Former Indiana Rep. Chris Chocola said Thursday that his retirement as president of the Club for Growth was motivated by a desire to end long days of travel between the organization’s Washington headquarters and his homes in Florida and Michigan.
"I love the club. I love everybody at the club. I love the mission of the club," Chocola told
the National Journal. "I don’t love airplanes."
Chocola, who served as a Republican congressman from Indiana from 2003 to 2007, said he would stay on as a member of the Club for Growth’s board of directors.
He praised
his successor, former Indiana Republican Rep. David McIntosh.
"David has been part of the conservative movement for 30 years," Chocola said. "He has a long track record of supporting conservative causes and being committed to conservative principles."
During Chocola’s six years as president, the Club for Growth "emerged as the preeminent group of the many tea-party-aligned groups, able to steer money and credibility to candidates it considered both viable and authentically conservative on fiscal issues," according to the National Journal.
Chocola and other senior officials with the organization said that careful vetting of candidates enabled the Club for Growth to avoid endorsing flawed Republican nominees such as
Christine O'Donnell, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in Delaware in 2010 and
Todd Akin, who lost in his bid to unseat Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2012.
In 2010 and 2012, it supported victorious Republican Senate candidates including Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, and Ted Cruz.
This year, the group endorsed Dan Sullivan, who was elected to the Senate from Alaska, and stayed out of some primaries including Matt Bevin’s unsuccessful run against Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.
But Chocola's tenure also had blemishes, including Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s surprising loss in a runoff election to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran.
McDaniel received substantial support from the Club for Growth.
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