NBRA COMMENTARY
By Frances Rice
Below are four news articles, including one from "The New York Times", about Base Connect, a/k/a BMW Direct, ForthRight Stategy and multiple other names, exposing how that fundraising company scams conservative donors. One of the articles addresses also the recent child porn criminal charges against the Base Connect chief operating officer, Michael Centanni. According to these news stories, Base Connect raises funds on behalf of conservative candidates and PACs created by Base Connect, such as "Black Republican PAC", but their "expenses" consume almost all of the funds raised. Note in one article the comment by Erick Erickson of RedState, expressing his reluctance to endorse any conservative candidate who uses Base Connect for fundraising.
________________________________________________________
Notorious GOP Firm Still Fleecing Longshot Candidates
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/notorious-gop-firm-still-fleecing-longshot-candidates
Newscom
BMW Direct, the GOP fundraising firm known for taking long-shot candidates for a ride while raking in big bucks off their campaigns, has re-emerged under a new name -- but with a similar modus operandi. And this time around, even some Republicans are crying foul, with one consultant accusing the firm of engaging in "sub-prime fundraising."
One 2010 client of BMW Direct -- now rechristened as Base Connect -- is William Russell, the retired lieutenant colonel who is running for the Pennsylvania Congressional seat of the late John Murtha. Russell's campaign raised over $895,000 in the fourth quarter of last year, according to federal disclosure records. But it paid over $719,000 of that amount -- about 80 percent -- to Base Connect, and other companies associated with it, which ran the company's direct-mail fundraising program. For the year as a whole, Russell's campaign raised over $2.8 million, but spent over $2.6 million -- much of it again going to Base Connect -- leaving it with cash on hand of just $211,000.
Those numbers were first noted last week in a blog post by Bill Pascoe, a veteran Republican consultant, who declared, very slightly inflating Base Connect's take: "Keeping 82 cents out of every dollar you gross isn't fundraising, it's highway robbery. You might as well call it subprime fundraising."
Three GOP consultants who spoke to TPMmuckraker agreed that the percentage of dollars raised that Base Connect and its affiliated companies keep is far more than standard. One said most direct-mail fundraising firms take no more than a third. "Anything more than half doesn't pass the laugh test," he said, adding of Base Connect: "They have an awful reputation." Another put the standard rate at no more than 20 percent. "They're not serving the interests of the candidate," he said. A third, choosing his words carefully, said that Base Connect's approach is "not a business practice that I endorse." Base Connect's president and CEO, Kimberly Bellissimo, did not respond to a request for comment.
The day after Pascoe's blog post appeared, Erick Erickson, the influential GOP strategist who founded RedState.org, tweeted: "If you are a GOP candidate using BMW Direct a/k/a Base Connect, you might be denying yourself a RedState endorsement." And one consultant said he'd heard that the National Republican Campaign Committee was urging candidates not to work with the firm, though that could not be confirmed. (The NRCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
As we've written in the past, Base Connect's business model appears to involve using direct-mail appeals to a well-honed lists of national Republican donors to raise a lot of money on behalf of long-shot candidates -- for instance, Deborah Honeycutt, a black Republican who has challenged Rep. David Scott (D-GA) in the last two cycles, both times losing by 38 points. The firm then charges the candidate nearly the sum total of what it raised, for expenses related to the fundraising effort itself. Each campaign not only allows the firm to turn a hefty profit, but also helps it further hone its master list for future use.
Russell isn't the only GOP candidate who may be getting taken for a ride this cycle. The AP reported last month that the campaign of another Base Connect client, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), had a similar financial profile to Russell's, spending around 75 percent of the money it raised on fundraising, leaving it with just $315,00 cash on hand. Cao, a freshman who represents a heavily Democratic district, is considered highly vulnerable this year, and his financial situation only makes things seem bleaker.
But its inflated compensation for fundraising isn't the only Base Connect business practice that's causing concern in Republican circles. Scott Mackenzie is listed on federal disclosure reports as the treasurer for Russell's campaign -- as he has been for several other Base Connect clients in the past. In fact, as we reported in 2008, Base Connect's website lists Mackenzie as a staffer with the firm, and also lists his own firm, Mackenzie and Company -- which works out of the same Washington building -- as a Base Connect "strategic partner." The arrangement effectively allowing Mackenzie to oversee campaign accounts that cut checks to his colleagues. Another "strategic partner," Legacy List Marketing, is run out of the same Washington office as Base Connect, as is an officially independent PAC, Freedom's Defense Fund, which recently commissioned a Zogby poll that showed Russell leading his GOP primary. As one Republican consultant put it to TPMmuckraker last week: "The issue is: how many sides of the table are they on?"
