Free Republic

Next weekend, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and twenty-five other members of Congress are flying to Amelia Island to collaborate with a group dedicated to defeating conservatives in Congress. The Republican Main Street Partnership’s offshoot “Main Street Advocacy” is hosting the event at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island. Steve LaTourette, a liberal Republican former Congressman from Ohio, is the face in front of the group. LaTourette is good friends with John Boehner. Behind the scenes, LaTourette’s group is funded by the vast left-wing conspiracy. According to an email inviting people to the event, “People that are attending have...

A new super PAC seeks to bolster moderate Republicans in a number of House and Senate races where ultra-conservative groups are threatening to snap up Republican nominations. The Defending Main Street PAC could target up to ten races including in Illinois, Maine, Michigan and West Virginia in the 2014 primary election cycle, setting itself up to fight far-right counterparts like the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund. "We're getting a lot of calls to not only defend but go in and defend a lot of center right candidates against a couple of incumbents in Michigan," former Rep. Steve...

Mainstreet USA Inc Top Contributors, 2004 Cycle RETURN TO TOP 50 LIST Election cycle: 2004 Top Contributors America Coming Together $500,000 Assn of Trial Lawyers of America $100,000 American Fedn Of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $75,000 American Federation Of Teachers $50,000 Rhino Entertainment $50,000 Antidote Films $25,000 Sheridan Group $25,000 UNITE HERE $20,000 Intl Brotherhood of Boilmakers, Iron Shi $10,000 Consultant $10,000 United Steelworkers Of America $10,000 Maintenance of Way Political League $10,000 NOTE: This data is based on records released by the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, October 24, 2005. Mainstreet USA Inc Itemized contributions from America Coming Together, 2004 data...

Main Street Advocacy, an organization created expressly to fight limited-government groups who challenge Republican Party officials, launched its first advertisement on November 6.“The reason that Harry Reid and the Democrats control the U.S. Senate is thanks to the efforts of the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the Tea Party,” Main Street Advocacy President Steve LaTourette said in the release for a video containing brief clips from Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, and Christine O’Donnell.Focusing on a few embarrassing losses while ignoring the success of Sen. Ted Cruz and many others, Main Street Advocacy’s message is clear: only Republican leadership should have the power...

The Republican Main Street Partnership has emerged as an outspoken, deep-pocketed player in pro-business GOP plans to beat back tea-party challengers next year. But the group's new super PAC has an unexpected source for its seed money: labor unions. The super PAC, called Defending Main Street, has not yet submitted a major donor disclosure to the Federal Election Commission. But documents filed by other groups show that two labor organizations, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Laborers' International Union of North America, directed a combined $400,000 to the Republican group in September and October. Main Street says it...

The Main Street Individual Fund (MSIF) is a New York-based group founded to help elect moderate Republican candidates. Among those candidates it supports in the 2004 elections is Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa), who is fending off a tough primary challenge from Rep. Pat Toomey. MSIF raises funds from individual donors and is affiliated with another 527, the Main Street Fund, which solicits contributions from corporations and unions. Both are connected to the Republican Main Street Partnership. Affiliated Personnel: Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director Bob Duke, fund-raiser Donors: Dinakar Singh, Goldman Sachs, $100,000 George Soros, Soros Fund Management $50,000 Sidney V...

Erick Erickson reported that Republicans John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and 25 other Congress members will fly to Amelia Island next weekend to meet with a group dedicated to defeating conservatives in Congress. “Main Street Advocacy” is hosting the event at the Ritz Carlton – only the best for these sorts. Steve LaTourette, liberal Republican and former congressman, is the face of the group and a good friend of Boehner’s.

WASHINGTON — In the year since he stepped down from Congress, Steven C. LaTourette, a Republican from Ohio, has emerged as one of the top generals in the establishment Republicans’ war against the Tea Party. It is a role that has benefited the Main Street Partnership, a corporate-backed advocacy group he runs, and its effort to raise millions of dollars to protect centrist Republicans from Tea Party challengers. It has also helped draw clients to a separate lobbying office Mr. LaTourette and his wife have set up across the street from the Capitol. But this blitz of activity has led...

A Washington, D.C.-based Republican group promoting “rational conservatives” in contested Montana Republican legislative primaries has decided to halt its ad campaign, after questions were raised about its financial disclosure. The group, Main Street Advocacy, bought radio ads and mailed campaign-style flyers in a dozen contested Republican legislative primaries earlier this month. -snip- State Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, who helped coordinate the group’s efforts, said the campaign was meant to counter efforts in 2008 by other groups that attacked several Republican incumbents as too liberal or “socialists.” -snip- Brueggeman said the group chose to promote what he called “rational conservatives” in...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Republican Main Street Partnership, the largest organization of elected centrists, recently spotlighted Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. "Snowe has long been a leader for centrist Republicans in Washington," said former U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), President and CEO of Main Street. "Snowe's commitment to delivering results to her constituents, and her pragmatic approach to government, have made her one of the most effective members of the U.S. Senate, regardless of which party controls the Congress." "It is clear that Senator Snowe takes public service and the duty of governing seriously. Main Street is lucky to count Senator...

