Cloaked in Secrecy

After the 2012 election, Jordan was flush, frustrated, and looking for somewhere "fun" to spend his money. He found his opportunity when John Kerry vacated his Senate seat to become secretary of State. Republicans recruited Gabriel Gomez—a handsome 47-year-old former Navy SEAL who supported immigration reform, expanded background checks for gun buyers, and gay marriage—to run in a special election for the seat.

Gomez was exactly the kind of out-of-the-box candidate the GOP's elder statesmen had been demanding in the wake of the 2012 defeats. Yet weeks away from the June special election, it was only Democratic groups that had invested in the race, backing veteran Democratic Representative Edward Markey to the tune of millions. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers' network, and Crossroads all sat on the sidelines. "There was a lot more interest in navel-gazing and pouting about 2012," says Brad Todd, one of Gomez's advisers, who pleaded publicly for help. "Our donor base was guilty of not being willing to take its aspirin and get over its hangover."

But Jordan was watching closely. In early June, he asked Republican pollster John McLaughlin to survey the contest for him. The two had teamed up a few months earlier, along with conservative activist Dick Morris, on a poll of Hispanic-Americans about immigration. On June 4, McLaughlin went into the field, on Jordan's dime, and came back with the results the next day: Markey, 45 percent; Gomez, 44 percent. "It was winnable," McLaughlin says. Paperwork was filed that day, and a super PAC was born. "It was a rescue mission on the fly," Jordan says. "Four days before, five days before going on the air, I had no idea I was even going to do it."

Jordan quickly assembled a political team. McLaughlin would serve as pollster. Sheena Tahilramani, Rove's former chief of staff, would be his spokeswoman. Rick Wilson, a Florida-based strategist, would cut the ads. Cleta Mitchell, a prominent GOP lawyer, would handle legal matters. The group was given a deceptively non-Republican name: Americans for Progressive Action.

The date on the super-PAC filing was key. Because it came less than three weeks before Election Day, Jordan wouldn't have to be revealed as its funder until after the election. Jordan insists this was a "coincidence." "I'm not saying I was disappointed by it. And I'm not saying I wouldn't do it that way," he says now. "But in this case, it truly wasn't [intentional]." As for the Democratic-sounding name, he says, "Cleta Mitchell says you've got to have a name. I'm like, 'Oh, shit, I've got to think of a name.' … I thought of that in the shower."

Late-night conference calls were scheduled to go over the latest polling and statistics from the field. "We would be on the phone, midnight East Coast time, going through the data," McLaughlin says, "what was good, what was bad." Despite a blitz of Jordan-funded ads, the polls soon took a turn for the worse. Democrats were on the air, too, and the party faithful were coalescing behind their nominee. Markey had widened his lead by June 19, according to internal-polling results provided by McLaughlin. They canceled a final series of ads the weekend before the race, and Jordan refunded himself $273,000.