Of course, if a candidate agrees up front to Base Connect's way of working, it's difficult to claim there's any deception going on. But there's evidence that at least some of the firm's candidates were taken for a ride. When one long-shot 2006 House candidate, Charles Morse, found out that 96 percent of the funds raised in his name went to pay BMW Direct and its affiliates, he called it "craziness," adding: "I am really amazed. It is really way above and beyond what I was made aware of." Another long-shot BMW Direct client, Ada Fisher, called the firm, in a complaint to the FEC examined by TPMmuckraker, "the biggest fraud and embezzlement in the system." And of course, the real victims are the ordinary conservative donors, most of whom likely won't suspect that 80 or 90 percent of their donation is going not to the candidate they're aiming to support, but rather to Base Connect.
There is one other figure on whose behalf Base Connect is currently working, who may not be such an easy mark, though. The firm recently tapped its donor list for contributions to the Hannah Giles Legal Defense Fund.
___________________
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fundraiser-whose-firm-took-millions-from-conservatives-faces-child-porn-charges/article/2555879
Washington Examiner
Fundraiser whose firm took millions from conservatives faces child porn charges
By Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) • 11/7/14 5:00 AM
A political fundraiser who solicited tens of millions of dollars in recent years by invoking social-conservative platitudes has been charged by federal prosecutors with possessing pornography depicting children who may have been as young as toddlers, and investigators say he filmed victims in his own house.
Michael Centanni, former chief operating officer of Base Connect, appeared Wednesday in a red jumpsuit before Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and remains behind bars.
Department of Homeland Security investigators "located approximately 7,000 videos that recorded the master bedroom of the residence. Two videos, each approximately 30 seconds long, depict the defendant in bed with a girl approximately 5 years old.
"The defendant then pulls the covers on the bed downward to expose the child's lower torso and appears to stare toward the child's lower torso area before touching the child in the lower torso area and reaching towards his mouth," according to a statement of facts filed by prosecutors.
Also allegedly found were "four videos taken with a hidden camera in what appears to be the bathroom adjacent to the children's bedrooms. The hidden camera videos depict an approximately 12-year-old female child removing her clothes and entering the shower," the document states.
"The defendant is the father of an approximately 15-year-old son, an approximately 14-year-old daughter, an approximately 10-year-old son, and an approximately 5-year-old daughter," the document said.
The document said investigators traced the transmission of known child pornography to an IP address registered to Centanni's wife and a computer in the basement of the couple's D.C. residence.
They allegedly found files including one that showed a man penetrating a girl "who appears to be under the age of five." The girl cries "no" and "mommy" while the man says "good baby" and "stop crying," according to the document.
Centanni's wife is an investigator for Republicans on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Centanni was on the board of the conservative youth group Young Americans for Freedom, and his specialty license plate reads "Children First."
Many of Centenni's Facebook postings before his Oct. 30 arrest concerned pedophilia and incest, always from a religious conservative viewpoint.
Linking to a Huffington Post article discussing incest two weeks before his arrest, Centanni wrote that "the last time relations between close relatives was condoned was after the flood as far as I know."
A week earlier, he linked to a column in the New York Times headlined "Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime."
"So here we see the seeds of normalization," he wrote. "Forty years ago, this article was written and the term pedophile and related terms [were] instead homosexual."
In a posting about sex education, he wrote "they have an agenda to remove all morality ... why do we insist on making it nothing more than a base biological function whose mercy we are helpless to resist."
In one post titled "Dear Kids: Why Wait till Marriage," he condemned "horrible shows like Glee and role models like Miley Cyrus" as causing children to have sex too soon.
He also condemned provocative clothing, including "shorts that have messages on the backside."
"I want my daughters to have the strength to say no to people who will want them to do things they know are wrong."
He linked to an article in a conservative publication saying Planned Parenthood advised a "pimp" on underage sex trafficking.
Centanni's Facebook page also describes him meeting with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and pictures him meeting with Sharron Angle, who lost a 2010 race against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.
"Effective immediately, Michael Centanni's employment as Chief Operating Officer of Base Connect has been terminated," said Kimberly Bellissimo, Base Connect's CEO. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the blameless victims involved in this matter."
