A tea party PAC is targeting 87 Republicans — including House Speaker John Boehner — who voted for the deal to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, saying it’ll look for challengers to the incumbent "traitors,"
BuzzFeed reported Wednesday.
The Tea Party Leadership Fund, a PAC affiliated with TheTeaParty.net, calls its fundraising push "Primaries for Traitors Fund," BuzzFeed reported.
"From our perspective, we see this as a signature vote. You can’t be a conservative and vote to raise the debt ceiling," said the fund’s treasurer, Dan Backer.
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"I recognize there are some places where voters may actually think that was the right vote. And there may be places where you have an incumbent who wins with 90 percent of the vote every time and there’s not a credible challenger. I recognize that, but we’re certainly going to do our best."
Backer says the group has honed in on a few specific members to start—Boehner in Ohio, Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, New York Rep. Peter King, North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger, and Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany.
"Our goal is to keep going one after another after another as our resources allow. To get our feet wet, we’re starting out with a few, but nobody is going to get a pass," he vowed.
According to
Open Secrets, the tea party PAC spent around $27,000 in support of two Republican candidates last cycle and no money against Republican incumbents.
Backer said the long odds of ousting the incumbents isn’t a deterrent.
"Everyone says, ‘We want to elect leaders.’ No we don’t. We’re electing representatives," Backer said. "If they were good representatives they shouldn’t have taken that vote. And if we’re wrong, they’ll win their primary and that’s healthy for democracy."
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