Rank: 2
Clients’ expenditures: $163 million*
Year founded: 2001
Principal:
- Michael Dubke (founder)
- Patti Heck (president)
Clients:
- American Crossroads
- Crossroads GPS
- Americans for Job Security
- Cooperative of American Physicians
- Republican Governors Association
- Susan B. Anthony List
- Republican National Committee
- National Republican Senatorial Committee
- National Republican Congressional Committee
- American Energy Alliance
- Family Research Council
- Freedom Born Fund
- CULAC, the PAC of the Credit Union National Association
Biography:
Crossroads Media was founded by Michael Dubke, a longtime political player who is also president of the nonprofit group Americans for Job Security.
The firm’s president is Patti Heck, a media buyer for more than 20 years. Heck’s career spans all 50 states and every level of elected government. Some of her most notable clients include the Republican Governors Association and the Republican National Committee.
Crossroads Media lies at the center of a web of powerful conservative media firms and political committees.
The company has strong ties to Republican strategist Karl Rove, who is a “senior adviser” to the firm, according to the public relations trade publication O’Dwyers. It counts the super PAC American Crossroads and the nonprofit Crossroads GPS, both co-founded by Rove, among its top clients.
And it shares an office suite in Alexandria, Va. with three other firms that have connections to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future and Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
Black Rock Media Group is one of those firms. It was co-founded by Republican strategist Carl Forti, the director of both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, and Dubke. Forti is also the founder of Restore Our Future.
TargetPoint Consulting and WPP Strategies are likewise located at the same address.
TargetPoint Consulting advised both Restore Our Future and Romney’s campaign. WPP Strategies is headed by Katie Packer Gage, the deputy manager of Romney’s campaign, who is married to the head of TargetPoint Consulting, Alexander Gage.
Last updated: Jan. 18, 2013
* Total consists of independent expenditures made to the firm in the 2012 election cycle as reported to the Federal Election Commission.