Club for Growth may support McCain challenger
WASHINGTON - The head of a prominent fiscal conservative group said Tuesday it would consider supporting a primary challenger to Sen. John McCain should he seek re-election next year.
David McIntosh, president of The Club for Growth, said the group would be watching the 2016 race carefully. McIntosh acknowledged the club will be monitoring whether Arizona Republican Reps. Matt Salmon or David Schweikert decide to challenge McCain.
"We'll look at John's record and his score," McIntosh told reporters at a breakfast meeting sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.
In 2013, the club rated McCain at 71 percent for how often he agrees with the group's position on key votes — a relatively low score among Senate Republicans. McCain's lifetime score with the group is 83 percent.
Schweikert had a 96 percent rating with the group in 2013, and Salmon a perfect 100 percent score.
"They're people the club has supported and thinks well of in Congress," McIntosh said of Schweikert and Salmon. "And then we're disciplined about it. We'll do research, including polling, and determine is there a path to victory? And is the money well spent?
"Some institutions only engage in things that they are 90 percent sure will lead to victory. The club is willing to take greater risk," he said.
McCain's office did not respond to a request for comment on McIntosh's remarks. However, McCain told The Washington Post on Tuesday the prospect of going up against a club-backed opponent "doesn't affect me in the slightest, I promise you."
"My only point, I guess, is that I'll be glad to match my record up against anybody's as far as growth is concerned," McCain told the Post.
The Club for Growth says it is a network of more than 100,000 people nationwide. It focuses mostly on economic issues.
The club and McCain have long been at odds, so the organization's openness to supporting a primary rival is not surprising.
After McCain voted against President George W. Bush's signature tax cuts, the group in 2003 publicly encouraged then-Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., to challenge McCain in his 2004 primary. Flake opted against it, and eventually ran for and won — with the club's support — the seat vacated by the retirement of Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
When McCain won the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, he did so in spite of the Club for Growth and other detractors on the right.
In 2010, the club did not embrace McCain's primary foe J.D. Hayworth even after Hayworth informally reached out to them. Hayworth, a former House member, was viewed by many fiscal conservatives as a Republican big spender.
McCain lost points on the group's 2013 scorecard by voting for President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Export-Import Bank, voting against an effort to delay the Affordable Care Act, and for a bipartisan budget deal worked out between Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
The Club for Growth has successfully taken on established Republicans it thought were not conservative enough, including former Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah, who was defeated by "tea party" favorite Mike Lee in 2010. In 2012, the group supported Richard Mourdock's challenge of Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar. Mourdock defeated Lugar in the primary but lost the 2012 general election to Democrat Joe Donnelly.
Club for Growth committees spent about $8.6 million in independent expenditures in the 2014 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Maureen Groppe of USA TODAY and Dan Nowicki of The Arizona Republic contributed to this story.
