It was always inevitable that the Koch forces, in the form of Freedom Partners, would clash with the Republican National Committee (RNC) about control of voter contact data.
The hard truth is that the RNC is on the wrong side of history, and not yet fully cognizant of the reality that political party hierarchies are increasingly less relevant.
And this will not change. In fact, five years from now, the RNC will have lost still more ground to privatized units that will deliver on the most important metric of all: performance.
Just look at America Rising — which is a privatized and highly effective research unit which, in the old days, would be housed within the venerable RNC headquarters building on Capitol Hill.
Freedom Partners, like America Rising in the context of research, does a better job of building, sharing and making use of voter data. The marketplace corroborates this fact as their i360 platform is far preferred by state parties and the political campaigns that are actually out in the field fighting to win.
RNC Chair Reince Priebus, to be sure, is among the best modern day GOP leaders, who has delivered on fundraising and has moved as quickly as possible in terms of bolstering technology.
But the RNC, no matter who is in charge, plays the role of a centralized DC-based bureaucracy — anathema to the central organizing principles of the Republican Party itself. They will never win the battle against the Koch’s Freedom Partners, nor should they.
Having toiled for years either at the GOP party committees themselves or out in the field in conjunction with them, I have a soft spot for the RNC.
But “saving” the RNC, its future capabilities and its primacy over more sophisticated, effective, privatized electoral sub-units is analogous to attempting to salvage the U.S. Postal Service from Fed-X.
It’s not going to happen.