PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Fresh off their first victory over a Republican incumbent, GOP conservatives seeking party purity on taxes and spending are focused on ousting moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record) of Rhode Island.

The Club for Growth and its 36,000 members spent around $1 million to help challenger Tim Walberg unseat first-term Rep. Joe Schwarz in Michigan's Republican primary on Tuesday. The win came despite Schwarz's support from President Bush and the National Rifle Association.

Since its inception in 1999, the group has spent millions to help dozens of conservative Republicans win seats in Congress — often at the expense of more moderate party members. The Club's president, former Rep. Pat Toomey (news, bio, voting record), nearly defeated Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) in 2004.

This year, the group's top priority is defeating Chafee, who angered many Republicans by voting against President Bush's tax cuts and then casting a write-in vote for the president's father in the last election. The Club has helped Cranston, R.I., Mayor Stephen Laffey raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to unseat Chafee, and polls show the two Republicans running even a month before the Sept. 12 primary.

The prospect of a Laffey win worries national Republicans, who consider Chafee the party's best bet for holding the seat in a heavily Democratic state. Polls show Laffey trailing far behind the leading Democratic candidate, former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse.

The Club's Web site says that's fine: "It wouldn't be much of a loss if a new Democrat senator were elected, as he would vote much the same as Chafee does now."

Republicans who support the Club say its refusal to compromise its ideology gives it credibility.

"They're not about getting more Republicans elected, they're about getting real Republicans elected," said Jerry Stacy, spokesman for Sharron Angle, a Club-endorsed House candidate in Nevada.

But Chafee is a Republican who votes with his party most of the time. His father, the late John Chafee, is revered in Rhode Island as a World War II hero who served three terms as governor and more than 20 years in the Senate. Like his father, the younger Chafee is a fiscal conservative and environmentalist.

Moderate Republicans criticize the Club for targeting incumbents like Chafee instead of going after Democrats.

the love of money....

THE GOD OF MONEY RULES MANY HEARTS UNFORTUNATELY