WASHINGTON — No matter what happens on Election Day, it’s already clear the 2012 campaign has ushered in a new political order.
Super PACs and tax-exempt advocacy groups — on track to spend roughly $1 billion on federal races, an unparalleled sum — are poised to expand their influence even further.
Amid the white-hot final weeks of this election, outside groups are already plotting their next targets: the year-end battle over the federal budget, the 2014 congressional races and a possible fight over the next Supreme Court nominee.
“Our goal was to build an enduring institution on the conservative side to counter the outsized power of organized labor on behalf of Democratic causes and candidates,” said Steven Law, president of the super PAC American Crossroads and its nonprofit sister, Crossroads GPS.
Independent groups are now cementing their status as permanent fixtures in the political firmament, with resources that rival those of the official parties. That’s particularly true on the political right, which has seen the rapid development of several networks of GOP-allied groups — many of them financed with undisclosed contributions.
One locus of power is Americans for Prosperity, a Virginia-based free-market-advocacy group backed by Charles and David Koch, brothers who made billions in chemicals, refining and other industries, and who are major patrons of conservative causes.
AFP, which is on track to spend $180 million in the 2012 cycle, is set up as a tax-exempt social-welfare organization that does not have to report its donors. The group, which works with allies such as 60 Plus and Concerned Women for America, is planning to train its resources on members of Congress during the looming budget showdown.
“I do think this will be seen as a watershed year when parties were not as strong as they have been in previous cycles,” AFP president Tim Phillips said. “Now, groups like AFP have significant financial resources and massive grass-roots networks that in many ways mirror the party. We are going to beat up on bad guys, and we are absolutely going to hold accountable Republicans.”
Another nexus of influence: the two Crossroads organizations, guided in part by veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove. Crossroads GPS plans to be active around the “fiscal cliff” debate over automatic tax increases and spending cuts slated to occur at year’s end. And if Mitt Romney wins the White House, it will help promote a “first 100 days” agenda. Meanwhile, American Crossroads is working on an initiative to better coordinate the resources of its allies, which include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Job Security, a business-backed nonprofit.
“The center of the strategic universe has shifted from the parties to the PACs,” said Mark McKinnon, who served with Rove as a top strategist for President George W. Bush. “It gives some of the smarter minds in politics, like Karl, a new laboratory to experiment outside and beyond the political committees.”
The growing clout of pro-GOP groups has spurred a political arms race, with liberals scrambling to expand their own super PACs even as they decry the influence of big money in politics. Leaders of Democratic-allied groups said they still want to see the system reformed. But absent a change in the law, they plan to be even more active in the coming years.
Though outside organizations such as unions have long exerted influence in national politics, their role dramatically increased after a series of court rulings in 2010 led to the creation of super PACs. Those groups can pool unlimited amounts from donors, as long as they don’t coordinate with candidates or parties.
