Explainer: What Is The RNC? (Saul Anuzis)

Saul Anuzis:

What the party has to be careful of is not to become that quintessential establishment unit that nobody pays attention to.

Eric Wilson:

I'm Eric Wilson, managing Partner of Startup Caucus, the home of campaign Tech Innovation on the right. Welcome to the Business of Politics Show. On this podcast, you are joining in on a conversation with entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts who make professional politics happen. This episode is all about the Republican National Committee, the R n c, what it is, who's on the committee, and the organization's role within the broader Republican Party. To help us understand and unpack the R N C, we're joined by sais principal and managing partner of Coast to Coast Strategies and President of the 60 plus Association, the conservative alternative to a r p. He was chairman of the Michigan Republican Party from 2005 to 2009. He ran for chairman of the R N C in 2009 and 2011. He also served as Michigan's national Committeeman. So he has tons of valuable insight into the inner workings of the

Party.

Saul, let's start with a simple question that I know has a complex answer. Is the Republican National Committee the Republican Party?

Saul Anuzis:

Well, I guess the simple answer would be yes and no. <Laugh> it, it's representative of the Republican Party in the sense that obviously it is the national organ that most people are aware of. The national chairman is normally the spokesman that most media personalities go to for a comet. But at the same time, you know, the Republican Party is a very grassroots organization that is made up of parties in all 50 states and all the territories as well as the District of Columbia. So it is a very broad based representation of where Republicans come from. But the party itself has, you know, we have, there's a separate party in all 3,600 and some counties across the country. There are Republican clubs that, whether it's a woman's club or the college Republicans or the young Republicans that are also representative. So it's a little bit simplistic to say that it is necessarily the Republican party, but it's clearly the representation of the Republican party and what most people nationally would consider the Republican party.

Eric Wilson:

And Solan, the first conversation I have with most entrepreneurs or technologists who are looking at the Republican party, they say, I wanna put my skills to use. I've got an idea for a startup to help Republicans win. They come to me and say, Hey, I just need to get a meeting with the R N C, and then they can make every Republican candidate pack in the country start using our software. Right. That, and, and that's the way we're gonna do it. And then I, I have to sort of walk them, walk them back from that, because it is much more complicated as you allude to, and, and similarly from folks who are more in the donor space, I'll, I'll say, well, we're building campaign technology to help Republicans win. And they'll say, oh, well, doesn't the RNC do that? And yes, they do to some extent, but also the broader applications. And so I think it's important for people to understand the R N C's role versus what does the Republican party mean. Similarly, I know you and I both do work internationally. You know, a lot of people think that the, the Republican National Committee is, is sort of like the party a as it is in other countries, and that's just not how we work.

Saul Anuzis:

Yeah, and I think it's important to understand, I mean, we truly are a very entrepreneurial party. So virtually every state party in the country has its own ability and interest in being better than the party next door. And so there's a lot of technology that normally starts at the state party level versus a Republican national committee level, and slowly moves itself up to where it becomes kind of acceptable software or technology that people can go to and say, look, here's a great service that, you know, started in Michigan or started in Florida or whatever, and is recommended to be used around the country. But in very rare cases, as the Republican National Committee kind of appoint, anoint or approve a software or technology that is then ubiquitously used throughout the state party organs across the country, you also have to be aware that, you know, some of the most effective and influential organizations within the Republican party are, for instance, the Republican National Governor's Association, or the National Republican Senatorial Committee, or the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. These are electoral arms of the various legislative bodies and executive bodies across the country that have sometimes as much or even more money that is directly spent on campaign technology and interest to elect their members. So, you know, somebody who was interested in getting their technology or their ideas into the kind of party apparatus, you really have a lot of venues and a lot of avenues in which you could take to get kind of proof of concept before it became accepted or even known by the broader Republican audience.

Eric Wilson:

What are some of the main responsibilities of the R N C within that broader network?

