The Club for Growth wants to create a free market GOP, whether
the party likes it or not.
David Weigel from the December 2006 issue
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p>
This is not
span class="dropcap">where Pat Toomey wanted to be tonight. The
43-year-old Pennsylvanian took over the Club for Growth in
September 2006, after he lost a nail-biting primary to Sen. Arlen
Specter (R-Pa.) and vacated his own seat in Congress. Against the
objections of powerful Republicans, Toomey helped nudge Stephen
Laffey, the conservative mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, into a
primary fight against Lincoln Chafee, the state’s liberal
Republican senator. Throughout the summer, polls showed Laffey
positioned to do what Toomey couldn’t: oust a pro-choice, pro-tax
RINO
(“Republican in Name Only”)
and send the
GOP
establishment
reeling.
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/span>
/p>
p>But the plan isn’t coming together. As Toomey quietly eats a
late dinner in a D.C. hotel, Andrew Roth, the Club for Growth’s
government affairs director, feverishly refreshes the website
collecting vote results. The first numbers come in, and Laffey is
down 56 percent to 44 percent.
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/o:p>
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