Search Results for: tom cole deathwatch

From The Hill:

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) saw its cash on hand decline $1.3 million between January and February, as it spent more than $1 million on an unsuccessful special election and uncovered that hundreds of thousands were lost in alleged fraud.

The NRCC invested heavily in the race of Republican Jim Oberweis, who unsuccessfully ran for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) district earlier this month. Almost all of the $1.2 million the NRCC spent was recorded in its February report, which was filed Thursday. The alleged illegal funneling of money by one of the committee’s former employees, Christopher Ward, was revealed in a briefing last week.

All told, the NRCC raised $4.6 million in February, but it spent $5.1 million. Its final cash dropped from $6.4 million at the end of January to $5.1 million at the end of February, with $1.9 million in still-unpaid debt.

The NRCC reported its actual cash on hand at the beginning of the month to be $5.7 million, about $700,000 less than previously thought. It paid down just $400,000 in debt.

Tom Cole, the chair of the NRCC, just lost an R+5 district formerly held by none other than Dennis Hastert, aka Denny the Hutt, aka the immediate past Speaker of the House – a district that the Hutt himself helped re-draw after the 2000 census as part of an incumbent protection plan. Tom Cole spent over a million bucks on this race from his shrinking kitty. Tom Cole is now one seat further from retaking a majority that is so, so far out of reach.

And, I suspect, there’s a good chance that Tom Cole will be out on his ass before long.

Brownsox recently took note of rumors that an Oberweis loss here would lead to Cole getting sacked. And the signs are all there. Remember this?

Apparently, House Minority Leader John “Small Price” Boehner is upset with NRCC Chair Tom Cole’s stewardship of the organization, and is heavily pressuring Cole to make some significant personnel changes.  Cole has said privately that he would rather resign than bow to such demands.

And just a ten days ago, there was this:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) is clearly not content to sit this one out, as he exhorted his colleagues to get off their “dead asses” and pony up for the party.

However unhappy Boehner was last week, he is a lot more pissed off tonight. Pissed enough to can Cole’s sorry ass? He may just be.

So, cast your predictions in this thread and vote in the poll below the fold. Will Cole get fired? If so, when? The deathwatch begins!

P.S. The GOP is stuck with Oberweis for November, too! Hahaha suckers!!!

And so, the Deathwatch concludes:

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole has withdrawn from the race to remain chairman of the Republicans’ campaign arm in the House, according to numerous GOP aides, allowing Texas Rep. Pete Sessions to fill the post.

We’ll miss having you to kick around, Tommy!

It’s often been said that the Republican Party, from coast to coast, has run into some pretty bad luck this cycle. But I think it’s very easy to forget just how much bad luck they’ve run into. To remedy that, the Swing State Project has put together the most comprehensive compendium of Republican hubris, fuckups and misfortunes you will find anywhere, ever. Call it the “Year of Living Catastrophically”, if you will.

I hope you packed a snack, because this is gonna take a while.

2007

January 9: US Attorney Chris Christie declines to challenge Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).

January 15: Colorado GOP Sen. Wayne Allard announces that he will retire at the end of his term, leaving his seat vulnerable to a takeover by Democrat Mark Udall.

January 15: The Wall Street Journal reports that Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) is under federal investigation for bribery.

January 29: Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, considered a potential challenger to Sen. John Kerry, announces that he will play in 2008, denying the NRSC a star recruit.

February 23: GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN-06) claims to know of a secret Iranian plan to partition Iraq and create a “a terrorist safe haven zone” called the “Iraq State of Islam” in order to launch attacks throughout the Middle East and on the United States. Bachmann is forced to recant her unsourced delusions days later.

March 6: On the same day that ex-US Attorney David Iglesias testifies before the House Judiciary Committee that he received intimidating phone calls from GOP Rep. Heather Wilson (NM-01) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) prior to the 2006 mid-term elections about an investigation of a Democratic state senator, Wilson admits that she called Iglesias, but claims her intent was not to intimidate Iglesias.

March 6: One of the GOP’s top choices to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Ron Klein (FL-22), state Rep. Adam Hasner, declines to run. State Sen. Jeff Atwater also says “no”.

March 15: GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt (OH-02) reportedly slips and falls in vomit in a Capitol Hill bathroom.

