The committees operate free of the contribution limits imposed on
the candidates but are supposed to remain independent of them. The
reality is much more complicated.
When Mitt Romney's presidential campaign needs advice on direct
mail strategies for reaching voters, it looks to TargetPoint
Consulting. And when the independent "super PAC" supporting him
needs voter research, it, too, goes to TargetPoint.
Sharing a consultant would seem to be an embodiment of
coordination between a candidate and an independent group, something
prohibited under U.S. law. But TargetPoint is just one of a handful
of interconnected firms in the same office suite in Alexandria,
Virginia, working for either the Romney campaign or the super PAC
Restore Our Future.
Elsewhere in the same suite is WWP Strategies, whose co-founder
is married to TargetPoint's chief executive and works for the Romney
campaign. Across the conference room is the Black Rock Group, whose
co-founder -- a top Romney campaign official in 2008 -- now helps
run both Restore Our Future and American Crossroads, another
independent group that spoke up in defense of Mr. Romney's candidacy
in January. Finally, there is Crossroads Media, a media placement
firm that works for American Crossroads and other Republican groups.
The overlapping roles and relationships of the consultants in
Suite 555 at 66 Canal Center Plaza offer a case study in the
fluidity and ineffectual enforcement of rules intended to prevent
candidates from coordinating their activities with outside groups.
And there has been a rising debate over the ascendancy of super
PACs, which operate free of the contribution limits imposed on the
candidates but are supposed to remain independent of them.
In practice, super PACs have become a way for candidates to
bypass the limits by steering rich donors to these ostensibly
independent groups, which function almost as adjuncts of the
campaigns.
While insisting that the tangle of connections does not violate
any laws, Alexander Gage, TargetPoint's founder, said he understood
how it could look "ridiculous." His own firm had taken steps, he
said, to prevent improprieties, including erecting "a firewall"
separating employees who work for the Romney campaign and the super
PAC.
"We go to great lengths to make sure that we meet all legal
requirements," he said. "I have removed myself personally from
working on either Restore Our Future or Romney stuff because of this
sort of potential conflict of interest."
The prohibition against candidates working in concert with
independent political committees has its roots in Watergate-era
reforms intended to prevent large donors from gaining improper
influence over elected officials. But it has taken on added
significance in the wake of recent court decisions that opened the
spigot for unlimited contributions to the independent groups.
Super PACs have collected more than $100 million so far, much of
it from a relatively small collection of well-heeled individuals or
companies who are free to give millions to these outside groups but
no more than a few thousand dollars to a candidate's own committees.
Those unlimited contributions are fueling a barrage of negative
advertising in the Republican primaries.
But while the Federal Election Commission has established
elaborate, though narrow, guidelines for determining whether the
