Club for Growth goes after Kasich

The influential and well-funded conservative group The Club for Growth is hitting Republican presidential candidate John Kasich from the right. 

{mosads}Issuing an anti-Kasich “white paper” on Thursday, the group’s president David McIntosh described the Ohio governor as “a lifelong politician with a long and mixed record on matters of economic liberty.” 

“[Kasich’s] work in Congress for a balanced federal budget and his efforts to lower the state income tax in Ohio are, unfortunately, overshadowed by his costly expansion of Medicaid … a high rate of state spending, and his persistent efforts to increase taxes on oil and gas extraction,” McIntosh added. 

The Club for Growth, which advocates free market principles, tries to defeat Republican candidates — often incumbents — who are deemed too liberal. The group has been a thorn in the side of departing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), and played a role in the Tea Party’s surge in the 2010 midterm elections. 

It is an open question how hard The Club for Growth will hit Kasich. The group has selected Republican front-runner Donald Trump as its main enemy during the presidential primaries, and views the billionaire as a more dangerous candidate at this stage in the race. 

The Club for Growth’s super-PAC recently launched a $1 million advertising campaign in Iowa to attack Trump for his liberal policy positions such as his history of advocating tax increases on the wealthy.   

Communications Director Doug Sachtleben said the super-PAC had “no immediate plans” to run attack ads against Kasich. 

“We’ll keep watching the race and respond accordingly,” Sachtleben said. Kasich is seventh of the pool of 15 GOP candidates in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls and fourth in New Hampshire.

In response to the Club for Growth’s white paper, Kasich’s spokesman Scott Milburn said in an email to The Hill on Thursday, “The governor’s success holding average annual budget growth to around inflation, reducing the state payroll to the lowest level in 30 years, cutting taxes $5 billion—more than any other sitting governor, reducing Medicaid growth from 10 percent to 2 percent, and turning an $8 billion shortfall into a $2 billion surplus are irrefutably pro-growth, conservative accomplishments. They helped Ohioans create more than 300,000 new jobs. 

“It certainly makes some uncomfortable that the governor also unabashedly prioritizes lifting up those who need a hand, but he believes that the benefits of conservatism’s innately pro-growth, pro-opportunity approach should achieve as much good as possible.”

The Club for Growth is raising money through its political action committee to support the presidential candidacies of Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) 

The group has already published white papers condemning the fiscal records of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Trump. It has offered a mixed take on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who Sachtleben says has a “pretty conservative governing record in Florida on fiscal policy, but is uncertain since.”

White papers are still to come on outsider candidates, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former businesswoman Carly Fiorina, and a “fuller version” is due on Trump, Sachtleben said. 

The Club for Growth’s white papers come from its nonprofit 501(c)(4) arm, while advertisements are run out of its super-PAC Club for Growth Action.