New Koch-Linked Political Firm Aims to Handpick "Electable" Candidates
A new political consulting firm with deep ties to the Koch brothers has quietly set up shop in Arlington, Virginia. Its mission: to prevent future Todd Akins and Richard Mourdocks from tanking the Republican Party's electoral prospects. The firm, named Aegis Strategic, is run by a former top executive at Charles and David Koch's flagship advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, and it was founded with the blessing of the brothers' political advisors, three Republican operatives tell Mother Jones.
The consulting firm plans to handpick local, state, and federal candidates who share the Kochs' free-market, limited government agenda, and groom them to win elections. "We seek out electable advocates of the freedom and opportunity agenda who will be forceful at both the policy and political levels," the company notes on its website. Aegis says it can manage every aspect of a campaign, including advertising, direct mail, social media, and fundraising.
Aegis' president is Jeff Crank, a two-time failed Republican congressional candidate who ran the Colorado chapter of Americans for Prosperity and served as the chief operating officer of the national organization. The firm's six-person staff boasts two others with connections to the Kochs. The group's lead strategist is Karl Crow, a former project coordinator for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, where he focused "on how political advocates for economic freedom are identified, trained, and promoted," according to his bio on Aegis' website. Crow, who was scheduled to speak at an invite-only Koch donor summit in 2010 on the subject of voter mobilization, subsequently worked for Themis, the Koch brothers' voter microtargeting operation. Brad Stevens, the former state director for Americans for Prosperity-Nebraska, is Aegis' director of candidate identification.
Crank has touted his firm's connection to the Kochs in meetings with potential business partners, according to three people who've spoken with him about this new venture. They say he has promoted Aegis as having the approval of the Koch brothers' political operatives. (A spokesman for Koch Industries did not respond to a request for comment about the Kochs' ties to Aegis.)
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/koch-brothers-candidate-training-recruiting-aegis-strategic