Andy Kroll

Reporter

Andy Kroll is Mother Jones' Dark Money reporter. He is based in the DC bureau. His work has also appeared at the Wall Street Journal, the Detroit News, Salon, and TomDispatch.com, where he's an associate editor. He can be reached at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. He tweets at @AndrewKroll.

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Mitch McConnell Will Fundraise With Billionaires After Saying the GOP Is Not The Party of Billionaires

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Mar. 18, 2013 8:19 AM PDT

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

On Friday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took a turn on the main stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the groupthinky annual confab for the young and old of the conservative movement. Dressed in a red tie and white-collared blue dress shirt, McConnell attempted to debunk one of the more pernicious myths about the Republican Party. "Don't tell me Republicans are the party of millionaires and billionaires," he said, "when Obama's campaign arm is charging a half-million dollars for a meeting over near the White House." The GOP, he later added, is "not beholden to any special interests."

We're not the party of the rich, McConnell insisted; we're you.

You won't find any objections here to McConnell's jab at "Obama's campaign arm"—a reference, more specifically, to Organizing for Action (OFA), the big-money nonprofit formed out of Obama's reelection campaign. I've written plenty about OFA and its fundraising tactics, namely, reportedly offering donors and fundraisers access to the president and top administration officials in exchange for big bucks.

But let's go back to McConnell's claim that the GOP is not the party of millionaires or billionaires. For a thorough debunking, I defer to none other than Mitch McConnell.

Next week, McConnell and his wife, former Labor secretary Elaine Chao, will fly to Palm Beach, Florida, for a fundraiser at the home of millionaire John Castle, according to the Palm Beach Daily News. Then, after the Castles' fundraiser, Wilbur Ross (net worth $2.6 billion) and his wife, Hilary, will wine and dine McConnell at their house, which is so extravagant that it has its own name, Windsong. (So does the guest house: Windsong Too.) Tickets range from $1,000 to $5,000 for the night's events; to co-chair the event, you've got to pony up $15,000 to $30,000.

McConnell, of course, is in full campaign mode—even though Election Day 2014 is 18 months away and Kentucky Democrats have yet to settle on a challenger. (More on that here.) Indeed, McConnell's fundraising blitz began the very day the 2012 campaign season ended, with a $2,500-a-head dinner hosted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Since then, he's raised money at the home of another billionaire—New York City mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, in January—raised money at lobbying firms, and raised money at an event sponsored by the political action committees for Koch Industries, Home Depot, Capitol One, Amgen, and Delta Airlines—all multibillion-dollar corporations.

Fundraising is McConnell's specialty. As former Sen. Alan Simpson once observed, "When he asked for money, his eyes would shine like diamonds. He obviously loved it." Don't think for a moment McConnell will let his defense of the GOP get in the way of his chase for millionaires' and billionaires' money.

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At CPAC, Sarah Palin Has Not Gotten Any Smarter Since Her Disastrous Political Career Ended

—By Andy Kroll

| Sat Mar. 16, 2013 11:15 AM PDT

Sarah Palin rocked a packed ballroom here at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday afternoon. The applause was roaring. The hollers many. The atmosphere crackling. In other words: Dog bites man.

Palin's speech, if you can call it that, was Palin at her most Palinesque: heavy on one-liners and folksy charm; light on, you know, anything resembling substance and solutions. Here, a sampling of Palin's many zingers:

"They talk about rebuilding the party. How about rebuilding the middle class?"

"They talk about rebuilding the GOP? How about restoring the trust of the people?"

"Let's be clear about one thing: We're not here to rebrand a party. We're here to rebuild a country."

"Barack Obama promised the most transparent administration ever. Barack Obama, you lie!"

"Mr. President, we admit it: You won! Now accept it and step away from the teleprompter and do your job."

"Remember no-drama Obama? Now it's all-drama Obama."

"More background checks? Dandy idea, Mr. President. Shoulda started with yours."

"[Obama] is considered a good politician—which is like saying Bernie Madoff was a good salesman."

"We're not here to put a fresh coat of rhetorical paint on our party."

"If you don't have a lobbyist in DC, you are not at the table, you are on the menu."

"Never before have our challenges been so big, and our leaders so small."

"My only advice to College Republicans is: You gotta be thinking Sam Adams, not drinking Sam Adams."

Imagine that for 30-plus minutes and you get the idea. I hesitate to call the above quotes "punchlines." Punchlines follow a wind-up of some kind, an anecdote or an argument. Palin's speech didn't have any of these. The one-liners were the speech.

The closest she came to making a point about the future direction of the fractured Republican Party was to say that "it's time to stop preaching to the choir," a piece of advice offered, as Jon Ward sagely tweeted, to the choir. The closest she came to tackling an issue of importance was to note that the median household income has declined by thousands of dollars since 2007 "even as we work longer and longer hours."

That's right! Also: Data! Economics! Here at Mother Jones, we, too, are concerned about this phenomenon of working longer while earning less. We call it "the Great Speedup." So go on, Sarah, tell us what we should do about the Great Speedup!

Instead, a few moments later, she told a joke having something to do with her "rack." Then she did this:

Dorsey Shaw/Buzzfeed

Yes, that's a Big Gulp. Palin was making a jab at New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's proposed ban on big sugary sodas, which was struck down in court this week. "Bloomberg's not around," Palin said. "Don't worry." And the crowd went wild.

Oh, Sarah. Don't ever change.

At CPAC 2013, FreedomWorks Is Nowhere to Be Found

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Mar. 15, 2013 12:26 PM PDT

FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe speaking at CPAC 2012.

