Tony Feather

Tony Feather (b. ) is a Missouri-based American political consultant for the Republican National Committee and lobbyist who specializes in "stealth" issue advocacy campaigns. Feather is a partner in a consortium of media consultancy companies, Feather Larson Synhorst, with another Republican, Tom Synhorst. Feather has run campaigns for former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, and former Missouri attorney general, Bill Webster, who served prison time for misuse of campaign office and funds. [Stephanie Mencimer, "Swift Boaters, Start Your Engines," "Mother Jones", October 2, 2008.]

Feather is a specialist in "microtargeting" voters by direct mail, phone and other means of "direct lobbying" for Republican campaigns and corporate-friendly issues-oriented clients such as PhRMA, the United State Chamber of Commerce, National Beer Wholesalers, The Wisconsin Farm Bureau, APCO Worldwide, and the National Rifle Association. [FLS web copy, http://www.flsphones.com/clients.htm, retrieved October 6, 2008.]

Feather was the political director of the Bush/Cheney 2000 presidential campaign, and closely associated with Karl Rove. In 2001, he founded the nonprofit Progress for America (PFA) which became the political arm of the Bush White House, [Nicholas Confessore, "Bush's Secret Stash," "Washington Monthly", May 2004.] and later gave rise to another voter-behavior related group, the PFA Voter Fund. PFA was eventually fined $750,000 for failure to register as a political committee, for raising money from prohibited sources, and for exceeding legal monetary limits. [Mencimer, pars.11-12]

In 2007, Feather was employed by the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, which was unsuccessful. Feather's American Issues Project, another fund-raising non-profit funded mostly by single-donor Texas businessman Harold Simmons, figured prominently in the now-famous "swift-boat ad" campaign against Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race against Bush. [Mencimer, pars. 14-15.]

See Also: opposition research

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