Saul Anuzis:

Well, the R NNC is the only organization legally that is, is capable of coordinating campaign activities with independent committees, campaigns, county parties, state parties, et cetera. So there's a lot of state and federal laws that prohibit kind of the third party spending and third party coordination. And the one area that usually has an exception in all that is the party, so to speak. So from a legal perspective, probably the most powerful role they play is they can often coordinate activities, coordinate assets, coordinate campaign efforts that other people can't put together in that way, or at least not legally. And so that's probably the number one role they play. Number two, it's probably the leading fundraising arm because it does have a national reach. Many people don't know the difference. They don't know that there are other groups available where they could give more directly to something they're more passionate about.

You know, like the Republican Governor's Association is probably one of the strongest and biggest national organizations and, and elect Republican governors, where today we have a majority of Republican governors in this country, and they have a very robust, like major donor group where a lot of people join that for networking purposes. And you're dealing with executives, and there are a lot of technology and a lot of opportunities from a, a software perspective, our state of, you know, the, the, the states themselves, right? So these governors are looking at a better way to provide social services. They're looking for a better way to run their, you know, D M B for getting license plates and, and, and managing that, those type of things. So, you know, you really have a unique opportunity in that, in that regard where, whether it's from prisons to social services to car registrations, to anything else that the state governments are involved in.

They're, the governors have a greater role, or the Republican State Legislative Conference, which is like state legislative leaders, you know, then again, if you're dealing on the congressional front, I mean, the senatorial committee has their group, the congressional club has their group. So there's really a lot of venues for an entrepreneur or for somebody who's looking to get into kind of the Republican space on how to enter it. It's not just the R N C. And I would almost argue that it's probably easier to go to other venues that have a much more entrepreneurial approach than the R N C, which has to be friendly and has to be kind of the overwhelming, overbearing, big government type of role of taking care of everybody underneath that umbrella.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. And listeners will remember from our campaign finance explainer episode, we talked about some of the special carve outs that the R N C has in terms of limits and, and coordination and, and being able to give to all of the committees or all of the state parties and sol. Let's dig into some nuts and bolts because the committee, the C in the R N C is made up of 168 members. A lot of insiders just call 'em the one sixty eight. Who are they and how do they get elected?

Saul Anuzis:

So the hundred 68 members are elected, there's three members from every state territory as well as the District of Columbia that are elected to serve on the Republican National Committee. So you have the state chairman in each of those in each of those states, which is basically normally elected every two years. And they serve for a two year cycle or for whenever their election is done. And then there's a Republican national committee man and a committee woman elected from each state and territory. They are normally elected in the year of a convention, but serve con, they serve the day after the current convention to the day after the next convention. So they literally serve in a four year term from convention to convention for the purposes of being the committee that deals with a nominating process, which is again, one of the more important roles that the Republican National Committee plays, which is nominating the President of the United States.

Eric Wilson:

So who exactly are these people? What, I mean, what, what kind of backgrounds do they have? Are they campaign experts? Are they politicians?

Saul Anuzis:

Yeah, there's a little bit of everything, right? I mean, the campaign chairs or the chairs of the parties tend be more political people. They are folks who've either run campaigns, worked on campaigns, tend to be major donors or people involved in the fundraising aspect of a campaign. Oftentimes former legislators and Congress congressmen. So they tend to be more the political nuts and bolts type of folks. The national Committee man committeewoman tend to be more from the grassroots. Sometimes they are major donors or people or friends of the governor who traditionally serve as the, as a titular head for their respective states. So oftentimes you see the National Committee man or Committeewoman be kind of the right hand or left hand of the sitting governor or US Senator. Other times they are grassroots activist who kind of work their way up through the party, are well respected across their respective states, and, you know, are kind of the workhorse that get out there and work.

