A group that has made a national push to oust Republicans who fail the spending test is making a new push in South Carolina.

Aiming to be a factor in primary and general election races, a recent South Carolina Club for Growth letter critical of the Legislature easily would have been written by Republican Gov. Mark Sanford.

It sounded like him.

“Our state government is the source of much of the problem,” the letter states. “And, for the most part, the real trouble is with the Legislature — an unwieldy group with a stranglehold on power that refuses to embrace the significant change we desperately need.”

The Club for Growth is a national network founded in 1999 by Libertarian-leaning opinion leaders.

The fledgling S.C. affiliate hired an executive director this month.

The four-page fundraising appeal was mailed to potential members across the state. It was signed by eight prominent business and political leaders:

• Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Fred Dent of Spartanburg

• Former state GOP chairman George Graham of Spartanburg

• Thomas Ravenel of Charleston, a failed 2004 GOP primary candidate for the U.S. Senate

• Don McLaurin of Columbia

• Karen Iacovelli of Greenville, a former member of the Education Oversight Committee, the state’s school reform watchdog panel

• Nancy Morgan of Murrells Inlet

• Ben Rast, a Columbia businessman

• Chad Walldorf of Mount Pleasant, a former top aide to Sanford

The club says it encourages and supports enactment of pro-growth economic policies and provides financial support for like-minded candidates, particularly in Republican primaries.

Its goal is to rid the Legislature of phonies — those who won election as fiscal conservatives but vote and act otherwise. It vows to put an end to the game playing. “For us, playtime is over,” the letter states.

The club will monitor the legislators and issue a report on their actions so constituents can see for themselves. In some cases, it will recruit opponents for incumbents who’ve strayed.

“We’re going to come after these guys,” Ravenel said.

The club believes South Carolina will not conquer its economic problems until “we change some attitudes and faces — maybe lots of faces — in the South Carolina Legislature.”

The national club loves Sanford. Some members touted him as a possible 2008 GOP presidential nominee. During the Republican National Convention in New York last year, Sanford visited the club’s national headquarters. The meeting was closed to the media.

The S.C. club maintains there are a number of legislators in the General Assembly who are living a lie. Those legislators actually are Democrats but ran for office as Republicans because that’s the only way to win, it contends. The club calls them RINOs — “Republicans in Name Only.”

The club already is taking credit for forcing state Rep. Ronny Townsend, R-Anderson, into retirement after 21 years. Townsend says that’s not the case.

Joshua Gross, executive director of the S.C. club, says Sanford is not involved in the club’s attempted house-cleaning effort. But, he adds, “I can’t imagine he is unhappy.”

For the most part, legislators say they ignore the club’s threats.

“I’ll take my chances with the people in Aiken,” said state Rep. Richard “Skipper” Perry, R-Aiken.

Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, says the Legislature is not the problem.

“It’s a shame,” Knotts said. “He (Sanford) has a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and he can’t get along with them. You reckon it might be that he’s not a Republican? He might be a Libertarian.

“Every time I turn around, he’s saying the Legislature is the problem. It’s not the problem. We have a man at the top who can’t get anything done.”