New narrative:
The DCCC’s cash advantage is, at the moment, an important circuit breaker for 2010. For all the factors that point to big GOP House gains, it is the cash disparity could mean the difference between a bad year for Democrats and a really bad year.
At this rate, by June we’ll be hearing how the DCCC’s cash advantage will at least keep the GOP from having enough votes to override Obama’s vetoes next year.
Moe Lane
PS: Do I seem insufficiently anxious and resigned to failure? Well, it might be because I know a trend when I see it. Or maybe it’s because I’m currently on the right side of a 4-to-1 seat defense ratio. Or maybe it’s just that we watched the Democratic party pour quite a lot of money down a hole in Massachusetts.
PPS: More serious question: does the Citizens’ United case make monthly looks at fundraising totals more or less irrelevant? It just got a lot easier to fund promising candidates, on both sides.
PPPS: In a truly just world, there would be another announcement of a Democratic retirement this morning.
Crossposted to RedState.
Tea party people give to the candidates … The RNC can go get s@@@@@@@. It’s our new ‘adopt a candidate’ plan. If your clinker is a clunker, go find one you like.
See Scott Brown for details.
I am unconcerned about DCCC cash advantage. I quit giving to RCCC & RSCC. I give directly to candidates. I have seen too many times the Republican campaign committees give money to candidates and causes I oppose. I continue giving to candidates; the committees are a waste.
I can’t go that far, Jeff: until we’re all capable of keeping 435 House races in our heads at all times, with a list of who needs the money most at any given time, we’re going to need a clearinghouse for dispersing funds to good candidates who need the help. If the NRCC isn’t doing that, then we need to either fix it, or come up with an alternative that will do the job everywhere, and better.
That includes long-shot districts where we’re never going to get a conservative in, but we can get somebody who’ll caucus with us and make the Other Side spend resources that they’d otherwise spend on offense.
Money’s nice, but money in and of itself does not win elections. We need candidates. Honest, open, likable, and doggedly conservative candidates who aren’t afraid to call liberals on their hypocrisy.
Scott Brown didn’t win because he had more money.
Any ‘moderate’ Republican candidate with no spine will likely lose, and it won’t be because he had too little cash.