So you see a lot of the women who show up are from the Women's Federation or Eagle Forum, or some of the other organizations that are there on the women's side, on the men's side, you know again, can be the same type of venue from the, from just activist side, but also from the donor side. So virtually anybody can run, anybody can be a state chairman, anybody can be a, you know, national committee manner committee woman, but most of 'em are elected at the state level. In some cases, the state committees, which are smaller bodies that can be as little, let's say 19 in Illinois to 68 in Missouri. Or they can be at state conventions like in Michigan, where we have over 2000 delegates participate, or Texas, where over 15,000 delegates participate at their conventions, where they elect the leadership. But all of that is based at the state level, and each state can decide how they elect the representatives to the Republican National Committee

Eric Wilson:

Within the committee. The, the R N C, what sort of authority or responsibilities do those, those members have? We, we obviously know the, the role of the R NNC broadly, but what is a member's role within the, the R nnc?

Saul Anuzis:

Yeah, there's a couple. There's basically, those are built around committees that are normally appointed by the chairman of the committee, other committees. So the, the Republican National Committee chairman will take a look at some of the issues that are affecting us at a given time. And, you know, I served, like I was the first chairman of the technology committee that was created, and, and we did the first, you know, online meeting with 6,000 activists from across the country that had never been done before. And so there's, you know, that was a special committee, but then you have an issues committee that deals with issues that are important that are coming up where the party wants to express the will of, of, of the party. You, you have a budget committee that takes a look, the spending of the committee, and is it, you know, and kind of an oversight committee. You know, you have a conventions committee that is always working almost year round, four years in a row already looking at the next national convention, how to organize it, and who gets to, you know, what, what's gonna be the next location, you know, what nuances that we learned from the last one, and how do you change it. So the functions are traditionally more based on, you know, some standing committees and then special committees that the chairman of the Republican National Committee appoints.

Eric Wilson:

So it does have some pretty serious obligations like pro you know, the convention where we legally nominate who our candidate is absolutely for president. And then there are some other responsibilities oversight of the party and, and things like that. But it's not like I, I just sort of get frustrated anytime when I, I hear someone say, oh, the Republican Party should do this. And, and you know, if I'm, if I'm having a conversation with him, I'll say, well, what does that mean? What does that look like? The, you know, the, the R N C is not our poll bureau that determines party doctrine and things like that.

Saul Anuzis:

That's right. And, and, and the R N C in most cases is very limited with regards to the scope of their power to state parties. So our conventions are kind of the supreme ruling body. So the national convention, when the thousands of delegates gather at the national convention, they override anything the central committee has said or anybody else. So at those conventions, we literally set the rules for the next four years for the party, and oftentimes they are different than the recommendations that the Republican National Committee has made. So the, you know, we are a very di kind of a, not diverse, but we're really, we're, we're really spread out to the grassroots where we give the states greater influence and power than we give the national committee and, and it goes down. So they set parameters, but the state parties have a lot of flexibility in what to do.

And then ultimately, the delegates that come up from the state parties and from the various states have the ultimate power to decide, you know, the rules and regulations, the procedures. They can change things if they didn't like how something came you, you know, was done, they could literally on the floor, you know, propose something different and have a completely new voting process. So there, there's a whole lot of things that are done in the, the National committee kind of serves as that umbrella and the the structure from which we have to work, but they're not that powerful. I mean, the chairman can't dictate to a state party what it can and can't do. The national committee man committee woman, oftentimes at the state level are influential because of their influence at the National Party level, but sometimes they are not that influential at the state level, just depends on the role they play.

Other times they have a lot of respect and a lot of credibility, and so they may be more influential than others. But, you know, a state party chairman is, is normally the, the person who, you know, they're the ones raising the money, they're the ones setting the policy. They're the ones choosing the direction of the party at the state level working with the elected officials. So it is exponentially more powerful and more influential than the National Committee people who serve kind of a more representative role to the National Party versus a policy decision making

Eric Wilson:

Role. You're listening to the Business of Politics Show. I'm speaking with Solo Newses about the Republican National Committee, how it works, who's on it, and what its role is in the broader Republican party. So we've obviously got relationships up from the states, but what, if anything, does the R N C do that goes back to the state parties?

