Free Republic

WASHINGTON, D. C. - A controversial Super PAC headed by former GOP congressman Steve LaTourette has spent $44,000 on mailings against the Tea Party Republican who is challenging his handpicked successor in Congress, Russell Township GOP congressman Dave Joyce. Federal Election Commission records show the Defending Main Street SuperPAC that LaTourette launched to support centrist Republicans against Tea Party challengers bought mailers against Bainbridge Township state legislator Matt Lynch on March 18. FEC records show the group also spent $200,000 in March on door hangers to support the re-election of Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, who chairs House Energy and...

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.

The leader of a super PAC that is using donations from labor unions to wage war on the Tea Party went on MSNBC to say that Sen. Ted Cruz should leave the Republican party.  Former Rep. Steven LaTourette is a member in the establishment's war on the Tea Party. His deceptively named "Defending Main Street" PAC is being financed primarily by Wall Street and labor unions, which have contributed at least 20% to the group's fundraising haul. In an appearance on MSNBC's The Last Word on Tuesday, LaTourette said that Cruz was "reprehensible" for forcing Republicans to go on the record to advance a bill...

17 worthless Republicans voted for the $1.1 omnibus spending bill. This bill will fund the government through the end of September and will fully fund ObamaCARE. It now goes to King Obama to sign. These are the names of the 17 Republicans who helped fully fund ObamaCARE. Many of them big government Karl Rove Republicans aren’t up for re-election until 2016, however some are up for re-election later this year. Time for some primary challengers. Lamar Alexander (Tennessee – 2014 primary) Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire – next election 2016) Roy Blunt (Missouri – next election 2016) John Boozman (Arkansas –...

Former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) was one of the more labor-friendly Republicans in Congress. Those close ties are paying off for him as labor unions are a major donor to his "Defending Main Street" Super-PAC, which is targeting conservatives in upcoming primaries. So far, unions have contributed $765,000 to support LaTourette's efforts. The figure represents 86% of the PAC's current cash-on-hand. “Main Street is committed to electing solution-oriented, center-right Republicans to the House. We are grateful to the unions who want to help us do that and to paraphrase Rhett Butler — ‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn’ — about...

Unions are funding Republican groups to help push through amnesty for illegal immigrants. What do George Soros, labor unions, and money-grubbing former GOP representative Steven LaTourette all have in common? They’re control freaks. They’re power hounds. They’re united against tea-party conservatives. And they have all operated under the umbrella of D.C. groups masquerading as “Main Street” Republicans. LaTourette heads up the so-called Main Street Partnership, which claims to represent “thoughtful,” “pragmatic,” “commonsense,” and “centrist” Republican leadership. Reality check: The pro-bailout, pro-debt, pro-amnesty, anti-drilling group founded by former liberal GOP representative Amory Houghton of New York includes three liberal Senate Republicans...

Pennsylvania Rep. Jim Gerlach, one of a shrinking number of Republican moderates in the U.S. House, said Monday he will retire from Congress at the end of this term. Gerlach said it's "simply time for me to move on to new challenges and to spend more time with my wife and family." The six-term congressman's decision opens up a district anchored in Philadelphia's western suburbs and rural areas on either side of Reading, as well as a coveted seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Gerlach has routinely had relatively close elections, though the latest round of redistricting made...

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 political group for middle-of-the road Republicans founded by former Bainbridge Township congressman Steve LaTourette is launching an online ad campaign designed to counter the influence of groups that he feels have pushed the party too far right. "The reason that Harry Reid and the Democrats control the U.S. Senate is thanks to the efforts of the Club for Growth, Freedom Works and the Tea Party," LaTourette said in a Wednesday press release. "The far right's attempts to purge the GOP of people they find to be 'imperfect' needs to stop." The group unveiled an online ad that blames the...

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...

Congressman-turned-lobbyist Steve LaTourette, speaking for moderate Republicans, has attacked the free-market and the stridently anti-establishment Club for Growth as "a cancer on the Republican Party."It's K Street versus the Tea Party again in the bitter civil war within the Republican Party.The Club for Growth came up as the scourge of liberal Republicans. In 2000, the group got behind conservative state legislator Scott Garrett, who was challenging liberal Republican Marge Roukema for the second time in a northern New Jersey district.Roukema edged out Garrett in the primary, but the threat of another primary challenge, backed by a more powerful Club for...

Syracuse -- U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna took his own party to task today, saying the Republican Party is too willing to accommodate its most extreme members. “I have to say that I’m frustrated by how much we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes in this moment in history,” he told The Post-Standard editorial board. Hanna, R-Barneveld, pointed specifically to Michele Bachmann of Minnesota — particularly her suggestion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin be investigated to see if she has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood that would...

Now that Indiana RINO Richard Lugar will be vacating his Senate office, what other Senate RINOs would we most love to see follow him? I nominate John McCain.

If Indiana Senator Dick Lugar loses his Republican primary race to Tea Party challenger Richard Mourdock tonight, as polls indicate is likely, his defeat will signal the end of moderate Republican internationalism in the US Senate and the GOP more broadly. Lugar, a two time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee best known for his work on arms control and nonproliferation treaties, used to be one of the GOP’s leading figures on foreign policy. Now he’s an outlier. The Senate Republican caucus was once filled with the likes of Dick Lugar—sensible realists such as Lincoln Chafee, Chuck Hagel, George...

The most prominent Republican in the Obama administration is accusing GOP House members of blocking efforts to resolve the nation's problems, partly because they don't want the president to be successful. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was asked at a transportation conference Friday why it was so difficult to get big infrastructure projects built right now. He responded that "some people don't want Obama to be successful."

A Recap Of the CRP Platform Committee Activity At the Convention There is much to be said about the California Republican Party’s Fall Convention held in downtown Los Angeles last weekend. Presidential candidates and a straw poll, great workshops and townhalls, tributes, speeches and more. The better part of a thousand GOP activists, donors and leaders descended on the L.A. Live! Marriott-Ritz hotel, across from the Staples Center (we were the pre-show for the Emmy Awards, I guess). This column, however, is devoted to only one aspect of the convention – the ongoing process of the quadrennial adoption of the...

It wasn't long ago that the conservative, free-market Club for Growth was viewed by a swath of Republicans as a furtive, well-heeled enemy whose efforts to purge moderates from the GOP had to be thwarted. The club and its agenda are "not representative of the Republican Party," the director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of moderate GOP congressional members, once said, adding: "We raise money on a daily basis to defeat them." When asked this week about the Republican animus the group faced in the recent past, Club for Growth executive director David Keating replied: "That sounds...

The week before Rep. Charles Bass lost his seat in 2006, the leader of the House GOP's moderate wing complained that it was simply "a terrible year to be running for reelection." "I am the same candidate I was two years ago, four years ago, six years ago," Bass told a group of business leaders in New Hampshire. "I know my constituents, and they know me." Those constituents still knew Bass last November, when they voted to give him back his former seat, part of a nationwide wave that saw Republicans recapture old districts while also adding new territory to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is praising the House for passing legislation to end the Pentagon policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military. The legislation awaits Senate action now. The House passed the measure 250-175. Obama says the legislation permits a smooth transition from the Clinton-era 'don't-ask-don't-tell' standard. Obama says the legislation will give the military "the clarity and certainty it deserves."

Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party’s failure to capture the Senate. With tea party-backed candidates going down in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, depriving Republicans of what would have been a 50-50 Senate, a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states. (snip) Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott put it plainly: “We did not nominate our...