Molly Ball: “These are boom times for political consultants—by one rough estimate, more than $6 billion will go to or through consulting firms during this year’s elections—and the scene at the conference was befitting of an industry awash in cash. Booths showcased the wares of campaign-literature printers, data-acquisition specialists, automated-phone-call vendors, online-fund-raising experts, and social-media-analytics firms. Whole companies exist just to manufacture the throwaway trinkets campaigns hand out, from stress balls with a candidate’s name on them to red-white-and-blue fingernail files.”

“But all was not well at the Pollies. A confab intended to be a sun-soaked junket was instead shadowed by the island’s debt crisis, the Zika virus, and a forecast of stormy weather throughout the week. It was almost too perfect a metaphor: Despite all the money pouring into political consulting, a palpable sense of unease looms over the profession. The consultants may be getting rich, but recent events suggest they don’t have any idea what they’re doing.”

Jason Zengerle: “Ever wonder where congressmen come from? No? Well, that’s great news for Rex Elsass, who’s built nearly 50 of them from scratch while turning himself into the most powerful Republican operative you’ve never heard of.”

Wall Street Journal: “The craft of opposition research–finding information that might put an opponent in a negative light–has long been a staple of political campaigns. This year, independent groups are taking a leading role, adding to the research done by candidates and party committees.”

“Like other parts of electioneering, such as buying TV airtime and soliciting donations by phone, opposition research is becoming a specialty of third-party groups. Two of the most prominent are America Rising, a 67-employee group that takes aim at Democrats, and American Bridge, whose 80-plus-staff targets Republicans. Both are backed by prominent donors–investor and money-manager George Soros, for example, has backed Democratic-aligned American Bridge, while hedge-fund founder Ken Griffin has given to America Rising.”

National Journal: “Some trackers have been following the same candidate for years–around the state, around the country, on planes, on buses, in town halls, in swanky fundraisers–all on the off chance that they’ll get the candidate on tape saying something politically distasteful or flip-flopping on a position.”

Brendan Nyhan: “Why is the campaign consultant market so inefficient? First, it suffers from what social scientists call an asymmetric information problem. The buyers (candidates) know much less about the service being provided than the sellers (consultants) — the same reason that consumers have a hard time making informed choices on health care. As a result, consultants are often hired based on their prominence or relationships with party insiders rather on than their past performance or other measures of quality.”

“Second, there are few good sources of data about firm performance. Consultant client lists are often not broadly publicized, preventing firms from being held accountable for their performance in past campaigns.”

“Ten of the consulting firms that formed the core of the push to elect Mitt Romney — reaping a combined $1 billion in the process — have survived a tea party assault and are again among the highest-grossing and best-positioned players in Republican politics,” Politico reports,

“The firms and their consultants have been paid more than $19.6 million for 2014 campaign work through January… They’ve also cemented relationships with some of the GOP’s rising stars, setting up the firms for even bigger paydays headed into the fall, when costly advertising and mail campaigns begin, and for a 2016 presidential campaign expected to be the most expensive in history.”

“It’s both vindication for top Republican operatives — who were ridiculed by tea partiers for squandering hundreds of millions of dollars and blamed for blowing the party’s chances at capturing the White House and the Senate — and an illustration of the irreversible privatization of politics.”

“The Republican donors who have financed the party’s vast outside-spending machine are turning against the consultants and political strategists they once lavished with hundreds of millions of dollars,” the New York Times reports.

“The quiet revolt signals a broader shift in the world of big money. Clubs of elite donors in both parties are taking a more central role in shaping policy and campaigns, displacing party leaders and the outside-spending organizations they helped create after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. And the sheer scale of their spending is almost certain to rewrite the playbook for political campaigns this year, as candidates reckon with the strongly held views of some of the world’s wealthiest people.”

“Everyone has a game plan until you punch them in the mouth. So let’s punch them in the mouth.”

— Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, in a New York Times Magazine profile.

The Hotline: “Lest anyone feared Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wasn’t taking his re-election bid seriously, his latest campaign finance report shows he’s fully staffed up. In fact, McConnell looks like he’s making his own personal effort to reduce the unemployment rate among political consultants.”

“McConnell’s campaign made payments to 20 different consulting firms over the last three months, the filings show, including to nine different fundraisers, three separate media firms and two Republican web consulting outfits. He’s hired some of the biggest Republican names in the business — Harris Media, Metzner Media, FLS Connect and Engage LLC, to name a few — in advance of what could be a difficult re-election bid against Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.”

McKay Coppins has a fascinating look at the collapse of the political consulting firm behind the rise of Rep. Michele Bachmann, Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz.

“This is the headquarters of the largest, most combative, and perhaps
most controversial band of messaging warriors in Republican politics.
Their blandly named company, Strategy Group for Media, has spent a
decade developing a slashing formula for turning the party’s right-wing
rejects into members of Congress. Now there are at least 40 Republicans
in Congress who have worked with the Strategy Group, which serves as a
campaign and strategy clearing house for the uncompromisingly
conservative wing of the congressional caucus that has been at the
center of American politics since 2010.”

Former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades will lead a new GOP research outfit called “America Rising” dedicated to improving the party’s opposition research efforts, CNN reports.

Said Rhoades: “We plan to start this enterprise because so many Republicans seem to agree that there is a need on our side of the aisle for an entity that is focused on solely holding Democrats accountable for their actions and records using research, candidate tracking, rapid response and digital tools.”

“If I did run for office and win, I’d serve out my term. I wouldn’t leave office mid-term.”

— Karl Rove, on Fox News, slapping back at Sarah Palin’s criticism of GOP consultants who “keep losing elections.”

Byron York: “If there was any villain at the just-completed Conservative Political Action Conference, it was the generic figure of the Republican political consultant. Overpaid, unprincipled, always on the lookout for the next client — or easy mark — the consultants, to listen to a number of CPAC speakers, have helped bring the Republican Party to its current low state.”

“The two non-candidates most mentioned in the consultant hall of shame
were Karl Rove, the former Bush White House aide who has recently formed
a group that he says will find more electable Republican candidates,
and Stuart Stevens, the top adviser to the Romney campaign.”

Michael Tackett: “For more than a decade, Republicans have looked to Karl Rove for the solution. Now, a growing number see him as the problem.”

Maggie Haberman: “After his electoral wipeout in November — and motivated by years of
resentment that’s spilling over — Rove’s credibility within his own
party is at an all-time low.”