Saul Anuzis:

Well, you know, look, they, they do, they have a great job at educational efforts. So they, they try to train campaign managers finance people, media folks, media training. So there's, there's a tremendous, there's a big educational aspect to it. Secondly, they have field staff. It's a political director, a regional political director, regional finance director who's specifically has professional staff that work at maybe three to five states at a time, depending on their size. And they work with the state parties to help them do their jobs better. So their outside consultants, experts paid for by the R N C to do that. Then the R N C also engages in like specific outreach programs. So we have a fairly large minority outreach program where, you know, actually started maybe 10, 15 years ago where we started going into major urban areas and setting up a presence. My

Eric Wilson:

Old boss, ed Gillespie. Really?

Saul Anuzis:

Yeah. Making it permanent rather than, you know, just trying to, coming in six months before an election and wondering why people aren't voting for you. You know, we were, we opened up brick and mortar and have brochures and have a staff person sitting there and talking to people and going to community events. And, you know, it's a slow process, but we've seen tremendous increase in support in the Latin American community and the Hispanic community. Take a look at the African American community, and those are, are tough nuts to crack, but they can be done, but you gotta make a sustained commitment. It's, you know, they see through kind of this, you know, oh, we're here six months ahead of time and, you know, running some ads in, in Spanish, and it doesn't, it doesn't mean all of a sudden that, you know, you're gonna get the Hispanic vote.

So, so there's that kind of effort that's done. They do sit on the international, you know, there are international representatives, so whether it's the IRI or idu or other groups that are kind of center right organizations around the country, there, around the world, there is an organization, you know, there's a number of organizations that engage with Republicans as kind of the conservative representatives for the United States, and, and we have a voice there. And some are official representatives and others are just, you know, members that involved get involved because they're interested in international affairs or, you know, helping the United States have a stronger voice around the world.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, I think that's something that's important for our listeners to know that any time for, for the most part, once we're in a general election, if you see someone knocking on doors, volunteering, making phone calls, that staff person is a an employee of the state party funded through the R N C they, they lead just an absolutely enormous field operation with, with boots on the ground. And they've, they've, they've really ramped that up over the last couple of years.

Saul Anuzis:

And the other thing that probably is just as important is election integrity. We have thousands of lawyers that volunteer to work on election day and the day before and the day after to make sure that, you know, everything is done legally. And we don't have some of these issues that, you know, keep popping up around the country these days. But as we clean up the state laws, as we make the procedures and, and the process more straightforward and understandable the lawyers are still there to interpret it because, you know, people are trying to gain the system to their advantage. And, you know, we've seen that in the last couple cycles with the Democrats, you know, arguably rigging the election to taking every advantage they can to benefit their side. While some of those, most of those activities were not illegal, but they were clearly kind of unethical and not what was normally done. So, you know, those are the challenges that, that we have in, in an organization like the Republican National Committee is in the best position to do that and to make sure that the laws are equally applied across the country.

Eric Wilson:

Saul, we're in the middle of a R N C chairs race, which has appearances of being contentious, if not competitive. You've run for R N C Chair before. What is that process like and how are members making their decision?

Saul Anuzis:

Well, it's really an inside baseball game. I mean, the 168 members are the only members that vote. You know, we discussed how they're elected. So they have a tremendous amount of flexibility in the sense that, you know, they're accountable once every four years to an audience that may or may not remember a chairman's race, which has never been really that sexy of a thing to pay attention to. That's right. So it's truly inside baseball. The expectation is, and, and most candidates who are running travel to each and every state meet with the three members in their home states sometimes together, sometimes individually, depending on their personalities and their styles they talk about the resources and the help the state party has gotten from the R N C, what can they expect if a new chairman or the same chairman is reelected?

It is your best opportunity to raise your concerns, et cetera. But at the same time, it's all about relationships. The idea of beating an incumbent is extremely difficult. If Ronald McDaniels has done a good job in working with the members and making them feel comfortable and taking care of their issues and taking care of their states and making sure that they're happy with regards to the things that they get involved in at the Republican national level, it is extremely difficult to beat her. But at the same time, this is the first time in the history of the R N C that I've ever seen, where you've got, you know, first she's running for a historical third term at a, at a time. That has never happened before. But secondly, they're also having state parties have no confidence votes. State parties and executive committees actually say, we want change.

