Tea Party Civil War

We all love watching the Republican civil war between the greed and selfishness wing and the hate and bigotry wing as it unfolds. In the radio interview above, Palin declares war, again, on Marco Rubio and Kelly Ayotte. But how about the civil war that's tearing apart the Tea party itself... a civil war within a civil war? Those are always the most fun.

Over the weekend Luke Mullins covered an aspect of that for the Washingtonian: Armey In Exile. A month before Romney went down in flames, Dick Armey had agreed to resign as chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the big-money Tea Party fronts, forced out by Matt Kibbe with an $8 million payoff to just go away. Mullins asks and answers the question about what had turned Armey and Kibbe into bitter enemies and ripped FreedomWorks apart just as-- in their deranged minds-- Romney was sweeping into the White House and Republicans were taking over the Senate?

Though Armey rose to political prominence during the Gingrich Revolution, congressional staffers saw that he lacked political instincts-- "forgetting people’s names and arriving late to votes because he was chatting with his staff. 'He was a Mr. Magoo type of character,' says a former GOP leadership aide. 'Everyone knew that he didn’t know what was going on.' Armey also talked himself into controversy. He referred to Hillary Clinton as 'Marxist' and to Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank-- an openly gay congressman-- as 'Barney Fag.'" After resigning from Congress, Armey joined Matt Kibbe's radical right Citizens for a Sound Economy, an early version of the Tea Party, funded by the John Birch Society's Koch family. Armey's starting salary was $430,000 a year and he was able to keep his $750,000 a year job as a slimy K Street lobbyist at DLA Piper. The Kochs soon left in a huff over something or other and started their own teabagger front, Americans for Prosperity, and the Kibbe-Armey rump renamed itself FreedomWorks. They struggled for a while before glomming on to Rick Santelli's anti-Obama rant on CNBC, at which time Kibbe started quietly paying off Hate Talk Radio hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to endorse the organization on the air.

Despite being Beltway elites, Armey and Kibbe emerged as emissaries for the populist, anti-Washington revolution. The New Yorker described Armey-- who flew first class and had a chauffeur-- as “the de-facto leader of the Tea Party movement.” Newsweek called Kibbe-- a former chief of staff to a Republican congressman-- a Tea Party “mastermind.”

As FreedomWorks’ profile expanded, contributions doubled from $7 million to $14 million between 2008 and 2010. Its number of volunteers jumped from 500,000 to 1.2 million. FreedomWorks fired up a long-dormant political-action committee and supported hard-line conservatives-- such as Republicans Marco Rubio in Florida and Mike Lee in Utah-- in Senate primary campaigns against more moderate GOP opponents for the 2010 midterms.

Fueled by Tea Party enthusiasm, the GOP picked up 63 seats in the House-- enough for control of the chamber-- six seats in the Senate, six new governorships, and nearly 700 seats in state legislatures.

It was finally happening-- Armey and Kibbe were at the center of the most powerful conservative movement in a generation. Together they wrote a bestselling book, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto, and appeared on NBC’s Today show. Driving to Tea Party rallies around the country, Kibbe played his Grateful Dead tapes for Armey, hoping to convert the country-music lover.

But Armey was lame and considered, at 70, too old. His public comments made right-wing operatives at FreedomWorks cringe, often insulting people on TV-- echoes of "Barney Fag"-- and more often screwing up details of anything he talked about, including the names and work of right-wing heroes. He clearly needed to be kept away from live microphones. The go-go wingnuts saw him as a liability that could destroy their whole mission-- and the big salaries they were drawing. Kibbe's wife, an ugly stereotype of a catty, overly ambitious wife, wanted to push Armey out and make Kibbe the sole head of FreedomWorks. She was jealous of Armey's wife and made fun of her for being a devout Christian. Mrs. Kibbe is an atheist filled with contempt for Christians. Meanwhile Mr. Kibbe's priorities were changing. He went from being obsessed with elections and campaigns and grassroots and public-policy fights to his own image and selling books and doing Glenn Beck TV. Armey was pushed out of the media spotlight and media requests for him were given to Kibbe.

The ostensible break came over Kibbe's new book. Profits from the book he and Armey had written belonged to FreedomWorks. Kibbe insisted that the profits from the new book were his personally, even though the book had been written by FreedomWorks staffers on company time. "Diverting nonprofit resources for personal use is a violation of federal tax code," writes Mullins. "If Kibbe had used 'significant staff resources' to produce his book, he would have put FreedomWorks’ tax-exempt status at risk. Kibbe, Armey says, 'had put the organization in jeopardy, and he had done it to line his own pockets.'”

Kibbe has mutton chops-- and a childish impulse to insult Hillary Clinton

Furious, Armey and his wife flew to Maine to show the document to FreedomWorks’ third trustee: C. Boyden Gray, a former White House counsel.

Armey and Gray called a special meeting of the board for Tuesday, September 4, 2012. Kibbe arrived at Gray’s DC law office without knowing why he’d been summoned. When they were around a conference table, Armey argued that Kibbe had pilfered his media requests and used FreedomWorks’ resources to profit personally.

The trustees voted two to one-- Armey and Gray for, Kibbe against-- to remove Kibbe from the board, and then put Kibbe and Brandon [FreedomWork's press secretary] on administrative leave.

