If you haven't been following the back and forth between Senator John McCain and the Club For Growth, let me get you up to speed. McCain slammed the Club in an interview with David Brody of CBN earlier in the week:

Normally, groups like the Club For Growth don't send out emails promoting the fact that someone has criticized them, but in this case they did, which gives you a sense of just how much animosity exists between the two.

The Club For Growth responded with this video, and then today the McCain campaign began circulating this clip of former CFG President Stephen Moore (now with the WSJ) praising McCain on Larry Kudlow's CNBC show:

McCain may not like the Club For Growth's tactics and he may even feel he's been mistreated by them in the past, but they do represent a sizable and influential bloc of fiscal/anti-tax conservatives and it makes no sense to poke an unsolicited stick in their eye and then get into a screaming match with them.

McCain has hit a number of sour notes in the campaign thus far. The combination of the Letterman announcement/CPAC absence reignited feelings of anger and distrust among conservatives toward McCain. And while McCain has gone out of his way to mend fences with social conservatives - a strategic move that's smart, if not necessary for him - it has come at a certain cost to his "straight talking maverick" image among centrists and independents.

In the meantime, McCain appears to be frittering away a chance to work with the Club For Growth to reposition himself as a dynamic supply side conservative - a move that 1) would significantly help him with the Republican base, 2) wouldn't harm him at all with centrists/Independents - and might even help him there, too, and 3) would help him gain an advantage over his two main rivals for the nomination.

A few weeks ago McCain was caught on tape responding to a question about him sucking up to the religious right by saying, "what's wrong with sucking up to everybody?" McCain should take his own advice and either suck up to everyone or to no one at all. Sucking up to social conservatives but stiffing anti-tax conservatives is neither smart nor productive.