Shortly after Capito’s campaign kick-off, the Club for Growth fired the first warning shot. GOP split resurfaces over Capito bid

West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito’s Senate candidacy is already creating an unsettling sense of déjà vu for Republicans.

An experienced and popular candidate with wide name recognition announces a bid in a state that looks ripe for a pickup — and anti-establishment, Beltway-based conservatives swiftly object.


It’s the tension that’s dogged the GOP in its quest for a Senate majority the past two election cycles and threatens to afflict the party again as it enters 2014 with a favorable map.

( Also on POLITICO: DeMint group gives Capitol cold reception)

Not even three weeks since the election, Capito’s challenge to Democrat Sen. Jay Rockefeller is already shaping up as test case of whether Republicans can overcome deep fissures within the party and produce palatable general-election candidates who aren’t fatally wounded by bruising primary battles.

“We never have been able to guarantee the most electable candidate can win a primary,” acknowledged veteran GOP power broker Charlie Black. “There was all that talk after 2010 when we kicked three seats away and nothing changed.”

( Also on POLITICO: Club fro growth whacks Capito)

Indeed, within an hour of Capito’s campaign kickoff in Charleston, the anti-tax Club for Growth fired the first warning shot.

Fresh off winning a seventh term in the House, Capito was deemed too “establishment” and not conservative enough by the Washington-based group, which most recently assisted in the takedown of Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar.

“Congresswoman Capito has a long record of support of bailouts, pork and bigger government,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement. “She voted to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for massive expansions of government-run health insurance, giveaways to Big Labor, and repeatedly voted to continue funding for wasteful earmarks like an Exploratorium in San Francisco and an aquarium in South Carolina. That’s not the formula for GOP success in U.S. Senate races.”

The Senate Conservatives Fund, which was founded by South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, also signaled outright opposition.

“Congresswoman Capito is not someone we can endorse because her spending record in the House is too liberal,” said SCF Executive Director Matt Hoskins. “If Republicans in West Virginia want to save their country, they need to find another candidate with the courage to say ‘no’ to more spending and debt.”

Another conservative group, FreedomWorks, cited Capito’s mediocre 61 percent rating in its vote rankings in saying an endorsement would not be “automatic.”

“It’s pretty early to make a decision on something like this, but I’m sure we will check with our members in West Virginia in the months to come to see what they say,” FreedomWorks’ Brendan Steinhauser told POLITICO.

Capito is unquestionably a moderate: She supports abortion rights, has voted to extend unemployment benefits and is in favor of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. In 2008, she ran a television ad that touted her willingness to break from her party by voting against tax breaks for oil companies and twice supporting an override of President George W. Bush’s veto of the SCHIP bill.

The right takes umbrage at her votes against the conservative Republican Study Committee budget and in favor of federal bailouts of the auto industry as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Yet back in the Mountaineer State, there’s a sense that if anyone could avoid a rough-and-tumble primary, it’s the careful but calculating daughter of former Gov. Arch Moore.

An August survey conducted by R.L. Repass & Partners gave Capito a 4-percentage-point lead over Rockefeller in a hypothetical matchup. If Rockefeller retires — a real possibility, according to Capitol Hill aides — she most likely becomes the clear front-runner for the seat.

But whatever the scenario, in-state observers read Capito’s early entry as a striking measure of self-confidence.

“The surprise to me is she did not try and wait Jay out. It tells me she thinks she is holding the right cards. Shelley just does not take risks. She thinks this is a cakewalk. She might be right,” said one longtime unaligned observer of West Virginia politics.

Tea party leaders in the state, meanwhile, offered a mixed reaction. Some said she may not have an ideal record but were wary of trying to stand in her way.

“She may not be the most conservative candidate, but I think she can compete,” said Cindy Frich, a Morgantown tea party leader who just won a seat in the state Legislature. “I think she would scare a lot of people out of the race.”

“I don’t think there’s anybody dumb enough to [run against her.] None of them will have a chance. She’s a shoo-in for the seat,” predicted Parkersburg tea party leader Sandy Staats.

Dale Anderson, a Huntington tea party leader, delivered a harsher assessment, saying he would withhold his support until Capito explained her votes in favor of bailouts and the PATRIOT Act.

“She’s like the Christine Todd Whitman of West Virginia,” Anderson said. “She’s not as right wing as I’d like her. She’s not an Allen West. She’s not a Michele Bachmann. People want explanations where she can say, ‘This is how and why I voted this way.’”

That description is why more establishment-oriented Republicans are heartened by her announcement and view it as a ray of good news for a battered National Republican Senatorial Committee.

It might be the perfect moment for Capito in a state that is also going through its own political transformation.

“She’s an incredibly popular figure here,” praised West Virginia GOP Chairman Conrad Lucas, adding that he doesn’t anticipate she’ll draw a primary opponent. “But the filing deadline is still 13 months away … What I hope for is complete unity in selecting a nominee come 2014. In West Virginia, we are still outnumbered by Democrats. We’re rapidly becoming red and Republican unity is essential to take back this seat in 2014.”