Tag: NRCC

You all knew it was inevitable: at some point, Democratic donors, exhausted by the finally-concluded presidential primary and looking into their empty wallets, would take a little breather from giving, allowing the GOP to play catch-up.

Fear not, though, fellow downballot enthusiasts: most of the damage occurred at the DNC vs. RNC level. The DSCC and DCCC had still slightly better months of May than their Republican counterparts, and they maintain towering edges in cash-on-hand.

Committee	May Receipts	May Disbursements	May Cash-on-Hand	May Debts & Obligations
DSCC (est.)	$5,920,000.00	$4,950,000.00	$38,530,000.00	$0.00
NRSC (est.)	$4,890,000.00	$2,700,000.00	$21,560,000.00	$0.00
DCCC	$6,091,737.14	$4,192,275.05	$47,174,105.00	$0.00
NRCC	$5,017,140.54	$5,096,869.15	$6,654,801.50	$0.00
DNC	$4,795,890.97	$5,263,698.72	$3,965,886.11	$6,306.93
RNC	$24,377,740.11	$11,513,030.77	$53,508,001.57	$0.00
Total Democrats	$16,807,628.11	$14,405,973.77	$89,669,991.11	$6,306.93
Total Republicans	$34,284,880.65	$19,309,899.92	$81,722,803.07	$0.00

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t worry too much about the DNC/RNC chasm: the DNC has consistently lagged the RNC lately. That points to one of the most remarkable things about the Obama campaign: for most people, the Obama website has become top-of-mind for direct giving, leading to a bypass of the DNC.

One potential warning sign I see on the horizon, though, is the RNC turning around and allocating a lot of its money to Congressional races, as it realizes that its last best shot at preventing Democratic hegemony is in the Senate by holding GOP losses to 3 or 4 there. If polling continues to go south for McCain along the same trajectory as the last couple weeks, it’s not out of the question that the RNC will consider writing down the McCain campaign as a casualty loss, in order to bolster the likes of Gordon Smith and Roger Wicker.

The NRCC is way, way behind the DCCC in cash on hand… $6.73 million to the DCCC’s $45.27 million as of the end of April. A lot of that probably has to do with big money donors sitting on their wallets, seeing that an investment in the NRCC is about as likely to pay dividends as an investment in that nice man from Nigeria needing your help with his bank account problems. Some of that gap, however, went toward paying for the renovations on Christopher J. Ward’s house.

Politico is reporting today that Ward, the NRCC’s former treasurer, diverted up to $725,000 from the NRCC to his own purposes over the course of six years. (This goes all the way back to Tom Davis’s turn at the NRCC’s helm, so it can’t all be pinned on Tom Cole being asleep at the watch.) Money that was supposed to be used to pay for galas where the President fund-raised for Congressional GOPers instead… well…

Court documents filed by DOJ charge that Ward diverted more than $500,000 from the President’s Dinner accounts to his own use, using the funds to pay his mortgage and to finance nearly $200,000 worth of home renovations.

Original NRCC estimates of how much Ward may have appropriated were along the line of $500-600K, but the NRCC’s outside auditors confirmed today that the actual damage was $725,000. In addition, Ward managed to grab $28,000 from the NRSC via joint fundraising activities and $47,000 from other GOP leadership PACs, for a total of almost $800,000. (Not to mention the $530,000 the NRCC has spent on lawyers and accountants tracking down the fraud!)

“It was important to get to the bottom of what happened,” House Republican Leader John A. Boehner said. “Clearly, it’s not nearly as bad as many of us said it might be.”

Well, it probably is a relief… to the extent that no one higher-up than Ward was found to have been engaged in any embezzling. As for the number of close races coming in November that could have been turned around with that $800,000, the damage can’t be calculated yet.

Here’s the damage:

Cmtee	Receipts	Spent	CoH
DCCC	$5.02M	$4.06M	$45.27M
NRCC	$4.25M	$4.69M	$6.73M

That April fundraising gap is actually not too shabby for Republicans, but one has to wonder if the GOP’s backbreaking loss in Mississippi last week will deflate their fundraising appeal in the months to come.

