Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund started Musgrave attack early The effort to unseat Marilyn Musgrave began unusually early this year, when a national environmental group began airing TV ads attacking her more than four months before Election Day. As the ads began running, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund said it was committed to spending at least $500,000 to oust the three-term incumbent. By the time polls closed Tuesday, the group Musgrave denounced as "environmental extremists" had spent three times that much and she had suffered the worst loss of any Republican House incumbent in the nation. Federal Election Commission records show Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund's two political arms - a 527 group and a 501(c)4 group - spent about $1.6 million targeting Musgrave. That was the second-largest independent expenditure by a nonparty group in any House race in the country this year....