End Citizens United-- Still A DSCC/DCCC Scam For The Corrupt DC Establishment

End Citizen United's very ironic logo

What does it signify when a candidate is endorsed by a scammy campaign group called "End Citizens United?" Nothing whatsoever to do with the crucial goal of actually ending Citizens United. The campaign organization that uses that name really just has one over-arching goal: raising grassroots money for DSCC and DCCC establishment candidates. Once grassroots/netroots small dollar donors started understanding that the DCCC and DSCC are rotten and corrupt organizations, pushing establishment, status quo candidates and never candidates representing fundamental change, the two organizations cooked up End Citizens United as a way to keep the small dollar contributions flowing in their direction. DSCC and DCCC staffers started End Citizens United-- a super PAC-- not to end anything, just to direct grassroots money towards ConservaDem candidates who would not normally get it-- even if that meant occasionally throwing in a few progressive names to make it look legit.

If you look at their endorsement pages, you will always see a few bright shining progressive stars-- among the piles of shit-- to mislead people. They've been doing this since inception and it works for them. The first time I wrote about them was in 2015 when they started up-- and when they used Russ Feingold as a front to raise money for a slate of vile New Dems and Blue Dogs who are generally hated by progressives: Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA), Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Annie Kuster (New Dem-NH), Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA), hen-DSCC chair Michael Bennet (CO), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)...

At the time, I wrote that the more I looked into their initial e-mail, the more I smelled a rat and the more I looked into the group itself, "the less grassroots or progressive credibility I found. Its website looks like a phishing operation to collect e-mail addresses for partisan Democratic Party operations like the aforementioned DCCC and DSCC. The website's domain registration is hidden from the public-- very suspicious for a 'grassroots organization.' It smells like a scam, a New Dem/Blue Dog/DCCC scam using Russ Feingold as bait to lure naive, uninformed progressives into sending unaccountable cash. I hit reply and sent them an e-mail about their list of endorsees, 9 out of 11 of whom are grotesque DINOs who have spent their time in Congress crossing the aisle and voting with the Republicans-- Blue Dog shitheads like Kyrsten Sinema and Cheri Bustos and utterly worthless New Dems like Pete Aguilar, Scott Peters, Ann Kuster and Ami Bera. And the only senator on the list is DSCC chair Michael Bennet, one of the worst Democrats in that body. Stinky! The reply was an automated plea for money, typical of what one would expect from grifters. Beware."


The next candidate the grifters endorsed was "ex"-Republican-- and no friend of reform-- Patrick Murphy, a right-of-center and über-corrupt Florida New Dem. Have they changed since then? Nope-- although instead of Bennet dictating which Senate candidates to endorse, it's Schumer. What "progressive" or "reform" or "grassroots" group would pick Hickenlooper over Romanoff in Colorado? Or Sara Gideon over Betsy Sweet in Maine? Schumer's handpicked candidates in Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico and Texas are also on the list. What about Charles Booker in Kentucky? Don't make me laugh. They never endorse progressives fighting for fundamental change against establishment shills.

Among their House candidates, they think "ex"-Republican Blue Dog Tom O'Halleran is a better pick than Eva Putzova, whose entire career has been about reform! How about their endorsement of New Dem Eliot Engel instead of Jamaal Bowman? That should tell you how grassroots and legit they are! Another worthless Blue Dog-- Kendra Horn (OK City)-- got their nod instead of reformer Tom Guild. By the way, Guild and Putzova have been fighting for DC statehood while Horn and O'Halleran are among the tiny handful of House Democrats who refuse to co-sponsor the pending statehood bill.

The scam operation has also jumped into the New Hampshire gubernatorial primary that pits the kind of establishment hack "End Citizens United" loves against the kind of reformer they fear. They endorsed a pro-corporate money-- at least for himself-- Democrat, Dan Feltes instead of the guy who actually wants to end Citizens United, Andru Volinsky. It's worth noting that the "End Citizens United operation in New Hampshire is headed by Jeff Taylor, whose brother, Nick Taylor, is Feltes' campaign manager. But, more important is a look at how sleazy Feltes has been about campaign finance reform. He's exactly as crooked as "End Citizens United" itself!

Gubernatorial candidate Dan Feltes is running ads on Facebook that claim “he isn't taking corporate PAC or LLC contributions, so the public can be sure their governor is working for them-- not himself.”

