When Losing Becomes Profitable

The Republican National Committee has been meeting in Las Vegas. Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk arranged counter-programming in Vegas with a handful of hyper-online alt-right activists and fringe celebrities floating Taylor Swift conspiracy theories and demanding accountability for Ronna McDaniel, the RNC Chairwoman, and the RNC as a whole for losses in 2018, 2020 and 2022. Kirk, who, at 30, owns a nearly $5 million home on a golf course in Arizona and a place on the beach in Florida, wants donors to give Turning Point their money instead of the RNC.

An Associated Press reporter investigated Turning Point USA after the organization insisted it needed $100 million to run a get-out-the-vote effort in three states. As someone who ran get-out-the-vote efforts and knows the people who run highly successful "GOTV" efforts, $100 million could fund a national GOTV effort. No reader will be surprised to learn how interconnected the various entities are that would participate in Turning Point's effort.

Though Turning Point has no meaningful real success stories to point to about advancing the GOP's agenda, the nonprofit's leaders deem it has no accountability for the lavish lifestyles of its management, nor does Turning Point USA's leaders think Donald Trump has any responsibility for advancing people like Blake Masters, Kari Lake, Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, John Gibbs, Joe Kent, Bo Hines or the vast array of Trump-picked candidates in swing districts who lost to Democrats. But the head of the Republican National Committee, not the leader of the party who picked her, must be held accountable.

In fact, while Turning Point seems to operate more as a grift operation taking from the elderly wealthy to fund parties, properties and good times, the Republican National Committee has long had its own problems with consultants taking commissions and funneling business to their own outside businesses. Each time the chairmanship comes open, Republican consultants across America line up to pick candidates and fight for delegates all so they can get dealt contracts and have their friends placed in positions to keep the contracts and revenue flowing. Both parties and many outside groups engage in the grift, back-scratching and greed of political consulting.

Tyler Bowyer, also at Turning Point USA, publicly called for RNC committee members to release their tax returns. Given the Associated Press found Bowyer, despite his nonprofit salary, has a nearly $2 million home and a Tige ski boat that costs six figures, he should probably go first. The publicly available IRS Form 990 for Turning Point USA would not reveal as much as the individual tax returns would that Bowyer wants RNC members to produce.

Then, of course, there is the practical issue. Turning Point USA has amassed over $26.8 million in assets. Meanwhile, the RNC only has $9 million cash on hand. Kirk wants to starve the RNC of its money and amass more for himself. The practical issue is that this would most likely cost Donald Trump the 2024 election.

Under federal law, only the national political party committees can coordinate with their candidates. No other entity can do that. The Republican and Democratic National Committees can coordinate GOTV operations with their candidates, fund explicitly partisan GOTV efforts, design media and advertising, and fund their candidates' campaigns. Nonprofits, like Turning Point USA, cannot engage in partisan voter registration efforts. Only the party committees can do that.

Turning Point USA is not an essential component of the election process. The party committees, whether we like it or not, are. They nominate the candidates, they hold the conventions, they coordinate with the candidates, and they fund the candidates. If the RNC folds up shop, a vital lifeline to the Trump campaign goes away. The only entities left are prohibited by law from collaborating with the campaign.

The Republican National Committee has a lot of problems. But it has federal legal protections to help candidates no other entity does. If the grifters, hucksters and charlatans of the right successfully sap its money, they can expand their homes, but they will do so in Joe Biden's second term. Of course, many of these groups have made losing quite profitable and never then have to be burdened with actual governance.

========

To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

----