Centanni was also a minority partner in the firm, and the statement said that "Base Connect has exercised the moral turpitude clause in its partnership agreement, which permits the company to sever all ties with Michael Centanni as a partner."
Base Connect has raised millions of dollars in recent years with direct-mail solicitations aimed at elderly conservative donors. Little of the money raised goes to candidates; most of it goes to the firm and pays for their fundraising mailers.
For example, in 2006 the firm raised $731,000 in the name of Republican candidate Chuck Morse by telling donors their money would help topple then-Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. Morse only saw 4 percent of the money — and he wasn't even on the ballot.
Political action committees tied to Base Connect spend almost nothing seeking to sway races, instead focusing on fundraising to finance more fundraising.
The candidates with whom Base Connect does business often have no chance of winning. Elderly donors, many of whom relatives say are too senile to make financial decisions, have said they feel swindled and abused.
As for the children, Centanni's next day in court is next month.
___________________
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/upshot/a-mysterious-republican-committee-in-the-virgin-islands.html?_r=0
The New York Times
A Mysterious Republican Committee in the Virgin Islands
By Derek Willis
MAY 6, 2014
Committee | Contributions | Percent spent |
Tea Party Victory Fund | $159,219 | 50.0 |
Freedom's Defense Fund | $2,065,638 | 8.6 |
VIGOP | $221,279 | 6.7 |
Warriors for Liberty | $324,913 | 4.5 |
Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress | $349,423 | 2.6 |
The Conservative StrikeForce | $2,623,955 | 2.0 |
Conservative Majority Fund | $3,512,012 | 1.9 |
Black Republican | $477,339 | 1.0 |
Veterans Victory Fund | $433,610 | 0.1 |
Millions Raised but Little Spent on Elections
Total contributions to and the percentage spent on election activity by PACs that employ Scott B. MacKenzie as treasurer.
There are a few things you should know about the Virgin Islands Republican Party: It has no full-time staff, has not had regular meetings for nearly two years, and only about 4 percent of the $200,000 it has raised since last fall has gone to party coffers.
Through the end of March, it moved exactly $7,927 to the party. Most of the contributions, solicited by mail sent to people across the United States, end up in a bank in Fairfax, Va., and are used to solicit yet more donations.
The Virgin Islands committee has made two donations — to Republican candidates running for the Senate in South Carolina (Tim Scott) and Oklahoma (T. W. Shannon). Its third donation was to a Georgia state superintendent candidate.
The Virgin Islands committee spends the overwhelming bulk of its money not for basic political activities like voter registration or party messages, but to raise more money. A few other conservative political committees employ this technique, and the biggest beneficiaries are a number of fund-raising companies in Northern Virginia.
Philanthropic experts often gauge charities by their efficiency in spending money for the main purpose of the organization. These political committees are spending tiny fractions of their overall revenue — mostly raised in small amounts from retirees — on political activity.
The expensive direct-mail fund-raising campaign is the hallmark of committees that employ Scott MacKenzie, who is treasurer of the Virgin Island committee, known as VIGOP.
The VIGOP committee is different from other state party committees in several respects. First, it appears to raise no significant money from the territory, whereas most state parties depend on in-state support from individual donors. Second, it has no local bank account listed on its registration form, and the same person — Mr. MacKenzie — is listed as both the custodian of the committee's records and its treasurer. Third, no Virgin Islander is listed on the committee's forms.
Finally, most state parties link their federal and nonfederal accounts so that they can share administrative expenses between them (see an example here), but the VIGOP committee has no record of any shared expenditures. In fact, the federal committee is focused on elections outside the territory.
The fund-raising approach of the Virgin Islands committee is unusual for party organizations, but it's not unusual for Mr. MacKenzie. In addition to the party committee, Mr. MacKenzie is the treasurer of nine other active political action committees that have raised a combined $10.1 million from individuals since the beginning of last year.
The committees include the Conservative StrikeForce, Freedom's Defense Fund and the Black Republican PAC. Almost all of them employ similar techniques: using direct mail to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, most of which is spent on more fund-raising activities, although in the past some of the committees ran television advertisements.
Mr. MacKenzie, who lives in Arlington, Va., and previously worked on the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp and Patrick Buchanan, did not respond to several attempts to reach him for comment.
With the exception of one committee, the Tea Party Victory Fund, which spends about half of its money on elections, these PACs spend less than 10 percent of their money on getting someone elected. Combined, the PACs have spent $418,392 — or 4.1 percent of the money raised — on candidates.
