Key fundraising group
backing
Laffey
The
support by the
conservative Club for
Growth draws the ire of
the head of the moderate
Republican Main Street
Partnership: "We hate
this. We should be
fighting Democrats."
BY JOHN E. MULLIGAN
The Providence Journal
Washington
Bureau
WASHINGTON
-- Cranston Mayor
Stephen P.
Laffey yesterday
won a conservative
endorsement yesterday
that could be a
fundraising boon to his
campaign to unseat Sen.
Lincoln D.
Chafee in next
year's Republican
primary.
The
Club for
Growth's embrace
of the "pro-growth,
Reagan Republican," as
its leader dubbed
Laffey, is a seal
of approval that could
command the attention --
and open the checkbooks
-- of conservative
actvists around
the county.
"I'm
happy to have their
help,"
Laffey said in an
interview, renewing his
pledge to shake things
up in
Washington and fight "pork barrel
spending" by both
political parties.
Club
for Growth President Pat
Toomey's
endorsement
dovetails with
Laffey's campaign
thus far. Toomey, a
former
Pennsylvania congressman who grew
up in
East Providence,
called
Laffey "an
outsider,
antiestablishment
kind of guy that wants
to clean up the mess in
Washington."
That
message, "really
resonates with anybody"
in
Rhode Island,
Toomey said, answering
the popular assertion in
political circles that
the comparatively
conservative
Laffey would have
an easier time
threatening
Chafee's
political survival than
winning a general
election in liberal
Rhode Island.
Chafee's campaign
manager, Ian Lang,
reiterated the charge
that
Laffey's record
as mayor disqualifies
him as an economic
conservative.
Toomey's
organization ought to be
renamed "the club for
deficit growth," he
remarked.
But
the endorsement also
aroused GOP concerns
that the fight inside
the party will throw the
seat to the Democrats. A
GOP moderate group, the
Republican Main
Street
Partnership, immediately
took the unusual step of
announcing plans to
spend more than $1.2
million in advertising,
mailings,
get-out-the-vote drives
and other efforts to
reelect
Chafee.
"We
hate this," said Sarah
Chamberlain
Resnick,
executive director of
the
Main Street
group, which
Chafee's late
father helped to found.
"We should be fighting
Democrats."
Independent analysts
called the Club for
Growth endorsement a
significant event in the
campaign -- even though
the September primary is
nine months away -- but
one that contains some
peril as well as promise
for
Laffey.
"They
[Club for Growth] have a
pretty good track record
of raising money for
people," said Jennifer
Duffy, a Senate campaign
analyst with the Cook
Political Report in
Washington.
But
Duffy said the question
remains whether the Club
for Growth -- which
focuses on cuts in
federal taxes, spending
and trade barriers --
commands a broad enough
constituency to pull
Laffey through an
"open" primary that may
draw many independents.
Larry
Sabato, a
political scientist at
the
University of
Virginia, called the endorsement
"very important," and
certain to induce "a lot
of heartburn" in the
Chafee campaign
and the GOP
establishment in
Washington.
"Rhode
Island's
Republican Party is so
small" that economic
conservatives -- people
likely to be attuned to
the Club for
Growth's signals
-- could make up an
outsized fraction of the
turnout,
Sabato said.
Sabato said that
the club's largest
influence might be
through affiliated
committees -- "outside
expenditure groups," as
they are known in the
election business --
created to funnel money
into campaigns. "These
groups can always be a
double-edged sword,"
particularly if their
operatives misread the
political climate in
their target states.
Even
though
Laffey has no say
in the Club for
Growth's
expenditures, "negative
ads" by such a group
"could very well turn
off conservatives" whom
Laffey needs to
win the primary -- or
the other voters he
would need if he gets to
the general election,
Sabato said.
The
Club for
Growth's $2.7
million in contributions
as of early October
placed the group fourth
in 2006 election
fundraising by the
advocacy groups that run
ads and do other
independent
expenditures, according
to the independent
Center for Responsive
Politics. (The Service
Employees International
Union, the liberal group
Americans Coming
Together, and the
American Federation of
State, Federal and
Municipal
Employes rank
one, two and three,
respectively, according
to
CRP, a campaign
finance watchdog group.)
The
Club for Growth ranked
12th among such groups
in the 2004 elections,
spending about $13
million. Swift Boat
Veterans and
POWs for Truth,
by comparison, was one
of the top
conservative-oriented
groups, spending about
$22.6 million in
opposition to Sen. John
F. Kerry, the Democratic
presidential nominee.
Americans Coming
Together topped the
list, spending about $78
million in an effort to
defeat Mr. Bush.
The
Club for Growth also
spent millions against
Kerry but was probably
more closely identified
with a high-profile
Senate primary,
Toomey's
near-miss campaign
against Republican Sen.
Arlen Specter.
"Toomey
came very close to
unseating a
powerful, senior member
of the Republican
Senate,"
Sabato recalled,
noting that the
then-congressman won
about 49 percent of the
2004
Pennsylvania
vote.
Earlier this year, the
Club for Growth aired TV
ads in
Rhode Island
and several other states
in an effort to rally
support for Mr.
Bush's plan to
overhaul Social
Security.
Toomey
called the 2006
Laffey-Chafee
primary contest "the
first skirmish in a very
important battle" to
rededicate the GOP to
the limited-government
principles of the late
President Ronald Reagan.
Toomey
said a Senator
Laffey "would cut
wasteful spending,
especially corporate
welfare; make the Bush
tax cuts permanent;
expand international
trade; reform insolvent
entitlements and fix
broken tort laws." But
Toomey, who first
announced the
endorsement yesterday in
a Wall Street Journal
opinion column, focused
at least as much on
condemning the incumbent
Chafee as a
liberal who "epitomizes
the
GOP's waning
commitment to limited
government and economic
freedom."