That message is consistent with Feltes’ record in the state Senate, where he’s sponsored bills to outlaw corporate campaign donations and to limit political activities of limited liability corporations.

But a review of Feltes’ campaign filings show that in his run for governor, he’s collected thousands of dollars from political action committees tied to industries like banking, real estate, car dealers, trial attorneys, doctors, and dentists. Gambling interests, several Concord lobbying firms, and corporate entities like Federal Express and Liberty Utilities also show up as campaign donors in his filings.

Feltes’s campaign has also taken advantage of what he’s derided as “the LLC loophole” by banking cash from three LLCs controlled by Ben Kelley, his own campaign treasurer. Kelley used the LLC loophole to donate $11,200 to Feltes’ campaign over the course of the past year. The per-person legal limit is $7,000, though wealthy donors can skirt that limit by donating additional money through LLCs. Three of those contributions, from three separate Kelley-linked LLCs-- Jarbel Realty LLC, 21 Perley Street LLC and JP Irving LLC-- came into the campaign on the same day last November.

The source of the money could only be pieced together by cross-checking LLC registration filings with campaign finance reports. And the donations to Feltes’s campaign-- by his campaign's own treasurer-- are the precise sort of arrangement Feltes himself has decried as undercutting “transparency and accountability” in how campaigns are funded.

Feltes, a Democrat, has made ending the loophole a centerpiece of his criticism of Gov. Chris Sununu, the incumbent he’s seeking to replace in November. In July, when Sununu vetoed Feltes’ most recent attempt (and his third in three years) to limit the ability of individuals to use multiple LLCs to funnel money to candidates, on the grounds it would limit speech, Feltes was quick to chastise.

“The people of New Hampshire should know who is funding elections,” Feltes, the Senate majority leader, said at the time. “Unfortunately today Governor Sununu sided with corporate special interests rather than Granite State voters.”

This week, the Feltes campaign offered varying explanations for the discrepancy between his campaign finance records, his advertising claims and his apparent change of heart on the role of corporate and LLC money in New Hampshire politics. In response to inquiries from NHPR Thursday, his campaign said it was returning up to $11,000 in LLC and other corporate contributions received after his official campaign announcement-- Sept. 3, 2019-- but would keep those collected before that date.

“People are increasingly concerned about corporate money in politics,” Feltes said in a statement to NHPR Thursday. “Which is why in this campaign we are not accepting corporate contributions, we’ve returned any and all such contributions received to date.”

Later in the day, Feltes campaign manager Nick Taylor said the collection of corporate and LLC donations was, in fact, intentional: “The reality is, we made a decision at the start of this campaign to not unilaterally disarm and tie one hand behind our back,” he said. Taylor did not explain how that view squared with Feltes’ multiple efforts to outlaw LLC loophole contributions over the years.

The video of Andru Volinsky tearing up an unsolicited corporate PAC check (directly above) wasn't good enough or compelling enough for the End Citizens United grifters. But I guess this was just fine for them:

It's All The Rage For Candidates To Say They Won't Take Corporate Cash-- While Taking It

Would you guess this came from Gideon or Collins? Or one of their corporately-funded super-PACs?

Over the last week I've had a running argument with some centrist Democrats about the bullshit pledge-- bullshit in some cases, heartfelt in others-- Democratic candidates routinely take to eschew corporate PAC money. Why bullshit? Three reasons:

1- corporate PACs tend to spend on incumbents, not challengers, especially not Democratic challengers.
2- when the challengers get to Congress-- especially the ones who join the New Dems or the Blue Dog caucus, they forget they ever took the pledge.
3- corporate PACs gives loads of money to leadership PACs which then use it to buy loyalty from candidates by laundering the corporate cash into their campaigns.

Although the Democratic Party establishment grifter/sham/scam outfit, End Citizens United, makes excuses for the practice, candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party benefit from corporate cash by getting it via the DCCC and from leadership PACs run by corrupt Democrats like Schumer, Pelosi, Hoyer and other corporate shills.

Late last year Open Secrets took a deeper dive into the sneaky way centrist candidates get around the pledge. The report is by Karl Evers-Hillstrom, who focused on the Senate. "The top Democratic challengers," he wrote, "want voters and donors alike to know they are rejecting corporate PACs. It’s a central talking point for Democrats in competitive races like Sara Gideon in Maine, Mark Kelly in Arizona and John Hickenlooper in Colorado. 'I am not taking a dime in corporate PAC money during this campaign, because it will always be clear who I’m working for in the U.S. Senate,' Gideon, currently speaker of the Maine House, says in a campaign ad.

