"Is The Tea Party's Latest Move Illegal?"

Is The Tea Party's Latest Move Illegal?

by Patricia Murphy at the Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/06/tennessee-s-sketchy-tea-party-super-pac.html

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But in the three weeks leading up to Thursday’s primary in Tennessee, state Rep. Joe Carr’s campaign is sponsoring no rallies and holding no message events. Instead, the leading challenger to Sen. Lamar Alexander is crisscrossing the state to attend local GOP meetings and headline nine “Restore America -Joe Carr for U.S. Senate” rallies.

The rallies feature all of the must-haves for a campaign event, including streamers, “Beat Lamar” yard signs, fresh-faced staff in matching “Beat Lamar” t-shirts and, of course, the candidate himself. The largest to-date featured radio host Laura Ingraham in Nashville, rallying 800 conservatives to go the polls for Carr and “Beat Lamar.”

But the events are not a part of the Carr for Senate campaign, nor does his campaign pay for them. Instead, they are sponsored by the Real Conservatives National Committee, a Super PAC run by Tea Party veteran and grassroots ace, Michael Patrick Leahy that created "Beat Lamar" to choose and then rally behind a conservative challenger to Alexander.

Leahy’s goal, he says, is to be the “the conservative ground game specialists.” Unlike traditional Super PACs that typically operate at arm’s length from campaigns by focusing on ad buys, the “Beat Lamar” effort has often put the candidate at the center of its work.



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