Campaign Finance II: Partisan Outside Groups

h/t Nick -- The Microsite B-Roll dodge:


(Same with Mitch)

Types of advocacy groups

Open Secrets article on outside money

On the Left

• The Democracy Alliance  
• (the mission statement)

The Right Wing:  CPAC exhibitors and sponsors



Before Bannon's excommunication and the withdrawal of the Mercers



The Mercers originally bankrolled Super PACs backing Cruz


GAI

Bannon (p. 156): "The modern economics of the newsroom don't support big investigative reporting staffs. You wouldn't get a Watergate, a Pentagon Papers today, because nobody can afford to let a reporter spend seven months on a story. We can. We're working as a support function."

Wynton Hall (p. 157):  “We live and die by the media. Every time we're launching a book, I'll build a battle map that literally breaks down by category every headline we're going to place, every op-ed Peter's going to publish. ... Getting our message embedded in mainstream outlets is what gets us the biggest blast radius."

Breitbart

Breitbart is at the heart of the conservative online media system

Russia helps, too.

From the Mueller report:

The IRA [Internet Research Agency, Russian troll farm in St. Petersberg] organized and promoted political rallies inside the United States while posing as U.S. grassroots activists. First, the IRA used one of its preexisting social media personas (Facebook groups and Twitter accounts, for example) to announce and promote the event. The
IRA then sent a large number of direct messages to followers of its social media account asking them to attend the event. From those who responded with interest in attending, the IRA then sought a U.S. person to serve as the event's coordinator. In most cases, the IRA account operator would tell the U.S. person that they personally could not attend the event due to some preexisting conflict or because they were somewhere else in the United States. The IRA then further promoted the event by contacting U.S. media about the event and directing them to speak with the coordinator. After the event, the IRA posted videos and photographs of the event to the IRA's social media accounts.


The Office identified dozens of U.S. rallies organized by the IRA. The earliest evidence of a rally was a "confederate rally" in November 2015. ... From June 2016 until the end of the presidential campaign, almost all of the U.S. rallies organized by the IRA focused on the U.S. election, often promoting the Trump Campaign and opposing the Clinton Campaign. Pro-Trump rallies included three in New York; a series of pro-Trump rallies in Florida in August 2016; and a series of pro-Trump rallies in October 2016 in Pennsylvania. The Florida rallies drew the attention of the Trump Campaign, which posted about the Miami rally on candidate Trump's Facebook account (as discussed below).

This ad, created in October 2016, targeted, people age 18 to 65+ interested in Christianity, Jesus, God, Ron Paul and media personalities such as Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Mike Savage, among other topics. | Democratic House members

Posted on: Facebook
Created: October 2016
Ad spend: 64 rubles ($1.10)

Ongoing Russian disinformation

Hertel-Fernandez & Skocpol

Across much of America, conservatives can mount powerful state legislative campaigns through three well-funded networks that operate as complements to one another. Think tanks affiliated with the State Policy Network (SPN) spew out studies and prepare op-eds and legislative testimony. Paid state directors and staffers installed by Americans for Prosperity (AFP)sponsor bus tours, convene rallies and public forums, run radio and television ads, send mailers, and spur activists to contact legislators. And inside the legislatures themselves, many representatives and senators, especially Republicans, are members of ALEC, which invites them to serve alongside business lobbyists and right-wing advocacy groups on national task forces that prepare “model” bills that the legislators can advance at the state and local level, with assistance from ALEC staffers.

Why it matters:  party control of state legislatures (resume later with PIG)

AND THE IRON LAW OF EMULATION CONTINUES...


Tom Steyer and The State Innovation Exchange