The consultants are in charge now: How admen and advisers conquered American politics

Ten miles from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, located in a low-rise office building in Towson, Maryland, is a successful business few Americans know about. Mentzer Media Services is one of the leading political consulting firms in the country. Mentzer Media does not design or produce the ubiquitous advertisements we see on television. Instead, the company specializes in the strategic placement of campaign commercials by purchasing airtime on behalf of its many clients, deciding where and when (and how often) an ad should run. Time-buying is a critical component of modern campaign strategy. It is also a highly profitable one. According to the company’s website, Mentzer Media has handled more than $1 billion in media buys. Assuming an industry-standard 10 to 15 percent commission on the ads it placed, Mentzer Media has earned between $100 and $150 million over the past several election cycles. In 2012 alone, Mentzer Media placed more than $245 million worth of ads, half of which were on behalf of Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future.

Mentzer Media is just one of the many consulting firms that profited from the 2012 election. The top Democratic media firm, GMMB, handled $435 million in spending in 2012, 90 percent of which came from the Obama campaign. Together, thousands of candidates, the two major parties, and a myriad of wealthy outside groups spent over $6 billion trying to win office or sway the outcome of a race. More than half of this total, around $3.6 billion, went to consulting firms specializing in media, direct mail, and digital services. Although it is difficult to know precisely how much consultants earn in a given campaign cycle, the top firms in the industry appear to be doing quite well. In 2012, just fifty professional firms, averaging around $50 million in expenditures, handled 75 percent of all consulting services in federal campaigns. Between 2008 and 2012, revenues and billings by the top fifty consulting firms grew in real terms by 66 percent, about seven times the rate of growth in overall political spending during the same period. Much of this increase is due to the pronounced rise in independent expenditures by super PACs and other outside groups. The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates to more than $1 billion in outside spending in 2012—most of it on television advertising produced and placed by professional consultants.

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