Club for Growth takes aim at Crist
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/11/05/art.crist.cnn.jpg caption="The Club For Growth is taking aim at Crist in a new ad."](CNN) - Fresh off its considerable impact in New York's special congressional race, the Club for Growth is wading into the Republican Senate primary in Florida with a new ad criticizing Gov. Charlie Crist's initial support of President Obama's stimulus package.
"Since Charlie Crist helped pass Barack Obama's spending program, nearly two hundred thousand Floridians have lost their jobs," the ad's narrator states as video is shown of Crist and Obama at a rally in support of the package last February. "Unemployment is the highest in decades. Personal income's down. And the deficit in Washington is three times larger."
The conservative political action committee, which spent upwards of $1 million helping to derail a Republican candidate in New York who many conservatives felt was too liberal in her social and fiscal policies, has yet to determine the specific amount of the Florida ad buy.
But Club For Growth spokesman Mike Connolly said the group was moved to quickly produce the 30-second spot after Crist told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Wednesday on The Situation Room that he never "endorsed" the stimulus plan.
"We wanted to correct the record," Connolly said.
Crist, while maintaining he did not endorse the spending measure, said in the CNN interview that he expressed support for the bill because he knew it was going to pass and his state stood to gain federal dollars from it.
"I was pragmatic, I think, about what we needed to do. Everybody knew the bill was going to pass.," Crist said Wednesday. "I, like all other Republican governors, utilized that money for the benefit of the people in my state. And that's what a pragmatic conservative does."
The Club for Growth has yet to make an endorsement in the race but could come to a determination soon, Connelly also said. Crist - who has the backing of the Republican leadership in Washington - faces a challenge from the more conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio.
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The Club for Growth aka The Club for Losers, are at it again. Everytime they step in and derail a Moderate Republican candidate, the Republican candidate ends up losing to the Democratic candidate in the main election. They need to keep up the purging of the Republican Party aka keep up the good work! It is these idiots who are killing the Republican Party, you gotta love that..
No More lying politicians! 🙁
Wow! The Republican'ts are in really big trouble. These short-sighted, narrow-minded, ignorant Conserva-Baggers are just making the whole party implode. The great thing is, they are so ignorant they don't even realize there aren't enough of them to win an election! Oh they can spoil the primaries for the moderate Republican'ts, but as far as winning the election . . . .20%, that's all they got! So yeah, they may pick up some state & local elections, but on a national scale . . . no way!
I am a Democrat and I live in Florida and I voted for President Obama. With that said, I do like having Charlie Crist as my governor much better than Jeb Bush. Gov. Crist is a moderate Republican and moderate Republicans are becoming a rare breed. I really would like to see him switch parties and become a Democrat. I really think he would win the Senate seat if he did that.
Crist is a Judas, first he supported President Obama and the stimulus package, he took the money and now he goes back on what he said. Clear proof that Charlie "Judas" Crist's word ain't worth the paper it's written on.
Crist and the rest of his followers, that being all of Florida, will become Democrats if the Republicans think they can mess with him.
Ok but what IMPACT??? They lost and thuroughly ruined their own party! This is a groupd money lap dags from wall street just trying to keep us divided as a people lies and more lies!
It will be interesting to see what th good ole boys club will try to feed Floridians. I expect the typical rhetoric, if your not with us you are against us. And you are unAmerican for having the audacity to have an independent thought.
Right now Rubio and Crist are in a race to the far Right, I hope that noone tells them that the Real Finish Line is in the middle of the Road.
"Fresh off its considerable impact in New York's special congressional race," Uh, they blew it, badly. Their considerable impact is that their candidate got crushed by a nobody. Keep it up guys. Teabaggers Untie!
This is too rich to be true. Just as I was getting a little nervous about the 2010 mid-terms, the Tea Bagger bozos swoop in to give us an enormous boost. Let's enjoy this, folks, watching the Southern White Party - er, the Republicans - self-destruct before our eyes.
"Fresh off its considerable impact in New York's special congressional race, the Club for Growth..."
CONSIDERABLE IMPACT? I'd say. I guess that's one way to refer to what you call it when the most conservative candidate in a district that has voted Republican since the 1800s loses after you and all the other far-right-wing mouthpieces provide him with your support.
Go ahead and campaign against him. If a Democrat wins so be it. One more vote. If he wins in spite of these fools lined up against him the American people win. These fools need to understand they are not representative of the American people.
Crist voted for the stimulus because it was the right thing to do. Economics 101 – you have to spend money to make money.
Ha ha ha. It is fun for Dem's watch this circus--
Seriously, we need a distinguished opponent party like the Republicans. Not fringe groups of political terrorists like Limgaugh and Beck, who by the way already got their pieces of gold...which their followers nor any one else will ever see.
Once again the lunatic right fringe prepares to persecute a fine public servant. Like the Spanish Inquisition, all republicans that dare to deviate from 'doctrinal purity' will be persecuted and condemned as heretics.
To our moderate and independent friends, I caution, history is replete with the terrible carnage of suffering suffered from fanatics that practice and forceably impose absolutist and dogmatic ideology. Be afraid, be very afraid. A dark spectre is rising.
the republicans are going to hang themselves over their fear/hate/obstructionist ways.
we want our elected officials to do for the people not for special interest and in 2010/2012 we will once again be out in force and will not forget the republicans' obstructionist/fear/hate ways.
Saying no, not going to committee meetings, hoping our President fails; all in hope that you will regain power in 2010/2012 will not work Republicans.
The only thing the "Club for Growth" wants to grow is the size of their own bank accounts. If people took a couple of minutes to look behind these campaigns into who bankrolls them, they'd find it's the kind of people that most of the middle class deplores – rich fatcats who get and stay that way by grinding workers into dust. It's so ironic.
Crist is another RINO and we are voting for Rubio.
Vote for Crist. He is the real Republican.
Maybe you should change the first line to: Fresh off their NEGATIVE impact New York's.....
After all, their involvement is probably what caused a seat held by Republican's for over a hundred years to flip to a Democrat. Please do more research on this organization and the 'success' they have had. They back lunatics, such as Bill Sali in Idaho, that the next term the seats flip to the opposition.