From The Hill:
“We have exceeded expectations on the recruitment front,” said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain. “Across the board, top-tier Republican candidates are running in districts that promise to be competitive in places like the Rust Belt, the Northeast, the upper Midwest and in the emerging battleground of the Southwest.”
Folks, Ken Spain needs your help. Clearly, he has forgotten the long list of recruitment failures that have plagued the House GOP this cycle.
SSP has some of the most knowledgeable commenters around. In fact, when it comes to downballot races, you guys are second to none. But folks, we’ll need each of you to really dig deep and help Ken out with a list of every GOP recruitment failure so far this cycle.
Let’s get to work!
Republican leaders play down the difficulty of finding willing candidates. Ken Spain, a spokesman for the House Republicans’ campaign committee, acknowledged the challenges in certain districts but said the party had done a good job of recruitment over all.
“We believe we have fielded one of the best Republican recruitment classes in quite some time,” he said.
Now we’re just getting beyond spin.
Don’t expect the truth to interfere with the constant reassertion of this bogus claim. Ken Spain, like the rest of his party, has come to understand that any bald-faced lie told will be repeated by straight-faced news presenters on the major channels, and those presenters don’t give a damn about the facts.
This does happen to be one of the most blatant lies they’ve put out, but then again, perhaps the most harmless. This is one case where the facts will surely bite them in the ass come November, no mater how many times they repeat the lie until then.
My comment above is not meant to spoil the fun and stop the listings.
Consider TX-17, where George W Bush operates his movie-set ranchette. Our favorite Blue Dog Chet Edwards, in one of the most Repub districts in the country, is being opposed by Rob Curnock, a self-described “overwhelming underdog”. Curnock, who lost a primary in 2000 and again in 2002, sees his main advantage this year as the fact that, because there was no primary this time, he’s unbloodied and not broke. In fact, Curnock held off on filing until a couple of hours before the deadline, when he was sure he’d have no opponent in a primary. Edwards was targeted in Tom DeLay’s infamous mid-decade gerrymandering. It was designed to eliminate all Anglo (white) Democrats from the Texas House delegation, but Edwards survived. Curnock admits the RCCC “got burned” in the past races, when hot-shot recruits went down in flames, so he’s not expecting that he’ll get any support from D.C. No, I’m not expecting he will either. Rating: Safe Democratic.
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/01/21/01212008waccurnockqa.html
But given the timing, Ken Spain was one of the supporting stars behind Elvin Hayes on those University of Houston teams that challenged Kareem in the late 60s. Is this the same guy? It ought to be obvious as all get out because Spain was listed at 6’9″ tall. He even played on the 1968 Olympic team and skipped a chance at the NBA to play 11 games for the Pittsburgh Condors in the ABA. That was Connie Hawkins old team when The Hawk was as much a street legend as a ball player. Hawkins was gone to the NBA by the time Spain showed up.
Btw, a lot of the failed recruits do not show up on the race tracker wiki. NY-24, NY-25, and NY-26 had a bunch and they are not listed. Should be there as declined candidates or withdrawn candidates.
The Republicans put all their eggs in the basket of getting a Democratic State Senator to switch parties and run for the seat as a Republican.
When he didn’t their fallback position was a guy whose last political act was getting cracked by double-digits against Bud Cramer back in 1996.
The first independent poll out of this TOP TARGET NRCC race has the Democrat up by sixteen.
There are others (Zack Space in Ohio 18, Ed Perlmutter in Colorado 07, Joe Courtney in Connecticut 02, Brad Ellsworth in Indiana 08) who could have been vulnerable, but are facing badly outgunned challengers.
I am sure there are more, but those are the five that came to mind right away.
Too bad for them these “top-tier Republican candidates [who] are running in districts that promise to be competitive in places like the Rust Belt, the Northeast, the upper Midwest and in the emerging battleground of the Southwest” are all incumbents who would normally be safe districts for them.
Ha!
< /snark>
I’d say Jim Oberweis in IL-14 was a pretty massive recruiting failure.
Sure my Rep, Brian Baird, got 63% last time against a weak opponent but hey my district gave Bush 50% of the vote in 2004. You would think that a party that wants to regain control of the House would have made an effort here. Baird is currently sitting on a $1 million war chest if they don’t run somebody then what are the chances he will give some of that to the DCCC and other House candidates. C’mon Spain, get your act together!
while a nice guy…i’ve worked with the guy before and I highly doubt he will give much to the dccc or candidates. baird and his cos are frightened that he will get an opponent and like to keep the $1m (or pretty close to it) in the bank to scare of challengers…
Didn’t they have some big time business guy all lined up to run and he started campaigning and then dropped out?
IL-11 same thing. I guess they got their picks but they quit.
Not that it is neither here nor there, but Chet’s not a Blue Dog, is he?
ALL snarky comments must by law, I think, contain a typo.
But I think my point was made.
I happen to live in one of the only congressional districts where the GOP’s recruitment was actually good (NM-01)