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Why the Club for Growth PAC is backing Mark Neumann in #WISEN

By: Chris Chocola (Diary)  |  December 1st, 2011 at 04:35 PM  | 

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One of the biggest pick-up opportunities for Republicans next year is going to be in Wisconsin, where the Democratic Senator Herb Kohl is retiring. There is a three-way primary, and the Club for Growth PAC has already endorsed one candidate.

That candidate has already been endorsed by Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservative’s Fund, Senator Rand Paul, and Senator Tom Coburn.

His name is Mark Neumann, and he was tea party before being tea party was cool.

Erick has written many times on here about how conservatives need to “hold the freaking line”. Mark Neumann’s already been there in Congress as an original member of the class of ’94, and he’s done it under enormous pressure from the big-spending establishment.

Here’s one example: in 1995 Mark fought against a Republican spending bill, and Republican leaders, including the uber-powerful Bob Livingston, informed him they were going to kick him off the Appropriations Committee as punishment. In response Neumann sent an open letter to every Member of Congress, which said in part:

“If I come to Washington and vote with my conscience for what I believe to be in the best interest of the future of the US, and I’m getting kicked off this committee, then I’m sorry I only have one committee to get kicked off of.”

This incited a near-revolt among the freshman class of 1994. Leadership buckled, and put Neumann back on appropriations. They put him on the budget committee too. The story lives on as a Washington legend of how principled men can overcome powerful interests.

This is exactly the type of representative we need in Washington. He has an outstanding record protecting economic freedom that I’d put up against anyone who served during that time period.

Mark’s main opponent in the Republican primary is going to be former Wisconsin Governor and Bush Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Thompson supported ObamaCare, increased spending, and raised taxes as Governor.

Today, the Club for Growth released a six-page report examining Thompson’s affiliation with the labor-backed group America’s Agenda, which lists the following as its main federal campaign:

“Enactment of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) was a breakthrough against a wall of resistance that has prevented progress in reforming health care for decades. As a result, tens of millions of Americans who had no health insurance, at all, will gain coverage under this law. Millions will have better coverage than before. The America’s Agenda federal health reform campaign had the privilege of making substantial contributions to shaping and winning passage of this historic health insurance reform law.”

You can download the whole six-page report by clicking here. Today, Thompson still appears as an endorsement of this pro-ObamaCare group along with Obama and Tammy Baldwin, a far-left Wisconsin Congressman who is running as a Democrat for the same Senate seat. He served on their board of directors from at least 2009-2010. While Mark Neumann and the rest of you were fighting ObamaCare, Thompson was saddling up to President Obama and helping his labor allies pass it. That’s a fact, and it’s indisputable.

The choice is clear. I urge the Red State community to back Mark Neumann for the Senate. The contrast is clear, the choice is clear, what happens next is up to us.

Sincerely,
Chris Chocola
President, Club for Growth

COMMENTS

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  • celador2

    Mark Neumann lost to Scott Walker in govenor primary 2010 and he lost to Feingold for Senate 1998. I backed him both times. But, Tommy says he is a tax cutter and backed away from Obamacare. Thompson is the strongest one to defeat Baldwin. He alone leads her by 4 pts in match up polls.
    .

    Neumann may be like a Sharron Angle in NV and Christine McDonnell in DE 2010 in terms of not getting votes to win the pick up seat. Herb Kohl is retiring.

    State senate pres Scott Fitzgerald is also running, If its a bold purist on frontlines of reform, consider Scott Fitzgerald too.

  • dmartin

    is the best man in the race.

    Fitzgerald is much more moderate than conservative. Thompson is a glaring example of everything that is wrong with the Republican party and will get neither my support or my vote.

    Neumann wrote the book on how to lose elections. I live here and can tell you first hand that you have to look long and hard to find a Republican that he has not pissed off at one time or another. His fund raising abilities are near zero, he had to self fund most of his disasterous 2010 campaign. I am amazed that he thinks he is actually ecectable so soon after such a dirty underhanded failure as his last attempt was.

    CFG and DeMint have dropped the ball on this one, if Neumann is noninated, he will lose.

  • acat

    by the choice of the voters if necessary.

