The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: senate conservatives fund
McConnell Despises Trump’s Immigration Nominee, Who Attacked Him For Years

McConnell Despises Trump’s Immigration Nominee, Who Attacked Him For Years

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Ken Cuccinelli has spent years attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the media, calling him a backstabber, a liar, a “surrenderer,” and “the head alligator” of the Washington, D.C., swamp. Cuccinelli may now need McConnell’s help if the Trump administration moves forward in trying to place him in a senior position in the Department of Homeland Security.

Cuccinelli is a former CNN commentator and Virginia attorney general who has a history of pushing anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant positions. Media Matters also noted that he told Breitbart.com last year that states could invoke “war powers” against migrants crossing the U.S. southern border because “it’s an invasion.” He added that doing so would mean “there’s no due process” and states could “point them back across the river and let them swim for it.”

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times have reported that Trump plans to install Cuccinelli as head of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. L. Francis Cissna, the current head of that agency, was confirmed by the Senate in 2017 to that position and was reportedly forced to step down, effective June 1.

The Post reported that “McConnell has vowed to block Cuccinelli from getting confirmed for any position.” Vox’s Dara Lind wrote: “Without a formal Senate confirmation process, the Trump administration would have to find some way to install someone completely outside DHS as the acting head of an agency — something that even the Trump administration, which has often made decisions that push the boundaries of federal vacancies laws, hasn’t yet tried to do.”

Cuccinelli has long used his political and media perch to attack McConnell for purportedly not being sufficiently conservative. (McConnell largely votes in line with President Donald Trump’s positions and has enabled his agenda.)

Cuccinelli previously led the Senate Conservatives Fund, which he said during an interview was formed by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) after “he got completely fed up with Mitch McConnell and the powers that be doing the same old thing year in, year out, including lying to voters about what they were actually going to do and what they actually believed as reflected in what they do.” In 2017, Cuccinelli and the group launched an unsuccessful campaign to replace McConnell as Senate majority leader.

Cuccinelli has also frequently attacked McConnell in the media. He has claimed that McConnell has been “stabbing the conservative movement in the back” and “views conservatives as his enemies.” He’s also called McConnell “the head alligator” of the Washington, D.C., swamp, and said he “wants big government.” And he’s said that “for the sake of America,” McConnell should “step aside” though he’s “too selfish to do that.”

IMAGE: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) talks to the media after a weekly Senate Republican luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

 

 

Tea Party PAC Funding Increases While Candidates Falter

Tea Party PAC Funding Increases While Candidates Falter

The Tea Party’s really been struggling this primary season. They’ve failed to unseat a single Republican incumbent in the Senate primaries, and haven’t won many victories in House primaries, either. But, as Patricia Murphy points out in The Daily Beast, fundraising for Tea Party SuperPACs continues to increase.

The right’s top three Washington-based SuperPACS — the Senate Conservatives Fund, Club for Growth Action, and FreedomWorks For America — have recently experienced some of their best fundraising months, according to the Federal Elections Commission.

Club for Growth raised the most money, with a 73 percent increase in fundraising from May to June. The SuperPAC spent more than $3 million on its failed attempt to defeat Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) in his June primary.

FreedomWorks had its third best month of the election cycle in June, even though its favored candidate, Matt Bevin, had just lost his primary to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). And the Senate Conservatives Fund saw its funding increase by 46 percent in June, even though over 65 percent of its spending went towards failed Senate candidates.

As Murphy points out, these SuperPACs had nothing to do with the biggest primary upset of the season, Dave Brat’s victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). But she notes that it doesn’t matter who wins or loses.

“The fact that McConnell had to think about his primary for even a minute, and then adjust his agenda in Washington while he did it, made anyone who gave Matt Bevin $25 feel pretty good,” she writes.

It’s important to remember that these organizations aren’t just funded by $25 donations. There are also people and corporations with deep pockets who are very committed to seeing the Tea Party succeed.

But even though they haven’t had the best election season, it’s not hard to see why the SuperPACs are doing well. It makes sense that fundraising would spike in June, when contested primaries were approaching. And while a June Gallup poll showed that 24 percent of Americans still support the Tea Party, a Gallup poll released on Tuesday finds that only 13 percent of Americans approve of Congress. In other words, there are plenty of voters who are ready for an insurgency.

A similar fundraising spike occurred in 2012, except from July to August instead of May to June. The Senate Conservatives Fund’s fundraising increased by 87 percent from July to August, and FreedomWorks for America had a 91 percent spike from July to August.