Millions Raised but Little Spent on Elections
Total contributions to and the percentage spent on election activity by PACs that employ Scott B. MacKenzie as treasurer.
Committee | Contributions | Percent spent |
Tea Party Victory Fund | $159,219 | 50.0 |
Freedom's Defense Fund | $2,065,638 | 8.6 |
VIGOP | $221,279 | 6.7 |
Warriors for Liberty | $324,913 | 4.5 |
Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress | $349,423 | 2.6 |
The Conservative StrikeForce | $2,623,955 | 2.0 |
Conservative Majority Fund | $3,512,012 | 1.9 |
Black Republican | $477,339 | 1.0 |
Veterans Victory Fund | $433,610 | 0.1 |
Source: Federal Election Commission filings through March 31, 2014.
Most of the money raised by these committees goes to direct mail companies in the Washington area, including Base Connect, which lists Mr. MacKenzie's company as a "strategic partner" on its website, and Century Data Mailing Services, which shares an address with Base Connect.
The Virgin Islands committee pays smaller amounts as fund-raising commissions to Coast to Coast Strategies, which is run by the former Michigan Republican party chairman Saul Anuzis. The method has left VIGOP owing more than $123,000 to a handful of Virginia and Washington companies.
The committee was authorized by John Canegata, who became the party chairman in 2012. "Our goal with this new federal account is to be effective in electing Republicans nationwide and to build some bridges from these 'tiny insignificant islands' that I love," Mr. Canegata said in an email. "To that end we expect that most of our programs will be federal expenditures, although we will occasionally transfer money to the territorial account for local VIGOP activities." As treasurer, Mr. MacKenzie "has no authority to spend or disburse funds," he wrote. (See all of the committee's expenditures.)
The committee's existence does not appear to be well known among Republicans in the Virgin Islands, which is mostly made up of three islands: St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. Two former party leaders contacted by a reporter said they had no knowledge of the committee's existence and painted a picture of a party in disarray since Mr. Canegata's elevation as chairman. "I have never, ever heard of this," said Herb Schoenbohm, the former party chairman, who now leads the St. Croix branch of the party organization.
The federal committee shares a post office box in Christiansted, a town on St. Croix, with Mr. Canegata, who also is a candidate for the territorial Senate. Mr. Canegata said the committee's outward focus was partly a result of the political circumstances of the Virgin Islands: Democrats outnumber Republicans by 17 to 1 in the territory.
The bulk of the committee's money comes in donations of less than $200, the reporting threshold for federal fund-raising, and VIGOP told the Federal Election Commission that it does not use its solicitations to register voters or advocate the election or defeat of any candidates. The donors are mostly described in F.E.C. filings as retirees and homemakers, and several have made multiple donations to the committee in the past four months. Most of them appear to have contributed to other Republican candidates and causes across the nation, suggesting that they have been regularly contacted by conservative political groups.
____________________
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/30/operatives-raise-cash-for-cain-themselves/?page=all
The Washington Times
Operatives raise cash for Cain, themselves
Lack affiliation with campaign
By Luke Rosiak - The Washington Times - Sunday, October 30, 2011
An independent group raising money in the name of Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has close ties to operatives with a history of enriching themselves by drawing money from conservative donors that goes largely to the fundraisers and not the campaigns.
A collection of political professionals in a downtown Washington suite has perfected the art of aligning itself with Washington outsiders with poorly run campaigns and raising large amounts, which are then paid primarily to direct-mail and consulting firms they control. The donors, most commonly retirees, are often unaware of exactly to whom they are giving.
Now, they are sending solicitations that look like official Herman Cain materials, but which fine print shows to be from an independent group.
Despite a low profile, about 45 candidates and committees have paid $32 million to groups associated with Scott Mackenzie and Jordan Gehrke for fundraising and financial-compliance services in recent years, including a direct-mail firm called Base Connect, of which Mr. Gehrke is a former director, and several related entities with the same address.
This month, the two men launched Americans for Herman Cain, a committee seeking donations to ensure the election of the former business executive.
GRAPHIC: A complex network — The Base Connect universe
The operation typically works something like this: Reliable conservatives receive a letter asking them for a donation to a generic-sounding political committee. The committee pays most of that money to direct-mail companies and donates some to little-known candidates, who appear to be so wowed with the money that they contract with the direct-mail firms responsible for the original letter.
