Free Republic

The leader of the Senate Conservatives Fund has become a controversial figure among Republicans for his willingness to back primary candidates against sitting GOP senators in the name of building a more conservative coalition. Matt Hoskins took over the fundraising operations for the group from former South Carolina GOP Sen. Jim DeMint when he left the Senate in 2012 to head up the conservative Heritage Foundation. Hoskins does most of his business from San Diego County, where he moved a few years ago to be closer to family. . . . . In this year's midterm elections, the Senate Conservatives...

There’s a new public enemy No. 1 in Senate GOP circles, and it’s not Ted Cruz. It’s the Senate Conservatives Fund, an organization that used to prop up underdog conservative candidates but now is training its fire mainly on Republican incumbents — rather than Democrats. The group has ginned up anger on the far-right towards Republican senators for refusing to use a government shutdown threat as leverage to defund Obamacare — a campaign that has been good for its bottom line. Since it started engaging in the defund Obamacare campaign, the group brought in the vast majority of the $3.5...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore attacked the Senate Conservatives Fund for endorsing McConnell’s primary challenger Matt Bevin on Friday. “Matt Bevin now has the dubious honor of standing with a self-serving D.C. fundraising group that made its name by recruiting and promoting unelectable candidates that ensured Barack Obama a majority in the Senate,” Moore said in a statement to the Washington Post. “They clearly care less about Kentuckians than they do about their reputation for supporting laughably bad candidates. Now they can add a New England bailout recipient who claims he went to MIT to their roster of...

Gaffes rarely cause a campaign to unravel. But the revelation that Mitch McConnell's campaign manager privately confided he's "sorta holding my nose" while working for the senator's reelection could still pack a wallop. "I think Jesse spoke for Republicans in Kentucky and all across the country when he said he had to hold his nose to support Senator McConnell," said Matt Hoskins, spokesman for the Senate Conservatives Fund. "McConnell's liberal record and his failure to lead on key issues is very disappointing." Snip "Between you and me, I'm sorta holdin' my nose for two years," Benton says on the recording,...

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign manager said in a taped telephone conversation earlier this year he was "sorta holding my nose" while doing the job, a less-than-flattering remark about a powerful GOP establishment figure struggling to shore up support among tea party voters back home in Kentucky. In a brief telephone interview Thursday, Jesse Benton did not dispute the authenticity of the taping. "I'm not 100 percent positive. I'm not confirming that, but I'm not denying it either," he said. In a separate statement emailed to reporters, he said, "It is truly sick that someone would record a...

The Senate Conservatives Fund announced Wednesday that it has made defeating Sen. Mark L. Pryor, Arkansas Democrat, its No. 1 priority in the 2014 election. “Mark Pryor pretends to be a moderate in Arkansas but votes like a liberal in Washington,” said Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the group -snip- Mr. Obama lost Arkansas by a 23.7 percentage point margin to GOP rival Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.