The Club: Making GOP Establishment Vehicles Insecure Since 1999

To all the Tea Parties go the credit for recent outside-the-establishment candidate victories, but the original moneyed grassroots conservative movement, the Club for Growth, now a silver-haired veteran of Republican primary wars, has been present at the scenes of many of these campaign drive-bys. Contrary to popular belief, the Club's PAC did not endorse Rand Paul in Kentucky. They didn't endorse anyone in that Senate race. So, don't blame (or praise) the Club for that one. But the Club's PAC was the first major group to bring statewide attention to Sen. Robert Bennett's vote in favor of the TARP bailout, and spent more than $175,000 on television ads after its anti-endorsement in January and before the April caucuses, the goal being to "change the composition of the caucus universe." His major crime was the Wyden-Bennett bipartisan health care legislation, which, according to the Club, "would impose an unconstitutional individual mandate, increase federal taxes and spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, and force Americans to pay their insurance premiums through the IRS." The Tea Party got national attention, but its organizing efforts paled in comparison to what the Club's PAC was able to do. (By the way: the Club will not play in the primary, which features two acceptable candidates.)...more