A leadership dispute has caused a deep rift in the Club for Growth, a powerful conservative fund-raising organization that spent $20 million during the 2004 election, the New York Times reports Friday.
The conflict began in December when Club for Growth president Stephen Moore was ousted by the group's board.
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Moore and several other prominent members of the club then formed a similar fund-raising group, the Free Enterprise Fund.
The dispute escalated in May when Moore sent many club members a fund-raising letter for his new group.
Moore wrote: "As you may have heard, I left the Club for Growth after I lost control of a board fight and was forced to resign as president and C.E.O. � despite our fabulous electoral successes in 2004.
"To see the club splintered this way was a heart-breaking tragedy, but the good news is most of the original founding committee members of the old Club for Growth that we built into such a political juggernaut helped me launch the Free Enterprise Fund."
In response, lawyers for the Club for Growth sent Moore and his new group letters threatening legal action, accusing them of stealing the club�s mailing list, the New York Times reported.
The Club told Moore it was preparing a lawsuit for damages and a complaint to the Federal Election Commission.
The Free Enterprise Fund countered that move on Thursday when group member Mallory Factor said the fund had gotten its mailing lists from third parties and accused the club of betraying its free-market principles by turning to regulators to squash a competitor.
Moore's opponents say that what they call his sloppy management played a part in the narrow defeat of Rep. Pat Toomey � whom the club backed heavily � in his Republican primary run for Arlen Specter's Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
But supporters credit Moore "with helping the club raise and spend $20 million on the 2004 election, after taking it over with almost nothing in the bank six years ago," the Times reported.
Toomey, who's now president of the Club for Growth, said the organization was dropping its accusations regarding the mailing lists but defended its initial threats, saying, "We have an obligation to defend the privacy of our members.�
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