Haley Barbour has cast his lot with Karl Rove.
via TPM
Republican stalwart Haley Barbour irked the right-wing Club For Growth after telling National Review that conservative donors should stop giving to them and other groups that spend money attacking Republicans.
“We kicked away four or five Senate seats in the last two cycles by nominating candidates who did not have the best chance to win,” Barbour told NRO. “We ought to talk to Republican donors now, in the off-season before the primaries, and discourage them from donating to organizations that will attack good Republicans. … Republican groups like the Club for Growth should stop spending money to defeat Republicans. Politics can’t be about purity. Unity wins in politics, purity loses.”
More recently, the Club for Growth was one of the primary voices of opposition to the Hurricane Sandy relief package, urging members of congress to vote against relief. And that, at least from my perspective, seems antithetical to economic growth.
There’s a risk that this divide in fundraising will galvanize the Far Right and compel them to rally around more radical candidates who are ardently opposed by the establishment. And to that I say “please proceed.”