Breaking The Bank

Thursday, September 28, 2006  -  reddit

The New York Times leads the front-page with a piece today on the dire condition of the Republican party. With 40 days left until the November mid-term elections, Democrats are poised to take the House of Representatives after being shut out for nearly a decade.
The Senate is also now in play, though most everyone has acknowledged that the odds are in the GOP's favor to lose seats, but still hold onto a slim majority.

Democrats should be thrilled with the prospect of taking Senate seats, given that another batch will be up for play during the 2008 general election cycle. Republicans are desperate to hold on to the House to prevent Democrats from holding the first hearings ever on the intelligence failures in the lead-up to the Iraq war, and 9/11.

The House also has the sole authority to draw up articles of impeachment.

This is a critical moment in time for Republicans, as the RNC currently has nearly $60 million in cash on hand, and Chairman Ken Mehlmen has promised to spend every dime before the November 7th elections.

Some have questioned the RNC's choice not to hold back funds for '08, but Mehlman believes that if they do indeed lose the House, how can they look at that bank account, then at all the displaced red state politicians, and explain why they didn't spend every dime for them.

While the GOP will be breaking the bank to hold power, Democrats are breaking all their previous campaign funding records and will certainly have all the momentum when the biggest seat in the land becomes an open one, and another batch of Republicans in the Senate will be held responsible by the American people for their choices and their actions.

The Free Republic calls Senator Hillary Clinton a fund raising dream for the GOP, yet fails to realize that while the RNC is going to be spending their $60 million in its entirety for the mid-terms this year, Clinton has raised just shy of $45 million all by herself over a six-year-span, and that's just for her Senate campaign that was never really in play at any point this year.

Republicans have always held a financial advantage over Democrats, not just in campaigns, but usually in personal wealth as well. But this year the RNC and Republicans are going to find themselves in an unusual position heading into the '08 Presidential and Congressional elections: as underdog.

Out of power and out of money, and finally, out of time.