For non-incumbents, the pledge to reject corporate PACs is a largely symbolic gesture to indicate a candidate wants to get big money out of politics. The pledge doesn’t become a sacrifice until they’re elected to Congress, as corporate PACs give almost all of their money to incumbents to curry favor with lawmakers. [And notice Gideon's sleazy wording, "during this campaign," a good example of why Schumer likes her so much.]

Symbolic as it might have been in 2018, the pledge may have helped land dozens of Democrats crucial House wins. After getting thwacked by those no-PAC Democrats last year, Republicans intend to portray Democratic Senate hopefuls as hypocritical and dishonest with voters on the subject of corporate PACs in 2020, according to a GOP official familiar with the party’s plans.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) aired an advertisement [below] last month attacking Gideon over her pledge to reject corporate PACs. The ad notes that Gideon’s state-level PAC received money directly from major corporations and corporate PACs. The ad also says that her Senate campaign receives money from Democratic leadership PACs that accept money from corporate PACs.





Gideon has not taken money from corporate PACs. But she has received $53,500 from leadership PACs that take money from PACs associated with major corporations.

Some of the largest checks, $10,000 each, came from leadership PACs affiliated with Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) both of which receive roughly half of their money from corporate PACs.

Top Democrats, like Republicans, fund their leadership PACs partly from PACs representing powerful corporations. One-third of money going to Democratic leadership PACs comes from business PACs associated with corporations, trade associations and other business interests.

Four out of the top five most generous corporate PACs to Democratic leadership PACs, Honeywell International ($179,000), Lockheed Martin ($137,000), General Dynamics ($122,000) and Northrop Grumman ($107,000), are major defense contractors.

End Citizens United, the political group that encourages Democrats to reject corporate PACs, says leadership PAC contributions don’t violate the spirit of the pledge.

“Corporate lobbyists and c-suite executives decide where corporate PAC contributions go and corporate PACs give money to gain access and influence in the halls of power in Washington,” said Patrick Burgwinkle, the group’s communications director. “Leadership PACs give money to help elect more Democrats or Republicans to Congress and the decision on who to donate to resides solely with the member of Congress affiliated with the leadership PAC.”

Major corporations’ PACs regularly give to members of Congress or their less-scrutinized leadership PACs as they push their preferred policies to lawmakers. If a contribution from a corporate PAC to a leadership PAC was meant to be routed to a specific candidate, it would have to be marked as so in FEC filings.

Gideon’s campaign told the Bangor Daily News that the difference in PAC money between the two candidates is one of the “clear differences” in the race. Collins has raised $1.4 million from PACs associated with corporations, businesses and trade groups. That’s compared to one $5,000 contribution to Gideon from PACs labeled “business” by OpenSecrets, the American Association for Justice.

Democrats are hoping Theresa Greenfield can take down Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), pouring $186,000 into her campaign from leadership PACs. Greenfield, a real estate executive, was endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee right after announcing her bid.

Senate Democrats also threw their weight behind Mark Kelly, an astronaut and gun control activists who is the husband of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Having raised an unprecedented $13.9 million through September, Kelly has a huge cash advantage over Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ).

Business PACs give upwards of 90 percent of their money to incumbents, so these Democratic challengers aren’t losing much of anything by rejecting their checks. Still, their incumbent opponents certainly have an advantage by being entrenched lawmakers.

In Colorado, Sen. Cory Gardner’s campaign has received a stunning $2.6 million from business PACs, just behind Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for the top spot. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is right behind him with $2.4 million as he engages in a big money battle with Democrat Cal Cunningham.

The incumbent advantage goes for some Democrats too. Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Mark Warner (D-VA), both top targets of Republicans, each received more than $1.8 million from business PACs. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) has taken in nearly $2.6 million from PACs, half of which comes from business PACs.

By End Citizens United’s count, 47 House Democrats and 11 Democratic senators have taken the no-corporate PAC pledge.

That growing list includes some incumbent senators facing reelection in 2020, including Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) as well as Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and his primary challenger Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA).

And many of the House candidates who rejected corporate PACs in 2018 are now incumbents, meaning they are passing up hundreds of thousands of dollars to stick by their pledge. Many of them are top recipients of leadership PAC money, including California Reps. TJ Cox ($104,300) and Katie Porter ($101,105), who face hungry Republican challengers in 2020.

