Tea Party Candidate's Attack Against Spending Backfires
The Tea Party-backed candidate challenging House transportation leader Bill Shuster has spent months portraying the Pennsylvania Republican as a big spender behind some of Congress’s priciest infrastructure measures.
The strategy is backfiring. Donors are ignoring commercial real estate businessman Art Halvorson, who campaign finance reports show raised $8,700 in the three months ending Dec. 31 for the state’s May 20 primary contest. Shuster’s $558,000 intake included a check from the political action committee of Koch Industries Inc., owned by two brothers who have bankrolled the Tea Party movement.
Local Republican officials say Halvorson’s portrayal of highway and water-project measures as wasteful isn’t catching on in Pennsylvania’s most heavily Republican district.
“With the majority of Republicans here, it really doesn’t sell,” said Franklin County Republican Party chairman Dwight Weidman, a Shuster supporter. “People see these as must-do bills. Ultimately his constituents benefit from these projects and they really do see these things as legitimate functions of government.”
Analysts say the donation gap may show that some supporters of the small-government Tea Party movement who want to shrink federal spending have a different attitude about money that goes toward roads in their community.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-03/even-koch-brothers-not-aiding-shuster-tea-party-challenge.html