Volunteer for Romney in Ohio found "no boots on the ground" in Cuyahoga County in Nov. 2012, "simply was not there:"
11/19/13, "A funny story about the Romney campaign," Rush Limbaugh transcript
"RUSH: This is Madeleine in Cleveland. Hi, Madeleine. Great to have you on the EIB Network...
Caller: I just wanted to say that I volunteered in 2004 as well as 2012 elections, and my statement is just that in Ohio we did not have boots on the ground. And, you know, I was there. I was in the trenches. I was in a little hole in the wall on Richmond Road, actually Governor Romney --
RUSH: What do you mean boots on the ground? You didn't have people getting the vote out --
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: -- phone banks, what do you mean?
CALLER: We didn't have it. It simply was not there.
RUSH: Well, now, wait. In Cleveland?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Well, maybe --
CALLER: And in Cuyahoga County. I was in Cuyahoga County.
RUSH: Could it be that Romney just wrote that off? I mean, isn't that a big --
CALLER: Probably.
RUSH: -- big blue county and city?
CALLER: Probably.
RUSH: That's a problem, but I mean that may be the reason they did it. 'Cause I hadn't heard that about all of Ohio.
CALLER: Well, and if you looked on the news, you know, which I did, I don't know about the youth vote. I understand what you and other people have said. Who knows. But at Ohio State
they had film of the young Republicans with a little tent, and
then juxtapose that image with another image of these huge buses with rock stars on them taking kids out, getting them food, and taking them to vote. I mean, we just looked at the difference, just banging our heads, like what is going on? And that was in Columbus. I don't know about the youth vote, but maybe you're right. But I have to tell you, there was a difference in 2004, even in Cuyahoga County, you know, there was a grassroots ground movement that was amazing for President Bush. And there was---
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: -- so much energy.
RUSH: Now, I don't doubt you at all, particularly in Cuyahoga County, Cleveland. I don't doubt you at all. But this statewide difference that you saw between Bush 2004 and Romney in 2012, what would you attribute it to? I mean, it's one thing for the party to get people out, but if people are energized, they don't need the party to get 'em out. You got people volunteering, they want to be involved. Sounds like that's what was not happening.
CALLER: I think that you had first McCain, you know, as a candidate, and then Romney. I sort of got to know Romney and got behind him and got behind the cause because I knew what Obama stood for was kind of scary as we're seeing because I'm a nurse, my husband's a doctor, okay, so we were really afraid of this whole Affordable Care Act thing.... You know, but remember, Obamacare is about insurance, not health care.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Okay, and control of the economy, a big portion of the economy. I think people have to remember that. We aren't even talking about health care, improving health care, or seeing who gets health care and who doesn't get health care yet. That's down the road. But I was also a volunteer for ORCA, which never happened. I think you mentioned it once on your show. It was this big computer program that was supposed to take place the night of elections around the country --
RUSH: Yeah. I think there was some overconfidence."...
===================
Comment: The Ohio caller to Rush Limbaugh's show was further confirmation if needed that both the RNC and Romney knowingly ran a sham in 2012. The truth is most GOP voters probably have no idea they were robbed and played for fools. Unfortunately it wasn't a topic Limbaugh wanted to pursue, even burying it under the misleading title, "A funny story about the Romney campaign." We heard endlessly about Romney's millions but it turns out he wouldn't spend them on the 2012 campaign. Romney even took time away from campaigning in the stretch to do more fundraising. The caller's statements are consistent with what has been reported about the Romney "campaign." The "campaign" was just a launch pad for Romney's real passion which is sabotaging conservatives.
=====================
Following are 7 citations relating to Romney, his campaign, and the RNC:
- Dec. 2012 Boston Globe
- Sept. 2012 Reuters
- June 2013 Salt Lake Tribune
- Dec. 2012 Atlantic Wire
- Feb. 2012 ABC News
- March 2013 Pat Caddell via Breitbart and
- Nov. 2012, Erick Erickson RedState on the small, incestuous GOP election machine.
=======================
"Obama had 123 offices in Ohio, compared with Romney’s 40....Ohio was the greatest surprise of all. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse calculated that 209,000 more African-Americans voted this year than in 2008 in Ohio, while 329,000 fewer whites had voted."...
12/22/12, “The story behind Mitt Romney’s loss in the presidential campaign to President Obama,” Boston Globe, Michael Kranish
"It was two weeks before Election Day when Mitt Romney’s political director signed a memo that all but ridiculed the notion that the Republican presidential nominee, with his “better ground game,” could lose the key state of Ohio or the election. The race is “unmistakably moving in Mitt Romney’s direction,” the memo said.
