Help us improve in just 2 minutes—share your thoughts in our reader survey.
Leadership Project for America PAC
This article is outside of Ballotpedia's coverage scope and does not receive scheduled updates. If you would like to help our coverage scope grow, consider donating to Ballotpedia.
| Leadership Project for America PAC | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | West Conshohocken, Penn. |
| Type: | Political action committee |
| Year founded: | 2014 |
| Website: | Official website |
The Leadership Project for America PAC (LPA PAC) is a national conservative political action committee. The LPA PAC has conducted research for the 2016 presidential cycle through its Leadership Matrix, a research model that defines nine characteristics of a qualified leader and grades each presidential candidate on his or her leadership skills.[1]
Mission
According to the organization's website, the LPA PAC's mission is:[2]
| “ | The Leadership Project for America (LPA) identifies and evaluates principled, effective leadership for the United States. America stands at a crossroads, desperately in need of political leadership to rally citizens around a vision that draws upon all that is great about this country. That vision includes free markets to unleash our competitive spirit and create economic growth and prosperity, a national security and foreign policy agenda that protects and promotes America’s interests around the world, and a unique system of limited, constitutional government that protects our freedoms, encourages decency and brings out the best in all of us.[3] | ” |
Work
The LPA PAC is a political organization that aims to rate candidates for office based on principles of leadership. According to the PAC's CEO Paul Mero, the organization approaches leadership from a "center-right" perspective.[4] The organization grades candidates based on the following ten principles:[5]
- Free Market Economic Principles
- A Strong National Security
- American Exceptionalism
- Consistency
- Ethics
- Moral Compass
- Accomplishments and Bold Ideas
- Coalition Building, Political Skills and Network
- Effective Communication
- Fundraising
- Central weakness/ability to overcome
In an opinion piece for The Hill, Mero explained the LPA PAC's perspective on candidate grades and scorecards:[6]
| “ | LPA was created to help citizens identify and evaluate political leadership – not simply which candidate is the “most” or “least” this or that – but principled and effective leadership. ... Is a candidate principled? What is the character of the candidate? And is the candidate effective? Belying many partisan or single-issue candidate “scorecards,” LPA argues that no candidate is perfect. Every candidate has his or her inconsistencies, inabilities and shortcomings. The only accurate 100 percent rating is imperfection, and even the best candidate scores must be understood in this context. That said, LPA insists it is possible for every voter to accurately assess every candidate for leadership skills.[3] | ” |
2016 presidential candidate scorecards
The major project of the LPA PAC was a scorecard that ranked the 2016 presidential candidates based on qualities of leadership rather than political perspective. In December 2015, Mero told Fox News explained, "This is an edcuational project to really help Americans identify and evaluate principled and effective leadership. And we're using the presidential race, the 2016 race, as the pilot project to help people understand how you actually go about identifying and evaluating."[4]
Just before the Iowa caucuses in January 2016, The New York Times reported that the PAC intended to use its scorecards to influence the undecided caucusgoers. The paper reported that LPA PAC's "idea was to change how caucusgoers who were still weighing their choices look at the candidates" and that the group would "use social media to highlight the grades and to try to affect the views of more than 100,000 likely caucusgoers."[7]
The following are the PAC's scores for each candidate who had declared his or her candidacy prior to the Iowa caucuses:[8]
| LPA PAC presidential candidate scorecards | |
|---|---|
| Democratic candidates | |
| Candidate | Score |
| Lincoln Chafee | F |
| Hillary Clinton | F |
| Martin O'Malley | F |
| Bernie Sanders | F |
| Jim Webb | F |
| Republican candidates | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Score |
| Jeb Bush | B |
| Ben Carson | C+ |
| Chris Christie | D |
| Ted Cruz | B+ |
| Carly Fiorina | C+ |
| Jim Gilmore | D |
| Lindsey Graham | C+ |
| Mike Huckabee | D |
| Bobby Jindal | B |
| John Kasich | C |
| George Pataki | F |
| Rand Paul | C |
| Rick Perry | B |
| Marco Rubio | A- |
| Rick Santorum | C+ |
| Donald Trump | F |
| Scott Walker | A |
Finances
According to the organization's filings with the Federal Election Commission, all of the donations to LPA PAC have come from Jeremiah Milbank III and Peter C. Morse. During the 2014 election cycle, the group did not receive or spend any money.[9]
In 2015, Milbank and Morse each donated $85,500 to the PAC.[10] As of the PAC's April quarterly report in 2016, the most recent filing available, Milbank and Morse had each donated $15,000.[11]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Leadership Project for America PAC. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Presidential election, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Important presidential campaign dates, 2016
- Political action committee
External links
- Leadership Project for America PAC official website
- Leadership Project for America PAC on Twitter
- Leadership Project for America PAC on Facebook
Footnotes
- ↑ Leadership Project for America PAC, "LPA PAC Research Model," accessed July 27, 2015
- ↑ Leadership Project for America PAC, "Principles," accessed July 27, 2015
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Fox News, "Power Play: PAC gives scorecards," December 14, 2015
- ↑ Leadership Project for America PAC, "Leadership Matrix," accessed July 11, 2016
- ↑ The Hill, "Look past the popularity of candidates to focus on leadership," December 31, 2015
- ↑ [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/26/seeking-to-sway-iowans-conservative-group-grades-candidates-exceptionalism/ The New York Times, "Seeking to Sway Iowans, Conservative Group Grades Candidates’ ‘Exceptionalism,’" January 26, 2016]
- ↑ Leadership Project for America PAC, "Presidential Candidate Grades," accessed July 11, 2016
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "FEC Form 3X, 2014," accessed July 11, 2016
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "FEC Form 3X, 2015," accessed July 11, 2016
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "FEC Form 3X, April Quarterly 2016," accessed July 11, 2016
| |||||||
