Republican and Senate minority whip, told POLITICO.
Time for a contribution.
Posted on 09/30/2013 5:46:59 AM PDT by cotton1706
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 million it has raised this cycle, pulling in $1.5 million in August as it unleashed a barrage of attacks on party leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and veteran Republicans like Lamar Alexander.
That fundraising windfall has left the impression among the group’s legion of critics in the Republican establishment that the anti-GOP campaign has been more about boosting the group’s notoriety among the conservative base — rather than the common cause of electing more Republicans to the Senate.
“I think it’s completely destructive,” Cornyn, the Texas Republican and Senate minority whip, told POLITICO. “They are spending most of their money going after Republicans and making it harder for us to nominate and elect Republicans and regain the majority.”
The conservative organization is part of a tight-knit circle of third-party groups ratcheting up the GOP vs. GOP warfare that has consumed Republicans since the rise of the tea party in the 2010 midterm elections. The activists say without purist conservative lawmakers, the Republican Party implicitly supports Obama policies by working with Democrats. But GOP senators argue that the party needs to expand its tent and will occasionally need to compromise to work in a divided Washington.
“Isn’t it interesting that every dollar that is spent [attacking] good conservative Republicans … is a dollar that isn’t spent on winning the majority?” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a one-time close ally of SCF founder, former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “If your strategy is to think that you can get 60 hard-core conservative senators in this country, I don’t think it works.”
The leader of the group, Matt Hoskins, a California-based GOP operative and former aide to DeMint, is unapologetic about his decision to target Republicans in ways rarely employed in intra-party warfare.
“The Republicans are the problem right now,” Hoskins said. “That is what is standing most immediately between us and victory in this specific policy fight. Getting Republicans to unite and to fight against funding for Obamacare is the first step. We have to win that fight first and then we can go and begin pressuring Democrats.”
Still, even some of the group’s supporters don’t endorse its tactics attacking their GOP colleagues across the airwaves.
“It’s not my style, it’s not something I do,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a leader of the defund Obamacare movement, said of the anti-Republican campaign the conservatives fund has launched. “Sometimes groups choose to do that; I don’t think that’s the most effective way for me as a senator to conduct myself so that’s not what I choose to do.”
Still, Lee and Cruz were instrumental in launching the defunding movement with conservative operatives who quietly plotted a hard-ball political strategy to pressure Republicans to back their tactics or face wrath from the party’s right wing.
During the summer, several high-profile conservative activists, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Brent Bozell of ForAmerica, Mike Needham of Heritage Action Fund and others, huddled on Capitol Hill in a closed-door meeting in Lee’s conference room, where Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) were also in attendance.
Their mission: Create a grassroots army to support defunding Obamacare, arguing that once the government begins to implement the law in October, it will be nearly impossible to turn the funding off, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Coming out of that meeting, activists began to put together an extensive ground game for August and September where DeMint, now the head of the Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, Tea Party Patriots and ForAmerica and others held a series of rallies and town hall meetings.
While the Senate Conservatives Fund didn’t attend the Lee meeting, it played a key role complementing the efforts, with 1.9 million of its supporters signing a petition calling on Congress to kill Obamacare funding as part of the government spending bill. And the group has launched a series of radio and television ads, including some featuring tea party favorites Cruz and Lee, along with robocalls and direct mail pieces.
The group didn’t stop there, attacking GOP senators for lacking the courage to fight a law the party collectively hates. The group dropped $340,000 in an ad buy in Kentucky where it said McConnell “refuses to lead” the fight against Obamacare.
“Obamacare starts in October, but Congress can stop its funding,” the ad said. “What’s Mitch McConnell doing? Nothing. … What good is a leader like that?”
Nope.
My hunch is that it has less to do with the egg than the chicken.
BTW, have you noticed that if a chicken stays in the ‘middle-of-the-road’ that eventually it gets run over?
Good glad they are POed I contributed just last week...
Conservatives had to learn this in 2010. The RNC is a disgrace!
I hope all of you are hitting the websites of the gang of 25....in a nice FReeper way of course.
I came from the “most conservative in the primary, Republican in the general” school.
After watching 2012 where the rat media with the GOPe was knocking out the conservative candidates instead of fighting for them, my checkbook closed and my vote is now local only.
Don’t care anymore. Not going to hold my nose and pull the lever because it is a republican. Those days ad over.
I think Utah has a unique law in which they can “primary” a Senator at any time....can be replaced immediately.
Si o no?
Yeah, he's all on board with conservatives against te 'establishment'.
“I just don’t understand why people would raise money – Republicans would raise money — for an organization that would attack their fellow Republicans,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
I don’t understand why a republican would attack another republican for trying to defund Obamacare. I don’t understand how you can lie during your re-election about your opposition to Obamacare, and do nothing to accomplish that goal.
Hmmm. It appears it is about time to make another donation...
Proudly donated twice. Money well spent.
Flake turned on us the instant the votes were counted and he was declared the winner. He didn't even have the decency to wait until he was back in DC to start stabbing conservatives in the back. Somehow, he thinks the mindless support McQueeg receives will transfer to him. I think he has a surprise coming, but he's safe for over 5 years.
I've been against him since he broke his three-term promise he made when he first ran to replace Matt Salmon in the House. I personally asked him, and he lied to my face.
I have worked over the weekend to make a list of RINOs who are loyal to Obama and can be “primaried.” But it is incomplete - I need the list of their Tea Party opponents for the primary. Where do I get this info?
Hang in there because there's lots more fighting that must go forward to dredge the SWAMP!
Thanks for the information; I hadn’t kept up with him...there were several candidates about the same time, and none of them were from my state. I hope he has a big surprise coming (if we’re all still here).
I guess I should pray for him—okay, not “I guess,” but I know I should.
He would reject your prayer-help, unless you’re LDS.
The GOP roils its own party base.
I sent it back, saying I was CONSERVATIVE and would support conservatives from any party.
***
Lol!
The last time a rep from the GOP called me, I told him I wouldn’t give another penny to the Republican Party if they had me by the throat.
Bless his heart, the young man was very polite as he got off the phone quickly.
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