The Club for Growth has already gone after Charlie Crist in the Florida Republican Senate primary, making more difficult the path to the GOP nomination for the once-popular more moderate incumbent Governor. Now the group is officially staking its position behind Crist's opponent, Marco Rubio.

The Club for Growth made it official this morning, throwing its weighty endorsement behind former Florida state House Speaker Marco Rubio's (R) Senate bid and significantly complicating Gov. Charlie Crist's (R) path to the nomination.

Club president Chris Chocola praised Rubio as "one of the brightest young stars in American politics" and a "proven champion of economic liberty." Chocola also skewered Crist for repeatedly taking the side of "big government liberals on major economic issues facing America today."

While this news is good for Rubio in the primary, as Chris Cillizza (quoted above) writes, it's not good for the Republican Party overall (which Cillizza omits). As I noted last week, the Club has a remarkable record of electing Democrats (not a typo) in recent years, pushing unelectable Republicans through GOP primaries (see, e.g., Bill Sali of Idaho, Tim Walberg of Michigan, Andy Harris of Maryland, and Steve Pearce of New Mexico), unsuccessfully trying to do so and in the process weakening the GOP incumbent (see, e.g., Linc Chafee), or backing a conservative third party candidate to the detriment of the Republicans (see, e.g., Doug Hoffman). So if the Club wants to see Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek move up to the Senate next year, they are doing exactly what they need to be doing.