That crying sound that you are hearing is National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman John Ensign of Nevada discussing the recruitment efforts of the GOP in getting anyone, mostly top millionaires in top states, to take a shot at running for the Senate in November, as many proposed nominees are instead declining the GOP offers.
It doesn't help that many of the GOP Senators are having a hard time raising their cash quotas for the GOP committees and those candidates who are running or expected to run. This is just to damned funny, I think.
Ensign said about half of the Senate’s 49 GOP members are “not even close” to being on pace to raise the amount of money they are expected to for the committee and fellow candidates. The members are expected to raise between $750,000 and $3 million, depending on seniority and stature.
Ensign stressed that five GOP senators have already exceeded their goals and said some members – particularly Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) – are seen more and more frequently at NRSC headquarters. But it’s become clear they are there to save their GOP colleagues and their open seats, rather than go after control of the Senate. The Hill
This is what most normal people would call " every man for himself " and the Republican Party just isn't use to this kind of behavior from its " tow the line " membership.
“There is no question that getting back in the majority now, because of some of the recruiting – some of these just terrific candidates that we wanted ended up not running – would be a very long stretch,” Ensign said. “That’s the best way I can say it.”
I won't even get into the Republicans very sad financial numbers when it comes to raising cash for the elections, because it is a very weak total for them as the Democrats are out-raising and out-spending them by almost 2 to 1 margins.
The financial woes are not limited to the committee, which has less than half of its Democratic counterpart’s $30 million in cash on hand. The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute issued a report Thursday that showed incumbent Democrats up for reelection raised, on average, $1.2 million more than Senate Republicans with expiring terms did in 2007, and that Democratic open seat candidates raised about $1.4 million to their GOP counterparts’ $800,000.
Ensign said the leadership is using future committee assignments as incentives and threats, and that the conference is and should continue to move away from seniority-based assignments.
“There are different ways to motivate people,” Ensign said. “We’ve tried fear, we’ve tried positive reward, positive reinforcement, we’ve tried being a little harder on them, we use different things at different times – begging, we begged a lot.” The Story
Okay. So I changed my mind. Look at those cash numbers. Hell, the Republicans can't even afford one of those over priced caviar fund raising dinners that they are so fond of. The way that the fund raising is going, soon it will be Happy Meals for all of the potential donors! Can't you just feel the love?
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