March 19: GOP Rep. Tim Walberg (MI-07) sticks his foot in his mouth by saying that most of Iraq is about as safe as Detroit or Chicago.

March 21: Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, who was considered a credible candidate for statewide office, declines to seek the GOP nomination for the open Senate seat of retiring Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard.

March 31: The NRSC’s dream candidate to challenge Dem Sen. Mark Pryor, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, says that he won’t run for Senate.

April 10: Nevada GOP Gov. Jim Gibbons serves up a whopper to the local press when he says that he’s “heard rumors” of Democrats paying the Wall Street Journal to write articles exposing his corruption.

April 18: The FBI raids the home of GOP Rep. John Doolittle (CA-04).

April 20: GOP Rep. Rick Renzi (AZ-01) steps down from the House Intelligence Committee after the FBI raids his family business.

May 5: Ex-Rep. Bob Schaffer bizarrely tries to un-announce his candidacy for the open Senate seat of retiring GOP Sen. Wayne Allard.

May 15: Boca Raton Mayor Steve Abrams, one of the NRCC’s top choices to run against Democratic Rep. Ron Klein (FL-22), declines to run, joining a long list of local officeholders passing on the race.

May 29: The Anchorage Daily News reports that the FBI and a federal grand jury are investigating a remodeling project at the Girdwood home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) that was organized by the oil services company VECO.

July 1: The NRCC’s much-hyped recruit against freshman Democrat Joe Courtney (CT-02), former Groton submarine base commander Sean Sullivan, discloses that he only raised “between $25,000 and $30,000” in his first three months of campaigning. After failing to pick up the pace significantly in the coming months, Sullivan becomes “persona non grata” to DC Republicans and the district quickly falls off the list of Republican targets.

July 5: Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg announces that he won’t challenge Sen. Max Baucus in 2008, denying the NRSC their top choice in the state.

July 9: Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) admits to being a customer of the DC madam and enjoying the company of prostitutes in the past.

July 19: GOP Rep. Chris Shays (CT-04) loses his cool and “screams obscenities” at a Capitol police officer.

July 25: The Wall Street Journal reveals 18-term GOP Rep. Don Young (AK-AL) is under criminal investigation for his dealings with VECO, just like Ted Stevens.

July 26: GOP Rep. Ray LaHood (IL-18) announces his retirement, putting his R+5.5 district on the map for Democrats.

July 30: The FBI and the IRS raid the home of GOP Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).

There’s more – much, much more – below the fold.

Yesterday, John Cornyn declared that the Republican Party establishment is afraid of its base:

“We will not spend money in a contested primary,” Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told ABC News in a telephone interview today.

“There’s no incentive for us to weigh in,” said Cornyn, R-Texas. “We have to look at our resources…. We’re not going to throw money into a [primary] race leading up to the election.”

But just a year-and-a-half ago, the grownups declared that they were going to take charge. Smarting after special election losses in deep red districts which featured a shabby parade of Republican nominees – Jim Oberweis (IL-14), Woody Jenkins (LA-06), and Greg Davis (MS-01) – John Boehner ordered Tom Cole to jump into the muck:

The NRCC will now wade into competitive GOP primaries when appropriate. This is a significant shift, as Cole’s policy has been to stay out of such contests even when the party believes one candidate would clearly be the best general election bet. In Illinois and Louisiana in particular, Republicans suffered because they fielded a poor nominee. The race to replace retiring Rep. Vito Fossella (R) in New York, which could draw several GOP contenders, could be the first high-profile test of the new policy.

I have to laugh for a moment regarding the Fossella succession – that was a shitshow for the ages. But in general, this move actually made some sense. After all, did the Republicans really want to drown their chances with more Randy Grafs?

It turns out the answer now is yes. Sure, Cornyn runs the NRSC, and here we’re talking about the NRCC. But no doubt Pete Sessions is running scared, too – after all, it was his NRCC that took serious heat from the teabaggers for backing Scozzafava in NY-23, and obviously that race is what inspired Cornyn’s newfound wimpiness. So I’m sure we’ll see a reluctance on the part of both campaign committees to meddle in primaries. The Republicans are terrified of their base – and they should be.

