How Republicans Raised a Political Iron Curtain Around 30 States

[hedda_foil]

Maybe we should start calling them the Koch Russiapublicans.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-republicans-raised-a-political-iron-curtain-around-30-states?ref=home

After Citizens United, essentially everything the GOP once did has now been privatized.

ELEANOR CLIFT
02.12.18 5:10 AM ET
Republicans have the edge in fundraising leading up to the November midterm elections, bolstered by small donors enthusiastic about President Trump and a stable of billionaires including the Koch Brothers, who just pledged $400 million to help Republicans retain power in Washington and across the country.

The disparity in funding is not unique to this cycle. The Republicans typically have more money. The bigger problem for Democrats is the extraordinary top-to-bottom organization that Republicans have built over time in 30 states while Democrats can point to a similar effort in just three: Colorado, Minnesota, and North Carolina.

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After the Citizens United decision in 2010 allowed donors like the Kochs to give unlimited amounts of money to party building, AFP became the GOP’s outside hub for everything from data analytics to candidate recruitment to get out-the-vote drives. Essentially everything the party once did is now privatized through AFP.

“What the Kochs did is nothing short of historic and the most extraordinary takeover of a party ever in a democracy,” says Stein.

It’s not the wall of money that has Democrats most worried, it’s the organizational skills that AFP has honed. “Democrats can endure having less money if they have strategic management within the states,” says Stein. Key groups for Democrats—Planned Parenthood, labor unions, and environmental groups mostly do their own thing while the right’s nonprofit, nonparty political machine, according to the Democracy Alliance report, “has become the most successful, and most powerful, political machine in American history.”

much more

[Initech]

1. Who needs Al Qaeda when you have AFP and the Heritage Foundation?

Those fuckers will do more damage to America than Osama bin Laden ever would or could!