The Associated Press has a story on a recent self-administered post-mortem by House Republicans following the back-breaking special election losses of seats in Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The verdict? GOP candidates lost because they could not overcome the “negative perception of the national party.”
Gee, you don’t say?
But the report also included an interesting nugget on some early DCCC expenditure plans for this fall. The DCCC has booked some advertising time in advance for three key races:
The DCCC has reserved $2.1 million for advertising for a seat in New York City in which Republican Rep. Vito Fossella intends to retire. Fossella, who is married with children, recently acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock.
Democrats also said they will spend $1.2 million in the Portland, Ore., area, hoping to hold the seat of Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley, who is retiring.
The third target is the seat held by Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado, where Democrats said they had reserved nearly $700,000 in advertising time.
Tom Cole has criticized the DCCC in the past for reserving time this far in advance, saying that such moves tip the committee’s hand. But I like the aggressive buy planned in New York’s 13th. If Staten Island Republicans are having a hard time recruiting a candidate now, how much harder is it going to be when prospective candidates (of which Guy Molinari assures us there are still a couple in existence) see that $2.1 million ad buy coming down the pipe?
I’m not as convinced that Kurt Schrader needs that much help, as Mike Erickson is seriously damaged goods at this point, but I’m sure the DCCC can scale back their ad time at their discretion.
On the other hand, Erickson can throw a lost of $ at the race if he wishes. His ads were EVERYWHERE in 2006, even though the Portland portion of the district is relatively small (It’s largely centered on Salem) and obviously more expensive to run ads in.
OR-05 makes sense… Scare Erikson away from self funding a bunch. CO-04 makes sense because attacking early is the way to go. I am surprised that they are spending 2.1 million in NY-13 so early, before we even have a GOP opponent? Why not let McMahon take some of that. Supposedly he has raised 400K already.
If the DCCC is seriously planning to spend $2.1 million on broadcast TV in the New York market to reach little ole Staten Island and a teeny corner of Brooklyn, they are gonna waste our money.
It’s easy to buy cable TV to cover Staten Island and Staten Island only: Yankees games and the Mets, too; New York 1 News and CNN and MSNBC and even Faux; TBS and TNT and Discovery and the History Channel and Lifetime and the SciFi Channel and BET and Spanish-language channels and now even MTV.
Why pay for over-the-air TV signals reaching millions of households in Connecticut and New Jersey and Long Island and Westchester and all of New York City?
Why? Because the people running the DCCC and most Democratic campaigns don’t think about TV and cable TV as being bought differently, they just turn on the set and watch TV. Maybe they think cable means HBO, like it did back in, oh, 1980 or so.
in four weeks. lord and skelly are longshots with no electoral experience. mcmahon is a popular new york councilmember and is the favorite. he should be able to raise a lot.
and if this is just intimidation (and not actual spending), i’m all for it!
CO-4 isinteresting as it is also the targent of environmental spending. musgrave could be in trouble.
this is very stupid.
2.1 million? Seriously?
The Republicans don’t even have a candidate. Same for Schrader. Erickson’s got a seriously divided Republican party and I find it hard to believe that Schrader will lose.
Let’s hope that’s just to scare candidates (in NY) and donors and strategists (in OR). I think the Musgrave buy sounds more realistic and smarter though.
Why would they reserve 2.1 million to a race we’re very likely to win anyway. As I told my Young Dems President at college yesterday- There’s some pick ups that are given so there’s no use in wasting energy for them. There’s plenty more races where that ad buy could make a bigger impact.