The GOP Changes Candidates and Changes Strategies, But One Part of Its Failing Formula Never Changes: The Political Consultant Class That Profits Off Endless Losses

Victoria Marshall at The Federalist.

I'll say this about the Democrats: They would never put up with a cadre of failures like this.

For years, millions of dollars in grassroots donations have gone to prop up GOP candidates, only to end up in the pockets of the political consultant class. Back during the 2012 presidential election, 10 of the consulting firms behind the effort to get Mitt Romney to the White House grossed a combined $1 billion in the process. In the 2014 election cycle, the same consultants reaped more than $19.6 billion.

"Big money campaign consultants on the GOP side are in the business of losing," former Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp told The Federalist. "Investing in the ground game makes campaign consultants almost no money -- arguably it costs them money. On the other hand, hundreds of millions of ads put 10-15 percent of that total in hand of the media buyers/consultants -- and upwards of 30-50 percent of campaign mailers typically are profit."

In the 2020 election cycle, for example, four Republican House candidates in dead-end campaigns raised over $42 million combined but drew less than 30 percent of the vote in each of their races. A lot of that money went to pay consultants.

...

"When the incentive is on the money-making, it's time for Republicans to reexamine this consultant class establishment that's been running Republican Party politics," Huelskamp said.

Axiom, one of the top GOP consulting firms, grossed nearly $50 million this past federal election cycle -- despite having a success rate of only 55 percent in both the primaries and the general -- per the FEC.

In just one example, in Arizona's Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Blake Masters defeated Jim Lamon by a resounding 12 points -- after Lamon spent $13,829,274 on Axiom.

On the local level, Republican Lauren Davis ran for county judge in Dallas County, Texas. After spending more than $1 million -- roughly $600,000 of which went to Axiom -- she lost by 25 points.

Such bleak numbers are simply ignored by the political consulting class, which functions as a revolving door between congressional staff, GOP leadership PACs, and media consultants. Any Republican seeking higher office is immediately told which consulting firms and strategists he should hire within the GOP's insider network.

My dear departed friend Michael Flynn told me about this scam. If you run for office, you have to use the GOP insider network. You're forced to. Coerced to.

Because if you don't, the GOP insiders will tell other insiders to tell their donors not to donate to you and other vendors not to provide services to you. They'll starve you for money and make sure you lose -- unless you hire one of the incompetents from this guild, which ruthlessly enforces its right to do all political work for all GOP candidates.

And of course they all do this to make sure they all protect each other's phony-baloney jobs.

They make sure no one can enter this field, except through the guild system, which involves first being a useless office-worker hack in the GOP party structure. After you do your time as a useless GOP functionary, you get out and go into the field to make your real money as a consultant.

This is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And because it is the pot at the end of the rainbow, all of the people who have gone through the guild accreditation system are very, very insistent that no outsiders are permitted to work in this area, except other Certified Guild Incompetents.

If you haven't spent years learning to repeat "Diversity is our strength" and "Jobs Americans won't do" and "What's good for foreign investors is what's good for America" on command as a GOP party staffer, then you're just not allowed to be GOP political consultant.

And obviously, this system only accepts very liberal effete urban RINO cvcks, who vote Democrat whenever no one's looking.

I mean, half of the former permanent GOP political consultant class is on Twitter right now yelling "Vote Blue No Matter Who."

Back in 2013, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh characterized the GOP consultant class as a "very close-knit, closed group" who are "making filthy amounts of money -- $150 million a campaign -- whether the candidate wins or loses." And "they're all moderates. None of them are really conservative."

I think Rush was too charitable.

posted by Ace at 03:16 PM

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