But the claims proved wildly off the mark, a fact embarrassingly underscored when the high-tech voter turnout system that Romney himself called “state of the art” crashed at the worst moment, on Election Day....
But a reconstruction by the Globe of how the campaign unfolded shows that Romney’s problems went deeper than is widely understood.
His campaign made a series of costly financial, strategic, and political mistakes that, in retrospect, all but assured the candidate’s defeat, given the revolutionary turnout tactics and tactical smarts of President Obama’s operation....
Rich Beeson, the Romney political director [and longtime GOP profiteer] who coauthored the now-discredited Ohio memo, said that only after the election did he realize what Obama was doing with so much manpower on the ground.
Obama had more than 3,000 paid workers nationwide, compared with
500 for Romney,
and hundreds of thousands of volunteers.
“Now I know what they were doing with all the staffs and offices,” Beeson said. “They were literally creating a one-to-one contact with voters,” something that Romney did not have the staff to match….
“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run,” said Tagg, who worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency. “If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention.”…
Building on its 2008 field organization, Obama’s campaign had far more people on the ground, for longer periods, and backed by better data. In Florida, for example, the Romney campaign said it had fewer than 200 staff members on the ground, a huge commitment of its total of 500 nationwide. But the Obama campaign had 770 staff in Florida out of 3,000 or so nationwide.
“They had more staff in Florida than we had in the country, and for longer,” said Romney adviser Ron Kaufman.
Indeed, in swing state after swing state, the Obama field team was much bigger than the Romney troops.
Obama had 123 offices in Ohio, compared with Romney’s 40.
Obama had 59 offices in Colorado, compared with Romney’s 15,
according to statistics compiled by the Obama campaign….
Obama’s field organization was too strong. In Florida, 266,000 more Hispanics voted than four years earlier. “They altered the face of the election by driving up the Latino turnout,” Romney political director Rich Beeson said. “They told us they would do it. I didn’t think they would do it, and they did.”
Ohio was the greatest surprise of all. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse calculated that 209,000 more African-Americans voted this year than in 2008 in Ohio, while 329,000 fewer whites had voted.
“I don’t know how that’s possible,” Newhouse said. “If that is what the Obama campaign achieved, hats off to them.’’
A key difference was the depth of voter contact. Romney took comfort in polls that showed voters had been contacted equally by both campaigns. But the polls were misleading, perhaps equating a recorded robocall on the phone with a house call by a worker.
“It wasn’t well understood what they were doing,” Newhouse said. “We asked the question in polls, ‘Have you been contacted by campaigns?’ Our overall contact was pretty similar. But their in-person contact was beating us by 3 to 2."
Kevin Madden, a longtime Romney confidant who served as a spokesman in the final months of the campaign, said that he regrets that the campaign did not adhere to what worked for Republicans in 2004, when George W. Bush won reelection with an innovative ground game."...
...............
========================
9/25/12, “Why doesn’t Mitt Romney contribute to his own campaign?” Reuters, Mark Waldman
“Lately, Mitt Romney has been so consumed with fundraising that his aides have had to defend his absence from the stump. Like his foe, the Republican nominee is in the midst of a frenzied financial arms race. But one hugely wealthy individual has not yet been persuaded to part with much cash to support the Republican cause: Mitt Romney himself.
Mitt Romney is hardly the first wealthy individual to seek the White House. John F. Kennedy once quipped he had received a telegram from his father: “Don’t buy another vote. I won’t pay for a landslide.” But Romney, for whatever reason, has failed to use his personal wealth to pay his campaign’s bills. His refusal to self-finance is one of the mysteries of this campaign.
After all, if Romney were to help fund his own bid, he would have ample company. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it would violate the First Amendment to limit what candidates can spend on their own behalf. Ever since, wealthy office-seekers commonly have ponied up. John Kerry lent more than $6 million to fund his Iowa caucus drive in 2003. Hillary Clinton lent her campaign over $11 million four years later. Steve Forbes gave his 1996 campaign $32 million, and spent nearly $37 million four years after that. Ross Perot spent $63 million to finish strongly in 1992, back when that was real money.
In fact, four years ago the former governor gave his own campaign nearly $45 million. He even donated a Winnebago trailer. “I’m not beholden to any particular group for getting me into this race or for getting me elected,” ABC News quoted him as saying. “My family, that’s the only one I’m really beholden to — they’re the ones who let their inheritance slip away, dollar by dollar.”
The Romney boys can sleep easy: Their dad’s assets are worth nearly $250 million, according to financial disclosure forms. But he has put only $150,000 into this year’s run, through a joint gift with his wife Ann to a Republican committee last spring.
Romney’s campaign surely could use the money. His summer fundraising was less robust than it appeared, since much of it was committed to party committees not controlled by him. His campaign borrowed $20 million as a “bridge” loan to keep ads on the air before the general election began. Even the super PACs have less on hand now than seemed likely just a few months ago.
