Recent readers will know of my disagreement with Stephen Moore and his "Club for Growth". I'd gotten one tirade worked out of my system after reading the recruitment letter I got sent---thanks for nothing, CPAC---and didn't think I'd be writing on him again. After all, I'm not from Pennsylvania and I'm not particularly concerned as to whether Pat Toomey or Arlen Specter triumphs in what is a domestic issue for Pennsylvanians.
Comes now the intrepid duo at Boots and Sabers, commenting upon a New York Times piece reporting upon the influence of the CfG. Owen had this to say:
The story is about a national conservative committee that's dumping money into campaigns around the country. [A local candidate for Congress] is a beneficiary of the group. The story has a negative tone to it, but not about [the local candidate].
Having read the CfG recruiting materials sent my way, it is clear that the Times got a fact wrong right off the bat:
None of this financial largess was sought by [the candidate]. It fell into her lap without her having to lift a finger and has already helped her dispatch one of her Republican primary rivals.
Either the CfG departed from standard operating procedure, or else the reporter, one Leslie Wayne, had some difficulties in accuracy somewhere in the pipeline. CfG materials suggested that each candidate in which they take an interest is interviewed and vetted on the basis of several rigid ideological criteria, along with the CfG's evaluation of the candidate's "leadership potential".
That part's fine. If they want to do that, then let them. It's several following quotes that irritate me:
Moreover, to the consternation of mainstream Republicans, the club is not shy about pouring millions into primary races and attacking moderate Republicans with the same ferocity it reserves for Democrats in general elections.
"Our donors are very ideologically driven, more than party driven," said Stephen Moore, who co-founded the organization in Washington in 1999. "They are antitax and they feel the Republican Party has dropped the ball."
"We have no loyalty to the Republican Party," David Keating, the club's executive director, said in an interview.
As I stated before in my earlier post, I'm distinctly against some sort of unelected and unaccountable latter-day Inquisition running around targeting elected Republicans for elimination simply because they, the sitting member, doesn't dance to Stephen Moore's tune. Perhaps I am an unsophisticated simple Southern boy, but I don't readily cotton to the tune of a man whose goals don't think highly of the party that brung him, so to speak. Likewise, the Keating quote raises my party loyalist hackles. So you have no loyalty to the Republican Party? Then we should have no loyalty to you, and the GOP should do its darnedest to make Keating eat his words. Another excerpt:
"I'm adamantly opposed to their activities," said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a 527 committee that supports moderate Republican candidates. "Why are they splitting the Republican Party? They've got a funny name for a group that is trying to shrink the Republican Party."
I've got no real interest in the "Republican Main Street Partnership" and don't really even know what it is.1 However, I find her barb about the CfG's funny name amusing. Turning back to the CfG proper, the article notes that they exerted pressure on Senators Olympia Snow and George Voinovich of Maine & Ohio, respectively. Calling them "Franco-Republicans" and "questioning their patriotism", the CfG claims credit for helping George W. Bush's tax cuts pass with Voinovich's vote.
This really irks me. Does Stephen Moore and the CfG really mean to suggest that disagreement on taxation policy means that an individual Senator is from France? I'd like to think not, but their over-the-top remarks to the Times indicates that they do. I'd also like to know where Moore gets off by questioning someone's patriotism because they're not hell-for-leather excited about tax cuts. I suppose one could turn right around and question his patriotism for not being supportive of the war effort, which is more important in any case.
Moore addressed the "Franco-Republican" issue in a column for National Review Online, which I read in the course of preparing this piece. He stated at the end of the column that, "My group doesn't want to kick Snowe and Voinovich out of the party." This doesn't square with his more recent remarks to the Times that, "[w]e threatened to fund a primary opponent against Senator Voinovich".
Is Stephen Moore a liar? I don't know. Is he disingenuous? Probably. He wants, understandably, to exert influence. The problem is that Moore's exertion of influence is probably a bad thing. Arlen Specter stuck his nose about in the Penn Central's ruin, and I've got no patience for him, but I'm uncertain as to whether money from Virginia (for example) ought to be used in deciding a Pennsylvania race. Obviously, Stephen Moore is very eager to do this, but that doesn't make it "right".
If outside money is to be injected into political campaigns within a State, then I think they ought to come largely from the RNC or one of its subordinate campaign committees. This would of course overturn several decades worth of practice, but something rubs me wrong about a cash-flush donor from California deciding the outcome of a race here in Virginia simply because he cuts a check to Stephen Moore. Even if I were to agree with this theoretical donor, my loyalties to Virginia's right to make her own decisions runs ahead of an ideological theology.
Of course, Moore didn't help himself by writing an acid tongued piece skewering Virginia's Republican leadership for their efforts to cope with the problems we've got in Virginia's budget. I didn't get to read the whole thing due to NRO's teaser policy, but I'm willing to bet that Moore's grand solution was something on the order of "growth will solve all problems" and nothing further. I don't have an ideologically-acceptable answer to our problems, but I'll be darned if I let a national group tell Richmond what to do.
Allow me to close with a quotation from Richard Nixon: "I would rather have Republicans as majority leaders in the House and Senate than Democrats." Stephen Moore's policy risks elected Republicans in order to crown candidates of his choice, and I regard this as strategically, operationally, and tactically unsound.
1 A quick examination of the RMSP website shows that Northern Virginia's Tom Davis is the lone Virginian in the group. Inasmuch as I'm hardly fond of Northern Virginia, that carries little weight with me. It would appear that none of my favorite Congressional types are in this partnership, so nyah to the bias-seekers. At any rate, I've got no time for this "Main Street Partnership", since they're so fond of Lincoln Chaffee. The only way I can stomach the survival in office of people like that is if there's no other alternative.
Posted by Country Pundit at April 12, 2004 05:52 PM