Before Kibbe left, the trustees asked him to sign a document preventing him from launching an organization similar to FreedomWorks for the next four years, a FreedomWorks executive says, adding that the agreement came with a $100 signing bonus: “It was meant to be insulting.” (Armey denies that there was a signing bonus and says that the document was just a confidentiality agreement.)

Kibbe refused to sign.

Armey worried that Kibbe might instruct his allies to destroy documents related to the book deal, so he telephoned Jean Campbell, who was waiting outside FreedomWorks’ Capitol Hill headquarters.

“Go ahead,” Armey told her.

She secured the office, marshaling employees away from their computers and into the conference room. An armed former Capitol Police officer accompanied her-- in case there was any trouble.

“Dick Armey will be here soon with an announcement,” Campbell told the staff.

Some 30 anxious staffers surrounded the rectangular table when Armey and his wife marched in. Armey announced that Kibbe and Brandon had been put on leave, but he didn’t explain why.

FreedomWorks staff divided into two camps. While some senior employees respected Armey’s authority, many newer ones weren’t old enough to remember his days in Congress and-- because Armey worked from Texas-- didn’t really know him. In Kibbe, they found a hip libertarian who went on television and hosted parties at his home. Younger staffers developed a “cultish admiration” for Kibbe, a former official says. Some even wore their chops you can believe in T-shirt at the office.

To the young staffers, Armey seemed ill suited to run the organization. He put three additional FreedomWorks employees on administrative leave but-- when they broke down in tears-- immediately reinstated them. Staffers say he referred to a Japanese employee with a ponytail as “that Indian fella.” (Armey denies this.) And when Armey kicked his cowboy boots up on a table in Kibbe’s office, that was it. “It was kind of like, ‘Well, I’ll be damned if this is going to happen,’ ” a young employee says.

Kibbe and Brandon had retreated to Kibbe’s Capitol Hill home, where they contacted FreedomWorks donors, activists, and board directors to establish support outside of headquarters. Directors were angry that Armey hadn’t consulted them before taking action. Glenn Beck and members of Congress called Kibbe to offer encouragement.

Soon after Armey’s takeover, a group of young Kibbe loyalists arrived at Kibbe’s house for pizza and wine. They told Kibbe about Armey’s office management. Among Armey’s first moves was ordering the removal of all references to Kibbe from the FreedomWorks website. (Armey says he only asked for the removal of references to Kibbe’s book.)

“In our limited experience dealing with Armey, [we] saw him as this lovable grandpa,” says a young staffer. “To see him tailspin into this power-hungry, totally out-of-touch person was really frightening.”

The younger staffers used their cell phones to record conversations with Armey or Campbell. They disregarded Armey’s instructions, refusing, for example, to provide him with Kibbe’s schedule of upcoming donor meetings. Says Armey: “They started trying to sabotage things right from day one.”

...Armey and his wife stopped at the Chicago home of Richard Stephenson on their way back to Washington. A reclusive millionaire who had founded the for-profit Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Stephenson was a big FreedomWorks donor and Kibbe’s strongest ally on the board of directors.

When Armey arrived, Stephenson introduced a therapist who he suggested could mediate Armey and Kibbe’s dispute. Armey didn’t know it, but Kibbe had flown in from Washington and was waiting in another room. “If you think you’re going to therapize me into working with Matt Kibbe again, you’re kidding yourself,” Armey told the therapist.

He had previously told Stephenson that the allegedly rerouted media requests gave him a legal case against FreedomWorks for tortuous interference. He calculated damages at $8 million-- the potential earnings Armey felt he’d sacrificed by staying at FredeeomWorks. (The figure is based mostly on Armey’s $750,000 annual contract with DLA Piper, which his position at FreedomWorks forced him to give up.)

Either Kibbe goes or I go, Armey said. “And if I go, I’m going to have to sue. I can’t go away with empty pockets.”

As Armey left, he saw Kibbe sitting on a couch in an adjacent room. Neither said a word.

The next afternoon, C. Boyden Gray summoned Armey to his Washington office: Stephenson was willing to pay Armey $8 million to retire. The deal would be arranged as a consulting contract between Armey and Stephenson, payable in annual installments of $400,000 over 20 years. In return, the trustees would reinstate Kibbe as FreedomWorks president and Armey would leave the organization after the election.

Armey accepted.

Kibbe and Brandon were back in the office by the end of the day and spent the next few weeks settling scores, former staffers say. They labeled employees who had been helpful to Armey as “collaborators” and stripped them of authority. Kibbe promoted two young staffers who had remained loyal to him during the crisis, and he donated his $50,000 book advance to FreedomWorks. (Brandon denies punishing employees and says all promotions were merit-based.)

...Meanwhile, FreedomWorks is struggling. Key staffers and board members have fled, and first-quarter fundraising has slipped. Things may get even worse. Two watchdog groups have asked federal authorities to examine $12 million in suspicious donations that FreedomWorks received right before the election.

...Following the disastrous 2012 election, public support for the Tea Party has crumbled, and establishment GOP figures such as Karl Rove have launched initiatives to prevent less electable Tea Party candidates from winning primary campaigns. At its most recent tax-day rally at the Capitol, the crowd numbered in the dozens-- a turnout that recalled FreedomWorks’ early days.