New groups that can raise unlimited cash are emerging as a powerful political force. | AP Photos The party's over

For decades the six national committees of the Democratic and Republican Parties dominated the American electoral landscape.

That era may be coming to an end.


New outside groups that can raise unlimited cash are encroaching on the money, functions and talent of the Big Six — creating a shadow party system of super PACs and linked nonprofit groups unrestrained by the political sensitivities and fundraising limits that moderate the parties’ activities.

“It used to be that the party committees were the dominant force, and now that influence has been diminished by the super PACs,” said Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and Democratic National Committee chairman. The outside groups, Rendell said, are “taking part of the responsibilities away from the parties and thereby diminishing the parties’ impact.”

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who helped run the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican National Committee, said the anatomy of the new groups — which mirrors that of the Big Six — is fueling the power shift.

“There’s no question that with the way we structure these super PACs, it will enormously diminish the role the committees play,” Cole said. “There’s a recognition that we don’t have the clout that we once had.”

The new groups emerged after two federal court rulings last year: One case called Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission cleared corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums in politics and another case led to the creation of the rapidly proliferating breed of political action committee known as super PACs.

Unlike the party committees, which are limited to donations of $30,800 a year from individuals, super PACs and nonprofit groups registered under section 501(c)4 of the Tax Code can accept unlimited contributions — some of which don’t even have to be disclosed.

This year, Republican super PACs and 501(c)4s are implementing plans to raise almost as much as the three August GOP committees.

Judging by their public goals and 2010 spending, the conservative shadow party groups that helped Republicans to landslide wins in the 2010 midterm elections are likely to spend at least $270 million almost entirely on advertising in the run-up to Election Day 2012.

And that doesn’t even include two new potential powerhouse outfits associated with House Republican leaders Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor that recently revealed plans to join the network with an exclusive focus on protecting the GOP House majority in 2012. A June FEC opinion further empowered super PACs by allowing officeholders and candidates to raise money for them (with some restrictions), and next week, 60 House Republicans plan to attend a kickoff for The Congressional Leadership Fund, one of the new House super PACs.

Democrats are scrambling to catch up in the outside money game, after largely sitting on the sidelines last cycle, while blasting the rise of the GOP unlimited money groups. But this year, Democrats with close ties to President Barack Obama and the party’s congressional leaders launched their own shadow party, with a series of super PACs and 501(c)4 nonprofit groups that replicate the division of labor of their party committees – the DNC, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“There’s been a paradigm shift as far as how campaigns are financed and run,” said Monica Dixon, a veteran Democratic operative running Majority PAC, a super PAC that — along with a linked 501(c)4 called Patriot Majority — raises money for the Democratic Senate candidates. “We set up a super PAC structure that mirrors the party committee structure, and that’s something that most of these donors understand. It works for people.”

Part of the appeal of super PACs to big donors, according to Tom Reynolds, a former NRCC chairman who is on the board of one of the new House GOP super PACs, is that they can be nimbler and more efficient than the heavily staffed party committees, which have to answer to members of Congress or elected committeemen.

And the outside groups are appealing to die-hard operatives, too, since they can spend big money on the types of hard-hitting ads that politicos love, but that can make candidates and committemen cringe.

“There are certain things that the super PAC organizations can do that the parties and candidate committees can’t,” said Rodell Mollineau, a top aide for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who left to run American Bridge, a super PAC and 501(c)4 opposition research outfit that’s already been dogging the GOP presidential candidates with embarrassing information and conflicting statements. “We can be more flexible in how we spend money, and we can sometimes be more aggressive than the candidate or a state party can be.”

Some of the top operatives and fundraisers on both sides of the aisle have joined the outside groups instead of the presidential campaigns or the party committees. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, arguably the GOP’s top fundraiser, recently decided to lend his talents to the Crossroads groups, which already boasted the deepest pockets in the GOP’s shadow infrastructure, while top Bill Clinton aides Paul Begala and Harold Ickes are raising for Crossroads’ Democratic analog, the Priorities USA groups.

Former NRCC political director Brian Walsh now runs both the House-focused American Action Network 501(c)4 and the Congressional Leadership Fund. Former NRCC independent ad director Carl Forti, described as “Karl Rove’s Karl Rove,” is political director at Crossroads and a deep-pocketed super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Bill Burton, a former Obama aide left the White House this year to form the Priorities groups, while former aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are working on Dixon’s group.

Publicly, the parties and outside groups are playing nice, asserting that their roles can complement one another perfectly — even though they’re legally barred from coordinating strategies.

But privately, there’s something of a competition brewing for top operatives, rainmakers, big donors — and credit. And it’s led to mounting resentment.

Operatives aligned with the outside groups grumble that the parties have slinked off to the sidelines, content to preserve their limited donations while letting the outside groups duke it out in the earned and paid media. And allies of the party committees — particularly on the Republican side, where the outside groups have been more active — complain that the outside groups are exaggerating their impact and making it harder for them to cultivate relationships with major donors.

“That’s a huge issue,” said Michael Steele, who served as RNC chairman through last year, as Bush-era GOP operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie were building the shadow party, which is anchored by the two-pronged flagship outfit comprised of American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies.

“Karl Rove and his crew — Ed Gillespie and a sitting member of the committee, former chairman Mike Duncan — form American Crossroads,” said Steele. “And where are they going to go to get some of that money from? They are going to go to the base that they’ve cultivated for the last 15 or 20 years and that largely rests in the base of the RNC,” Steele said, asserting that when he made calls soliciting cash from wealthy supporters, “I had donors tell me ‘I just had a call with so-and-so [from Crossroads] and they said not to give to the RNC.’”

Gillespie did not respond to a message, while Rove and Duncan referred questions to Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio, who said it’s not an either-or situation for donors.

“There’s no competition; a donor with capacity to give a million dollars to a super PAC can just as easily max out to three party committees and then give $900,000 to the super PAC,” he said. “Crossroads encourages major donors to max out to candidates and party committees first — and then give over and above to our efforts.”

In fact, many of the outside groups’ top donors and fundraisers also are donating to or helping the committees, including Rove, who hand-signed RNC appeals to nearly 600 top Bush fundraisers.

And party leaders on both sides of the aisle argue that the Big Six can do things the outside groups cannot, both because they have more robust staffs and because remaining legal restraints bar the shadow groups from selecting and training candidates, coordinating spending with their campaigns and driving out the vote in conjunction with local and state parties.

“I don’t think these super PACs will recruit. I don’t think that the super PACs will decide the kind of inside information that is necessary of how to talk to a candidate and prepare them for what’s ahead,” NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions told POLITICO in an interview on C-Span Newsmakers. “In a marketplace that changes so rapidly, it will be up to the committee and me to make sure we have top flight candidates, blue-chip candidates all across the country who are able to thoughtfully articulate what they’re after.”

The DNC will “work closely with many of [the outside groups] on our activities as appropriate,” said spokesman Brad Woodhouse. “But, like any campaign worth its salt, we have built the preeminent research, communications and rapid response operation to make sure we leave no stone unturned in our effort to elect the President and hold Republicans accountable.”

RNC spokesman Sean Spicer conceded the outside groups have more “resources to go up on the air.” Still, he said “we have the ground game covered. We have a built in infrastructure in every state, and we can coordinate directly with the candidates.”