So far this cycle, Democrats overall have taken $7.2 million from leadership PACs, compared to $9.2 million for Republicans. That’s a closer margin than in previous cycles where Republicans have historically given far more through their leadership PACs.

Everyone knows Trump hates dogs-- except Blue Dogs like Jeff Van Drew

Will Social Media-- Like Twitter-- Allow Candidates To Escape From The Grip Of The Uber-Corrupt Establishment Consulting Class?

Alexandria Ocasio's twitter following keeps growing by leaps and bounds. Every time TrumpTV slams her, her following takes another jump, allowing her to get her message out to an ever-wider audience. Now it's 2.23 million, the most of anyone serving in the House. By way of comparison, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, first elected when Abe Lincoln was in his first term, has two accounts-- @LeaderHoyer (108K) and @StenyHoyer (4,545). Nancy Pelosi-- with 1.9 million followers-- is the only member of Congress who comes close to Ocasio-Cortez's ability to get a message out widely. Among House Republicans who have over 100,000 followers, all of them combined don't have the reach of AOC, who is celebrating her first week in Congress today.:

@Jim_Jordan- 395K
@DavinNunes- 346K
@SteveScalise- 275K
@GOPLeader (Kevin McCarthy)- 211K
@RepMarkMeadows- 209K
@RepMattGaetz- 189K
@RepLouieGohmert- 183K
@JustinAmash- 148K
@SteveKing- 107K

Compare that with Ted Lieu's 909K followers or Adam Schiff's 1.14 million followers. And how about others from the freshmen class besides Alexandria Ocasio? The only freshmen with more than 100,000 followers are all outspoken, independent-minded progressives, each, for example, an early backer of the GreenNewDeal:

@IlhanOmar- 414K
@RashidaTlaib- 278K
@AyannaPressley- 157K
@MikeLevinCA- 104K

The much ballyhooed "heroes" of the DCCC-- their tame, conservative recruits-- the Blue Dogs, the New Dems, No Labels, Problem Solvers, etc (and the corporate media hacks who push their messaging), don't have many followers.

@SpanbergerVA07- 34.8K
@MikieSherrill- 28.7K + @RepSherrill- 3,200
@ElissaSlotkin- 19.1K
@HoulahanForPA- 17.2K
@JasonCrowCO6- 16.6K
@BenMcAdams- 14K
@MaxRose4NY- 14.1K

While we're at in, what about Mr. NRA, who has already had a long and repulsive career as New Jersey's worst Democratic state legislator?

@JeffVanDrew- 1,474 + VanDrewForNJ- 1,576

In trying to figure out what makes people follow some political leaders and not others, I turned to Wisconsin. Randy Bryce didn't win his congressional race but he's still very active on social media and he has a mammoth Twitter following:

@IronStache- 266K

The guy who beat him, now a member of Congress? Not so much:

@RepBryanSteil- 531 + BryanSteilforWI- 1,637

Wisconsin's boring "moderate" new governor, Tony Evers, has two certified Twitter accounts, neither with much of a following:

GovEvers- 11.6K + Tony4WI- 27.2K

And the congressional delegation?

@RepMarkPocan- 75.9K
@RepSeanDuffy- 35.7K
@RepGwenMoore- 34.2K
@RepRonKind- 14.1K
@RepGallagher- 12.2K
Jim Sensennbrenner (@JimPressOffice)- 7,438
@RepGrothman- 5,715

It's a new world for people trying to get elected to office now. It is the opposite of the DCCC/NRCC-driven consultant world that makes so many insiders so wealthy and, generally speaking, allows party bosses to pick candidates for the two parties. and preserves the status quo.

