The rollicking campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is proving irresistible to conservative advocacy groups like the Club for Growth, which typically focuses on influencing Congress.
The club, the granddaddy of the collection of organizations that have emerged as thorns in the side of congressional Republicans, and particularly their leadership, is among those making its first concerted foray into a White House contest. Other big names getting involved include Heritage Action and FreedomWorks. Usually, all three have played almost exclusively in House and Senate primaries in an effort to elect more conservative Republicans to Congress.
“My board told me when I started, typically we don’t get involved in the presidential race. But this year there are several people that we know are good because we endorsed them when they ran for Senate, so if you see opportunities, be prepared for it,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh told the Washington Examiner.
The club believes in lower corporate and personal tax rates, smaller and limited government, and free trade. The organization does not take a public position on immigration. It scores House and Senate votes on legislation through its policy arm. Through its political arms, the group bundles contributions from donors for endorsed candidates, and invests its owned raised resources on independent expenditure advertising.
So far, the club has done what it usually does in presidential races, issue white papers detailing the candidates’ economic policies and rating them good or bad depending on whether they meet its free-market, pro-growth standards. But for the first time, the group is bundling contributions for five GOP presidential contenders: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas; Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky; Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
McIntosh said the club is jealous of its unique role in trying to influence the outcome of Republican congressional primaries, particularly in open seats. And this cycle, it has also prioritized re-electing Republican Senate incumbents, among them Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, a former Club for Growth president, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, where it plans to place its first independent expenditure of the 2016 cycle. But he signaled that that won’t stop the group from being heavily involved in the GOP presidential primary.
In our interview, McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman, detailed his plans, as well as how Donald Trump’s summer surge to the top of the field in most polls motivated the club to step up its game. The discussion was edited for length and clarity.
Examiner: Explain how you plan to be active in the presidential race.
McIntosh: We took a new step with the PAC and told our members, if you want to support any of the five that have strong pro-growth records, we will bundle the contributions and 100% of it goes directly to their campaign. That’s the mechanism we use to support senate candidates and House candidates. That’s been well received, a few questions about, why is Bush on the list and we said, we went by the White Paper and he, as governor, was really strong pro-growth. We also said in there, we’re going to wait and see what he looks like on his tax proposal. So if he now comes out with an anemic tax proposal that is reheated moderate Republican ideas, we’ll probably have to take a second look at, is he really going to be a pro-growth president. But my hope is, when it comes out, I think it’s next week, that he’ll have a strong, very conservative, free market approach.
Examiner: Where does Trump figure into things?
McIntosh: We’re now also looking at, with Trump, as a problem for the strong, free market conservative candidates. We’ve got one of the best fields the Republican Party’s had in a long time. But many of them can’t get any oxygen in the room because Trump’s using it all up; and when you look at his past statements, you know, he’s not served, so he doesn’t have votes or legislative accomplishments, but you look at a 5.7 trillion one-time tax he proposed, he was for single-payer, for government-run health care — worse than Hillarycare, worse than Obamacare — he’s for using eminent domain to take people’s houses and give it to businessmen so they can build something on that property – destruction of property rights in the country, he’s for getting us into a trade war with China and slapping on huge tariffs on cars coming in from Mexico, against our NAFTA free trade program, we’re going to just point those issues out. Donald Trump has become just a phenomenon where we felt, okay, there we had to point out where he’s bad on economic policy.
Examiner: How aggressive do you plan to be in highlighting Trump’s positions?
McIntosh: Aggressively. He’s shot back at us, and we’ve said look, that just means we can’t be bought, we’re not going to stay silent on these issues. We’re also looking at the mix of things the club political arms do, the affiliated PAC and super PAC, and are keeping all the options open.
Examiner: What are your donors telling you in terms of the presidential race?
McIntosh: The general comments we’ve gotten back have been positive about the five [candidates we’re bundling for], some questions about Bush, and then a mix on the Trump effort, where they want us to be careful and not get distracted from the House and Senate operations because that’s what our members really like about the club. Others said, no, somebody needs to point out that he’s not a conservative on economic issues. The main thing the members are looking at now is winning, because they realize that Hillary, or if she doesn’t make it, certainly, [Vice President Joe] Biden or [Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders would be a disaster for economic policy; second, somebody whose going to be true to the free market principles. Who that is kind of is split between the four or five that we thought were good, and I’ve tried to encourage them to participate because we’ve got a lot of good selections.
Examiner: What about your feud with Trump? It seems to have gone beyond the usual disagreement between an advocacy group and a candidate.
McIntosh: Interestingly, he contacted us [May 8, via his now campaign manager] and said, I’m interested in what the club does, would you come up. And I said, sure, I’ll come up. He wanted to show me the golf course that he developed in New York and I didn’t have time, and I’m not a good golfer, so I said, no thank you. And, we met in his office, and I said, you know, we don’t agree with a lot of your positions on trade — we’re free traders — on taxes, we think taxes should be cut. But here’s four Senate candidates that we think would be really good, here’s where we’re going to put a lot of our effort, and he said, sure, I’d like to support you on that, that’d be good; send me something and I’ll send you some money. I sent him a letter asking for a contribution, didn’t hear back and then when he announced his candidacy, we said we didn’t think he was a good conservative option for president, and he blew up that point.
Looking back, I now wonder, because he said in the debate, I buy politicians all the time. And I’m wondering: Did he think he was going to buy the club’s silence or something with this contribution? And the fact is, we’re not going to be bought.
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
