NEWS FLASH!!! RNC ACQUIRED BY KOCH BROTHERS!!

…Charles & David Koch

I guess since the Citizens-United decision, it was just a matter of time.

 

Well, for most of those that follow politics, I have been saying for years that fewer and fewer Americans are identifying themselves as Republicans.  In addition, the GOP has been admitting for years that their party is shrinking and today mostly consists of older, white Southerners.

Well, now it’s appearing that the infamous billionaire Koch Brothers are taking their millions and using that money for taking over the Republican Party for themselves.

As the saying goes, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, The Washington Post made it clear that the Brothers Grimm have now launched a conservative ground game modeled on both of President Obama’s two presidential campaigns.

The Koch’s have recently hired over 1,000 staffers that are already at work across the country attempting to persuade voters to support them in must-win states like Florida, Ohio and Colorado.

The Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus has called the Koch’s efforts a “huge help”, but the reality is that the Koch’s are building their own political party out of the almost defunct GOP, using what is estimated as nearly $1 billion in secret donations.

Republicans that are aware of these efforts have said they think that if they win in 2016, it will be by stealing Obama’s playbook.

But the Democrats think they still have the advantage that the Republicans will never have for themselves.  They’re advantage is the power of the vast Democratic grassroots organization.  And the Dems organization is mostly with volunteers, not people on a payroll.  I guess we’ll be seeing who’s right in 2016.

But, what has actually happened is that through the efforts of these two billionaire oil titans, one Republican operative (that has asked to not be identified) has said that there is “an all-out war over who will control the party going forward”.

For weeks now, through their organization called Freedom Partners, the Koch’s have systematically been putting a ground force in places across the nation to build their own sophisticated database.  A database that the Koch’s will allow Republican candidates, such as their favorite candidate, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, (but not Donald Trump), to use for the 2016 election.

Rightfully, RNC Chairman Priebus first became alarmed in learning all this, as that valuable information is not being held and controlled by the RNC. That, and per of Katie Walsh, the RNC's chief of staff, "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."

But with all these strong-arm, well financed efforts by the Koch’s, it appears that the RNC has given up the fight.

The noise and rhetoric between the brothers and the RNC have since ratcheted down.  And last week, i360 (the name of the Koch data group) and Data Trust (the RNC data group), signed a deal to share data for the 2016 election cycle.

The RNC is working hard to put a “smiley face” on the deal as Ms. Walsh now tells The Washington Post, "I do think there's a value to making sure we're all working together to ensure that we’re doing things efficiently and effectively. We appreciate everything the Kochs are doing, and it's a huge help. But at the end of the day, our focus is making sure that the voter file and the field staff are ready for the [eventual] nominee."

But the Koch’s Freedom Partners is not looking to help the RNC.  Their focus is on expanding its own reach.  One of their top priorities is to improve data analytics and field tactics. This coming election cycle, the i360 network plans to continue a series of experiments it began in 2014.  At the time, they tested how different combinations of voter-outreach methods, including door-knocking, phone calls and television ads swayed the voters.

This is the kind of long-term work that national political parties usually do.  And this will be very long term, as Marc Short, president of Freedom Partners, told The Washington Post. They intend to mirror what President Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns did in organizing, but they intend to make it a permanent operation for Republican candidates.

In addition, Freedom Partners plans on hanging on to the operation for well beyond 2016.

Therefore, for Mr. Priebus and the RNC, it appears that the Koch Brother’s intention is to make the latest signed deal between the two data groups to actually be the official acquisition of the RNC by the Koch financed Freedom Partners.

I wonder if the brothers are planning on changing the name of the RNC?  Hmmmm….

Copyright G.Ater  2015