His strategist Ed Gillespie bemoaned the time Romney must spend fundraising. “I don’t think anybody considers Utah to be on the target state list, but it was an important event for us,” he said of a recent fundraiser held in Salt Lake City, according to BuzzFeed.
So why Romney’s reticence? Maybe this is a classic “dog that didn’t bark,” where inaction tells us more about the candidate than he wants us to know.
It could be that the candidate is, as advertised, cheap. Recall that when his friends tried to “humanize” him at the Republican Convention, they reminisced that he invested in Staples because “he really got excited at the idea of saving a few cents on paper clips.” No doubt he finds such spending distasteful. He once bragged he had forced Senator Edward Kennedy to mortgage his home to hang on to his seat. For his part, he has fretted publicly that spending his own funds would be “akin to a nightmare.” Perhaps self-financing would violate his sense of privacy and self-reliance.
Also, his money may not be easy to access. We know that much of it is tied up in offshore accounts and complex tax-driven trusts. It seems unlikely that he could walk up to an ATM and walk away with $50 million in $20 bills.
Or perhaps he has made a political calculation. A large gift could open him to the charge he is trying to buy the presidency. That seems unlikely, though. Voters rarely hold such self-largess against politicians; just ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg....
To be clear, pity is not in order. Romney and the Republicans have plenty of money. But his reluctance must rankle some donors who are being asked to give substantial sums. As the campaign lunges toward the finish, more Republicans may start to ask how committed he is to winning the race if he won’t put his own money on the line.”
==========================
6/7/13, "Romney’s Utah summit urges post-partisan cooperation," Salt Lake Tribune, Thomas Burr
"Seven months after losing the election, Mitt Romney urged a gathering in Utah of the nation’s political bigwigs and top business leaders to step past partisan bickering and discuss solutions to some of the nation’s pressing problems.
In a closed-door forum this week in Park City, the former Republican presidential nominee listed the many concerns facing America — from its debt to its economic instability — and suggested to a bipartisan crowd that they use their influence to tackle them.
"He’s kind of showing the way he would have led
as president," son Josh Romney, a Utahn, told The Salt Lake Tribune
after the event Friday. "It showed the kind of person my dad is and what
kind of president he would have been, you know, [that] he would have
got past the personal stuff, past the petty stuff and take the real
issues head on."
The forum’s speakers included some of the political classes’ leading luminaries, including President Barack Obama’s top adviser, David Axelrod, and several potential White House Republican contenders, such as Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as well as Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.
The forum’s speakers included some of the political classes’ leading luminaries, including President Barack Obama’s top adviser, David Axelrod, and several potential White House Republican contenders, such as Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as well as Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.
The event was closed to the news media, though Josh Romney said there were about 200 attendees and a solid discussion of how folks from both sides of the aisle could find compromise."...
==========================
12/23/12, “Mitt’s Son Says He Never Wanted to be President Anyway,” Atlantic Wire, Connor Simpson
"So, yeah, that might explain why Mitt lost. Not wanting the job you need to publicly campaign for more than a year to get is step one in the “Not Getting Elected Guide for Dummies” book."...
========================
Romney explains his hatred and misunderstanding of conservatives:
2/28/12, “Romney, Acknowledging Mistakes, Says He Won’t Say ‘Outrageous’ Things to Win,” ABC News, The Note
“Mitt Romney vowed that he would not “light his hair on fire” just to rally the conservative base, even if it means not winning the GOP nomination.”…
.
.
==========================
“The 2010 takeover of Congress by the Republicans, Caddell said, “was not engineered by the Washington Republican establishment. They [the establishment] then took that victory and threw it away….
.
.
Pat
Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered
Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on
Wednesday with a blistering attack on “racketeering” Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like “marks.”
.
.
“I blame the donors who allow themselves to be played for marks. I blame the people in the grassroots for allowing themselves to be played for suckers....
.
.
It’s
time to stop being marks. It’s time to stop being suckers. It’s time
for you people to get real,” he told the audience that included two top
Republican consultants. Caddell stole the show as a panelist in the breakout session titled “Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?” ...
.
.
Breitbart News spoke with Caddell prior to his talk, and he promised
he would deliver a “brutal critique” of the Republican establishment and
its political consulting class. He did not disappoint, pulling no
punches with an unyielding evisceration of a small group of Republican consultants, the Romney campaign, the Republican National Committee, and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS Super PAC.
“When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the ‘fantastic’ get-out-the-vote program…some of this borders on RICO [the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] violations,” Caddell told the crowd. “It’s all self dealing going on. I think it works on the RICO thing. They’re in the business of lining their pockets.”