As it does every year, the conservative movement has turned out en masse for the Conservative Political Action Conference, better known as CPAC, an annual Washington confab. Everyone's here: activists, operatives, Rand Paulites, politicians, Mitt Romney, think tank wonks, big-wig donors, fundraisers courting the big-wig donors, and so on. But there's one big name glaringly absent from the CPAC schedule: FreedomWorks.

FreedomWorks, in case you slept through the summer of 2010, is the liberty-loving, ostensibly grassroots outfit that fueled the tea party movement and helped elect a class of uncompromising, hard-line conservative politicians such as Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah). FreedomWorks has been a fixture at past CPACs: the group sponsored panel discussions and happy hours and film screenings, its staffers weighed in on "new media activism" and a constitutional amendment curbing government spending. In 2012, Kibbe spoke at CPAC's main stage.

Yet FreedomWorks is nowhere to be found at CPAC 2013, housed this year at the spacious Gaylord Convention Center at Maryland's National Harbor. No staffers are scheduled to speak. No events bear FreedomWorks' name as sponsor. FreedomWorks doesn't even have a booth in the vast exhibition hall here (nearly everyone else does, from the NRA and Citizens United to the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and the author of the book WTF? How Karl Rove and the Establishment Lost…Again). FreedomWorks' lively Twitter account is silent on the matter of the conservative movement's biggest event.

CPAC 2013 comes at a rough moment for FreedomWorks. As Mother Jones has reported, FreedomWorks' board of directors is divided over the direction of the organization, a conflict that burst into public view after ex-chairman Dick Armey resigned from the group last year. Several board members support Kibbe and vice president Adam Brandon, while others were Armey loyalists who believe that Kibbe used FreedomWorks resources for his own personal gain. For months, private investigators have been interviewing FreedomWorks employees and digging through the group's financial records at the behest of board members C. Boyden Gray and James Burnley. That investigation is ongoing, creating a tense atmosphere in the FreedomWorks offices. And the group's headaches got worse when my colleague David Corn revealed that FreedomWorks staffers had made a video depicting an intern wearing a fake panda suit pretending to give oral sex to someone posing as Hillary Clinton.

That turmoil may explain the group's absence at CPAC. I sent an email to Jackie Bodnar, FreedomWorks' spokeswoman, asking why FreedomWorks was MIA. She has yet to write back.

Will Big Donors Get Special Access to Obama? Group Still Won't Say

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Mar. 13, 2013 1:38 PM PDT

Organizing for Action, the pro-Obama nonprofit hoping to raise $50 million to mobilize Democratic supporters around the president's agenda, kicked off its "Founder's Summit" on Tuesday morning at the tony St. Regis Hotel near the White House. But as ex-Obama aides David Plouffe, Jim Messina, and others spoke of the need for volunteers and donors outside Washington to pressure Congress into action on gun control, immigration, and climate change, OFA itself is still dogged by reports that big donors to the group will gain special access to the president.

At the OFA summit, spokeswoman Katie Hogan said little to satisfy the group's critics. Hogan stressed that OFA's fundraising plans were still in flux, and she couldn't say definitively what the group's interactions with the Obama administration would look like or how the organization would evolve going forward. "I don't have a crystal ball," she told reporters before event began.

She did say that OFA's board meetings will be closed to the public or press. The group's main board of directors will reportedly include ex-Obama officials such as Messina, Plouffe, and former deputy campaign director Stephanie Cutter. However, it is OFA's "advisory board" that has drawn much of the criticism. That board, according to the New York Times, will consist of supporters who've donated or raised $500,000 or more, and who will receive quarterly meetings with the president.

Both the White House and Jim Messina have dismissed the notion that OFA is selling access, but neither have refuted the Times story. Reformers have blasted OFA for appearing to sell access to the president, and some have called on Obama to demand that OFA be shut down.

On Wednesday evening, Obama is scheduled to speak to the 50 or 60 volunteers, donors, and other supporters who are in DC for the OFA summit. That event will be open only to small pool of reporters assigned to follow the president, and most of the summit is closed to reporters and the public. It's a safe bet, though, that near the top of the organizers' agenda is a plan to raise $50 million to back Obama's second-term agenda. As Bloomberg reported, some big Democratic givers are still worn out from the campaign, when they were pressed to give time and again. OFA's tallest hurdle going forward may be donor fatigue.

In his own remarks, Plouffe offered an indirect rebuke to OFA's critics. "Just the notion that there's millions of Americans that want to be part of these debates that they've been closed off to in Washington, that in my mind is reason enough to march forward," he said. "This is something that should be celebrated, not criticized."

The White House Is for Sale Under Barack Obama, Too

Obama joins a long line of presidents to offer exclusive access for big bucks.

—By Andy Kroll

| Tue Mar. 12, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

On Wednesday night, at the swanky St. Regis Hotel three blocks north of the White House, President Barack Obama will schmooze with his biggest donors and most avid grassroots supporters at a "founder's summit" for Organizing for Action, the controversial pro-Obama nonprofit group. OFA will use the email lists, social networks, and cutting-edge technologies honed during Obama's reelection campaign to try to galvanize Americans in support of the president's second-term agenda.

[Read the full article]

Photo credits: Jackson, Wikimedia Commons; Harding, Wikimedia Commons; Johnson, Wikimedia Commons; Nixon, Wikimedia Commons; Carter, Wikimedia Commons; George HW Bush, Che qingjiu/Imaginechina/ZUMA Press; Clinton, Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com; George W. Bush, Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com.