Posted: 05/07/08 20:22
by Dave Mindeman
When assessing your prospects for a November election, you probably don't want the words "shellshocked" or "real disaster" to be bantied about, but that is exactly the phrasing being used by the leadership of the Republican Congressional caucus.
Minority Leader Boehner and NRCC Committee Chairman Tom Cole had nothing but dire assessments to give their colleagues.
As one member put it:
“There is an attitude that, ‘I better watch out for myself, because nobody else is going to do it,’” the member said. “There are all these different factions out there, everyone is sniping at each other, and we have no real plan. We have a lot of people fighting to be the captain of the lifeboat instead of everybody pulling together.”
The recent special election loss in Louisiana has not helped matters any -- even though most analysts do not think it translates nationally. The Republican caucus still has plenty of other reasons to be worried. Another special election in Mississippi has the Democrat running much too close for comfort -- let me repeat, that is Mississippi.
Chairman Cole pointed out that nobody should be expecting a lot of help for individual campaigns this cycle -- the caucus simply doesn't have the money.
Minnesota Republicans may be able to weather the storm. Kline, Bachmann, and Paulsen have all shown solid money raising credentials and may not need Washington help -- in fact, they may be better off without it.
On the other hand, it will probably give Rep. Tim Walz a little extra breathing room. His potential opponents will be fighting each other into the primary and will probably enter the fall with marginal cash on hand.
Minnesota's GOP has a best case scenario of status quo.
