NRSC warns candidates on Republican media firm 

At least one Republican campaign committee is moving to freeze out vendors who work with anti-party establishment groups.

For two cycles, the GOP’s party committees have largely ignored the problem of having top vendors provide services to antagonistic groups or candidates attempting to knock off GOP incumbents in primaries. 

Now, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has warned New Jersey-based Jamestown Associates it won’t land any committee contracts because it’s working with a group backing Kentucky businessman Matt Bevin, who is primarying Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R).

“We’re not going to do business with people who profit off of attacking Republicans,” Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the committee, told the New York Times. “Purity for profit is a disease that threatens the Republican Party.”

Jamestown was singled out for working for the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), which is running ads against the Senate Minority Leader. A 30-second spot released this week by former Sen. Jim DeMint’s group said McConnell “helped” President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) “fund Obamacare.” 

“Now Kentucky families are paying the price,” the narrator says in the spot. “He let us down.” 

According to the Times, the NRSC also sent the warning to other clients of Jamestown Associates, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Tom Cotton, who’s challenging Sen. Mark Pryor (D) in Arkansas.    

The back and forth between SCF’s Matt Hoskins and McConnell’s chief of staff is well worth the read.

Hoskins adds in an email: “Mitch McConnell can’t defend his record so he’s trying to threaten and intimidate his conservative opponents. This is not what leaders do; it’s what bullies do. We’re not going to back down.”