Look, I’m probably as bummed out about Weirauch’s loss as the rest of you are (even though I never once expected a win here), but there’s one key number we need to be taking away from the OH-05 and VA-01 special elections today: $537,038.24.
That’s the grand total that the NRCC flushed into both of these races over the past couple of weeks. To put it in another formulation, that’s 21% of their available cash-on-hand at the end of October.
I hope Republicans are finding the taste of victory to be sweet tonight, because that’s one hell of a high price to pay to win a pair of 60% Bush districts.
I KNOW! People seemed too depressed over the loss tonight. These are two ruby-red districts, and there are a good 40+ seats we are targetting in 2008 that have stronger candidates, weaker incumbents, and/or a more welcoming district for Democrats. How much money are they going to have to spend to stop from losing so many districts? Republicans are going to tout these two races as big victories, fending off the dirty liberals, and as if this is some major indicator that the political atmosphere is decisively changing.
I’ve had predictions for awhile, but I’m going to post them again. I’m predicting 5-10 Senate pickups, and 25-35 House Pickups. Nothing less. Republicans are going to nominate a candidate with next to no money or infrastructure, (Huckabee) or a candidate who has flopped on major issues and has gotten nowhere with donating 17 million dollars to his own campaign (Romney). Both of these candidates only have about 10% cross over appeal, compared to McCain and Giuliani who have closer to 20+%. I’m expecting a dumb Republican party to get even dumber.
Last cycle that money went into Nancy Boyda’s campaign. And it worked. Another $500,000, if available, could have gone into Dan Maffei or Larry Kissell and probably won those. OTOH, even though House Republicans (unlike Senate Republicans) did a good job in 2006 of moving resources around, an extra $500,000 could have saved Jim Leach or Jeb Bradley. They took polls and decided to pass on these districts, investing on “closer” races elsewhere and hoping to slide by.
The last $500,000 can make a clear difference.