Making what a spokeswoman called an easy decision, the conservative Club for Growth last week waded into the competitive GOP primary, backing former Maricopa County Treasurer David Schweikert in his race to unseat freshman Democrat Harry Mitchell.
But some say the endorsement, which will help Schweikert’s campaign financially, could end up creating a bloody Republican contest that will only serve to benefit Mitchell.
Schweikert “is a real free-market, limited-government kind of guy,” said club spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik. “It was very clear-cut who the club should be supporting in this race.”
In recent years, the club has backed challengers to incumbent Republicans. Its current president, former Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Toomey, made an uphill run against the state’s senior senator, Arlen Specter, in 2004. Despite being heavily outspent, Toomey, with the aid of about $2 million in support from Club for Growth, came within 2 percentage points of beating the popular incumbent.
Specter won his general election race, but two years later, club support for former Mayor Steve Laffey of Cranston, R.I., weakened incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee enough to allow Democrats to retake what had been a long-time Republican seat. Last year, the club also played an instrumental role in helping Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg knock off then-incumbent Joe Schwarz, a moderate. Club-backed conservatives in Colorado and Idaho also won competitive primaries over more widely-known moderate challengers.
The results show the group’s methods are highly effective. They bundle members’ donations to their chosen candidates, helping them compete with opponents who might raise more money. And, as in the Pennsylvania and Rhode Island races, they will run advertisements both on behalf of their candidate and against his or her opponents. In recent months, the group spent $322,000 in a special congressional election in Ohio alone.
Those advertisements, Democrats hope, will spark a bitter Republican primary fight that will leave the eventual nominee weakened for a battle with Mitchell. “By the time the GOP primary is over, it is going to be hard to tell the difference between their nominee and Pat Robertson,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Doug Thornell.
Republicans, too, worry that the club’s involvement in a primary against an incumbent Democrat harms their chances of retaking the seat. Mitchell’s is “a district where a bloody Republican primary could still prove disadvantageous,” said one Republican operative who has worked with moderate groups to oppose club-backed candidates. “They’re willing to go in hard and take on candidates that many insiders would regard as risky, often to their, and the GOP’s, detriment.”
Arizona’s late primary — Republicans will face each other for the right to take on Mitchell on Sept. 2 — also concerns GOP strategists. With just an eight-week sprint before the primary and the general, a nominee who was forced to spend all his or her money just to make it through the primary would have limited time in which to restock their financial coffers.
If the GOP primary becomes a contest to determine who is most conservative, the nominee will also have to work hard to get back to the center, a factor that helps Mitchell. “The eventual GOP nominee is going to have a difficult time persuading voters to turn back the clock,” Thornell said.
The shots against some of Schweikert’s Republican opponents have already begun. What Soloveichik said “wasn’t really a tough decision” to back Schweikert was made easier by the other candidates. Jim Ogsbury, she said, is “a former pork lobbyist.” “The government needs to spend less money, and pork is bad,” she explained. Soloveichik charged former state Rep. Laura Knaperek with voting for a tobacco tax hike and opposing the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, one of the club’s signature issues. And she dismissed state Rep. Mark Anderson and State Corporation Commissioner Jeff Hatch-Miller as second-tier candidates.
Soloveichik dismisses criticism that the club’s approach to winning harms Republicans. “Most political races aren’t rainbows and ice cream sundaes. This is politics,” she said. “It’s our job to tell people about the economic records of the various candidates.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee, which will face the uphill task of unseating Mitchell, is hamstrung in efforts to avoid a nasty primary contest; the organization does not get involved in contested races. When a nominee does emerge, though, both the club and the NRCC will aim their fire at a common enemy.
“Harry Mitchell’s position on fiscal responsibility is about as laughable as Hillary Clinton’s position on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants,” said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain. “His taste for wasteful earmarks and runaway spending will be an issue that plays to our favor next year.”
Club for Growth President Toomey said, “Arizona taxpayers deserve a congressman who fights for their hard-earned money, not someone who supports tax hikes, government expansion, and spending taxpayer dollars on aquariums, concert halls, fish laboratories, grape genetics research and a mule and packers museum.”
Still, the fact that Mitchell has opposed his party on several key votes, including a budget resolution that would have strengthened the estate tax, will likely help inoculate the freshman congressman from some club charges.
Mitchell spokesman Seth Scott said the charges were to be expected. “Arizonans are tired of angry and divisive Washington rhetoric. They don’t like it,” he said. “The voters of the district, regardless of party registration, believe that we can find the best solutions to the problems when Republicans and Democrats work together to find common ground.”
Soloveichik predicted the race would come down to a battle between Schweikert and Ogsbury. The former lobbyist will be well-financed; he finished the third quarter having raised over $100,000 and with more than $330,000 cash on hand, thanks to a $250,000 personal loan to the campaign. Soloveichik aimed most of her fire at the candidate she perceived as Schweikert’s biggest obstacle. “Ogsbury will very likely pretend that he’s an economic conservative,” she said. “He’s a pork-lover.”
Ogsbury rejected the charge, asserting that his background told a different tale. “I’m a former congressional staffer who is certainly the only candidate in this race, and probably in the country, that has experience cutting government programs and waste,” he said. “I made bureaucrats accountable for the first time.” Spending, he said, is an issue that concerns him as well. “I’m very concerned about this Congress and its proclivity to grow government.”
Dismissing the attacks, Ogsbury promised to maintain a positive and optimistic outlook. “I can really only worry about my campaign,” he said.
Schweikert announced his own bid late enough that he was not required to file paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission. Mitchell, a member of the DCCC’s Frontline program for vulnerable incumbents, finished the quarter with more than $700,000 cash on hand, having raised about $830,000 so far this year.