Club For Growth-- More Of A Cudgel For Far Right Extremism

Last night we looked, once again, at how the Koch brothers are polluting American politics with the millions of dollars they inherited from their dangerously psychotic, anti-democracy father. Sunday, the Washington Post published an opus on how the Club for Growth fits into this nefarious anti-democracy web. Early in the morning, Club fuehrer, Chris Chocola, was gloating and bragging about it on Twitter. Is any special interest group strong enough to get behind shipping millions of jobs overseas and win? You bet! Congressmen are fearful whores. If you have a stick and a bone, you own them.

The first sign that Republican leaders could not control their new majority came on a vote to help Americans who lose their jobs to foreign workers. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) considered the measure routine and in February 2011 put it on a list of bills expected to pass without objection.

Enter the Club for Growth. Flush with power after helping to elect 13 House members and defeat two veterans in the Senate, the conservative campaign-finance machine blasted out an e-mail declaring its opposition to extending the 40-year-old retraining program, which it called “inappropriate for a country devoted to free markets and a limited government.”

Within hours, like-minded lawmakers protested. Cantor abruptly canceled the vote in a display of party chaos that was astonishing at the time.

It’s not so astonishing anymore. Since then, the Club for Growth has repeatedly embarrassed House leaders, helping to torpedo Speaker John A. Boehner’s “fiscal cliff” strategy, the recent farm bill-- even bland Cantor initiatives aimed at helping the uninsured and sick kids with cancer. After spending millions to empower the anti-government right, the Club has become the proud sponsor of congressional gridlock.

Now the group is advocating disruption on a grander scale, urging Republicans to wage what some in the party are calling a suicidal campaign to shut down the government unless President Obama agrees to defund his signature health initiative. Last week, Boehner (R-Ohio) cancelled another vote-- this time on a plan to keep the government open past Sept. 30-- after the Club and other outside groups complained that it failed to undermine Obamacare.

...“These are self-perpetuating entities, and if they stop fighting for a cause, the money dries up. So they have to drum up this outrage because it pays their salaries,” said former Arizona congressman Ben Quayle, the son of former vice president Dan Quayle. Ben Quayle narrowly lost his House seat last year after tangling with the Club. “It’s all about how to increase their fundraising,” he said.

Chocola is unapologetic. The Club’s mission, he said, is to advance “economic freedom, not Republicans.”

“It’s not our role to negotiate. It’s not our role to compromise. That’s not what we do,” he said in an interview at the Club’s offices on L Street NW. “We try to find the most pro-growth position and push people as close to that as we can.”

Founded in the early 1980s by a small band of New York money managers, the Club for Growth has long been the premier financier for conservatives who hate taxes, love free trade and oppose just about every category of federal spending. The Club has done more than any group to purge moderates from the GOP; now it is seeking to enforce the rigid ideological standards that win votes on the campaign trail but make it hard to govern.

These days, the Club is not alone. FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, even the venerable Heritage Foundation are all trying to harness the energy of the tea party movement. What makes the Club the heavyweight is money-- and its relentless focus on Republican primaries.

In the 2012 election cycle, the Club and its various entities spent more than $9 million trying to ensure favored candidates won GOP primaries, more than twice as much as they spent trying to defeat Democrats, according to OpenSecrets.org. Traditionally, they have also been the only group willing to target incumbents they deem RINOs, “Republicans in Name Only.”

Over the years, the Club has elected 15 to 20 die-hard loyalists in the House. On some issues, it can sway 45 votes or more, according to a Washington Post analysis. Boehner can afford to lose only 16 Republicans to pass a bill without Democratic votes.

As a result, the Club often swings a bigger stick even than Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist. In December, Norquist endorsed Boehner’s “Plan B” strategy to avoid a broad New Year’s Day tax hike by offering Democrats a compromise that would have raised taxes on income only over $1 million a year. The Club came out against the proposal. Hours later, in perhaps the biggest humiliation of Boehner’s tenure, it was dead.

This cycle Club for Growth is trying to take out Boehner allies Mike Simpson (R-ID), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and his boyfriend Aaron Schock (R-IL), Phil Walden (R-OR)-- the GOP's version on Steve Israel, just not as venal-- Rick Crawford (R-AR), Frank Lucas (R-OK), Steve Palazzo (R-MS), Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Larry Bucshon (R-IN) and Martha Roby (R-AL). Last cycle Club for Growth's biggest investments went to 13 extreme right Republicans. 7 of the 13 lost, but 6 won.

• Jeff Flake (R-AZ)- $1,000,112 (won)
• Ted Cruz (R-TX)- $705,657 (won)
• Richard Mourdock (R-IN)- $524,050 (lost)
• Mark Neumann (R-WI)- $470,233 (lost)
• Josh Mandel (R-OH)- $301,553 (lost)
• Steve King (R-IA)- $255,021 (won)
• Tom Cotton (R-AR)- $249,833 (won)
• Connie Mack (R-FL)- $189,168 (lost)
• Keith Rothfus (R-PA)- $138,721 (won)
• Tom Massie (R-KY)- $118,057 (won)
• Don Stenberg (R-NE)- $82,103 (lost)
• Carl Wimmer (R-UT)- $60,052 (lost)
• George Allen (R-VA)- $43,075 (lost)

On top of direct contributions, the Club also spent millions of dollars smearing candidates with distorted TV and radio ads. Their biggest victims were:

• David Dewhurst (R-TX)- $4,998,650
• Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)- $1,990,793
• Richard Carmona (D-AZ)- $1,521,415
• Richard Lugar (R-IN)- $1,063,395
• Wilford Cardon (R-AZ)- $877,976
• Sherrod Brown (D-OH)- $828,012
• Jon Bruning (R-NE)- $714,743
• Eric Hovde (R-WI)- $658,910
• Paul Gosar (R-AZ)- $593,097
• Tommy Thompson (R-WI)- $549,429

That's serious money, and most of it was spent to defeat mainstream conservative Republicans who were being challenged by neo-fascist candidates. Even when the Club lost-- Republican incumbents they targeted who won included Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Fred Upton (R-MI)-- they put the fear of fascism into the winners, all of whom have swung noticeably to the right after the Club went after them.

In the once-collegial Senate, bomb-throwers such as Republicans Ted Cruz (Tex.), Mike Lee (Utah) and senator-turned-Heritage-Foundation-president Jim DeMint (S.C.) were Club candidates. The Club also championed Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.).

“The Club for Growth is probably America’s most influential advocacy group in the space of economic and fiscal policy,” said Toomey, who served as the Club’s president from 2005 to 2009. “There’s a national movement that has been increasingly frustrated with Republicans who are not consistent advocates for limited government and economic freedom. And that’s been a source of the Club’s strength.”

...GOP strategist Brock McCleary, who worked on the House Republican campaign committee in 2012, said he tried to calm incumbents by pointing out that they are “more likely to get run over by a car than lose a primary.” But the Club’s power, McCleary said, is “not always based on fear of loss. It’s the fear of the money and effort it would take to fend off a challenger.”

The Club is financed by a small group of big donors, many of them company founders and entrepreneurs. Seven people gave the Club at least $1 million for the 2012 elections, according to the Center for Public Integrity, including Club Chairman Jackson T. Stephens Jr. of Arkansas, whose family underwrote the initial public offering for Wal-Mart in 1970.

Three others rank among the nation’s top 25 political donors, according to the center: Perry Homes founder Bob Perry of Texas, who died in April; private equity giant John Childs of Florida; and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.