A Republican super PAC committed to defeating the tea party in 2014 congressional primaries is mostly funded by labor unions. The super PAC Defending Main Street, formed by moderate Republican and former congressman Steve LaTourette, has committed itself to destroying tea party challenges to establishment GOP candidates in the 2014 midterm elections. “Hopefully we’ll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them,” LaTourette said. His PAC has already committed itself to defending Republican Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson from tea party opponent Bryan Smith, who is backed by the conservative Club for Growth due to Simpson’s...

Dude, they’re feeling it. The RINOs are ready to charge. Assuming they’re successful and a bunch of tea-party incumbents get bounced from the House, it’s pretty much third-party time for grassroots conservatives, right? From Alabama to Alaska, the center-right, business-oriented wing of the Republican Party is gearing up for a series of skirmishes that it hopes can prevent the 2014 midterm election from turning into another missed opportunity. This will not be a coordinated operation. It will be messy, ugly, and prone to backfiring. And if the comeback succeeds, it will be in fits and starts, most likely culminating in...

Remember when the Republican establishment declared war on the tea party? One year ago, the Crossroads super PAC founded by Karl Rove launched a new group to defend incumbents from volatile, too-conservative challengers who might scuttle the party's takeover of the Senate in 2014. The empire-strikes-back counteroffensive gained allies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and gridlock-weary Republicans in Congress after tea-party members shut down the government in October. But so far, what was billed as an ugly and expensive all-out civil war within the GOP looks more like a few scattered skirmishes unlikely to declare a clear victor. "There's...

After returning from voting for Toomey this morning at 9:30am, I heard a pro-Specter radio ad on WSBA-910AM, to the effect that "a vote against Specter is a vote against Pennsylvania's Republican Party." When I got back to work, I emailed them a taste of my dissatisfaction: ""a vote against specter is a vote against the republican party"? what's that all about? how utterly stupid. arlie sphincter is a back-stabbing liberal scumbag, who's screwed us here in penna, for 24 years. he's gone, after today. your stupid radio spot helped seal his doom, and changed a lot of peoples' minds...

Conservative and Republican affiliated groups have started the 2014 assault against Democrats who support Obamacare. At the very same time, it is increasingly clear Republicans are laying the groundwork to abandon their opposition to Obamacare. The Business Roundtable, which has a great relationship with Republican Leaders, is now listing Obamacare as an entitlement worth preserving. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former economic advisor to John McCain and who opposed passage of Obamacare, has started a think tank premised on keeping, but fixing, Obamacare. Holtz-Eakin has the ear of Republican leaders. In 2009, Mitch McConnell appointed him to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission....

If you have not heard, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has attacked nationally syndicated conservative radio host and best selling author Mark Levin. They publicly attacked Mark Levin because the Jim DeMint created Senate Conservatives Fund (“SCF”) gives out copies of Mark Levin’s book. The NRSC alleges a quid pro quo relationship to help drive up the popularity of Levin’s book. The book was published in 2009 before SCF was a significant force and had already become a best seller before SCF gave out copies. This attack follows the National Republican Senatorial Committee (“NRSC”) attacking conservative businesses and threatening to...

They call themselves Main Street Republicans, moderates consigned to the back alleys of politics by their own party. But despite a severe bruising in the fall election, this minority within a minority finds itself with new avenues to explore, including working more closely with Democrats. The Republican Main Street Partnership, a leading voice of GOP moderates in Congress, lost seven of its 48 House members to Democratic challengers in the November election. Two other senior members, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., are retiring. The group also saw Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., one of its eight Senate members...

In the past, the National Education Association has made a point to highlight that many of its members consider themselves “conservative.” Those conservative teachers, however, may raise their eyebrows over some of the organizations their national union financially supports. The Michigan Education Association and NEA conceded that a large percentage of teachers are conservative in their October 2010 magazine. It posted NEA statistics that found 45 percent of teachers under 30 classified themselves as conservative and 63 percent of teachers aged 40 to 49 classified themselves as conservatives. Yet, many of those organizations that received money from the NEA describe...

The Bush-Soros Pick The White House is in bad company in the Pennsylvania primary. By Deroy Murdock As President Bush visits Pittsburgh Monday to campaign for the U.S. Senate's second-most-liberal Republican, he might ask Arlen Specter why he is associated with a group that billionaire Bush basher George Soros supports. The president also might ask the four-term senator why he can't tell the truth about this matter. As Jim Geraghty reported on NRO last week, Soros, a wealthy Manhattan financier, donated $50,000 to the Republican Mainstream Partnership (RMP). This contribution will help this group of self-described moderate Republicans bolster Specter's...

The Republican establishment's war against the Tea Party has come to Texas. According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, "Some of Texas’ biggest business trade groups are moving to counter tea party and anti-government forces that have dominated recent Republican primaries." The Texas Future Business Alliance, described as a "mix of 10 major business groups, including the chemical industry, bankers, builders and contractors," is reportedly "sending out mailers and providing other support on behalf of GOP candidates" who favor more government spending and want to take on the Tea Party. . .Michael Quinn Sullivan, who is the president of...