John McCain’s recent strategy to eschew major conservative events is coming back to bite him. He was booed repeatedly at CPAC — and louder than any mentions of Hillary Clinton, Jane Fonda, and Cindy Sheehan, I might add — and now he’s walking into the buzzsaw of the Club For Growth. I can’t say that this wasn’t a predictable response. You can only get away with hitting the bee hive that is the conservative base so many times before you have a swarm upon you. Erick Kleefield of TPM Election Central has the details:

The Club for Growth has now struck back very hard against John McCain, with a Club spokesman claiming that McCain is skipping its upcoming winter conference because he was “afraid of getting booed.”

As reported earlier today, McCain blasted the Club in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, faulting the Club for attacking other Republicans and even blaming the GOP’s loss of the Senate on the Club’s campaign against liberal GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee.

Now Club for Growth spokesperson Nachama Soloveichik has lit into McCain in an interview with Election Central.

On McCain’s claim he has little in common with the Club: “I would ask McCain, he said he doesn’t have anything in common with us. He doesn’t believe in low taxes? He doesn’t believe in limited government? He doesn’t believe in free trade?”

The real question is will John McCain learn that he has to pander to the Right a lot harder than this if he wants to regain his standing in the polls?


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