And so the people who are electing the National committee people, the people who actually elect the national committee chairs or state chairman, are actually expressing their opinions in a way that is very unique from the history of our races. And so in the past, you know, you kind of had this mass grassroots reaction one way or the other. I like this candidate, I like that candidate, but it was just noise because it wasn't really directed at the people who, you know, the 168 that make the decision this time around. It's a very unique process that, that we've never witnessed. And, and so there's, you know, for, Dylan is the national Committee woman from California, she's also the head of the Republican Lawyers Association. So she's got a lot of credibility. She's been, you know, very vocal on the news. She's oftentimes speaks, you know, on national television. So she has a higher profile than most candidates who are running, and she's actually making a race of this mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, but it's still an uphill battle. It's still a very difficult battle. You know, the odds are probably fairly high that Ronna is reelected, but for the first time in a long time, you have a incumbent being challenged in a way that is not been traditionally seen. I'd say it's Ron Salz. But at the same time, you know, this is a very unique situation.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, it certainly has led to making a lot of noise. But I think you're right that the current chairs is a very strong position to, to win reelection, and certainly she has already the public support of a majority of, of the committee. So a lot of sound and fury unclear what that translates, but it does pretend to something that that is, you know, evolving in our party structure, right. Where people are paying more attention to what was previously inside baseball. Aside from the sort of strategy, and I'm curious to hear what's one thing you would change about how the R N C works maybe in its relationships with candidates or parties or, or even with its members?

Saul Anuzis:

Well, I'm not, that's a tough question with regards to like, what one thing would you change? <Laugh>, the key is that, you know, we are a bottom up party. So I think that whenever the National party or a national leader tries to you know, kind of project their will by force on everybody else, it normally backfires. Given the age of the internet social media technology changing election law laws, we're finding it easier and easier to work outside the party structure, right? So all of a sudden you're seeing independent committees that are being formed. You're seeing interest groups create their own operations. You're seeing you know, whether it's the nra, whether it's a group like 60 plus that I represent, whether it's the Tea Party, whether it's you know, a hundred different groups that are out there organizing activists, pushing for issues that they believe in, and trying to have an influence in the process.

There's a, there's a huge thrust to go around the party that don't wanna get locked into kind of what the establishment is saying. And so the, what the party has to be careful of is not to become that quintessential establishment unit that nobody pays attention to, right? And the only way to do that is to be kind of an honest broker and to facilitate the process rather than trying to dictate the process. You know, somebody's gotta be the referee, somebody's gotta kinda lay the groundwork in. And, and I think that that's, that's probably the greatest role the party plays. But you know, each party is using different types of techniques that they're doing. You know, how they nominate their candidates, how they put their candidates forward, what is the best way to do that what happens when we have extremists, whether it's on the right from the Republican side or the left from the democratic side, is there a way to pick better candidates, broader supported candidates, et cetera?

So you see a lot of structural reforms taking place around the country. People are talking about, you know, final five voting that, that we basically, that was just passed in Nevada. Alaska used a variation of that for Final Four. Then they created, you know, people to do that kinda came up with rank choice voting aspects. So you can rank your candidates of where you think they, they fall and have a first and second and third and fourth choice and come up with a consensus to get someone at 50% plus one. You've got a group talking about a national popular vote to basically make sure that every voter in every state's politically relevant, rather than having the four to six to eight to 10 maybe battleground states decide who the president of the United States is. So we're, we're talking a whole lot of structural reforms, many of which are taking place and being implemented and pushed outside the party structure because the party structure doesn't necessarily want reform. They like the system the way it is, they want to be the party bosses. So you're finding a lot of independent work kind of on the outside that is forcing the party's hand and forcing, forcing the establishment's hand to take a look at reforms that are really reflective of what the voters want and what the activists want with regards to, you know, the candidates they elect and the policies they implement.

