Floyd Brown

Floyd Gregory Brown (born March 10, 1961) is an American author, speaker, and media commentator.

He is formerly the CEO of USA Radio Network.

Brown credits meeting Ronald Reagan at a Masonic Temple in 1976 for sparking his interest in politics when he was 15 years old.

He is married to NYT Bestselling author Mary Beth Brown, author of The Faith of Ronald Reagan, with whom he has three children.

He graduated from Olympia High School in Olympia, Washington, in 1979, and from the University of Washington.

He holds a bachelor's degree in economics.

He was appointed to, but chose to leave, the United States Military Academy at West Point.

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.

Brown is noteworthy for founding Citizens United in 1988 and for his introduction of the "Willie Horton" television ad during the 1988 presidential election campaign.

The son of a sawmill worker, and the grandson of a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Brown grew up in the Pacific Northwest in a family of Democrats with 100-year-old roots in the area.

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.

The anti-Dukakis effort produced the famous "Willie Horton" commercial.

Brown and Citizens United worked on behalf of the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He was Midwest Regional Director of the Dole for President campaign in 1988, managing campaigns in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska.

In 1992, Brown was quoted in the Washington Times:

"I have a sense of what connects with people like me. We're not culturally Republicans. We're not libertarians. We're not neo-conservatives or former liberals. We're just old-fashioned, blue-collar social conservatives. These are people who couldn't care less about politics, want to be left alone by government, but if their country calls for them to fight abroad, will. You win elections by cultivating people like me."

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."

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.

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, and calling Brown and his associates "the lowest forms of life".

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.

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."

In 1996 he served on the Republican National Convention Platform Committee.

He has been an advisor and consultant to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, Bob Dole and Steve Forbes.

He is active in the Republican Party and was a delegate to both the 2000 and 1996 National conventions.

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.

Brown founded the conservative website Western Journalism in 2008.

Brown in his early career worked as a political consultant and conducted opposition research for political campaigns.

In 2016 he served on the National Finance Committee of Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign.