The American Spectator

p> WHO’S AFRAID OF BIG JOHN? br> The White House political and congressional liaison staff is livid with Club for Growth founder Stephen Moore for going public with comments that he may seek a primary opponent against Arizona Sen. John McCain . /p>

Consistent with points he made in an interview published in the Nov./Dec. 2002 American Spectator, Moore sent out a fundraising letter saying he could raise a million dollars for a run against McCain. The Wall Street Journal recently repeated that Moore may be recruiting Rep. Jeff Flake for the task.

“McCain is already pissed off with us, now he has a group like Moore’s agitating him further. He’ll think we’re behind it,” says a White House staffer who monitors Capitol Hill.

That’s doubtful. Given the way the White House has treated Moore of late, it should consider itself lucky Moore isn’t talking about running someone against Bush next time around.

Indeed, the White House has every reason to be grateful to Moore, whose Club for Growth was key to helping elect pro-tax cut, conservative House and Senate members (John Sununu, Jr., was one of Moore’s big winners) in the last election cycle. Instead, it put off his call for a more conservative, pro-tax-cut Treasury Secretary in order to install another moderate, country club Republican in Paul O’Neill’s place.

Besides, the White House has so badly botched the McCain relationship, that anything anyone else did wouldn’t even show up on the radar.

McCain is now on the warpath against the Administration because he feels it — and former Senate leader Trent Lott — backtracked on a deal to give his favored nominee to the Federal Election Commission a seat at the table before his landmark campaign finance reform legislation passed through the FEC’s regulatory clutches. Instead, his nominee was seated too late in the process to make a real difference.

“Okay, they seated her, but it was way after they should have. If the Senator is mad and looking to get even, it’s because these guys didn’t play straight,” says a McCain staffer.