Where does campaign money go? To the political industrial complex, the consultant class, that's where....

..................................................................................................................................
Win at all costs: The political industrial complex wrings profits from democracy
By Dave Helling and Scott Canon, November 30, 2013

On July 14, a Sunday, Jeff Roe picked up the phone.

The high-profile political consultant had worked quietly with Kansas City’s business elite for weeks on a nervy plan to pay for breakthrough medical research.

One not-so-small hurdle stood in the way. The corner office guys needed to persuade Jackson County’s voters, in just 90 days, to support a half-cent sales tax hike for something called translational medicine.

It was doable, Roe told them. An early poll suggested support for the concept, but he’d need $1 million for a successful campaign. They didn’t blink.

So he started calling other consultants. Video makers and media buyers. A pollster. Public relations specialists. Graphic artists and direct mail wizards.

The political industrial complex rumbled to life.

Across America, the business of politics now channels up to $10 billion a year — much of it pocketed by the pros who conduct the polls, craft the ads, buy the airtime, spin the news releases.

They flourish at the intersection of democracy and capitalism, their influence both obscure and undeniable. And a growing number of critics claim the industry is a profit-first enterprise that can sully public discourse:

• Political professionals engineer often brutal campaigns that, win or lose, leave ever-shrinking room for compromise after Election Day.

• The consultant class cranks up the importance of money in campaigns that, win or lose, expand the influence donors hold over public policy — and may increase public cynicism about government.

• And eventually the techniques of winning campaigns can leak into government itself, distorting messages and handing authority to non-elected consultants.

“The consultant class has made campaigns more negative, more destructive and less filled with ideas,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich in an interview. “It’s bad for the system of the country.”

Writes Jill Lepore, a history professor at Harvard: “No single development has altered the workings of American democracy in the last century so much as political consulting. … Political consultants replaced party bosses as the wielders of political power gained not by votes but by money.”

Consultants fiercely resist the criticism. Their job, they insist, isn’t to create division and dysfunction, but to listen to candidates and voters.

That’s the only way to win, which is the only thing that matters.

“Anytime I lose a race, I pay a penalty, whether it’s lost business or lost reputation,” Roe said. “When you win, you’re a genius. When you lose, you’re an idiot.”

Aaron Trost, a consultant with the Kansas-based firm Singularis, agreed.

“Political consultants just want to win,” said Trost, who has several high-profile wins on his resume. “If you don’t win, you’re not going to be in business.”

But critics say gluing that capitalist incentive onto a campaign leads directly to polarized government.

“You scare people,” said Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group. “You stake out the most extreme position.”

Not all campaigns are negative, of course. The campaign for the health levy stayed largely upbeat for 16 weeks.

But the early emergence of an organized opposition to the tax clearly changed the cost calculus. By its end, Roe’s $1 million budget became $2 million.

Eventually, both sides would send a combined $3 million through the political industrial complex.

Win or lose, the complex gets paid.

[major snippage]

POWER BROKERS

Today, hiring a prominent consultant can mark a key turning point in a campaign.

It signals to the folks bankrolling election fights that a campaign is worth backing. It tells party brass that a candidate impressed the pros. It ties a campaign into a network that shares the latest talking points, databases and technical know-how.

“The parties have outsourced much of the technical expertise to their respective consultant classes,” said Brendan Nyhan, a government professor at Dartmouth College who has researched the role of political consultants.

They’re increasingly seen, and often see themselves, as the people who vet candidates early in a campaign cycle.

“They’re sort of kingmakers of their own sort,” said Jim Slattery, a Democrat and former congressman from Kansas who lost U.S. Senate and gubernatorial elections to Republicans.

Now more than 3,000 political consulting firms across the country, by some estimates, run everything from school bond elections to presidential campaigns. They’re networked to hundreds of polling firms, media buyers, ad production houses, direct mail specialists, fundraising advisers, phone bank operators and other businesses related to electing candidates.

In short, the political industrial complex.

[more major snippage]
..................................................................................................................................