Posted on 02/01/2014 7:40:00 AM PST by Seizethecarp
Insurgent conservative organizations raised more money last year than the leading Republican establishment outside groups, whose bulging bank accounts and ties to major donors have been their most potent advantage in the struggle over the G.O.P.'s future, according to interviews with officials and new campaign filings.
The shift in fortunes could have an enormous impact in 2014, as warring Republican factions prepare to square off in a series of Senate and House primaries around the country and Republican leaders seek to rein in activists who they believe have fractured and endangered the party with policies that alienate independent-leaning voters.
Emboldened by activists’ fury over compromises Republican leaders have struck with Democrats on federal spending, the conservative groups are preparing to muster political spending — in formidable amounts — to augment their grass-roots muscle in a challenge to Republicans aligned with party regulars.
The boom in conservative fund-raising is already playing out in the broader struggle for control of the Senate. Americans for Prosperity, the free-market advocacy group founded by the libertarian billionaire David Koch, has become by far the biggest single spender on early-campaign issue advertisements against Democratic incumbents: Since October, it has spent more than $23 million, chiefly on attacks on Democrats for supporting President Obama’s health care law.
That spree underscores the shifting balance in power within the party. During the 2012 campaign, Republican leaders counted on Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the political nonprofit set up by the G.O.P. strategist Karl Rove, to soften Democratic candidates with issue ads during the early campaign season. Now that job is falling largely to Americans for Prosperity, which has often been critical of Republican leaders’ strategy on issues like the debt ceiling, and which has worked aggressively to reshape the party.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
From the surprisingly snark-free NYT article:
“If Mitch McConnell wins, the party will continue to drift away from its conservative principles and become increasingly hostile to the grass-roots,” the Senate Conservatives Fund states on its website. “But if Matt Bevin wins, the establishment’s stranglehold over the party will be broken and power will be restored to the people who elect these politicians.”
Love the adjectives.
This was the top story this AM in the digital edition of the Times...
I would like to remind the GOPe that a voter who contributes $2,300 dollars and a voter who contributes $10.00 each have one vote. $4 million raised in small increments from hundreds of thousands of voters who will actually go to the polls means more than the large contributions of megacorporations, big money donors and the US Chamber.
Who you callin' Rebel, Yankee?
My only concern is the fact that they’re tying success or failure to the McConnell/Bevin race. Obviously beating McConnell would be a big win but its not the only way to win.
I look at the way they declared the defeat of Akin and Mourdock as the death of the tea party while ignoring the fact that the tea party gained considerable strength in the house in the same year (Not to mention the election of Ted Cruz to the senate).
$4 million buys ads but it doesn’t buy a ground game or vocal and active supporters.
In 2010 the unions and democrats spent more than twice as much to lose the seat to my republican congressman and he was not a GOP party favorite.
Bevin thanks the NYT for the exposure. He is climbing in the primary polls. But McConnell has tons of money. Hopefully he is toast.
“bulging bank accounts”
Really, NYT? Hiring Dr Seuss to write.
The Slimes wants to scare liberals and get them energized and motivated, and cause panic in GOPe so that they play dirty and nasty so as to create serious dissension among Republicans.
New York Slimes isan arm of the Dem party and articles like this are not written just to present facts or info.
Me too. Great tagline. I think I will keep it.
.....just another way for the NYSlimes to get morons to contribute to their communist leaders......boot licking POS
"Rebel" my butt. This is conservatives fighting socialist infiltration and takeover of the US Government.
To hell with them.
I agree with you totally. I think the elite are lolling around in their comfort zone totally unaware of how angry the base is with them.
> the way they declared the defeat of Akin and Mourdock as the death of the tea party
Certainly not a TP problem. These two numbskulls self destructed because they fell into the rape trap. The only good to come from their loss will be if anyone running for office doesn’t go near the rape booby trap.
“Insurgent conservative
Me too. Great tagline. I think I will keep it. “
Pay it forward!
The GOP is dead.
Learn it, live it, love it.
I believe that the “inside the beltway’ boys and girls have absolutely no idea how far they are removed from the thinking in mainstream America. Even the drones on welfare are more conservative and constitutionally minded than the power elite. They have to be sent back to the real world and the sooner the better, for them and for America. God will save the Republic but only if we help.
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