• CO-Sen: Former state Sen. Tom Wiens made it official; he’s entering the Republican field in the Senate race. With former Lt. Governor Jane Norton wearing the mantle of establishment anointment in this race, Wien’s entry may actually help Norton, by taking non-Norton votes away from conservative Weld County DA Ken Buck. Wiens is a wealthy rancher prepared to put up to half a million of his own dollars into the race.

• FL-Sen: If anyone has to sweating the movement conservatives’ takedown of the pre-selected moderate establishment candidate in NY-23, it’s gotta be Charlie Crist. Here’s one more thing for him to worry about: his job approval according to a new St. Petersburg Times poll is only 42/55. They don’t have him in as dire straits against Marco Rubio in the GOP primary as a number of other pollsters, though — Crist leads Rubio 50-28 — but the ultimate indignity is on the question of whether respondents would choose Crist or Jeb Bush to lead Florida right now, 47% opt for Bush (with 41 for Crist). On the Dem side, Rep. Kendrick Meek leads newly-announced former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre 26-6.

• IL-Sen, IL-07: There a lots of interesting plot lines forming as today is the filing deadline in Illinois. But the big one is: what the hell is up with Patrick Hughes? The real estate developer was considered to be the right-wingers’ go-to guy to against alleged moderate Rep. Mark Kirk in the GOP primary, but now rumors are swirling that he doesn’t have the signatures to qualify. There also seem to be some major ball-droppings for progressives: there’s nobody challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski in the primary in IL-03, and there’s nobody, period, to go up against GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in the R+0 IL-06. In the 7th, where it’s unclear whether Rep. Danny Davis will be coming back or not (he’s filed for his seat, but also for Cook County Board President), he’s facing primary competition from only one elected official: state Sen. Rickey Hendon (Cook Co. Deputy Recorder of Deeds Darlena Williams-Burnett is also a big name, but I don’t think deputy recorder is an elected position). Hendon says he’ll bail out and run for Lt. Governor if Davis sticks around.

Meanwhile, on the Senate front, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is touting his own internal poll from GQR giving him a 3-point edge on Rep. Mark Kirk in a general election, 46-43. The same poll finds less-known Democrat former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman trailing Kirk 48-39.

• IN-Sen: Research 2000 (on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, rather than Kos) found last week that Blanche Lincoln was in serious trouble electorally and that her troubles would mount if she opposed health care reform. They also looked at Evan Bayh, and they found that, a) he’s not in trouble (62/30 approvals, although no head-to-head test against his erstwhile opponent, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman), and b) a majority wouldn’t be moved one way or the other by his health care actions.

• MA-Sen: The start of debates haven’t done much to reshape things in the Democratic primary in the special election in the Bay State. AG Martha Coakley holds a 25-point lead over Rep. Michael Capuano, according to an R2K poll commissioned by local blog Blue Mass Group. Coakley is at 42 and Capuano at 16, with Stephen Pagliuca at 15 and Alan Khazei at 5. Only 52% of Coakley’s voters are firm about it, though, but that’s not much different from any of the other candidates.

• FL-Gov: That aforementioned St. Petersburg Times poll also looked at the governor’s race, and they gave Democratic CFO Alex Sink her first lead in a while; she’s up a single point on GOP AG Bill McCollum, 38-37. More trouble for McCollum: state Senator Paula Dockery, as threatened, now appears to be jumping into the Republican primary, which had been painstakingly cleared for him.

• MN-Gov: If a candidate falls in the Minnesota gubernatorial Republican field, does it make a sound? State Rep. Paul Kohls dropped out, having not gotten much traction according to recent straw polls. That leaves approximately eleventy-seven zillion Republicans left in the hunt.

• VA-Gov: He’s dead, Jim. Four more polls on VA-Gov are out:

YouGov (pdf): McDonnell 53, Deeds 40

Mason-Dixon: McDonnell 53, Deeds 41

PPP (pdf): McDonnell 56, Deeds 42

SurveyUSA: McDonnell 58, Deeds 40

• MI-07: Unseated wingnut Tim Walberg — who’d like to get his job back from freshman Dem Mark Schauer — has some company in the GOP primary next year: attorney and Iraq vet Brian Rooney (the brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney) is getting in the race. It’s not clear whether Rooney is any more moderate than Walberg, though; he’s an attorney for the right-wing Thomas More Law Center, the theocons’ answer to the ACLU.