    Mew

  • deevee

    He is one of the AGW subside leeches draining the taxpayer and ratepayers pocket to enrich himself for an elite sponsored fraud on humanity. Yeah, he backs the big wind boondoggle and the rest of the green fraud.

  • wacowboy

    gosh, I think it was in 98 or 99.

    was very impressed with him even then. Sounds like he’ll be up against the republican machine though in Tommy Thompson.

    And I bet he’s glad that Scott Walker is Gov of Wisconsin with all the trouble that he’s had to deal with.

  • levinfan90

    Neumann’s a total douschebag and dishonest man. I am a Wisconsinite, and most Wisconsin conservatives utterly detest Neumann for his dishonest negative campaign against our taxpayer’s hero Gov. Scott Walker. He hasn’t been supporting anything Walker has done this past year, and yet now he is claiming he has been supporting Walker’s reforms in his campaign for Senate. We need a conservative Senator, but not one with the character of Mark Neumann. Vote for Jeff Fitzgerald, a man who’s been at Scott Walker’s side all the way through the fights with the public unions and the Wisconsin Democrats this whole year.

  • lucasblack

    I wish you all would spend more time and money fighting against Democrats instead of other Republicans. I’d rather see the money and energy you are going to put into this race go into OH-Sen, FL-Sen and HI-Sen.

  • oneconservative

    Talk about an embarrassment of riches. Wisconsin gets Ron Johnson and (future President) Scott Walker in 2010 and now gets to pick between Mark Newmann and Jeff Fitzgerald. Although Newmann has irritated many with his run against Walker in 2010, he has a good record from his days in the House. Either is a great pick.

    Here, in the terrible state of Illinois, we can only dream of such candidates.

  • Change Jar Conservative

    Conservative in the primary

    Republican in the general.

    It’s primary time right now.

    There will be time to fight against the Dems then.

  • donald_24

    Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. There is a recall election as I am sure you know. One cause of concern for Walker should be that the Dems and union bosses seem to be gathering signatures at a rather rapid pace… much faster tha I thought they would. The same thing happened when they gathered signatures for Issue 2 in Ohio and Randy Hopper last year. The signatures were gather quickly and well before the deadline and Issue 2 failed and Hopper was recalled.

  • lucasblack

    It’s just that in my experience, the CFG seems more interested in knocking off moderate republicans than liberal Dems. Either way, I hate the thought of Baldwin in the Senate.

  • barry915barry

    nt

  • Martin Knight

    It’s starting to get extremely irritating …

  • wonkish1

    Against him. There bench is shattered in Wisconsin.

  • denoff51

    They have been collecting signatures since November of 2010 and are still 200,000 short. Plus all the signatures must be checked. This is not going nearly as fast as Ohio.

  • oneconservative

    Let’s face it. We all know that the Left is gathering signatures. How many times is someone signing more than once? Probably many.

    How many of the people in screaming Leana Taylor (Liberal Democratic State Senator) are signing the petition multiple time?

    Face the facts. The Left will “use any means necessary” to make it look like the have a lot of signatures.

  • wayneepalmer

    As a Wisconsin resident, I am among a huge number of folks who will tell you that Mark Neumann is a skeeze bag.

    First off, when he was running against Scott Walker for Governor he pulled off a number of incidents to try to make Walker look like he was trying to steal the election – including staging a dust up at the State Republican Convention where he tried to convince reporters that he and his supporters were being unjustly banned for attending (he brought a crowd that had never even applied to attend and then made a scene when they weren’t allowed in claiming that Walker had a fix in to keep him out.

    He is a huge ethanol and Global Warming clown.

    When confronted by TEA Party people regarding some of his conduct during the election, he was rude, dismissive, arrogant, and confrontational. I witnessed one such scene at an event at Miller Park and trust me … I will never vote for this walking phallus.

  • donald_24

    The have until mid January to collect the remainer of the signatures. The deadline is far away. Also, don’t hold your breath on challenges. Lat time around when they filed signatures to recall the 6 Senators, all the challenges failed.

    I’ve done canvassing work before several years ago and gathering signatures is really not that hard. You just have to know which neighborhoods to target. When a canvasser knocks on your door, you might not know it, but we know everything about you before we ring the doorbel. We know your name. Your age. And your party affilation.