Matt Kibbe, president of the tea party-affiliated FreedomWorks, issued a statement Monday in which he took aim at the Conservative Victory Project, the Karl Rove-backed group launched to stave off conservative primary challengers and protect Republican incumbents.
In the statement, Kibbe highlighted the electoral success of tea party-supported candidates such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Mike Lee (R-UT) , adding that FreedomWorks will be undeterred by Rove’s “Orwellian-named” group.
“The Empire is striking back. A clear pattern has emerged, beginning with the GOP leadership’s efforts to silence delegates on the floor of the RNC, continuing with House Leadership’s purge of fiscally conservative congressmen from their committee positions for voting out of line with the GOP establishment. Now, an Orwellian-named ‘Conservative Victory Project’ is created with the sole operating mission of blocking the efforts of fiscally conservative activists across the country.
All events point to a fundamental clash between the old guard Republican establishment, dictating outdated ideas from the top-down, versus a tech-savvy younger generation of activists driving their agenda from the bottom-up. These blatant acts of hostility are typical behavior of an entrenched political establishment, circling the wagons around incumbents, regardless of job performance in office.
The genie is out of the bottle, and politics is permanently more decentralized, more democratic. The future of the GOP are the millions of principled-driven activists who are building a community centered around a set of shared values, and taking their government back at all levels, from the ground up. We are repopulating the GOP, and that process continues unabated.”
Read the entire statement here.