“The Republican Party,” Caddell continued, “is in the grips of what I call the CLEC–the consultant, lobbyist, and establishment complex.“ Caddell described CLEC as a self serving interconnected network of individuals and organizations interested in preserving their own power far more than they’re interested in winning elections.
“Just follow the money,” Caddell told a rapt audience. “It’s all there in the newspaper. The way it works is this–ever since we centralized politics in Washington, the House campaign committee and the Senate campaign committee, they decide who they think should run. You hire these people on the accredited list [they say to candidates] otherwise we won’t give you money. You hire my friend or else.”
Financial corruption is a key component of the current process, according to Caddell. “There’s money passing under the table on both parties. Don’t kid yourself…
If you can’t see racketeering in front of you, God save you.” As a Democrat, Caddell said he could tell the truth about the failings of the Republicans 2012 campaign efforts since “I have no interest in the Republican Party.” He compared Republicans unfavorably to Democrats.”In my party we play to win. We play for life and death. You people play for a different kind of agenda…Your party has no problem playing the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters.”
Caddell left no doubt he is not an admirer of Mitt Romney’s campaign management skills. He called Romney “the worst executive I’ve seen” when it comes to leading a political campaign. Romney’s failure to attack Obama’s Benghazi debacle during the foreign policy debate was “cravenness” that came about because his consultants told him “we don’t want to look warlike.”
Caddell also said Romney failed to back his campaign with his own money when it was most needed. ”My question for Romney is, you spent $45 million [of your own money] in your 2008 campaign where you didn’t have a chance. Why didn’t you give your campaign a loan in the spring instead of letting Obama define you?”
Romney, Caddell said, was not on top of his game when he failed to anticipate attacks based on his business career. “You didn’t know Bain was coming? Ted Kennedy used it against you.” Romney lost to Ted Kennedy in the 1994 Senate election in Massachusetts.
Caddell was equally caustic in his evaluation of the Republican consultants who managed Romney’s campaign. “Of course this election could have been won. It should have been won,“ he said. ”The Romney campaign was the worst campaign in my lifetime except for ninety minutes [in the first debate] thanks to Barack Obama.”
“There was a failure of strategy, a failure of tactics, a massive failure of messaging. Most of all there was a total failure of imagination.” Caddell singled out Stuart Stevens, a key figure in Romney’s campaign, in a particularly withering critique. “Stevens had as much business running a campaign as I do sprouting wings and flying out of this room,” he said to an audience that applauded.
Caddell said that Romney inexplicably allowed Obama to define him without fighting back. If Obama had a 50% favorable rating on election day, he had an 80% chance of winning. If he had a 45% favorable rating on election day, he had a 90% chance of losing. On election day, Obama’s favorable rating was 51% because, Caddell said, “Republicans failed to hold him down.”
“A majority of the people wanted to repeal Obamacare, [an issue that] the Republican Party abandoned,” Caddell noted. He added that “on the issue of bigger or smaller government, one-third of the people who want smaller government voted for Obama.”
Caddell criticized the RNC’s planned announcement on Monday of the RNC’s Growth and Opportunity Project report, which he dismissed as “this whitewash…being produced at the RNC. You can not have the people who failed responsible for finding the solution.”
Caddell predicted that the Republican Party, unless it became the anti-establishment, anti-Washington party, would become extinct, like the 19th century Whig Party. “These people [in the consulting-lobbying-establishment complex] are doing business for themselves. They are a part of the Washington establishment. These people don’t want to have change.”...
Caddell called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “the Ambrose Burnside of American politics.” Burnside was the commander of the Union’s Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. He was dismissed by Lincoln for his inability to press his advantage against the enemy, his plodding and unimaginative strategies, and his inability to focus resources on the tactics needed for victory.
Caddell cautioned Republicans not to read too much in the 2012 results where they maintained control of the House of Representatives. ”You won the House [in 2012] because of the reapportionment that came after the 2010 [Tea Party] victories,” he said. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), elected in 2010, and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), elected in 2012, had to fight this establishment at every step in the process and “claw their way” to electoral success, Caddell said.
When an audience member asked Caddell why he, a Democrat, was offering Republicans advice that would help them beat his own party, his response was met with huge applause. “I’m not a fan of Barack Obama,” Caddell said. “My first allegiance is to my country. I have paid a huge price, and when I watch you people screwing up I’m offended.””…
============================
11/28/12, "The Incestuous Bleeding of the Republican Party," Erick Erickson, RedState
"If money is the root of all evil, for the Republican Party evil is located on the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza, Alexandria, VA 22314.
