The Tea Party Rebel Alliance Remains Standing !

[…]  Cochran enjoyed the backing of a muscular array of corporate PACs and interest groups, and received an extraordinary injection of late money from his Senate comrades.

He took $27,000 in contributions from colleagues including Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Rob Portman of Ohio and John Boozman of Arkansas. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which deployed field staff to Mississippi ahead of the primary to bolster Cochran’s operation, gave him $45,400 on May 20.

[…]  Karl Rove and American Crossroads, the powerful GOP outside-spending group, said Wednesday morning that it would not spend money in the Cochran-McDaniel race. Though Crossroads was not involved in the Mississippi primary prior to this week, the definitive statement that the group will not engage deprives national Republicans of a possible funding stream for Cochran’s effort.

“Other than Alaska, we have completed our work on Senate primaries this cycle and are now focused on general elections. With the Chamber of Commerce, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) , and a local super PAC (Haley Barbour) already backing Cochran, this is not our fight,” Crossroads spokesman Paul Lindsay said in an email.

Henry Barbour, the Republican National Committee member who leads the top super PAC supporting Cochran, said his group would continue to go “all out” in the race.

“We will go all out for Mississippi’s interests as opposed to McDaniel and his out-of-state funders who ‘won’t do anything’ for us,” Barbour said in an email, alluding to comments McDaniel made earlier this month pledging to eschew federal perks for Mississippi.

NRSC Executive Director Rob Collins said in a statement that the committee will “continue to fully support Thad Cochran.” And the heavy-spending U.S. Chamber of Commerce signaled a similar commitment; one of its top political officials, Rob Engstrom, tweeted that the business lobby will “stand by Senator Cochran.”

The looming question, however, is how much money these groups intend to throw at a race that many in Washington resent having been forced to spend money on at all. Several top party strategists said the process of assessing Cochran’s viability as a runoff candidate is underway.   (read more)