It’s important to note that all of this money doesn’t go to campaigns. For example, in the 2014 election cycle, Club for Growth Action spent $356,400 on fundraising, $79,200 on strategy and research, $17,450 on actual campaign expenses, and $5,113 on contributions to committees. The Senate Conservatives Fund, however spent more on contributions to actual candidates than it did on fundraising or research.

Other Tea Party groups, such as the Tea Party Express, have been criticized in the past for putting their money toward fundraising and consulting fees, instead of giving it to campaigns.

AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan

Interested in U.S. politics? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

Ken Cuccinelli Named New President Of Senate Conservatives Fund

Ken Cuccinelli Named New President Of Senate Conservatives Fund

As Tea Partiers rejoice over Dave Brat’s shocking primary victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), another conservative Virginia politician who was not as lucky in last year’s elections is getting a chance to advance the movement.

Former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli — who lost to Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the commonwealth’s 2013 gubernatorial race — will be the next president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a right-wing political action committee founded by former senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Cuccinelli says he is prepared “to take on Republican incumbents who’ve lost their way” as president of the SCF, a group that has spent millions assisting Tea Party-aligned candidates in primary races against establishment or moderate Republicans.

“I’m honored to serve as the next president of the Senate Conservatives Fund. I’ve always had tremendous respect for this organization and applaud its members for working to elect principled conservatives,” Cuccinelli said in a statement on the SCF website. “SCF has given our nation’s grassroots a powerful voice and I’m excited to join them in the fight. I look forward to working with the hundreds of thousands of SCF supporters across the nation to help change Washington.”

Despite his 2013 loss and ties to the corrupt Bob McDonnell administration, Cuccinelli remains a well-admired politician in conservatives circles. Cuccinelli used the months following his failed campaign helping to represent Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) NSA-related lawsuit against the Obama administration. Aside from making news with the lawsuit, which even the National Review deemed “frivolous” — and which also grew controversial when Cuccinelli was accused of having stolen the case filing from another attorney — the former attorney general has, for the most part, stayed out of the headlines.

Matt Hoskins, executive director of the SCF, calls Cuccinelli a “principled fighter who is respected by the grassroots and is passionate about electing the next generation of conservative leaders.”

The SCF’s current congressional leaders include well-known conservative senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Mike Lee (R-UT).

As president of the SCF, Cuccinelli will throw his support behind Tea Party-backed senatorial candidates Chris McDaniel (R-MS) and Joni Ernst (R-IA).

In a video up on the SCF website, Cuccinelli told supporters that “standing up to the Washington establishment isn’t easy, but it’s the right thing to do,” which means “continuing to stand up to the status quo” and “continuing to support conservative candidates” — as long as they stand to the right of the conservatives already in Congress, of course.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Interested in U.S. politics? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

WATCH: Right-Wing Group Launches Blistering Attack Against Mitch McConnell

WATCH: Right-Wing Group Launches Blistering Attack Against Mitch McConnell

Kentucky’s 2014 Senate race seems to get more and more negative every day.

While most of the nastiest attacks have been traded between between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his Democratic opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, the latest broadside against McConnell comes from his own party.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, a right-wing PAC which has made its name attacking Republican politicians for failing its various ideological purity tests, released a vicious ad on Tuesday accusing McConnell of “trying to bully and intimidate conservatives just like the IRS is.”

“Mitch McConnell tried to silence conservatives, calling them traitors, who he ‘wants to punch in the nose’ for criticizing his liberal votes. And McConnell told other conservatives they’d get the ‘death penalty’ for opposing him,” the ad charges. “McConnell even tried to intimidate conservative Matt Bevin to stop him from running. Why? Because Mitch McConnell is desperate.”

“If he wants to vote like a Democrat, he can become a Democrat. And if he wants to act like the IRS, he can get a job with the IRS,” the ad concludes. “But don’t try to fool conservatives by pretending you’re one of us, Senator McConnell. You’re not.”

As The Washington Examiner’s Byron York points out, several of the charges in the brutal ad don’t stand up to scrutiny (for example, there is no evidence that McConnell called conservatives “traitors,” and the only group that he said he wanted to “punch in the nose” is the same Senate Conservatives Fund PAC that created the ad).

It’s also unclear if there’s anything that the Senate Conservatives Fund can do to help Bevin make up his double-digit deficit to McConnell, especially in light of his massive financial disadvantage.

The ad represents the Senate Conservatives Fund’s second attack against Republican leadership in as many days; on Thursday, the group petitioned for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to be replaced with a “true conservative.”

Screenshot: YouTube