In 2301 (16 week) we are discussing parties. One of our topics is the relative health of the two parties and this NYT story about the increasing strength of outsider groups - or individuals not directly affiliated with the party. Their power may be eclipsing the party's:
About once a month, a dozen or so of the country’s most influential
Republicans meet in a bare-walled conference room in Washington to
discuss how to make further gains in the Congressional elections next
year and defeat President Obama.
They share polling and opposition research, preview their plans for
advertising and contacting voters in swing states, and look for ways to
coordinate spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 12
months, drawing on years of experience laboring for the party.
But almost none of them hold office or a job with the Republican Party
itself. Instead, they represent conservative groups that channeled tens
of millions of dollars into last year’s Congressional campaign. And as 2012 approaches, the groups — among them the Karl Rove-founded
American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, the American
Action Network and Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the
billionaire Koch brothers — have gathered into a loosely organized
political machine poised to rival, and in many ways supplant, the
official Republican Party apparatus.