Strip away the candidate and coalition and it is on the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza where the seeds of Mitt Romney’s ruin and the RNC’s get out the vote (GOTV) effort collapsed — bled to death by charlatan consultants making millions off the party, its donors, and the grassroots.
66 Canal Center Plaza is also why Jeff Larson, the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee, should not be put in charge of the autopsy of the GOP’s defeat. Multiple sources confirm to me that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has already put Larson in charge of the so called autopsy.
This is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza reveals a tangled web of incestuous relationships among Republican consultants who have made millions all while the GOP went down the tubes. Here the top party consultants waged war with conservative activists and here they waged war with the Democrats. On both fronts, they raked in millions along the way with a more fractured, minority party in their wake. And they show no signs of recognizing just how much a part of the problem they are.
According to a Lexis business search, the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza houses the following groups:
TargetPoint Consulting and WWP Strategies, two groups connected to Alexander and Katie Packer Gage, both received money from the Romney Campaign wherein Katie Packer Gage served as deputy campaign manager while also serving as a partner at WWP Strategies.
Katie Packer Gage’s husband, Alexander, is the CEO and founder of TargetPoint Consulting, which got money both from the Romney campaign and also from Restore Our Future, the Romney Super PAC. Also getting money from the Romney Super PAC was the Black Rock Group.
Carl Forti is a partner at the Black Rock Group, the political director of American Crossroads, and a senior strategist for Restore Our Future. He also has ties to the Romney campaign itself, having served as Political Director for Campaign 2008. Restore our Future not only gave money to TargetPoint Consulting, but also to the Black Rock Group. Carl Forti is also involved with Americans for Job Security and Crossroads Media does ad placement for that group too.
Karl Rove’s American Crossroads gave money to the Blackrock Group and to Crossroads Media. Michael Dubke is a partner of both.
But supposedly there was a great firewall, no inappropriate coordination, and we should all presume everything was kosher between Black Rock Group, TargetPoint Consulting, WWP Strategies, and Crossroads Media all sharing Suite 555.
The New York Times has a great graphic on these relationships.
Go down the hall to suite 501 and it becomes more problematic and gets to the heart of the problem with Jeff Larson. Suite 501 contains the offices of Targeted Victory.
Zac Moffatt, Mitt Romney’s Digital Director, is or was a part of Targeted Victory.
Targeted Victory, LLC operates from suite 501 of 66 Canal Center Plaza in Alexandria as a foreign limited liability company. Targeted Victory, LLC is actually a Minnesota limited liability company. In Virginia, its co-founder Michael Beach, is listed as its registered agent by the Virginia Secretary of State. It was formed on February 5, 2009, around the time Michael Beach left the RNC.
Targeted Victory, LLC’s registered office is 7300 Hudson Blvd, Suite 270, St. Paul, MN 55128. It’s manager, who is the person who controls the day to day operations of an LLC on behalf of its members, is Tony Feather.
Drum roll please — Tony Feather happens to also be the F in FLS Connect, LLC, which made millions off both the Romney campaign and the RNC.
The “L” in FLS Connect is Jeff Larson, the present Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee.
Curiously, the Virginia Secretary of State notes that FLS Connect, LLC uses a registered agent in Virginia Beach, VA, but is a foreign limited liability company just like Targeted Victory, LLC. More curious, its principal office is the same office in St. Paul, MN as Targeted Victory, LLC, but FLS Connect is actually an Arizona limited liability company.
Interestingly enough, the Virginia Secretary of State shows that FLS Connect, LLC registered in Virginia on August 13, 2009, and subsequently had its registration cancelled.
A search of the Arizona Corporation Commission shows that FLS Connect, LLC is a limited liability company in good standing located in Glendale, AZ. The Arizona Corporation Commission also lists two members: Tony Feather of St. Paul, MN, and, at the same address, Jeff Larson.
FLS Connect changed from Feather Hodges Larson & Synhorst, L.L.C. to FLS-DCI, L.L.C. on January 2, 2001, then to FLS, LLC on January 19, 2005, and finally to FLS Connect, LLC in May of 2006.
FLS Connect seems to control the RNC and controlled Team Romney to a degree.
FLS Connect was the phone vendor for Bush 2000, Bush-Cheney 2000, Bush-Cheney 2004, and McCain-Palin 2008. In 2008, the NRCC also sent a hefty chunk of money to FLS Connect.
During the Bush era, the Republican National Committee developed Voter Vault, a database used to identify and mobilize voters to the polls. At some point a parter at FLS Connect, Rich Beeson, went to work at the RNC as Political Director. Also, the RNC sold its Voter Vault data to FLS Connect and then leased that data back from FLS Connect. By the end of 2008 activists and others were complaining that the voter vault data was no longer very good.
