The mid-term elections are over and the 2012 contest is 23 months away, but the independent groups that played an outsized role in the former are already gearing up for the next contest. Protecting America's Retirees and America's Next Generation filed letters last month with the Federal Election Commission declaring their intent to take unlimited contributions from any source. 

Protecting America's Retirees, which an AFL-CIO blog post identifies as an "independent project of the Alliance for Retired Americans," disclosed modest expenditures of $157,000 in the midterms aimed at six House races, backing the winner in three ...