Letters are sent out soliciting money for the candidate, usually successfully, by playing off dislike for the incumbent being challenged. Most of that money is then paid to the direct-mail company, whose executives also control the political action committees. The candidates generally lose their elections and wind up in significant debt.
Mr. Mackenzie has served as treasurer of 42 political committees. The group includes about a dozen generic conservative political action committees (PACs), which raise money to donate later to candidates, as well as candidates who pay him to manage their money.
The PACs include those that sound like official party committees but aren't, including the Republican National Committee Member Senate Fund, the Tea Party Victory PAC, the American Conservative Union Strikeforce and the Black Republican PAC.
"Freedom Defense Fund is an unaffiliated committee, and I'm the chairman. It's a conservative, basic PAC. It gives money to political candidates," said Michael Centanni, chief operating officer of Base Connect - one of the larger PACs for which Mr. Mackenzie is treasurer.
Share a purpose
But each appears to share a purpose: to donate to candidates who are or who will become clients of the direct-mail companies. The Save New York PAC, for example, raised $2.4 million and gave only $38,000 to candidates in 27 donations.
"Suffice it to say, most of the money Scott Mackenzie and Base Connect handle or raise seems to stay inside the Base Connect universe and does not go towards the causes and candidates they claim to advance," said Drew Ryun, whose conservative PAC, the Madison Project, parted ways with Base Connect in 2008 and now has five times the cash in the bank.
The Black Republican PAC gave to Sharron Angle, the white Republican who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Nevada. Mr. Gehrke served as Mrs. Angle's deputy campaign manager. She raised $28 million from individuals, more than any other candidate, and $7.7 million went to Base Connect groups. The campaign ended in debt.
"Why would it be odd that people who know each other support each other?" Mr. Mackenzie said.
The groups also were paid $1.5 million by the campaign of Rep. Allen West, Florida Republican, the black tea-party freshman who outraised every House member but Rep. Michele Bachmann in 2010 with $6 million in individual contributions. He received 16 donations from Mackenzie-connected PACs, four of which came in the months before he signed on with Base Connect.
Those high-profile candidates are the exceptions.
More than 30 candidates have signed on to raise funds, many of them black and first-time candidates with a seemingly loose grasp on their campaign finances, which are overseen by Mr. Mackenzie. Mr. West was the only Base Connect candidate that did not end the 2010 cycle in debt, an analysis by The Washington Times showed.
William Russell, a write-in candidate running for the House seat of since-deceased Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, raised $8.7 million and paid $4.6 million to the fundraising firms between 2007 and 2010. After he lost, tens of thousands of dollars were distributed from the candidate's committee to other candidates who were Base Connect clients, an unusual move.
Mr. Gehrke said raising astronomical sums for little-tested candidates, even those not on the ballot, did not bother him.
"Nobody knew who Allen West was at the beginning of the 2010 cycle," he said.
Mr. Centanni said he had spoken with Mr. Gehrke about the new Cain group, but had not entered into a contract because direct mail typically requires lead time. Mr. Gehrke said the Cain fundraising drive would mainly use other means, such as online contributions.
"We have no role with the Herman Cain super-PAC at this time. Jordan refers clients to us, so he's not really an employee," said Mr. Centanni, adding that Mr. Gehrke receives a commission for referrals.
Misleading marketing?
One of the most predatory aspects of the model - soliciting money for obscure candidates from conservatives in far-off districts - doesn't necessarily apply in the presidential sphere, where any recipient of communications could be a potential Cain voter.
Even if it runs effective vote-getting efforts, it will almost certainly provide a comfortable source of income for Mr. Gehrke, Mr. Mackenzie and the political contractors they hire. The fund, with a logo whose largest words are "Herman Cain for President" - the name of the official campaign - likely will raise money that would have gone to the campaign itself, including from donors who think they're giving to it.
While other presidential candidates' aligned super-PACs function as an overflow valve for wealthy contributors who want to give beyond what they may legally contribute, there is little such demand among Cain supporters. Nearly all of his money came from small donors, who can give many more times within the limits of existing law. Those same donors are the typical base for Mr. Gehrke's and Mr. Mackenzie's fundraising operations.
Smaller, less-sophisticated donors are most likely to think they are giving to the official Cain campaign.
"The average citizen will assume it's the candidate doing this message, and it's not," said Bill Allison, a money-in-politics analyst at the Sunlight Foundation.
