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9/22/2002 12:00 AM Deep pockets, deep convictions Dane Smith, Star Tribune Staff Writer A small group of entrepreneurs and donors is making its presence felt within the GOP and beyond, promoting smaller government and lower taxes. To some who heard later about the meeting, it sounded like a scene from a Frank Capra movie, one of those black-and-white classics depicting wealthy men with big cigars anointing candidates and arranging political things in private. To those who attended, it was nothing more than a group of successful and community-minded citizens exercising their democratic rights, getting behind a particular candidate. Two years ago this fall, banker and former Republican Party Chairman Bill Cooper invited a handful of Republicans and high-ranking party officials to a meeting in his Wayzata office. Cooper and most of those in the group were leading members of the Freedom Club, a group of affluent entrepreneurs and large donors. According to those present, Cooper told the group he was lining up strongly behind fellow businessman and club member Brian Sullivan for a gubernatorial election that was still more than two years away. Sullivan had the wealth to finance his own campaign, was a fresh face, was uncompromisingly conservative and was the obvious choice to finally turn the tide against Minnesota's liberalism, Cooper told the group. Republican Party Chairman Ron Eibensteiner, who was obligated to stay neutral in intraparty contests, said he excused himself early from that parley and left - not because he thought the meeting inappropriate, but because it was premature. ``A bunch of people get together, and say so-and-so should run for governor,'' Eibensteiner said. ``Everybody does it. Labor unions do it. There's nothing wrong with it. . . . That's how George Washington got to be president.'' A few months later, House Majority Leader Tim Pawlenty of Eagan, the GOP's eventual nominee for governor, found out about the meeting. Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, took Cooper and others to task about it in a speech to Republican activists. And in pleas to delegates, Pawlenty spoke often about how it would not look good for the party to endorse an unknown but wealthy candidate promoted by a small group of peers. Sullivan, he said, had the right low-tax, small-government ``message,'' but wasn't the right messenger for Minnesota's populist voters. Republicans should be led by members of ``Sam's Club, not just the country club,'' Pawlenty declared to party activists before narrowly defeating Sullivan at the GOP state endorsing convention in June. But the fact that Sullivan, unknown and with no experience in public office, came within a hair of capturing the party's nomination illustrates the rising power of the Freedom Club, a relatively new and unknown interest group. `Changed the game' Millions of dollars in contributions from the club's individual members have helped the GOP take control of the Minnesota House, replace moderate Republicans with more conservative members, win some key battles in the courts, and reduce or hold the line on taxes. ``They have changed the game,'' said former U.S. Rep. Vin Weber, a Washington lobbyist. The club has supplanted the party's traditional financial patrons, old-money types who tended to be moderates on fiscal and social issues, he said, and it harmonizes well with the grass-roots activists, many of them Christian conservatives and folks of modest means. Club members started gathering in the mid-1990s, often at the downtown Minneapolis Club for lunch and earnest talk. They eventually incorporated as a political action committee, which allowed them to donate as a group. But most of the Freedom Club's largesse comes from individual contributions. Most members are self-made entrepreneurs. Most have Minnesota roots. Many, including President Cliff Olson, are deeply religious. Several leading members, including Cooper, Sullivan and club founder Bob Cummins, are generous patrons of private, church-based schools, walking their talk about the need for school vouchers. Most of them are white; most of them are male. ``I don't organize my life around political correctness,'' Olson said. Executive Director Midge Dean, a veteran GOP fund-raiser, says with a laugh that she often is the only woman at meetings. ``It's a lot more fun than working with women. I like to work with successful businessmen. They know what they want.'' The club is reclusive and exclusive. It has no Web site and no publications other than a small brochure that promises prospective members ``strict confidence.'' The brochure also spells out key principles, such as ``limited government, individual freedom, personal responsibility . . . traditional American virtues, religious freedom and civic involvement.'' Not anybody can join. Members must be recommended and admitted by consensus, Olson said. Club members say their interest is not self-interest. ``You would have to say we are principled,'' said Mike Wigley, a leading club member, who made his fortune buying and rescuing failing construction companies. ``There's nothing in it for me but a better future for Minnesota. If I pay less income taxes, it means I'll be giving more to charity.'' Sassier voice In 1997, Wigley and others in the low-key, low-profile club began to realize they needed a sassier, brassier voice in politics. They turned to Darrell McKigney, head of the Minnesota Family Council, a group that lobbies, among other things, against gay rights and abortion rights. Wigley provided start-up money, and the Taxpayers League of Minnesota was born. The league has no official ties to the Freedom Club, but four of its current five directors are club members. And its offices are right outside the