Club for Growth targeting 9 ‘RINO’ Republicans for primary challenges

Club for Growth Action is targeting nine incumbent Republican lawmakers for primary challenges.

{mosads}The super-PAC, which associated with the pro-free-market group that has previously backed conservative challengers in Republican primaries, has launched a website that aims “to raise awareness of Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) who are currently serving in safe Republican seats.”

The nine Republicans named in PrimaryMyCongressman.com have a lifetime Club for Growth rating of less than 70 percent, but currently serve in a district that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won with more than 60 percent of the vote. That makes them susceptible to a challenge from the right with little risk to the party as a whole.

Reps. Mike Simpson (Idaho), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Rick Crawford (Ark.), Frank Lucas (Okla.), Steve Palazzo (Miss.), Martha Roby (Ala.), Larry Bucshon (Ind.), Renee Ellmers (N.C.) and Aaron Schock (Ill.) are all listed in the first round of targets. Club for Growth plans to rotate the targeted Republicans “to highlight their failed record on limiting government.”

“The Republicans helped pass billions of dollars in tax increases and they have repeatedly voted against efforts by fiscal conservatives to limit government. PrimaryMyCongressman.com will serve as a tool to hold opponents of economic freedom and limited government accountable for their actions,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement.

It comes a day after the Club for Growth issued its updated scorecard for the 112th Congress. The website offers the scorecard information, as well as voting records, tied to individual pages for each lawmaker being targeted. Visitors can suggest primary opponents for each member, or propose a member they believe should be on the site.

As it did in a number of races this previous cycle, Club for Growth is likely to engage in a number of primary fights with the establishment wing of the GOP in 2014.

One of the key actors of the Republican establishment, Karl Rove, recently launched a super-PAC aiming specifically to engage in GOP primaries, to elect the most conservative candidates who they believe will also be electable in a general election fight.

Though Chocola has not yet said outright that Club for Growth plans to challenge the new Rove group, he has been an outspoken critic of the effort, and this new site is likely to indicate exactly where those clashes will occur.