Our good friend Ken Spain, the resident mouthpiece over at the NRCC, makes a funny:

While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has $44 million ready to use on races across the country, the National Republican Congressional Committee has just $7 million.

Spain said the money didn’t change how voters would respond to the candidates.

“Unless they plan on spending all $44 million on this seat, we believe there is an opportunity here,” he said. “This is a moderate district that wants moderate representation that will embody change, and so far Michael Arcuri has offered none of the above.”

Yes, the DCCC needs to spend all $44 million on shoring up Arcuri while the NRCC continues to hemorrhage crimson red seats in the Deep South.

Sounds like my kinda math!

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Democratic.

Depending on who you talk to, it sure sounds like John Boehner and crew want to send Tom Cole’s sorry ass packing — and fast.  From The Hill:

Speculation continued to swirl that some members of the leadership team want to remove Cole and install Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), a former NRCC chairman, as his replacement. One former senior GOP leadership aide close to the leadership team said there have been  “quiet conversations” with Davis about taking the NRCC chairmanship, and that GOP leaders believe he will do so if asked.

Finding an appropriate way to get rid of Cole, though, remains the primary obstacle, the source said.

“Leadership can’t fire Tom Cole,” the former staffer said. “If they could, yes, they would. It doesn’t appear that the conference wants to self-initiate, but people at the leadership table think he needs to step down and he needs to step down soon.”

Thursday afternoon, the source said, leaders were trying to find a way to pressure Cole to make several changes at the party committee that he may not be able to stomach, such as firing staff and accepting new hires of the leaders’ choosing. Leaders want the change at the top to occur before the Memorial Day recess, sources said.

You may recall that, last September, Cole threatened to resign after Boehner attempted to force some personnel changes at the NRCC.  So this would be a roundabout way of showing Cole the door.

How long do you give Cole?  Two weeks?  Or another six months?

Sure, Tom Cole may be somber, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t delusional:

“Clearly, we have got problems that are deep and serious in terms of how we are going to do in the fall elections,” Cole said.  “Having said that… we haven’t lost as a party because of the ideological agenda on the other side. The obvious challenge we face is we had somebody running as a Republican, pro-life, pro-gun, who wants to cut taxes, wants to control spending. That’s not particularly in step with where the Democratic majority is. So, that is going to create some opportunities for us. I think those issues clarify and reinforce [our agenda].”

Roy Blunt joins in on the insanity:

GOP Whip Roy Blunt downplayed the GOP’s problems, saying that “six months ago, Rudy Giuliani was the front runner in the Republican contest and Barack Obama did not have a chance.”

Blunt said that Democrats won in Mississippi and Louisiana by running “on what the GOP is for.”

“So we know now that the message works,” he said. “So we have to be sure that nationally, we connect the message with the Republican Party, rather than the other party.”

I understand the art of spin, but did these clowns not watch the election that just unfolded?  Sure, Childers embraced conservative social values that made him a good fit with his Northern Mississippi district.  But he also ran as an unabashed economic populist, and launched scathing attacks against Greg Davis for yukking it up with Dick Cheney.

On oil:

“We need to strip away the subsidies from ExxonMobil and Big Oil,” Childers said to a question about high gasoline prices. “They’re not going to get a lot of sympathy from me.”

On healthcare:

Travis Childers will fight to improve the quality of healthcare, while lowering costs for working families.  He supports expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), which will provide affordable healthcare to tens of thousands of middle-income children in Mississippi.

On the economy and corporate trade deals:

Our leaders should have been thinking of the economic problems we face today when they passed unfair trade deals that sent our jobs overseas, gave billions in subsidies to big oil companies, ignored the home mortgage crisis, and kept spending as the deficit and national debt hit all time highs.

On Iraq, Childers was the only candidate who favored withdrawal:

He was the only one of five candidates — three Republicans, two Democrats — at a campaign stop in Nesbit last week who said point-blank that U.S. troops don’t belong in Iraq. […]

Childers said he favors coming up with a plan to withdraw troops over 12 to 18 months and leave the Iraqis to fight among themselves, as they have for thousands of years.