Likewise, according to friends at the RNC at the time, Rich Beeson gave the RNC’s phone vendor contract to FLS Connect without bidding to others. The rate was not out of line, but it was a multi-million dollar contract to Rich Beeson’s former firm, FLS Connect.
Fast forward to 2012.
Rich Beeson moved from the RNC to the Romney Campaign as its Political Director. Jeff Larson moved from FLS Connect to the RNC.
FLS Connect continued to get business from the RNC and also got business from Team Romney. But now Targeted Victory enters the picture.
Targeted Victory, LLC’s principal office is the same office in St. Paul, MN that FLS Connect, LLC lists as its own principle office. Targeted Victory’s manager is Tony Feather, who is the F in FLS Connect.
Rich Beeson, who used to work for FLS Connect, is now with Team Romney and Team Romney awards a contract to Targeted Victory, LLC for its digital work with Zac Moffatt as Digital Director of the campaign.
Targeted Victory, LLC and FLS Connect, LLC rake in millions in commissions. The central component to Rich Beeson’s get out the vote operation is Project ORCA, which is headed by Zac Moffatt of Targeted Victory, LLC, whose principal office in Minnesota is shared by FLS Connect, LLC. As of October 26, 2012, Targeted Victory had been paid $64 million by Team Romney and FLS Connect had been paid $16.5 million.
And now the “L” in FLS Connect, Jeff Larson, will perform the autopsy on why Election Day and its related operations collapsed.
I bet I know which companies won’t be blamed."
================================
Among commenters who fell for the GOP/Romney scam:
"WarEagle01 •
I just can't believe I actually donated money to the Romney campaign. It was a scam from the beginning. If I ever ran into one of these "consultants" somewhere I think I'd probably kick him in jimmies and then take his wallet while he's doubled over in pain. That's how mad I am at these people."
================================= "stanleybix •
A
bunch of fat cats collecting/stealing high salaries under the guise of
actually working for the party! They couldn't gives less of a rats a$$
the results of the election. I talk politics to help influence my
friends and co-workers, but I would never commit ten cents to these
"Smiling thieves"!!"
“When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the ‘fantastic’ get-out-the-vote program…some of this borders on RICO [the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] violations,” Caddell told the crowd. “It’s all self dealing going on. I think it works on the RICO thing. They’re in the business of lining their pockets.”
“The Republican Party,” Caddell continued, “is in the grips of what I call the CLEC–the consultant, lobbyist, and establishment complex.“ Caddell described CLEC as a self serving interconnected network of individuals and organizations interested in preserving their own power far more than they’re interested in winning elections.
“Just follow the money,” Caddell told a rapt audience. “It’s all there in the newspaper. The way it works is this–ever since we centralized politics in Washington, the House campaign committee and the Senate campaign committee, they decide who they think should run. You hire these people on the accredited list [they say to candidates] otherwise we won’t give you money. You hire my friend or else.”
Financial corruption is a key component of the current process, according to Caddell. “There’s money passing under the table on both parties. Don’t kid yourself…
If you can’t see racketeering in front of you, God save you.” As a Democrat, Caddell said he could tell the truth about the failings of the Republicans 2012 campaign efforts since “I have no interest in the Republican Party.” He compared Republicans unfavorably to Democrats.”In my party we play to win. We play for life and death. You people play for a different kind of agenda…Your party has no problem playing the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters.”
Caddell left no doubt he is not an admirer of Mitt Romney’s campaign management skills. He called Romney “the worst executive I’ve seen” when it comes to leading a political campaign. Romney’s failure to attack Obama’s Benghazi debacle during the foreign policy debate was “cravenness” that came about because his consultants told him “we don’t want to look warlike.”
Caddell also said Romney failed to back his campaign with his own money when it was most needed. ”My question for Romney is, you spent $45 million [of your own money] in your 2008 campaign where you didn’t have a chance. Why didn’t you give your campaign a loan in the spring instead of letting Obama define you?”
Romney, Caddell said, was not on top of his game when he failed to anticipate attacks based on his business career. “You didn’t know Bain was coming? Ted Kennedy used it against you.” Romney lost to Ted Kennedy in the 1994 Senate election in Massachusetts.
Caddell was equally caustic in his evaluation of the Republican consultants who managed Romney’s campaign. “Of course this election could have been won. It should have been won,“ he said. ”The Romney campaign was the worst campaign in my lifetime except for ninety minutes [in the first debate] thanks to Barack Obama.”
“There was a failure of strategy, a failure of tactics, a massive failure of messaging. Most of all there was a total failure of imagination.” Caddell singled out Stuart Stevens, a key figure in Romney’s campaign, in a particularly withering critique. “Stevens had as much business running a campaign as I do sprouting wings and flying out of this room,” he said to an audience that applauded.
