Atlas Project ushers in new era
Democratic campaigns and their myriad of outside allies often struggle to act in tandem in campaign season. Now they have a new resource that appears likely to dramatically expand their capacity to work together — a legal, online way to get around daunting campaign finance rules against coordination.
The Atlas Project, a well-connected consulting firm, has launched a private website that compiles, in unusual detail, the sort of information campaigns and outside groups rely on - everything from lists of key players in a state to past election results and current television ads. Its most novel feature, though, may be a private, centralized hub to which independent groups can upload the mailings and canvassing data that they’re barred from directly sharing with campaigns - but which campaigns can, the group says, legally view on the site.
“We spend a lot of time tripping on each other, bumping into each other, and wasting resources,” said Atlas president Steve Rosenthal, a veteran of Democratic independent efforts and of labor politics. “This is a legal and permissible way to share information, and it has the potential to revolutionize the way campaigns and outside groups do their work.”
