Floyd Brown

In 1988 Brown founded Citizens United. Several Brown-organized campaigns have been studied for their effectiveness; these include the effort to secure the confirmation of Judge Clarence Thomas, and the independent campaigns against Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton.[4] The anti-Dukakis effort produced the famous "Willie Horton" commercial.[5]

Brown and Citizens United worked on behalf of the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, Brown told the New York Times, "What people don't understand is how bitter conservatives are about Bork," referring to Robert Bork, a conservative federal appellate judge and former Yale law professor nominated by Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court in 1987 and rejected by the Senate.[6]

In a 2007 CNN documentary, Broken Government: Campaign Killers, journalist Campbell Brown, who is not related to Floyd Brown, interviewed him briefly on the subject of the Willie Horton ad, but not about a racy ad with a toll-free number that listeners could call to hear a recording of Gennifer Flowers, a woman who had been the subject of inquiries into President Bill Clinton. Campbell Brown attributed the Flowers ad to David Bossie rather than Floyd Brown, prompting Citizens United to threaten a lawsuit, and to distinguish between its activities, and those of Floyd Brown, the "true" author of the Flowers ad.[7]

He is active in the Republican Party and was a delegate to both the 2000 and 1996 National conventions. In 1996 he served on the Republican National Convention Platform Committee.[8] He has been an advisor and consultant to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, Bob Dole and Steve Forbes. He was Midwest Regional Director of the Dole for President campaign in 1988, managing campaigns in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska.[9] In 2016 he served on the National Finance Committee of Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign.

In 1992, Brown headed the Presidential Victory Committee, which backed the candidacy of George H. W. Bush. In March 1992, the Bush campaign sought to halt the committee's efforts to raise money. Bobby Burchfield, acting as Bush campaign counsel, wrote to Brown, "Your group has neither asked for nor received permission to solicit funds using the name of George Bush. The president strongly disapproves of this misleading use of his name and reputation."[1]

CBS Evening News reported that Brown harassed the family of Susann Coleman, a former law student of Bush's opponent Bill Clinton. Coleman had committed suicide, and Brown was attempting to investigate a rumor that she had had an affair with Clinton. David Bossie reportedly stalked the Coleman family while working for Brown. In April 1992, 30 news organizations received "an anonymous and untraceable letter" by fax "claiming Clinton had had an affair with a former law student who committed suicide 15 years ago." Floyd Brown attempted to investigate any connection between Clinton and Coleman's suicide.[10]

Two days after the CBS charges aired, the Bush-Quayle campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Brown, seeking to distance itself from his tactics,[5][11] and calling Brown and his associates "the lowest forms of life".[10]

Brown figured prominently in two ways in the Whitewater controversy of the Clinton presidential administration. Brown was investigating Clinton. Brown was contacted by David Hale, a municipal judge facing indictment for fraud, then functioning as a paid informant for the FBI.[12] Under the auspices of Citizens United, Brown issued letters to 100,000 donors to Citizens United, asking for money and saying that he had proof that Clinton had engaged "in a massive cover-up and conspiracy to obstruct justice" in the investigations surrounding the Whitewater controversy. At the same time that Brown was investigating the Clintons, he was using the tax-exempt status of Citizens United to acquire funds, urging his donors to fill out an "emergency impeachment" survey, utilizing a push-poll technique. Brown's fundraising literature said, "Our top investigator, David Bossie, is on the inside directing the probe as Special Assistant to U.S. Senator Lauch Faircloth on the U.S. Senate Whitewater Committee."[13][14]

Brown was a co-founder in 2007, with James V. Lacey, Tim Kelley, and Michael Reagan, of the National Campaign Fund in support of GOP presidential candidates Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and in opposition to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.[15] An affiliated 527 called Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America was also formed in late 2007. ExposeObama.com is an anti-Barack Obama website created by Brown and his National Campaign Fund. The website purports to show that the Democratic nominee has inconsistent positions regarding abortion, taxes and other issues, in addition to being soft on crime and on what the site calls "Islamo Fascism".[16] The website has been criticized in media accounts for "mudslinging" and misrepresenting Obama's positions.

In the spring of 2008, working for The National Campaign Fund, Floyd Brown launched what he called "the most internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever" to disseminate via what he claimed was three to five million emails to conservatives the implication that Barack Obama had been "soft" on crime as a state senator in Illinois before his presidential candidacy.[17] The initiative was funded by a political action committee calling itself the "National Campaign Fund," which had $14,027 in the bank at the end of March 2008. Other Brown-established groups to raise funds in this effort include a 527 group, Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America. Brown also uses a 501(c)(4) non-profit to raise funds for the Policy Issues Institute.[18] Brown made appearances to promote his ad and his company on a news network, Fox News,[19] In response to the attack ad, Newsweek published a report on the ad, saying it was the attempt of "a conservative ad man striving to regain his Willie Horton notoriety" and directed readers to factcheck.org to get information on Obama's voting record. The report includes a swipe at MSNBC's Chris Matthews for airing the ad continuously, pointing to Brown's strategy of getting "free" air time for ads by making them controversial.[20]

Brown's fundraising strength is diminished by the hesitance of large donors to leave themselves vulnerable to the legal difficulties encountered by donors to "swiftboat" ad efforts in the 2004 election cycle, and to new laws which curtail some of the more offensive content of political ads by 527 groups. As some of the contributors to the "swiftboat" ads in 2004 faced stiff fines from the Federal Elections Commission, Brown has refrained from operating out of 527 groups and opted for the political action committee platform and budgeting from small donors.[21] Brown's stated goal is to release one new attack ad every two weeks, and released an advertisement asserting that Obama was registered as a Muslim student in Indonesia, and that he attended an Indonesian school that taught Islam as a child.[22] The claim has been refuted by the Obama campaign.[23] As of March 2008, Brown had raised $50,000, and spent $5,000 on actual ad buys, also posting the ad on YouTube and other public platforms.[24]

In August 2008 Brown teamed up with writer and entrepreneur Jerome Corsi to promote Corsi's book Obama Nation via viral web campaigns and email marketing.[25]