From Roll Call:
Dean Andal, recruited by the GOP with great fanfare to challenge freshman Rep. Jerry McNerney (D) in California’s 11th district, is now coming under attack from Republicans in Washington, D.C., for running what they contend is a flawed campaign.
Andal, a former state Assemblyman, is facing increasing criticism for his fundraising and general campaign strategy, with the grumbling emanating from Republicans in the consulting and lobbying communities. Privately, Republicans on Capitol Hill are also expressing concern.
The handful of sources interviewed for this story on Tuesday declined to discuss their concerns on the record. But all are Washington, D.C.-based Republican strategists who had until recently been singing Andal’s praises and are intimately familiar with the GOP-leaning 11th district.
Indeed, Andal has posted a surprisingly sluggish fundraising effort so far in 2008, bringing in only $103K in the first three months of the year, and a pathetic $17K in the period from April 1 to May 22.
After taking a whiff of these craptacular numbers, Republican insiders say that Andal needs an attitude adjustment:
“He’s dialing it in,” said a native Californian and Republican operative who is now based in D.C. “He’s got the attitude of a Member of Congress. He doesn’t have the attitude of a challenger fighting to get elected in his district.”
Republicans who are among the very concerned say a wholesale change of strategy is needed. They would like to see Andal do more than walk precincts.
They want him to begin defining McNerney over the summer and shedding light on a House voting record that they argue is completely at odds with 11th district voters. The Congressman’s biggest asset, they claim, is that very few of his constituents actually know who he is.
And they want Andal to raise more money to ensure that his message does not get drowned out by McNerney in the heat of the fall campaign. They worry that Andal’s plans to raise money in the summer and early fall could backfire, as donors might determine at that point that he has less of a chance to win and decide not to give as much then as they might have early this year.
Andal’s low-gear fundraising is especially risky at a time when the California GOP donor base will be hit up by incumbents from across the nation hoping to hang on this year. To put it simply, in a year as rough as this one has been for Republicans, any challenger hoping to depose an incumbent will have little margin for error in their campaigns. So far, Mr. Andal seems to think that the traditional rules — like raising a lot of money — don’t apply to him.
SSP currently rates this race as Leans Democratic.