Caddell said that Romney inexplicably allowed Obama to define him without fighting back. If Obama had a 50% favorable rating on election day, he had an 80% chance of winning. If he had a 45% favorable rating on election day, he had a 90% chance of losing. On election day, Obama’s favorable rating was 51% because, Caddell said, “Republicans failed to hold him down.”
“A majority of the people wanted to repeal Obamacare, [an issue that] the Republican Party abandoned,” Caddell noted. He added that “on the issue of bigger or smaller government, one-third of the people who want smaller government voted for Obama.”
Caddell criticized the RNC’s planned announcement on Monday of the RNC’s Growth and Opportunity Project report, which he dismissed as “this whitewash…being produced at the RNC. You can not have the people who failed responsible for finding the solution.”
Caddell predicted that the Republican Party, unless it became the anti-establishment, anti-Washington party, would become extinct, like the 19th century Whig Party. “These people [in the consulting-lobbying-establishment complex] are doing business for themselves. They are a part of the Washington establishment. These people don’t want to have change.”...
Caddell called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “the Ambrose Burnside of American politics.” Burnside was the commander of the Union’s Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. He was dismissed by Lincoln for his inability to press his advantage against the enemy, his plodding and unimaginative strategies, and his inability to focus resources on the tactics needed for victory.
Caddell cautioned Republicans not to read too much in the 2012 results where they maintained control of the House of Representatives. ”You won the House [in 2012] because of the reapportionment that came after the 2010 [Tea Party] victories,” he said. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), elected in 2010, and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), elected in 2012, had to fight this establishment at every step in the process and “claw their way” to electoral success, Caddell said.
When an audience member asked Caddell why he, a Democrat, was offering Republicans advice that would help them beat his own party, his response was met with huge applause. “I’m not a fan of Barack Obama,” Caddell said. “My first allegiance is to my country. I have paid a huge price, and when I watch you people screwing up I’m offended.””…
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11/28/12, "The Incestuous Bleeding of the Republican Party," Erick Erickson, RedState
"If money is the root of all evil, for the Republican Party evil is located on the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza, Alexandria, VA 22314.
Strip away the candidate and coalition and it is on the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza where the seeds of Mitt Romney’s ruin and the RNC’s get out the vote (GOTV) effort collapsed — bled to death by charlatan consultants making millions off the party, its donors, and the grassroots.
66 Canal Center Plaza is also why Jeff Larson, the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee, should not be put in charge of the autopsy of the GOP’s defeat. Multiple sources confirm to me that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has already put Larson in charge of the so called autopsy.
This is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza reveals a tangled web of incestuous relationships among Republican consultants who have made millions all while the GOP went down the tubes. Here the top party consultants waged war with conservative activists and here they waged war with the Democrats. On both fronts, they raked in millions along the way with a more fractured, minority party in their wake. And they show no signs of recognizing just how much a part of the problem they are.
According to a Lexis business search, the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza houses the following groups:
- Crossroads Media
- Black Rock Group
- WWP Strategies
- Restore Our Future
- Targeted Victory
- DDC Advocacy/Blue Front Strategies
- Target Point Consulting
- Digital Franking
- Americans for Job Security
Suite 555
Suite 555 alone houses Black Rock Group, Crossroads Media, WWP Strategies, TargetPoint Consulting, and Americans for Job Security.TargetPoint Consulting and WWP Strategies, two groups connected to Alexander and Katie Packer Gage, both received money from the Romney Campaign wherein Katie Packer Gage served as deputy campaign manager while also serving as a partner at WWP Strategies.
Katie Packer Gage’s husband, Alexander, is the CEO and founder of TargetPoint Consulting, which got money both from the Romney campaign and also from Restore Our Future, the Romney Super PAC. Also getting money from the Romney Super PAC was the Black Rock Group.
Carl Forti is a partner at the Black Rock Group, the political director of American Crossroads, and a senior strategist for Restore Our Future. He also has ties to the Romney campaign itself, having served as Political Director for Campaign 2008. Restore our Future not only gave money to TargetPoint Consulting, but also to the Black Rock Group. Carl Forti is also involved with Americans for Job Security and Crossroads Media does ad placement for that group too.
Karl Rove’s American Crossroads gave money to the Blackrock Group and to Crossroads Media. Michael Dubke is a partner of both.
But supposedly there was a great firewall, no inappropriate coordination, and we should all presume everything was kosher between Black Rock Group, TargetPoint Consulting, WWP Strategies, and Crossroads Media all sharing Suite 555.
The New York Times has a great graphic on these relationships.
Go down the hall to suite 501 and it becomes more problematic and gets to the heart of the problem with Jeff Larson. Suite 501 contains the offices of Targeted Victory.