• NY-23: A few more odds and ends in the 23rd. One more key Republican endorser working for Doug Hoffman now is Rudy Giuliani (like George Pataki, not the likeliest fellow you’d expect to see make common cause with the Conservative Party — with neither of them having ruled out 2010 runs, they seem to want to be in good graces with the national GOP, who are all-in for Hoffman now). Rudy’s crack team of robots is making calls on his behalf. Another possible useful endorsement: Watertown’s mayor Jeff Graham is now backing Hoffman. Former candidate Dede Scozzafava, on the other hand, is now cutting robocalls on Democrat Bill Owens’ behalf. Finally, here’s an ill omen on the motivation front: sparse turnout was reported for Joe Biden‘s appearance on behalf of Owens.

• PA-06: One more Republican is getting in the field in the open seat race in the 6th: Howard Cohen, a consultant who is the former Revenue Secretary from the Dick Thornburgh administration decades ago. He’ll face a financial gap against pharma exec Steven Welch, and a name rec gap against state Rep. Curt Schroder, though.

• AL-AG: One incumbent who looks badly endangered going into 2010 is Alabama’s Republican Attorney General, Troy King. Having buddied up with the state’s trial lawyers (thus angering the local business establishment) and also pissed off many local DAs by interfering in their cases, King has lost most establishment support in the upcoming GOP primary against Luther Strange. Two of Strange’s biggest backers are both of the state’s Senators, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby.

• ME-Init: Two more polls on Maine’s Question 1 (where “yes” is a vote to overturn the state’s gay marriage law), both pointing to an excruciatingly close vote. PPP (taken over the weekend) sees it passing 51-47, while Research 2000 (taken last week) gives a tiny edge to “no,” 47-48. (R2K also confirms that Olympia Snowe’s numbers are way off; the once bulletproof Snowe now has approvals of 50/44.)

• NYC: Three more polls all show Michael Bloomberg with an easy path to a third term, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson. Bloomberg leads 50-38 according to Quinnipiac, 53-42 according to SurveyUSA, and 53-38 according to Marist (pdf).

• Mayors: There are fresh polls in a few other mayoral races. In St. Petersburg, Florida, one of the most hotly contended races around, Bill Foster leads Kathleen Ford 48-44 according to SurveyUSA. (Foster leads among both blacks and conservatives.) The racially polarized race in Charlotte gives a small edge to the conservative white candidate, Andy Lassiter, who leads 50-46 over Anthony Foxx. And in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, all we know is that someone with a difficult-to-spell last name will be mayor. Matt Czajkowski leads Mark Kleinschmidt 45-44. (Czajkowski seems to be the conservative and Kleinschmidt the liberal.)

• State legislatures: In case there wasn’t enough to focus on tomorrow, Josh Goodman points to five legislative special elections tomorrow. The big one is Michigan‘s 19th Senate district, which was vacated by Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer. Republican former state Rep. Mike Nofs may have an edge for the pickup against Democratic state Rep. Martin Griffin, at least based on fundraising. There are also Dem-held seats up in Alabama’s 65th House district, Missouri’s 73rd House district, and Washington’s 16th House district (the reddest Dem-held seat in Washington), and a GOP-held seat in South Carolina’s 48th House district. (UPDATE: TheUnknown285 points us to a whopping seven legislative seats up from grabs in Georgia, too, in his diary.)

• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 1? This seems odd, given that he’s had some pretty good success on the recruiting front, but apparently the behind-closed-doors potshots are hitting NRCC head Sessions just as heavily as they did Tom Cole last cycle. The complaints aren’t about recruiting, though, but rather about fundraising, where the NRCC is still lagging the DCCC despite the superficial conventional wisdom that Republicans come into 2010 with momentum, and about not keeping enough of a lid on all those nagging intraparty skirmishes that somehow only the blogosphere ever seems to notice.

• Polling: Mark Blumenthal has a thought-provoking piece on polling the cap-and-trade issue. The key problem: no one knows exactly what it is (reminiscent of polling the public option question, too).

• Voting: States are still trying to figure out what to do about the new federal law intended to make sure that military ballots from overseas get counted. At least a dozen states are now actively considering moving their September primaries up in the calendar to comply (including Minnesota, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin).

