What Citizens United Hath Wrought

Here’s a fascinating article by Nicholas Confessore in the New York Times. Apparently the Republican Party is no longer being run by the Republican Party. Instead, its direction is being managed by a dozen or so powerful men —

But almost none of them hold office or a job with the Republican Party itself. Instead, they represent conservative groups that channeled tens of millions of dollars into last year’s Congressional campaign. And as 2012 approaches, the groups — among them the Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, the American Action Network and Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the billionaire Koch brothers — have gathered into a loosely organized political machine poised to rival, and in many ways supplant, the official Republican Party apparatus.

This crew has taken over efforts to defeat Obama and pick off vulnerable Dems in the House and Senate.

Like the party committees they are rapidly coming to eclipse, the independent groups are financed by some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors and operated by some of its most respected operatives and strategists. But thanks to the Citizens United decision, the independent groups can raise money in unlimited amounts and with negligible overhead. Much of the money will be spent through not-for-profit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

Most of the groups answer only to a few dozen deep-pocketed donors, rather than the elected officials who oversee traditional party efforts.

This is the 1 percent of the 1 percent. And they own the Republican Party. Not so much the Dems:

Democrats are also setting up independent groups that are staffed by party veterans. But those efforts appear to be progressing more slowly, in part because there is less of a vacuum to fill. Mr. Obama, the most prodigious fund-raiser in the country, has been able to inject tens of millions of dollars in campaign financing into the Democratic National Committee.

This is truly dangerous stuff.