Why Did Club For Growth Fire Chris Chocola?

In the last cycle Club for Growth Action spent $8,949,420. Their biggest investments were $2,417,659 against Senator Thad Cochran (R) in Mississippi, $815,420 against Senator Mark Pryor (D) in Arkansas, $758,501 against Rep. Ann Kuster (D) in New Hampshire, and $478,802 against Rep. Mike Simpson (R) in Idaho. Its questionable whether they had much role in defeating Pryor-- outside money that poured into that race against the doomed Pryor amounted to nearly $25,000,000-- and Club for Growth Action's other big investments were all busts. Their candidates lost. And on top of the top tier, they wasted large amounts alienating congressional Republicans like Larry Bucshon (R-IN), Rick Crawford (R-AR), Rennee Ellmers (R-NC), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Frank Lucas (R-OK), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Martha Roby (R-MS), Aaron Schock (R-IL) and Greg Walden (R-OR), all solid conservatives who they charged with the crime of being tight with John Boehner. Ion top of that, the Club For Growth PAC spent another $2,668,390, much of it on fringe right-wing candidates who rarely rose beyond blip-on-the-radar status, like Stanley Cotton (D-CA), Zach Dasher (R-LA), Marilinda Garcia (R-NH), Bob Johnson (R-GA), Adam Kwasman (R-AZ), Chad Mathis (R-AL), and Bryan Smith (R-ID). They all lost, hurting the Club's image as the self-proclaimed "enforcer" of tax cutting inside the GOP. Although 2014 was a banner year for Republicans, the Wall Street Journal termed it as a disappointing year for the Club, so disappointing, in fact, that they fired Chris Chocola and replaced him with another Indiana nut job and former congressman, David McIntosh (who just lost 2 consecutive Republican primaries to a more mainstream conservative, Susan Brooks in a thwarted comeback attempt).

Under Chocola's leadership, Club for Growth's influence within the GOP diminished considerably and fewer and fewer Republicans viewed them seriously or as a real threat. According to the Journal piece, "The Club lost three of the four federal races in which it spent the most money, including the only Senate primary where it squared off against the GOP establishment. Unlike the past two election cycles, the Club has no signature victory to call its own. The Club lost its big fight on Capitol Hill when the GOP-controlled House overwhelmingly voted to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank through September 2015."

Wednesday the Club's Board of Directors voted to fire Chocola, although they're claiming he decided to leave on his own because he didn't like commuting to DC from his homes in northern Michigan and in Florida. "I don't love airplanes," he explained, after rumors started circulating that he had lost all his support on the board-- rumors that were, of course, vehemently denied.

"Chris Chocola remains safely ensconced at the head of the Club for Growth," said Club spokesman Barney Keller, in a statement to National Journal. "The rumors of his demise are as exaggerated as the rumors of the Obamacare website being fixed."

Chocola is still blamed for helping engineer crackpot Richard Mourdock's primary win against Senator Richard Lugar in 2012-- a primary win that handed a safe Republican seat to Democrat Joe Donnelly. Chocola joked that McIntosh is just "gray-haired guy from Indiana, so people might not even know the difference." Both are pretty third rate hack politicians too... so there's that. It's unrealistic to expect that McIntosh will be able to turn around the Club's downward trajectory now that the Republican Establishment has recognized it as an enemy-- and weak enemy at that.