Club For Growth Launches Attack Ad Against GOP Incumbent

It’s getting down and dirty in an increasingly divisive primary in Maryland.

Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) and several third-party groups supporting his campaign have been attacking his upstart and well-funded GOP primary challenger, state Sen. Andrew Harris, in ads across the Eastern Shore-based district (as we reported yesterday).

Now the anti-tax Club for Growth is fighting back. The group, which endorsed Harris back in August, is up with its first television ad today attacking Gilchrest for supporting higher taxes and spending.

“Looked at Wayne Gilchrest’s spending record lately? Congressman Gilchrest voted to waste our money on a Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. Voted to pay people to take Viagra. Voted to fund a zoo in Texas,” a narrator said.

“Fifty times there were efforts to stop the waste, and Wayne Gilchrest voted for more pork all 50 times. He even voted to spend our money on the Mule and Packers Museum in California. Call, tell Wayne Gilchrest to stop wasting our money.”

The ad is airing on cable in the Baltimore and Eastern Shore markets.

The Club for Growth has long opposed Gilchrest, a moderate nine-term Republican, and has supported past Republican opponents against him.  He is the only GOP incumbent so far whom they are actively opposing this election cycle.

In an interview with National Review Online today, Club for Growth President Pat Toomey called him one of the “most economically liberal Republicans in Congress.”

Other third-party groups are already airing ads on behalf of Gilchrest, including the League for Conservation Voters PAC and a moderate Republican group.

Gilchrest is one of several members of Congress to refuse to accept PAC contributions of his own.