Eric Wilson:

I agree with you definitely that the, the internet and technology have completely shaken up the way our institutions run full stop, you know, whether that's religion, culture, entertainment, politics. I think the other underappreciated aspect of this is McCain Feal finance reform that did a lot to weaken the official political parties by opening up the, the path decisions, United and Super pacs and all that. Yeah,

Saul Anuzis:

You're, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, look, the first time the parties on the candidates spent a billion dollars on the campaign was, I think 2012 was the first election that formally recorded a billion dollars. But at the time, the estimate were was that another four to 6 billion were spent on the outside supporting third party groups get out the vote efforts, et cetera, to support respective candidates of different parties for the presidency. This time around we're, we're looking at, you know, this last election that there was probably close to 40 billion spent in the presidential election, and 90% of which was not reported or recorded or followed with regards to where they went. So, you know, you've got guys like George Soros on the left and Michael Bloomberg who are literally writing hundred million checks or multi hundred million checks to different groups that are, you know, getting out the boat in their areas or activating a certain constituency that they know is pro-democratic.

You know, you've got some Republican groups that do the similar type of thing, but they're nowhere near the size that the liberal groups tend to be. Or you got the Zucker bucks coming in from, you know, Facebook where they went out and helped, you know, kind of municipalities run their elections. Well, it was kind of interesting that overwhelming majority of that money went to far left democratic leaning constituencies. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> they were trying to, you know, maximize the votes from, you know, from left wing groups. And so that's why a lot of people talk about, you know, it might have been legal, but it was clearly rigged in the advantage of the Democrats. And so, you know, you've gotta understand how the process works. I think that the political process is becoming much more entrepreneurial by definition. There's a lot of people who are saying, Hey, you know, if five of us are willing to put in a hundred thousand each or a million dollars each, or even 10 million each, we can have a much bigger impact and, and drive the direction of an election, rather than give to a party and, and let the state, you know, a state party or a national party kind of redirect those monies.

So I think there's a lot of, you know, young entrepreneurs, business people who wanna be more independent and wanna have a more independent path are looking for different groups that they agree with and, and, you know, would be more likely to push their issues. And so, you know, whether it's a senior citizen group like ours or the NRA or cryptocurrency groups or, I mean, you know, you name a thousand of 'em out there, I think you're gonna see a more entrepreneurial approach to politics over time anyways, which I basically think is a healthy thing.

Eric Wilson:

Let's keep looking to the future and, and as we wrap up here, what do you see as the evolving role of the political party structure? What, what does the R N C look like 20 years from now?

Saul Anuzis:

I think in general, the political parties will slowly become less and less relevant in the process. I think that there are a lot of concerns by people with regards to the extremes in either party, and there's not a whole lot of way to get around it because of the way the rules were set. Mm-Hmm. And so, you know, some of these structural reforms we were talking about, I think are gonna slowly emerge around the country. I think you're gonna see more and more independent groups get involved in a greater way. And so I think the party over time again, will be more and more just the referee and less kind of 800 pound gorilla in the room that can kind of drive or, or direct how things go. So I think the party will be relevant. I don't think it's going away. There may be multiple parties down the line, but that will be more reflective of, you know, kind of the structural reforms that take place. And I think you'll see a lot of more people going to state level reforms and state level ways of nominating and electing their candidates, kind of like what Alaska did or others. And so I think that's just gonna change both the strength and the power of parties across the country.

Eric Wilson:

Well, I want to thank Solo Newses for a great conversation today. You can learn more about him at his website, which is in our show notes. If this episode made you a little bit smarter or gave you something to think about, or maybe you learned something brand new about the R N c, all we ask is that you share it with a friend or colleague, and then bonus, you also look smart in that process as well. So remember to subscribe to The Business of Politics Show wherever you listen to podcasts so that you never miss an episode. You can also sign up for email updates on our website at business of politics podcast.com. With that, I'll say thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

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