By Ben Kamizar @ TheHill.com, March 25

The bipartisan No Labels group is looking to expand its fight for political moderates to more than a dozen primaries this year after being emboldened by Rep. Dan Lipinski’s (D-Ill.) primary victory last week. 

No Labels is planning an aggressive effort to spend tens of millions of dollars to protect moderates in both parties from primary challenges, in an attempt to give incumbents incentives not to cater to the party grassroots who typically dominate primary contests. 

No Labels says its fight to save moderates in both parties is vital to combatting Washington gridlock.  “Most people in Congress don’t care what most people think. What they care about is what is the narrow slice of their primary voters—which, for about 9 of 10 congress-people, is the only election that matters — what do they think?” said Ryan Clancy, the chief strategist at No Labels.  “Until the center gets some political organization, until it has some capacity to fend off the influence of the extremes on both sides, there’s no realistic way out of this mess.” [....]