Tuesday evening the Washington Post published a piece by Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Anu Narayanswarmy, How a little-known Democratic firm cashed in on the wave of midterm money. Here at DWT we covered the firm, Mothership, little over three years ago: Beware The Emails From Political Scam Artists-- On Both Sides Of The Aisle. At the time, we wrote that The end-of-the-year DCCC e-mail craziness has already begun-- and not just from the rancid organization itself, but from it's rancid candidates, its rancid allies and it's rancid front groups like the toxic twins, "Progressive Turnout Project" and "End Citizens United," self-enrichment schemes for corrupt ex-DCCC staffers, particularly the crooked DCCC hacks at Mothership Strategies, Greg Berlin, Jake Lipsett, and Charles Starnes. On their website they boast of having made the notorious online scam operation for right-wing Democrats, End Citizens United "one of the most powerful voices in Democratic politics in 2016. What started as just an online presence is now poised to make a major impact in the 2016 Election. EndCitizensUnited alone has sucked over $5 million dollars out of grassroots progressives who are unaware that their money is going straight into the pockets of self-serving profiteers and-- if there's anything left over-- to anti-progressive candidates posing as real Democrats. One of the most successful and sought after Democratic political operatives, who knows Mothership well, told us this morning that the firm "is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the Beltway. A few hacks who think their cozy relationships with equally lackluster staffers at the party institutions makes them political geniues, is how one would describe most any firm in DC. The good online firms-- like Revolution, which is doing Bernie's campaign-- actually use their intelligence and creativity to inspire people to donate and become engaged. The rest just use their relationships to cut corners so they don't have to do any hard work. All the while, they diminish the returns from grassroots campaign activities for actual progressive candidates."

The Post warned how "solicitations piled into voters’ email accounts-- sometimes multiple times a day. And they carried alarming messages, often in blaring capital letters.

“We’re on the verge of BANKRUPTCY.”

  “Our bank account is ALMOST EMPTY!”

  “Trump is INCHES away from firing Robert Mueller.”

The catastrophic language yielded a fundraising bonanza for clients of Mothership Strategies, a little-known and relatively new digital consulting firm that raked in tens of millions of dollars from a tide of small donations that flowed to Democrats during the 2018 midterm elections.

The firm’s ascendancy as one of the highest-paid vendors of the election since its launch four years ago speaks to how lucrative the explosion of small-dollar donations has been for a group of savvy political consultants who saw the wave of cash coming-- and built a business model to capi­tal­ize off it.

But its lightning-quick rise also has sparked consternation in Democratic circles, where Mothership is sometimes derided as the “M-word” because of its aggressive and sometimes misleading tactics, such as claiming in fundraising appeals that President Trump is preparing to fire the special counsel. Some critics call its approach unethical, saying the company profits off stoking fear of Trump and making the sort of exaggerated claims they associate with the president.

“A donor should contribute based on their personal interests and [support for] the candidate or issue they’re being solicited by. It shouldn’t be by a sense of urgency or fear, which was used in 2016 and our current administration uses,” said Junelle Cavero Harnal, a Democratic consultant, who said she has mixed feelings about the work Mothership Strategies did last cycle for one of her clients, a congressional candidate in Arizona.

The company’s three millennial founders are unapologetic about their tactics-- so much so that one employee’s bio on the company’s website touts she has “mastered the ALL CAPS SUBJECT LINE.”

The tone of their email appeals, they said, is in keeping with the Trump era.

“This is a unique moment in American history. The urgency in our emails, the volume of our emails, reflect that,” said Jake Lipsett, 25, during an interview at the firm’s sleek offices near the District’s Columbia Heights neighborhood. Seated next to him was his 2-year-old Goldendoodle, C.J. Cregg, named after the White House press secretary in the television political drama The West Wing.

“Every day, there’s breaking news coming out-- Donald Trump has done something new that is actually outrageous,” Lipsett said. “Keeping people informed of that and capitalizing on these big moments is something that’s really important.”

The firm has grown rapidly, from fewer than 40 staffers in January 2017 to 100 by the end of 2018. The company said it helped raise nearly $150 million for its clients in the 2018 cycle. That surge of cash helped make Mothership one of the top paid firms in what was the most expensive midterm election in U.S. history, collecting $35 million for its services from political committees during the past two years, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Lipsett, Starnes and Berlin said the company retained less than half of the money it was paid, with the rest passed on to their vendors for expenses. ["Less than half" is an outrageously gigantic amount.]

They declined to discuss the company’s profits or reveal their salaries. However, they acknowledge the firm has brought them success. Public records show that in the second half of 2017, all three men purchased homes worth more than $1 million each in snazzy Washington neighborhoods not far from Mothership’s offices.

“Any successes that we’ve gained-- and we’ve obviously been fortunate enough to grow so far-- for me, it is 100 percent about... how we’re helping out different candidates and causes that we believe in,” Berlin said. “That’s the driving force behind all of this.”

They now are considering trying to land a 2020 presidential campaign as a client.

