The Country Club wing of the Republican Party is fed up with the antics of Tea Party. Tea Party candidates are winning primaries, knocking off incumbents, and then going on to lose disastrously in the general election to Democrats. This has cost the GOP dearly, and has been a big help for Democrats in keeping control of the Senate and even increasing the Democrats' margin against the odds.
Karl Rove being in the business of channeling the flow of money to buy influence and slime opponents has stepped forward to undermine the Tea Party's out-sized leverage within the Republican Party and over elected officials.
Top Donors to Republicans Seek More Say in Senate Races
By JEFF ZELENY
Published: February 2, 2013
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate.
The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.
The Conservative Victory Project will be a super PAC operating independently of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It will disclose the names of donors and raise money separately from American Crossroads, officials said, because some donors were uncomfortable about aggressively weighing in on Republican-vs.-Republican fights.
The Tea Party faction is pushing back HARD too.
Conservative groups mock Crossroads effort
By ALEXANDER BURNS | 2/3/13
Two powerful conservative groups reacted with scorn Sunday to a newly unveiled American Crossroads initiative, dubbed the Conservative Victory Project, that plans to work against Republican primary candidates it views as unelectable.
Both the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund – two of the most prominent groups that have boosted candidates on the right – mocked the new initiative as yet another hapless establishment-side attempt to muzzle the GOP base.
Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, branded it the “Conservative Defeat Project.”
“The Conservative Defeat Project is yet another example of the Republican establishment’s hostility toward its conservative base. Rather than listening to the grassroots and working to advance their principles, the establishment has chosen to declare war on the party’s most loyal supporters,” Hoskins said. “If they keep this up, the party will remain in the wilderness for decades to come.”
The Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund spent tens of millions of dollars in the 2012 cycle, in large part to boost ideologically sympathetic candidates in primary elections. Crossroads was the heaviest spender on the GOP side last year but did not get involved in nomination fights.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee started the cycle by vowing to cooperate more with the GOP base on selecting strong, ideologically acceptable nominees. In one notable move, the committee tapped Cruz – the Club for Growth endorsee just elected to the Senate from Texas – as a vice chairman of the committee for grassroots outreach.
Erick Erickson writes with contempt for Rove at Red State:
Thank God for American Crossroads and the Conservative Victory Project
Thank God they are behind this. In 2012, they spent hundreds of millions of rich donors’ money and had jack to show for it.
So now they will up their game. They don’t like being shut out. They blame the tea party and conservatives for their failure to win primaries. They’ll now try to match conservatives and, in the process, call themselves conservatives.
I dare say any candidate who gets this group’s support should be targeted for destruction by the conservative movement. They’ve made it really easy not to figure out who the terrible candidates will be in 2014.
Its looking like the 2014 Republican primaries are likely to turn into the battle between the Right's Super PACs and an all out civil war inside the Republican Party between Big Business Conservatives and the Ultra-Conservative Tea Party factions.
This is likely to embolden moderate Republicans in congress who can now defy the Tea Party on crucial votes with the knowledge they won't be facing the Tea Party and the Club for Growth in the primaries all by themselves.
This is sure to get ugly, really ugly...for Republicans.
The war on the right is on!
