Republicans, hard-right groups critical of each other

WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders and several hard-right groups are displaying the classic signs of a political divorce, including bitter name-calling and reprisals against one another.

The recent eagerness of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to lash out at groups that have given them fits has unshackled others in the Republican ranks to publicly question the motivation of organizations such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, Heritage Action, Madison Project and Club for Growth.

Such organizations disparage Republicans they accuse of following the path of least resistance in Washington and vow to replace them in primaries with conservative purists.

"I think there's a growing recognition around here that many of the outside groups do what they do solely to raise money, and there are some participants inside Congress who do the same," said Sen. Bob Corker. He said that some of the newer senators have caught on to "the disinformation, getting people to call offices, send in small donations to a website."

"I think people are getting tired of that. I tired of it before I got here," said the Tennessee Republican.

Increasingly in public, Boehner and McConnell are challenging the outside groups' credibility -- and complaining that they are the ones tarnishing conservatism.

But it goes both ways.

In the recent dust-up over the budget deal, the outside groups suspect that Boehner has a hidden motive. They suggest he's anxious to put economic fights in the rear-view mirror so he can tackle contentious immigration legislation early next year, before the first round of March primaries in Texas and Illinois.

The groups' suspicions were heightened by the recent high-profile budget success of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who favors a way out of the shadows for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. in violation of the law, and in Boehner's hire of a Senate staffer who worked on bipartisan immigration legislation for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

"It's very easy to see that they want to clear a lane to pass amnesty," said Daniel Horowitz, policy director for the Madison Project, who described the overall differences with Republican leaders as irreconcilable.

Michael Steel, spokesman for Boehner, scoffed at the link between the budget deal and immigration.

"The agreement has nothing to do with the need to fix our broken immigration system," Steel said in a statement Monday.

It wasn't always this acrimonious.

Tea partyers and conservative activists helped the GOP claim the House majority in 2010 and seize state legislatures that redrew congressional boundaries to the GOP's advantage. Those new lines enabled Republicans to withstand strong Democratic turnout in the 2012 presidential year and hold their House edge, a margin the GOP is expected to maintain or even increase in next year's midterm elections.

The outcome was far different in Senate races. Outside conservative groups backed less-viable candidates who flamed out in general elections in Colorado, Nevada and Delaware in 2010 and in Indiana and Missouri in 2012. Establishment Republicans insist that cost them a Senate majority as well as some breathing room for 2016 when 24 Republican seats are up, compared with only 10 for Democrats.

Senate Republicans were upset in the fall when outside groups did little to help bona fide conservative Steve Lonegan in New Jersey's special election contest against Cory Booker, who won the open seat after a somewhat desultory campaign.

House and Senate Republican leaders, for their part, were angry when the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Madison Project and Heritage Action pushed for the 16-day partial government shutdown last fall on behalf of a goal that many agreed was unrealistic -- undoing President Barack Obama's health care law.

To add insult, the Senate Conservatives Fund ran ads criticizing GOP incumbents for failing to back a federal shutdown in states such as North Carolina, where Republican Sen. Richard Burr isn't up for re-election but Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan is and remains vulnerable. Republicans said the strategy was misguided.

The hard-right groups have mobilized against a wide variety of legislative efforts, from once-easy, bipartisan transportation and disaster relief bills to the recent budget pact. Their efforts created agenda headaches for Boehner and McConnell, and the shutdown did apparent political damage to the GOP.

The shutdown, however, was a financial boon to the Senate Conservatives Fund, the group founded by former senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who is now president of the Heritage Foundation. The Fund raised less than a million dollars in the first half of 2013, but it collected more than $4.7 million in the months leading up to the shutdown and during it, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Through the end of October, the organization had raised $6.5 million. Among its endorsed candidates is Matt Bevin, a businessman challenging McConnell in Kentucky's GOP primary.

The Madison Project has collected $1.7 million this year, while the Club for Growth has raised $2.2 million.

The groups are determined to use their money and clout in next year's elections in which seven of 12 Senate Republican incumbents face primary challengers. No Senate Democrat faces a primary foe.

"If Mitch McConnell and John Boehner think the grass roots are going to sit back and let them continue to work with Democrats to mortgage our nation's future, they're mistaken," Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, said in a statement. "It's time for Americans to rise up and begin replacing establishment Republicans with true conservatives in the 2014 primary elections. There's no question anymore about where these leaders stand."

With a shot at the Senate majority, McConnell is playing hardball. The GOP leader, who privately has said the groups need a punch in the nose and publicly has said they are "giving conservatism a bad name," has backed up his words with action. The Senate Republican campaign organization, effectively an extension of the GOP Senate leadership, has made it clear it will not give any business to Jamestown Associates, an advertising firm that has worked for the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Horowitz insists that even if non-establishment candidates don't prevail in the primaries, they've succeeded in forcing Republican incumbents to vote the conservative groups' positions in the year leading up to the election.

"Boy oh boy, do they shift over to the right," he said, citing Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah in 2012 and Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas this year.

Despite it all, Senate Republicans say there is little political daylight separating members of the caucus.

"I don't know many Republicans any more that are described as anything near moderate," said Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb. "We're a pretty conservative bunch. We just don't get here without being pretty conservative."

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