FLS: Screw Up, Lose, and Spin

On January 2, 2009, I wrote about FLS Connect. FLS Connect received over $1 million from the National Republican Campaign Committee in 2008. It was also, back then, the third largest recipient of expenditures from the Republican National Committee, netting around $30 million.As I wrote then, “Rich Beeson is the Political Director of the RNC. Before going to the RNC (and after leaving the RNC I’m sure), Beeson was a partner at FLS.” Beeson went on to be the Political Director for Mitt Romney in charge of the now famous ORCA program collapse.But let’s go back to what I wrote in 2009. Remember the much touted and beloved voter vault program?

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The RNC, which did all the hard work of putting together the much touted Voter Vault program sold the data to FLS and now has a very pricey lease back from FLS. Voter Vault is also pretty much crap these days. After all that investment and now a costly lease back program, I’m told the data isn’t that reliable any more. . . .Here’s the thing: according to some friends inside the RNC, no other phone vendors were allowed to bid on the work that FLS got. None. Now, the rates don’t seem out of line, though there is some suspicion from a few friends at the RNC that FLS charged more for calls not connected to the campaign. (I don’t know what the live call rate was billed at)I don’t know Rich Beeson. I don’t know anything about FLS Connect, though I’m sure they are a good vendor if the President used them.But does it not seem wholly improper that the Political Director of the RNC gave a multi-million dollar contract to his own company without opening bidding to anyone else? He told National Journal he wasn’t getting anything for it. But come on — the guy was a partner at the firm and will probably head back there if he isn’t there already. He’s getting a benefit. It’s just delayed.

In fact, we see this pattern now that we saw with Rich Beeson then. Republican consultants are claiming they are not getting any sort of money for all those ad commissions, mail commissions, etc. They’re just doing it for free or some such. This is all so familiar.But here’s where it gets better.Beeson was a partner at FLS. The FLS stands for Feather, Larson, and Syndhorst. As an aside, it is hilarious that the FLS Connect website looks like something out of MS Frontpage ’98.Rich Beeson left FLS and went to the RNC and wound up going to serve as Mitt Romney’s Political Director.Jeff Larson, the L in FLS, left his partnership at FLS to become the Chief of Staff at the Republican National Committee. He is in that position currently.On CNN tonight, Reince Priebus announced the RNC will do an “autopsy” on what happened.So will Rich Beeson’s former partner at FLS, Jeff Larson, who now works at the RNC where Beeson used to work, be involved in this autopsy? Given his position, he would just about have to be.Incest leads to all sorts of birth defects, in kids and in campaigns.

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