Zac Moffatt, Mitt Romney’s Digital Director, is or was a part of Targeted Victory.
Down the Rabbit Hole
To understand the problems, we need to go back in time. Michael Beach is a co-founder of Targeted Victory, LLC, as is Zac Moffatt. Before that, he was the National Victory Director for the Republican Party during the 2008 campaign.Targeted Victory, LLC operates from suite 501 of 66 Canal Center Plaza in Alexandria as a foreign limited liability company. Targeted Victory, LLC is actually a Minnesota limited liability company. In Virginia, its co-founder Michael Beach, is listed as its registered agent by the Virginia Secretary of State. It was formed on February 5, 2009, around the time Michael Beach left the RNC.
Targeted Victory, LLC’s registered office is 7300 Hudson Blvd, Suite 270, St. Paul, MN 55128. It’s manager, who is the person who controls the day to day operations of an LLC on behalf of its members, is Tony Feather.
Drum roll please — Tony Feather happens to also be the F in FLS Connect, LLC, which made millions off both the Romney campaign and the RNC.
The “L” in FLS Connect is Jeff Larson, the present Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee.
Curiously, the Virginia Secretary of State notes that FLS Connect, LLC uses a registered agent in Virginia Beach, VA, but is a foreign limited liability company just like Targeted Victory, LLC. More curious, its principal office is the same office in St. Paul, MN as Targeted Victory, LLC, but FLS Connect is actually an Arizona limited liability company.
Interestingly enough, the Virginia Secretary of State shows that FLS Connect, LLC registered in Virginia on August 13, 2009, and subsequently had its registration cancelled.
A search of the Arizona Corporation Commission shows that FLS Connect, LLC is a limited liability company in good standing located in Glendale, AZ. The Arizona Corporation Commission also lists two members: Tony Feather of St. Paul, MN, and, at the same address, Jeff Larson.
FLS Connect changed from Feather Hodges Larson & Synhorst, L.L.C. to FLS-DCI, L.L.C. on January 2, 2001, then to FLS, LLC on January 19, 2005, and finally to FLS Connect, LLC in May of 2006.
The Tangled Web of FLS Connect
Few want to talk about FLS Connect. One person I talked to said the group is commonly referred to as the “FLS Mafia.”FLS Connect seems to control the RNC and controlled Team Romney to a degree.
FLS Connect was the phone vendor for Bush 2000, Bush-Cheney 2000, Bush-Cheney 2004, and McCain-Palin 2008. In 2008, the NRCC also sent a hefty chunk of money to FLS Connect.
During the Bush era, the Republican National Committee developed Voter Vault, a database used to identify and mobilize voters to the polls. At some point a parter at FLS Connect, Rich Beeson, went to work at the RNC as Political Director. Also, the RNC sold its Voter Vault data to FLS Connect and then leased that data back from FLS Connect. By the end of 2008 activists and others were complaining that the voter vault data was no longer very good.
Likewise, according to friends at the RNC at the time, Rich Beeson gave the RNC’s phone vendor contract to FLS Connect without bidding to others. The rate was not out of line, but it was a multi-million dollar contract to Rich Beeson’s former firm, FLS Connect.
Fast forward to 2012.
Rich Beeson moved from the RNC to the Romney Campaign as its Political Director. Jeff Larson moved from FLS Connect to the RNC.
FLS Connect continued to get business from the RNC and also got business from Team Romney. But now Targeted Victory enters the picture.
Targeted Victory, LLC’s principal office is the same office in St. Paul, MN that FLS Connect, LLC lists as its own principle office. Targeted Victory’s manager is Tony Feather, who is the F in FLS Connect.
Rich Beeson, who used to work for FLS Connect, is now with Team Romney and Team Romney awards a contract to Targeted Victory, LLC for its digital work with Zac Moffatt as Digital Director of the campaign.
Targeted Victory, LLC and FLS Connect, LLC rake in millions in commissions. The central component to Rich Beeson’s get out the vote operation is Project ORCA, which is headed by Zac Moffatt of Targeted Victory, LLC, whose principal office in Minnesota is shared by FLS Connect, LLC. As of October 26, 2012, Targeted Victory had been paid $64 million by Team Romney and FLS Connect had been paid $16.5 million.
And now the “L” in FLS Connect, Jeff Larson, will perform the autopsy on why Election Day and its related operations collapsed.
I bet I know which companies won’t be blamed."
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Among commenters who fell for the GOP/Romney scam:
"WarEagle01 •
I just can't believe I actually donated money to the Romney campaign. It was a scam from the beginning. If I ever ran into one of these "consultants" somewhere I think I'd probably kick him in jimmies and then take his wallet while he's doubled over in pain. That's how mad I am at these people."
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