“We want to be at the center of the Democratic universe,” Lipsett said.

Some critics note that the firm charges some clients a commission of 15 percent on funds raised online-- much higher than the industry standard of 7 to 10 percent.

The company’s profits are built on exaggerating fears, some fellow Democrats say, and could erode trust among small donors needed to help 2020 presidential contenders compete with Trump’s loyal base of contributors-- and beyond.

“The people we’re talking to right now are the same people we’re going to be talking to for two years, four years. If every day is, ‘The sky is falling, and the world is about to end,’ then eventually that message stops working,” said Betsy Hoover, who served as director of digital organizing for President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and helped found 270 Strategies, another Democratic consulting firm.

For Cavero, the Democratic consultant who used Mothership’s services for Arizona congressional candidate Hiral Tipirneni, that concern laced her campaign’s efforts to raise money quickly.

Mothership’s ability to fundraise was “revolutionizing,” Cavero said, helping the campaign raise $2.5 million in donations of $200 or less-- more than half the entire haul. But the campaign struggled to tone down the language in a way that was aligned with Tipirneni’s message, she said.

“‘The world is falling down, it’s caving in, donate $5’-- that’s not the right approach. We didn’t want that on Hiral’s campaign,” Cavero said. “The constant struggle was that Hiral wanted to run a campaign that wasn’t, ‘The roof is coming down on us.’ But on their side, they’re saying, ‘That’s the most high generating [one].’”

Mothership was responsive to the campaign’s requests to ratchet back its tone, she said. Tipirneni lost her congressional bid. But overall, Cavero said, she was pleased with the firm’s results.

“Would I use Mothership again? Yes,” she said.

Mothership’s specialty of producing high-octane, urgent email appeals paid dividends in 2018 midterms as candidates competed to tap into the gusher of small-dollar donations that flowed to Democrats.

The first sign of the grass roots fundraising wave came in 2017, when Democrat Jon Ossoff ran against Republican Karen Handel in a special election to fill an open seat in suburban Atlanta.

With Mothership as his campaign’s digital consulting firm, Ossoff raised $31.6 million, more than 60 percent of it in donations of less than $200. His campaign was the most expensive House race in history.

“The Ossoff race proved to us how much energy was truly out there. It was the first test case of the cycle,” Berlin said.

Around the same time, Mothership signed on the campaign of Rob Quist, a musician turned Democratic congressional candidate in Montana. The campaign raised an eye-popping $6.7 million in less than three months, 70 percent of it in donations of less than $200.

Despite their fundraising successes, both Ossoff and Quist lost. Officials with their campaigns declined to comment.

Mothership Strategies then worked on Democrat Doug Jones’s campaign for the Senate in Alabama, which raised $25 million-- nearly 55 percent of it in small donations. Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore, who was tarnished by accusations he pursued relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s. Moore has denied the accusations.

Another factor that has contributed to Mothership’s financial success: It drew substantial business last cycle from companies run by friends.

About a quarter of the payments that flowed to Mothership during the midterm elections came not from campaigns, but from political entities run by operatives with whom the Mothership founders have personal and professional ties, according to public records.

The three groups-- End Citizens United, Progressive Turnout Project and National Democratic Training Committee-- together paid more than $9 million to Mothership, records show. Officials with all three groups previously worked with Starnes on past campaigns for Rep. Bradley Schneider (Blue Dog-L). In addition, in 2018, Lipsett married the political director of End Citizens United, which has been a Mothership client for several years.

Some of the sharpest criticism of Mothership has come in connection with the company’s work for Progressive Turnout Project, which was the firm’s top non-campaign client in 2018, FEC records show.

The Illinois-based group, which says it helps turn out voters for Democrats in key congressional districts, raised $23 million during the 2018 election cycle, filings show. About $4 million-- 17 percent of their total expenditures-- went to Mothership for email fundraising and voter persuasion.

Recipients of Progressive Turnout Project’s emails have publicly lambasted the group on social media and in online forums, complaining they received a barrage of misleading and even threatening messages. One email, for example, suggested that the recipients’ friends and neighbors would be notified if they failed to cast a ballot, according to a copy posted online and confirmed by the group.

Some donors complained they believed they had signed up for a one-time donation, only to learn the group was drawing recurring monthly amounts from their bank accounts.