The U.S. News & World Report:

The document provided to Whispers is no gag: It comes from one of the key House GOP vote counters. The source called it a “death list.” The tally shows several different ratings of 66 House Republicans in difficult races or open seats held by retiring Republicans. “Rating 1” finds 10 Republicans “likely gone.” Those districts are New York 13, Alaska, Arizona 1, Virginia 11, New York 25, Illinois 11, Florida 24, Michigan 7, Nevada 3, and North Carolina 8. Under “Rating 2,” nine Republican seats are listed as “leaning Democratic.” Under “Rating 3,” some 22 GOP seats are listed as “true toss-up.” The fourth rating, “lean Republican,” finds 15 seats in the category that comes with this warning: “If there’s a wave, some could be in trouble.” The last “likely Republican” rating finds another 11. Only three Democratic districts are seen as “hopeful” GOP pickups. They are Florida 16, Pennsylvania 11, and Texas 22. Another 10 Democratic seats are listed as “possible” pickups.

Republicans facing the music? Or just a sly way of gaming expectations? In any event, I’d buy the full list for a dollar!

Here’s one House member that Republicans should add to their deathwatch, even though he will be re-elected: NRCC Chair Tom Cole.

(Hat-tip: Andy Dufresne)

UPDATE: “The Fix” says that the NRCC is pulling out of CO-04, FL-24, and MN-06. Maybe that’s true, but the NRCC did dump $375K against Democrat Betsy Markey in Colorado yesterday.

LATER UPDATE: The Politico says that the NRCC plans to pull out after their current $375K buy expires in Colorado’s 4th CD.

The GOP is facing a deep hole. The McCain camp is in disarray, Mitch McConnell has admitted that there’s no way for the GOP to pick up seats in the Senate, and in the House… well… the fact that Tom Cole is up to Deathwatch No. 9 says it all.

With the Republicans finally realizing that rebuilding their permanent majority is going to be a long, multi-step process, it seems like they’re engaged in some soul-searching about where to start the demolition work. And today’s thought-bubble isn’t about rebranding their line of dog food, let alone deciding not to try to sell poisoned dog food in the first place. It’s about doing what the Republicans do best: manipulating the electoral process, in this case via gerrymandering. This means seizing control of the statehouses in 2010, which is something that we’ve already talked about at length at Swing State Project.

Sam Stein at HuffPo has the dirt.

“The 2010 elections are almost as important or equally important as the elections this year. After redistricting in 2011, the governors are going to have a huge influence in determining the political makeup of this country,” said Chris Schrimpf, a spokesman for the Republican Governors Association. “We could feasibly see 25 to 30 congressional seats swing as the result of redistricting. And the state legislatures and governor could determine that swing. Can the National Republican Congressional Committee make a statement like that with a straight face? It would be harder for them.”

Now it may not be surprising to see the spokesperson for the Republican Governors Association doing the over-selling of the importance of the role of governors in the redistricting process; after all, the RGA has funds to raise, and they need a fresh new angle to do so in an environment where GOP donors are increasingly sitting on their wallets while looking for a sign of a pulse.

But he’s got a point: in many of the states where new House seats will be added or lost via the 2010 census, there’s also a 2010 governor’s race… California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada among the gainers, and Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania among the losers. (Plus one likely lost seat in a state with its gubernatorial race this year: Missouri, where luckily we’re on track to pick up the governor’s seat.)

Now, of course, the governor doesn’t actually draw the lines (that’s generally the legislature’s job, with disputes usually winding up in the courts rather than on the governor’s desk). But via veto power in some states, or redistricting commission appointment in other states, the governor has a huge role in the process.

And while it’s easy to be sanguine about many of these 2010 governor’s races (is there any Republican in California who can retain the governor’s seat post-Arnie?), don’t underestimate the Republicans’ ability to fight back with their favorite methods when backed against the wall:

“In the worst case scenario, 2010 would be the first, most important evidence that there is life in the Republican Party,” said Craig Shirley, a longtime Republican strategist. “The elections that year will be vitally important because it will put on stage the worst creative skills of ever politician… Members of Congress aren’t bright about handling Social Security, Medicare and the budget but they are astonishing bright at self-preservation… and drawing favorable [political] districts.”