Posted on 04/26/2014 10:51:00 PM PDT by kristinn
When the Tea Party Patriots threw its support last month behind Matt Bevin, the underdog conservative challenger trying to unseat top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, President Jenny Beth Martin vowed the group would be “putting our money where our mouth is.”
So far, its super PAC has mustered just $56,000 worth of mailers in Kentucky on Bevin’s behalf — less than half the amount it has paid Martin in consulting fees since July.
The Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, which blew through nearly $2 million on expenses such as fundraising, polling and consultants in the first three months of this year, is not alone in its meager spending on candidates.
A Washington Post analysis found that some of the top national tea party groups engaged in this year’s midterm elections have put just a tiny fraction of their money directly into boosting the candidates they’ve endorsed.
The practice is not unusual in the freewheeling world of big-money political groups, but it runs counter to the ethos of the tea party movement, which sprouted five years ago amid anger on the right over wasteful government spending. And it contrasts with the urgent appeals tea party groups have made to their base of small donors, many of whom repeatedly contribute after being promised that their money will help elect conservative politicians.
Out of the $37.5 million spent so far by the PACs of six major tea party organizations, less than $7 million has been devoted to directly helping candidates, according to the analysis, which was based on campaign finance data provided by the Sunlight Foundation.
The dearth of election spending has left many favored tea party candidates exposed before a series of pivotal GOP primaries next month in North Carolina, Nebraska, Idaho and Kentucky.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I wonder if the polling paid for by these Tea Party groups was ordered at the candidates request and provided to the candidates as a contribution to their campaign.
I will give the Tea Party groups the benefit of the doubt, because I trust them more than the Rove GOPe type groups.
I will be interested in the response, we like open and transparent PACs.
The Chamber of Ho’s has lots of money to try to exterminate the Tea Party candidates, not one penny raised in small conservative contributions should go for more than a skeleton crew of office workers who are paid. Most of the money should go to people like Bevin going up against bad leaders like Mitch.
The WaPo worrying about Republicans again.
The WaPo worrying about Republicans again.
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Correctamundo!
It is incumbent now upon these Tea Party professionals to rebut the charges and produce evidence sustaining their rebuttal. The Washington Post claims to get its information from public sources.
It is also possible that the Tea Party campaigns must spend a relatively higher percentage of their income for administration because their disposable funds are so much less and their administrative costs are therefore relatively higher.
In any event, we need to see a response and quickly.
From my experience, this sounds dirty dirty…..
Half of the money probably goes to taxes, since conservative groups can’t get tax-exempt status.
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