Topsy-Turvy GOP Race Faces Busiest Week Yet

It's going to be a good week. Things are going to shake out.

At WSJ, "Republicans buffeted by surge of Donald Trump and pool of wealthy donors sometimes at odds with party brass":

DANA POINT, Calif. — The Republican Party enters its most competitive presidential contest in a generation buffeted by forces largely beyond the control of party leaders, from the unexpected surge of Donald Trump to the small pool of wealthy donors gathered here who are occasionally at odds with GOP brass.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found Mr. Trump ahead of the field, as the top pick of 19% of GOP primary voters, after generating weeks of news coverage for his incendiary remarks about Mexican immigrants, his rivals for the nomination and Arizona Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2008 nominee.

Mr. Trump’s unanticipated ascent coincided with the arrival of five other Republican presidential candidates at a luxury resort here over the weekend to audition for hundreds of wealthy donors convened by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. It’s a gathering that exposes both the promise and the limits of a new campaign financing system for the GOP. More money is flowing into the race, but the party and the candidates have less control over how those dollars are spent. The contenders also risk appearing beholden to deep-pocketed backers.

“I wish good luck to all the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers,” said Mr. Trump, who wasn’t invited to the Koch meeting, in a Sunday tweet. “Puppets?”

The biannual Koch conference set the stage for the busiest week yet in the nominating contest, with a candidate forum Monday in New Hampshire and the first candidates’ debate on Thursday in Cleveland.

The Koch conference is an unrivaled convergence of roughly 450 conservatives who have pledged at least $100,000 a year to various political and ideological endeavors. Many are also financing individual presidential candidates and the so-called super PACs that support them.

Outside donors are taking on roles once solely performed by candidates and the party, from television ads to voter outreach. The Koch network plans to spend about $900 million in the run-up to the 2016 election, with about a third of that total devoted to influencing elections outcomes. Yet, these donors don’t always see eye-to-eye with GOP leaders in Washington and could prove nettlesome for a Republican president.

The Koch network, for example, sparred with the Republican National Committee over who controls the vast repository of voter data that GOP candidates at every level of the ballot will need to turn out supporters next fall. The two sides recently reached a deal to share information, but the pact gives an entity backed by the Kochs a central role overseeing the party’s data-collection efforts for the foreseeable future. Candidates also rely increasingly on Koch-financed groups to organize their grassroots events.

This weekend, Charles Koch, the chief executive of Koch Industries who co-founded the network with his brother David, took aim at tax breaks and other government subsidies for private-sector corporations. He singled out the country’s biggest banks for accepting bailout money and cheap loans from the Federal Reserve in exchange for giving the government more influence over their business decisions. That stance is sure to ruffle business interests that represent the GOP’s traditional outside allies.

“It is not our goal to supplant the Republican Party, and, in fact, we need the party to be strong,” said Marc Short, president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the central conduit for collecting money that is then steered to other groups backed by the Kochs and their donor allies. But he also noted, “Our mission is about trying to advance a free society, not about trying to advance a party.”

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