(Photo: AP/Rainier Ehrhardt)
The newly bespectacled Rick Perry is facing an existential crisis in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. His foundering campaign committee has already gone broke and his super PAC supporters have taken the reins, essentially subsidizing his presidential bid until he can gain some much-needed momentum.
After his failed primary run in 2012, Perry went back to the drawing board and was rumored to be running again in 2016, long before most other candidates emerged. He hired prominent political consultants and went through rigorous policy-training in an attempt to distance himself from his perception as a bumbling George W. Bush part deux.
Pundits commended him and as the Republican primary landscape began to take shape, andmany saw him as a first-tier candidate. But as more and more candidates jumped into the ring, Perry struggled to distinguish himself, his polling numbers plummeted, and his campaign fell to a critical new low when he was edged out by Ohio Governor John Kasich for a spot in Fox News's headlining GOP debate. That dealt a huge blow to the Perry campaign's fundraising abilities-nobody wanted to donate to a candidate who is quite literally in the second tier.
Then last week, it became clear just how bad things were at Perry's Austin headquarters. Campaign Manager Jeff Miller told staffers that the campaign could no longer afford to pay them (most have agreed to stay on board as volunteers). Perry's campaign strategy relies heavily on strong performances in the next debate and in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, to catapult him to the front of the pack and attract a flood of campaign contributions.
Things are in much better shape for Perry, however, in our unlimited-contribution, super-PAC world. The trio of super PACs backing Perry-Opportunity and Freedom PAC and Opportunity and Freedom PACs I and II-are flush with cash, having raised around $17 million so far. The super PACs are largely propped up by millions in contributions from oil pipeline tycoon Kelcy Warren (who has contributed $6 million so far) and tech executive Darwin Deason (who has given $5 million).
While super-PAC operations typically spend their millions flooding the airwaves with attack ads, the
Perry super PACs will now be taking on new functions that, if successful, could set a troubling precedent for the way political campaigns operate.
"We saw this coming," said Austin Barbour, a senior adviser for Perry's super PACs. "We knew we would have to do more than just paid media and there's nothing in the playbook that says we can't do that."
"Things can work out great for him if we just be patient," Barbour added.
The super PACs will now pick up the slack with on-the-ground organizing in early states like Iowa, as well as with a broadened media strategy that includes positive ads. Essentially, while the actual Perry campaign scales down to a barebones operation, Opportunity and Freedom PAC will become a much more prominent player in political strategy.
This new development brings up some legal questions. Political candidates are barred by law from coordinating campaign strategy regarding "plans, projects, activities or needs," which ostensibly works to keep a barrier between the candidate campaign operations, which are limited to $2,700 individual contributions, and big-money-backed super PACs or dark-money-fueled political nonprofits. But it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Opportunity and Freedom does not coordinate in some way with the Perry campaign as it expands its strategic operations.
As The Texas Tribune has reported, questions have been raised about the amount of influence that big donors wield within the super PACs' strategies. However, Barbour says that he is acutely aware of the campaign coordination laws. "I am not going to put … myself, him or the campaign in a position like that," Barbour told the Tribune.
The Opportunity and Freedom PAC insists that current coordination laws are strong enough and that it fully abides by them. "It's pretty easy: Don't talk to and don't coordinate with the campaign. People tend to over-think this," spokesperson Jordan Russell told the Prospect. "We don't consult with the campaign. Never have, never will."
Others are skeptical about the super PAC's ability to toe the line. "The assumption I think, by the super PAC and the Perry campaign, is that the super PAC is going to do what the campaign did," says Larry Noble, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center and a former general counsel for the FEC. "How they're going to do that without coordinating is hard to see. Everyone just assumes they will be in communication."
But even if there were instances of campaign coordination, enforcement has been an issue for thetroubled Federal Elections Commission (FEC) ever since the Citizens United decision unleashed the floodgates of unlimited political spending. In a piercing admission in May, the FEC's chairwoman told The New York Times: "The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim. I never want to give up, but I'm not under any illusions. People think the FEC is dysfunctional. It's worse than dysfunctional."
Presidential candidates have grown increasingly brazen as they realize that there will be minimal repercussions for bending and breaking campaign-finance laws.
Watchdog groups have repeatedly urged the FEC to investigate candidates like Jeb Bush and Martin O'Malley, who worked directly with super PACs to raise money before officially announcing their candidacy. And while there's a 120-day cooling-off period before a campaign staffer can work for a super PAC, it's now common practice for super PACs to be run by former staffers or close political allies.
As Matea Gold has written for The Washington Post, FEC campaign-coordination rules leave plenty of wiggle room because outside groups and campaigns can communicate as long as it does not pertain specifically to strategy. But campaigns are also free to make public their strategic needs and leave it to outside groups to take the hint.
Hillary Clinton's campaign collaborates with the super PAC Correct the Record to handle oppositional research. The Carly Fiorina–aligned super PAC, CARLY for America, has essentially taken over all rapid-response and event-planning responsibilities. Jeb Bush and his Right to Rise super PAC-which has already raised over $100 million-have essentially agreed to split campaign functions.
Put simply, Gold writes: "Under Federal Election Commission rules, there is no wall dividing candidates and independent groups. In practice, it's more like a one-way mirror-with a telephone on each side for occasional calls."
Still, the news that Perry-supporting super PACs are taking on core campaign functions arguably signals the boldest move a candidate has taken in expanding the open relationship between a super PAC and a campaign committee.
"I don't think there's any precedent," says Larry Noble of the Campaign Legal Center. He, like many other FEC-watchers, is fairly certain that the FEC won't take any action on this latest expansion of super-PAC power. And if Opportunity and Freedom successfully brings Perry to the top of the GOP heap while his campaign is on life support, it will set a new benchmark for how campaigns are run. "The history of campaign-finance law is when the bar is lowered and they get away with it," Noble says. "Everybody starts feeling like they need to be doing it."
What that means is that the already-flimsy wall between candidates and the big-money billionaires who are pouring money into super-PAC coffers will effectively disintegrate.
If super PACs are doing more campaign-like activities, it makes sense that the billionaires who are funding those activities will have an outsized say in how they are carried out.
For Perry boosters Kelcy Warren and Darwin Deason, that means a greater ability to shape their candidates' agenda-and if their candidate is successful, more access to power once he's in office. It's easy to imagine what that agenda looks like-Darwin Deason's son Doug, who is actively involved in the Opportunity and Freedom PAC, penned an op-ed with his wife in The Dallas Morning News pledging their allegiance to the Koch Brothers. "We believe, as do Charles and David Koch, that America deserves better."
It remains to be seen if a wholesale strategic takeover by a super PAC is politically feasible. But the implications of such a move are tremendous for campaign finance in American elections. Given that every Republican candidate has at least one super PAC that can provide enough money to artificially prop up candidates like Rick Perry for longer than they would have been able to last on their own, outside spending will make the primary process a spectacle like we've never seen.
"If this becomes the new norm," Noble says,"that's the end of contribution limits."
