Tag: nrcc

#rsrh Repeal Obamacare, or your grandfather goes to jail.

“Don’t let Grandpa go to the Big House.”

I think that this NRCC ad is hysterical, and I think that the likely reaction from the Online Left when they come across it will be hysterical, too.  Largely because the Online Left has no sense of humor, knows it, and gets kind of resentful when the Other Side manages to be successfully absurd about something like Obamacare.

Admittedly, Obamacare is absurd.  Just not in a good way.

The Brutal NRCC ‘Every Day’ Ad.

This is one of the NRCC‘s harsher web ads… if you define ‘harsh’ as ‘true.’ Something to remember, folks: if you think that campaigning on behalf of Republicans who may or may have not done enough is hard, imagine what it must be like for the netroots, who are all kind of glumly aware that they have to campaign on behalf of Democrats who have done quite too much already.

Text after the fold: open thread. Continue reading The Brutal NRCC ‘Every Day’ Ad.

NRCC *also* fund-raising off of #OWS

Yeah… I think that somehow DCCC chair Steve Israel didn’t think this one all the way through when he came out in support for the Occupy Wall Street ‘movement.’

Steve Israel Stands With Them.

Note that I am utterly unsympathetic to the argument that the OWS movement is merely not being utterly hostile to any random anti-Semites stopping by.  Personally, I take the position that if your organizational criteria requires you to not show the door to anyone who starts ranting about how the International Zionist conspiracy runs the banking system, then you’re doing it wrong.  It’s nice to see one of the two major political parties agree with me; it astounds me that it’s not both.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh QotD, …Err, No, The DCCC Is NOT Recruiting Edition.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s early days yet.  But this line from a Politico article detailing the solidifying trainwreck which is the Democrats’ attempt to take back the House:

The DCCC is working 24/7 recruiting excellent candidates and helping them and our members build top-notch campaigns.

…has pretty much no backup evidence for it.  At all.  The so-called “Drive to 25” initiative that the Democrats were supposed to be pushing heavily has sort of… dissipated.  Not to be mean-spirited about this, but if the DCCC has any people running for all those open/Republican held seats, then the committee has done an excellent job at hiding its light under a bushel.  An examination of the site reveals, well, no recruits at all.

Again, it’s early days yet.  And obviously the NRCC shouldn’t get complaisant.  Still, this was a fairly uncritical acceptance of Democratic agitprop on Politico’s part: tsk, tsk.

Moe Lane

Campaign Finance Law 120: Recount restrictions.

Executive summary: the setup and funding of election recounts is affected, like virtually everything else in politics involving money, by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (otherwise known as the BCRA, otherwise known as McCain-Feingold*).  The Federal Election Committee (FEC) has advised that aid by the national committees in the recount efforts be administered as per the following:

  • Direct financial support is limited to $5,000 to a candidate’s recount efforts (the standard amount allowed to PACs), independent of whatever contributions were made to the candidate during the election.  So people and PACs who gave the legal maximum to the candidate before the election may give up to the same legal maximum directly to the candidate for recount purposes only.
  • A national committee may also set up a recount fund to pay expenses generated by the recount process, and the recount process only.  Contributions to this fund are likewise subject to the restrictions set up by BCRA for contributions to national committees.

More details after the fold.

Continue reading Campaign Finance Law 120: Recount restrictions.

“Still Counting:” a GOP House recount page.

Link here: it’s a page for directly contributing to eight GOP challengers who are currently in the middle of a recount (six ahead, two behind). Note that while this page is off of the main NRCC site, any contributions made to a specific candidate will go directly to that candidate, not the national committee.  The NRCC is in fact somewhat limited in what support it can provide; they can offer advice and about five grand in funds, but that’s about it.  Which means that if you want to help Blake Farenthold (TX-27), Randy Altschuler (NY-01), Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25), Renee Ellmers (NC-02), David Harmer (CA-11), Andy Vidak (CA-20), Joe Walsh (IL-08), and/or Andy Barr (KY-06), going over to Still Counting and clicking through to the candidate’s campaign site is the best way to do it.

And they all kind of need the help right now.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

What to do with one day to go.

So.  The election’s tomorrow.  You’re going to vote, if you haven’t already; and you’ve helped out in your local state/district/county.  But you’ve maybe got a spare $20 or a couple of hours… and, honestly, nobody in your regular slate of candidates needs it.  Yes, of course, every little bit helps – but, honestly, they’re all fine.  Really.  You’d think that you can maybe splurge a little and give somebody a political treat.

OK, here’s what you do then.  A while back, the NRCC put up a map of every Republican running for Congress, broken down by first state, and then Congressional district.  It has been an amazingly useful resource for me, by the way: to give just one example, having it handy allowed me to quickly track down challengers in suddenly-competitive districts (and there have been a lot of those this cycle).  The NRCC absolutely needs to keep this feature in future election cycles, by the way… but I digress.  Anyway, click on the map more or less at random, look for a blue-colored district in whatever state that you end up in, and click through to the challenger’s website*.  If you like what you see, dispense largess as you see fit. Trust me, they’ll be glad to get the money and/or time.

And you never know.  We’re going to have a lot of close elections.  Maybe it’ll be your help that makes the difference.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*With 430 out of 435 races featuring a Republican in the contest, you have a 98.85% chance of getting a hit.

Boehner bar the door.

Cute bit of political theater, here.  The short version is, House Minority Leader John Boehner brought the GOP caucus together and shook ’em until three million dollars fell out; coupled with the million that he’s donating from his own campaign funds, that’s four million that’s going to the NRCC, just in time for the fall election cycle.  That should fund a bunch of races.

I’m noting this for a few reasons.

  • First: it amuses me.
  • Second: it’s interesting that they were able to get to three million in about thirty-five minutes; that was obviously set up ahead of time, but it’s still nice to see.
  • Third: contrast to the DCCC’s recent curious worries in getting outstanding dues out of its own members.
  • Fourth: admittedly, the reason for the difference between the second and the third points is that more than one-third of the House Democratic caucus have competitive races this year, while barely one-tenth of the House Republican caucus does.  And that those numbers are getting worse for the Democrats for the last two years.
  • Fifth: did I mention that I find this amusing?

It’s odd to think of the Democrats being short of cash at this point in the game, but they are, aren’t they?  They don’t have enough to protect everybody, and if they guess wrong, they waste what they have.  Heck of a thing to have to worry about, no?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Interview: Rep. Kevin McCarthy and NRCC recruitment.

As the timestamp shows, we actually had this interview earlier in the month; given that Rep. McCarthy has been doing a series of posts about his road trips on behalf of candidates this election season, I decided that it was long past time that I got the interview actually up. In it we talk about the general details of recruitment, and how it’s been going this cycle.

The NRCC’s site is here.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)