This year’s RedState Gathering was a wonderful event. There was, however, one interesting moment with a guy from the National Republican Senatorial Committee worth sharing.Friday afternoon as I was trying to make my way to Governor Jindal’s reception, the guy from the NRSC stopped me and very derisively asked if I was going to support anyone other than challengers to incumbents. He went so far as to claim I must be making money to support challengers against incumbents and let me know RedState would be blamed if the GOP did not take back the majority.What was most fascinating, however, was that he demanded I name candidates RedState supports in states without incumbents as proof RedState does not somehow get paid to push challengers. I mentioned Larry Rhoden in South Dakota, at which point he started bad mouthing State Senator Rhoden and revealing NRSC opposition research on Senator Rhoden.I also mentioned Dr. Greg Brannon in North Carolina, but he was dismissive of him too.This all comes as multiple friends of this site, in conversations with me, told me the National Republican Senatorial Committee contacted them to do negative stories about the Madison Project — a conservative group I am a big supporter of. Why? Because the Madison Project endorsed Matt Bevin in Kentucky against Senator Mitch McConnell. Full disclosure: the Madison Project’s Daniel Horowitz is a RedState contributor, which is why these friends reached out to give me a heads up. So let’s recap — the NRSC is pushing hit jobs against conservative organizations who don’t support their incumbents in primaries. They are claiming conservatives who don’t support their candidates are getting paid to do so. They demand to know who conservatives support in open races then bashing those candidates.And they call this outreach.Friends, this is exactly why we have the RedState Gathering. You’d never have the opportunity to hear for yourselves people like Matt Bevin, Bryan Smith, Rob Maness, Art Halvorson, and Larry Rhoden if the NRSC and its establishment friends had anything to do with it.Each year we do the RedState Gathering and I invite the speakers and I approve the sponsors. We returned money for some politicians who thought they could buy their way into the Gathering to get a platform. We refused large sponsorships from various Republicans because we did not want to be associated with them. We aren’t CPAC and work hard to present people we either fully support or are interested in supporting.It is a sad commentary on the part of anyone at the NRSC that they would see RedState turning down money and then claim we are getting paid to do what we do. I would submit that is more a reflection on them than us and it is also a reason why we must commit to growing the RedState Gathering every year so the grassroots can experience authentically conservative candidates outside the world of the establishment and the coin operated portions of the movement.Lastly — should you see any conservative outlets attacking groups like the Madison Project or Heritage Action for America or Club for Growth or others, it is probably a clear sign these outlets are on the side of the incumbent establishment leaders who’ve been complicit in getting us to $17 trillion in national debt, but think the only problem with government is Democrats in charge of it.Thank you to those of you who attended the RedState Gathering. It’s clear we are up against more than just Democrats in the fight to take back our country.By request of the attendees, below (or click through if you’re coming via the Morning Briefing) are links to the campaign pages of everyone who spoke at the RedState Gathering or, if not running, other appropriate links. Also, as I mentioned on stage at the Gathering, Heritage Action is a great resource to find the best candidates and see how good or bad your incumbent congress critter is.We will soon announce the location of next year’s Gathering, but be sure to go on and hold the first weekend in August of 2014. That would be August 1 – 3, 2014. And, like this year, you’d want to actually arrive the day before, so that’d be July 31, 2014. Stay tuned for details.Elected or Seeking Office:Matt BevinGreg BrannonJim BridenstineTed CruzNikki HaleyArt HalvorsonBobby JindalBrian KempRob ManessMick MulvaneyRick PerryLarry RhodenSteve ScaliseTim ScottBryan SmithOther Speakers:Kevin KookogeyJenny Beth MartinMilton Wolf