Where's the money? Rick Scott and the riddle of the NRSC's missing millions.
What do you get when you combine the ex-CEO of the company that paid the stiffest penalty ever assessed — $1.7 billion — to settle the biggest-ever Medicare fraud in the nation’s history, with a team of ex-Trump operatives? The answer is a money-raising operation that has trouble making money or explaining where it went.
In November 2020, Senate Republicans elected Rick Scott — who had been a Senator for less than two years — to Chair the National Republican Senate Committee (N.R.S.C.). Before being a two-term Governor of Florida, Scott had founded a company that had grown from two rural hospitals into the world’s biggest healthcare concern — Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). This was enough to persuade Senators that he was the man for the job. Meanwhile, they ignored that Scott had been fired from the company for unethical financial practices after the Feds started investigating HCA for ripping off the government.
We should not be surprised. Bankruptcy, pussy grabbing, and fraud are no disqualifiers to prominent positions in the GOP. And the party has never been confused with a well-run, efficient operation — except when it comes to confirming disingenuous and doctrinaire Supreme Court justices.
But Scott’s casual relationship with honesty has proved disastrous for the N.R.S.C.’s finances. The New York Times has done an inciteful analysis of the failure of Scott’s gamble on new digital money-raising tactics. These initially proved profitable. But they later absorbed an increasing amount of the cash they were designed to raise. According to the paper,
Mr. Scott installed a new digital team, spearheaded by Trump veterans, and greenlit an enormous wave of spending on digital ads, not to promote candidates but to discover more small contributors. Soon, the committee was smashing fund-raising records. By the summer of 2021, Mr. Scott was boasting about “historic investments in digital fund-raising that are already paying dividends.”
A year later, some of that braggadocio has vanished — along with most of the money.
Overall, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans had collected $181.5 million by the end of July — but spent 95 percent of it.
How can this be? Here’s a clue. “Trump veterans”? No wonder the enterprise is floundering. The NYT further reports,
Gary Coby, Mr. Trump’s longtime digital director, is an adviser to the committee and is widely seen as the main behind-the-scenes influence on the N.R.S.C.’s current digital operations. Two of his companies, Direct Persuasion, a digital agency, and Opn Sesame, a texting firm, have been paid by the Senate committee more than $4.6 million combined. Two others that he has promoted, DirectSnd and Red Spark Strategy, have received another $9.2 million.
It is close to a truism that anyone who has had a longtime relationship with Trump is a crook. So Coby funneling campaign cash to his companies and cronies is par for the course. On top of the self-dealing, the way the N.R.S.C. raised cash was questionable. The Scott strategy involved sending millions of text messages with provocative questions, such as “Should Biden resign?” If the respondent wanted to reply, they were told to “Reply YES to donate”. Anyone who did would have $25 charged to the credit card associated with their phone number. Nowhere did it say where the money was going.
The tactic was so underhanded that WinRed, the GOP’s main donation-processing site, recently blocked the committee from engaging in the practice.
Donor fatigue set in quickly. As the Times further reported,
One internal N.R.S.C. budget document from earlier this year, obtained by The Times, shows that $23.3 million was poured into investments to find new donors between June 2021 and January 2022. In that time, the contributors the organization found gave $6.1 million — a more than $17 million deficit.
That is no way to run a railroad.
Adding to the malaise was the sense among Republicans that Scott was running the fund-raising operation to benefit his 2024 presidential ambitions. Wits referred to the N.R.S.C. as the “National Rick Scott Committee”.
Scott also chose Trump’s side in the Republican civil war between the 2020 loser and the Senate leader. Notably, he took exception to Mitch McConnell’s accurate assessment of the dismal candidates promoted by the treasonous ex-President. (DK’s Joan McCarter has an informative diary on the subject, Rick Scott kicks off final push to midterms by escalating his war with Mitch McConnell.)
Four months ago, the GOP was an odds-on favorite to take the Senate. Now there is a possibility that not only will the Democrats maintain control but will pick up seats. And if the Democrats hit the superfecta and keep control of the House, the Republican seas will run with blood.
The Orange Stain will blame McConnell. Kevin McCarthy's Speaker dream will become a nightmare of failure as Trump adds him to his enemies list. And the GOP will replay the Nazi's 'Night of the Long Knives’.