He said he’s amazed more people on the campaign trail haven’t asked about a national debt of more than $9 trillion.

“We’re spending our money, folks, in Iraq. We need to be spending our money in America.

If all that is what morons like Tom Cole and Roy Blunt consider a “Republican platform”, then maybe their party isn’t doomed to the electoral dustbin after all.

However, we all know that that is pretty damn far from the truth.

Keep dreaming, GOP.

As David articulated last night, the “every man for himself” attitude that is crippling the House GOP conference will only grow stronger in the weeks and months ahead now that the NRCC is left with no excuses for losing a safe seat in Mississippi.

Already, they’re tripping over themselves to lay the blame at someone’s feet:

Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee, defended the campaign chairman during the closed-door session, saying “the problem was not Cole, but the Republican brand” and the lack of well-formulated policy planks articulated by the party.

But other members did point fingers; Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn complained that newly-appointed GOP Sen. Roger Wicker did not do enough to help Republican Greg Davis retain his seat, members in attendance said afterward. Blackburn also explained that an ongoing feud between Republican Sen. Thad Cochran and the state’s recently retired GOP Sen. Trent Lott also played a part in the loss.

How bad is it?  Rumors are raging that Cole might be sacked in favor of retiring Rep. Tom Davis:

The finger-pointing wasn’t just limited to the conference room in the Capitol basement where members met; former NRCC Chairman Tom Davis, who has become a pointed critic of his party and President Bush since announcing his retirement earlier this year, gave members a 20-page memo he typed up over the weekend about what the party needs to do to improve its brand nationally, the Virginia Republican told reporters after the meeting.

“This is the floor,” Davis said, stopping his foot on the concrete. “We’re underneath it.”

Davis, however, dowmplayed a rumor that he would be elevated to replace Cole, and the current job holder said no major changes were in the works at the committee “yet.”

It’s no surprise that a lot of House GOPers would want to sack Cole’s sorry ass, but they may not have a chance with only six months to go until election day.

The Hill sums up the situation in the starkest of terms:

The sky is falling on House Republicans and there is no sign of it letting up.

The GOP loss in Mississippi’s special election Tuesday is the strongest sign yet that the Republican Party is in shambles. And while some Republicans see a light at the end of the tunnel, that light more likely represents the Democratic train that is primed to mow down more Republicans in November.

Get ready to rock this November.  Republicans can run, but they can’t hide.

Update: Blackburn has taken issue with the characterization of her remarks:

Blackburn referred to her former House colleague, but did not criticize him for a lack of effort. She was referring to a rift that emerged during the primary between rival regions in the district, a member present said.

I’d like you to imagine, for a moment, that you are the NRCC’s junior press secretary. You’ve just been tasked with the impossible: Spin tonight’s disastrous election loss in the deep red, R+10 first congressional district in Mississippi. Well, it would be impossible for normal people, but we’re talking about Republicans. No spin is too absurd! Anything will do! Those saps in the “emm-ess-emm” will dutifully transcribe whatever you write, anyhow. (Remember how they bought your line about how LA-06 was a bad portent for… Democrats? Delicious!) The key thing is, whatever explanation you decide on, it absolutely, positively, cannot be the fault of any Republican anywhere.

With that in mind, start writing!

UPDATE: The verdict is in: Tom Cole should have hired all the commenters on this thread! His staff has clearly forgotten how to write a Republican press release.

From The Hill:

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) chastised his colleagues Tuesday for not contributing to the GOP candidate in an increasingly crucial Mississippi special election, saying those who have not helped “ought to be ashamed of themselves,” Republican sources said.

The harsh admonition from the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was the latest rallying cry from GOP campaigners, who have repeatedly cited a lack of enthusiasm and giving from members. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his colleagues earlier this year that they needed to get off their “dead asses” and raise money for the NRCC. […]

In another conservative district in Mississippi, the vast majority of members have not given to Southaven Mayor Greg Davis (R), even after he nearly lost to Democrat Travis Childers late last month.