ROMP: Retain Our Minority

The Republicans in the House have a clever acronym for their analogue to the DCCC’s Red to Blue program: ROMP (Regain Our Majority Program). I suspect the long line of Republican recruits challenging Democratic incumbents and holding out their tin cups to the NRCC are looking at the newest list of ROMP recipients and saying “Man, that is flagrant false advertising!”

Here’s the newest list of fresh-faced, eager young recruits, ready to bring their grassroots-powered outsider energy to picking off do-nothing Democrats standing in the way of conservative progress:

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, WV-02

Rep. Phil English, PA-03

Chris Hackett, PA-10

Rep. Tom Feeney, FL-24

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, FL-21

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, FL-25

Steve Stivers, OH-16

Pete Olson, TX-22

Add that on top of the previous list of ROMP recipients from April:

Rep. Michelle Bachmann, MN-06

Rep. Vito Fossella, NY-13

Rep. Sam Graves, MO-06

Rep. Ric Keller, FL-08

Anne Northup, KY-03

Erik Paulsen, MN-03

Rep. Bill Sali, ID-01

Rep. Jean Schmidt, OH-02

Rep. Tim Walberg, MI-07

Darren White, NM-01

So, um… let’s get this straight. The Republican route to regaining the majority is by spending a lot of money to defend a 14-year incumbent against a woman who runs an arboretum?

The newest ROMP installment, out of 8 recipients, features 2 seats where the Republicans are trying to defeat a Democrat, plus one where they’re trying to hold an open seat. Add in the previous ROMP installment, which, out of 10 recipients, targets one Democratic seat for pick-up (plus 2 open seats for holds). So, if they add 1.5 more new Democratic targets every three months until the election, they’ll have a full slate of ROMP recipients for picking up those 19 seats they need in order to Regain Their Majority in… uh, let’s break out the calculator here… early 2011?