door of Wigley's business office in Plymouth. The league's mission was clear from the start, McKigney said. Although Republicans made gains in the '90s, conservatives felt they were losing the battle at the State Capitol to a coalition of government advocates, including labor unions. Business groups, although generally supportive of lower taxes and less spending, sometimes were divided and not aggressive enough. The league, modeled after Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C., was set up to hit one note all the time, McKigney said: ``If it raises taxes, it's bad. If it lowers taxes, it's good.'' That message would be delivered with brutal frankness. In one of McKigney's first press releases, moderate Republican Gov. Arne Carlson's last State of the State speech was panned as ``awful.'' Legislative scorecards measuring fiscal conservatism quickly were developed and the league began naming ``Taxpayer Heroes.'' In the 1998 election, the first year Republicans won control of either legislative chamber in 14 years, the league sent out 1 million pieces of mail and got its scorecards and heroes published in countless local newspapers, McKigney said. The league began producing research papers and supplied conservative office-holders with ``talking points.'' In April 1998, the league organized a huge anti-tax rally on the Capitol steps, presided over by talk-show host Jason Lewis. ``We basically kept pumping [the anti-tax theme] on the air,'' he said. After the election, the league declared war on freshly inaugurated Gov. Jesse Ventura, accusing him of reneging on his ``give-it-all back'' pledge regarding state budget surpluses. ``Everybody was kissing Jesse Ventura's butt when he came in,'' McKigney recalled. ``When he changed his mind on returning all the surplus, we called him on it.'' Ventura took the bait in classic form, calling McKigney at one point on his radio show ``a fat load'' and comparing him to Lumpy Rutherford on ``Leave it to Beaver.'' The league, now headed by former state Sen. Linda Runbeck and legislative director David Strom, continues to dish it out like no other interest group. In its almost daily stream of press releases, Ventura has been called a ``gutless coward'' and ``a liar.'' DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch was branded recently as a ``generalissimo.'' Transportation Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg has been accused of ``malfeasance.'' The league has railed against light rail, lampooned stadium proposals, ridiculed biodiesel laws, blasted campaign finance overhauls and attacked and even sued school districts seeking tax increases. Their detractors admit that the club and league have been effective. But one adversary accuses them of being mean, intemperate and too often inaccurate. ``Their hardball tactics have often carried the day,'' said Wayne Cox, executive director of Minnesota Citizens for Tax Justice, a group funded by labor unions. ``But I'm convinced that their goal is to misinform the public. They constantly overstated the size of government and growth in a way that can't be chalked up to hyperbole.'' For instance, the league has run radio ads claiming that Minnesota's taxes are 38 percent higher than the national average and that a typical family pays $13,000. Minnesota ranks high in income, Cox says, and taxes as a percentage of that income are only about 15 percent higher than the national average. And Cox points to tax statistics that show a family with a median income of about $50,000 paying about $6,000 in taxes. A household would have to be making well over $100,000 a year to pay $13,000, Cox noted. Sour grapes are at work, said Strom, who stands by the league's statistical claims. ``We have not been paragons of Minnesota Nice . . . If everybody plays team ball, there are no referees, nobody will know what anybody really thinks, and that's bad for democracy.'' If the league's message seems too over-the-top for some voters, Strom said, so be it. ``One of the ways to win an argument is to dominate the conversation,'' he said. Return fire But the return fire has been hot and heavy, and there has been at least one casualty. A firestorm of angry criticism followed Cooper's effort this year to establish yet another group, the Conservative Council, with the purpose of exposing ``Republicrats'' (moderate office-holders posing as conservatives). Even Eibensteiner mildly reproved Cooper, saying that his predecessor as chairman of the party had ``erred.'' Cooper said he and his family were deeply hurt when he was called a ``Nazi,'' on a radio show. ``The political process doesn't treat people very well,'' he said. Cooper suspended the operation, and says he has dropped completely out of politics and out of the Freedom Club. Now he devotes much of his energies to helping Ascension School, which he proudly asserts is producing amazingly high test scores in ``the toughest ZIP code in Minneapolis.'' But he looks back with pride on what his club has accomplished in its short life. ``There's no question that the Freedom Club has made a huge difference,' he said. ``But I did my work and now others can do theirs.'' Freedom Club/ Taxpayers League of Minnesota The Freedom Club is composed of several dozen (about 50 in any one year) wealthy conservatives. They have given about $6.1 million through three types of contributions and an additional undisclosed amount to the Taxpayers League.
Non-Freedom Club contributors. About 10,000 small donors ($250 or less annually) provide 20% of league's funds. Sources: State and federal campaign finance records, Taxpayers League, Freedom Club TOOLS OF PERSUASION
WINS
LOSSES
Mike Wigley, 48, of Orono:
David Strom, 38, of St. Paul
Cliff Olson, 55, of Lakeville
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