Matt Kibbe is leaving the leading Tea Party group FreedomWorks, where he currently serves as president, to join a super PAC that supports Rand Paul. The Wall Street Journal originally reported the news.
The super PAC is called Concerned American Voters, and it claims 40 full-time paid staffers in Iowa. Kibbe will be a senior adviser. Amid reports that Paul has struggled to find a billionaire of his own in the 2016 presidential race, Kibbe brings a track record of huge fundraising success with conservative and libertarian donors.
“Once in a while, you discover a presidential candidate who has the potential to change the political conversation, to elevate key issues in voters’ minds, and disrupt and transform a tired Republican brand,” Kibbe said in a statement. “Once in a lifetime, maybe, you will have an opportunity to support a transformative candidate who can do all of these things, and win. Rand Paul is that candidate.”
Jeff Frazee of Young Americans for Liberty is the president of Concerned American Voters.
After an acrimonious split with former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Kibbe moved FreedomWorks in a more libertarian direction. The organization worked against the NSA surveillance program and joined Paul’s lawsuit to shut down warrantless bulk metadata collection (former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was legal counsel). FreedomWorks also opposed a proposed military intervention in Syria in 2013.
Concerned American Voters is separate from another pro-Rand super PAC, America’s Liberty PAC. That group is run by Jesse Benton, who ran Rand Paul’s 2010 Senate campaign and worked on both Ron Paul presidential campaigns. Benton, who resigned as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager in 2014, is married to the elder Paul’s granddaughter.
In an environment where Tea Party groups were raising millions of dollars and not necessarily spending it getting candidates elected, some of FreedomWorks was sometimes criticized for how it raised and spent money. But there is no question Kibbe has a big Rolodex of small-government donors and activists.
The super PACs are legally separate from Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign. Paul’s father enjoyed success with small donors in 2008 and 2012, raising vast sums through one-day Internet “money bombs.”
