crippling businesses and our economy,”
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