“Trump is INCHES away from firing Robert Mueller,” read an early December email, created for the group by Mothership, according to the group. “Mueller is helpless. If you’re a good person, you have to sign RIGHT NOW.”

Alex Morgan, executive director of Progressive Turnout Project, said he is aware of the criticism, but defended his group’s approach.

“We know that the headlines on these emails can be provocative or alarming. But I still would argue we are in a frightening time in our country,” Morgan said.

He said “vote history” messages-- which relay a voter’s past participation in elections based on public records-- are proven to boost turnout. And he said the group makes sure a staffer is always available to rectify errors or refund unintended donations.

The founders of Mothership declined to discuss their work for Progressive Turnout Project and other clients-- but said the results show their approach works.

“It’s important to have a strong narrative,” Starnes said, “and get people’s attention and cut through the noise.”

One of the best and most successful political professionals, someone I've worked with for years, told me that "Most firms charge a monthly fee, which means they can focus on running the best program for your candidate. They don't make more money by running scam-type programs. Mothership, unlikes most firms, takes a percentage of all money raised which incentivizes the worst practices in our industry. They walk into the DCCC, small campaigns with promises of swapping all the emails from all their clients, building up a big list, scamming the people on it, then profit off the back end. Meanwhile, the campaigns who often don't know any better are the sucker. Mothership is the #1 reason you are on every email list imaginable and the sky is falling everywhere."

Another pro told me that "Mothership is billing their Democratic clients up to 75 percent more than the industry standard of between 7 and 10 percent. Of course, the more pernicious subtext of this story is the long running debate about scaring the living bejesus out of our base without any sort of honest reckoning about the consequences. Most of us work through a retainer and an ads commission basis. People do it-- charging by percentage-- but it's generally considered unethical for a host of reasons."

It probably won't shock you to read that it was the DCCC that initiated the hysteria approach to online fundraising. At first, House Democratic leadership was critical of the tactics employed by the DCCC digital department, however, the digital department raised an enormous amount of money and quickly started nearly matching what the conventional fundraising department raised. The general attitude was that the e-mail program and the churn and burn approach were "necessary evils."

Before Mothership was a company, it was an initiative at the DCCC (literally called "mothership") run by the now principles of Mothership. That initiative brought digital fundraising services in-house for candidates. Essentially, a Dem would win a primary and if they didn't have an independent digital vendor, they'd lean on the "mothership" team to draft their emails. The program did raise quite a bit of money for candidates but the candidates generally didn't like the copy.

Basically, the politicians reflexively did not like the copy but learned to deal with it because it raised so much money-- a "necessary evil." At least one likely presidential candidate-- and several members of Congress-- literally dictate their emails verbatim-- the Alan Grayson approach-- because they so resent the "chicken little approach."

It's hard to have and express a compelling and authentic voice and most politicians don't have a magic formula to help them it. It's hard work. Look at the kinds of e-mails Bernie, Grayson, Elizabeth Warren... send out-- no formulaic embarrassments from those people.

Late last night, I spoke to a friend of mine, a very senior and very well-regarded Capitol Hill staffer. "I fucking hate fundraising emails," he told me bluntly. "I hate fundraising in general-- but the incessant emails begging for money from every candidate and political action committee and special interest group are just the absolute worst. When the end of the quarter comes around I dread checking my email. 99% of these emails are complete and utter garbage. But it is hard to argue that they work. Small dollar donations have exploded in the Trump era. And where there is a buck to be made you can bet there are vultures looking to monetize the enthusiasm we are seeing from the grassroots. We use a small firm mainly because they don't charge us very much and they are fairly responsive. But when it comes down to it even they suck. You should see the shit they try to get us to put out. It is almost always sensationalized nonsense or generic trash. They never convey any real ideas or provide any real information to our supporters. It's just filler for the ask-- an internal game to see who can craft the best subject line to maximize open rates (really 'good' emails have an open rate of like 3-4%). After several rounds of back and forth with edits I usually give up trying to salvage them into anything more than what they are-- propaganda to convince scared people to give us their money to fight Trump. I believe the cause is just and that my boss is fighting the good fight and trying to help others do the same, but man it is still hard to justify sometimes. At what point are we just as bad as Trump and the Fox News crowd terrorizing the public? Aside from publicly financed campaigns, I'm not sure what the solution is. As long as there is a market for small dollar donors out there (and it only seems to be growing), the industry that has been built up around capitalizing on that market will continue to exist and grow."