Redstate

Posted at 3:35pm on Jun. 19, 2008 Tom Cole Is Doing Something. Just Not Winning.

By Erick

Doesn't Tom Cole have better things to do? Like winning?

The head of the NRCC is seeking a Congressional apology to Indians for their treatment by the white man.

Cole offered his proposed apology as an amendment to H.R. 1328, the "Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendments of 2007." That multibillion-dollar proposal, introduced by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and 57 other members, has not been scheduled for a vote yet.

I will reprint the entire amendment here because it's a fascinating, and noteworthy, proposal. I will point out that Cole specifically states that nothing in the amendment authorizes reparations to Native Americans from the U.S. government.

Can we further amend the legislation to apologize to the American people for the deaths of all the children due to Roe vs. Wade?

Can we also get an amendment from Tom Cole apologizing for his crummy handling of the NRCC?

How about an amendment letting me gamble at Indian Casinos with free room and board? Hey, I'll contribute some reparations at the blackjack tables?

This is pathetic.

Posted in Congress | NRCC | Oklahoma | Tom Cole — Comments (13)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:45pm on Jun. 18, 2008 Well, at least there's *some* good news coming out of the NRSC. [UPDATE: And NRCC.]

Whether you consider that good news yourself is of course open to question.

By Moe Lane

The NRSC is announcing (via Roll Call) that they have exceeded expectations at this year's President's Dinner fundraiser: $13.5 million, or $1.5 million over their goal (it's a joint fundraiser between them and the NRCC, which was aiming for $7 million; I've got a call out to find out how they did) [UPDATE: They raised $8 million, or $1 million over their goal]. To give perspective, the NRSC's 2007 total was $7.5 million; in 2006, it was $12 million; and in 2004, $7 million. Said dinner will headline the President, but not Senator McCain... which is again one of those things that you can take any way you like; and no doubt, most people will.

Folks, brass tacks time. You're unhappy with the job performance of the GOP's legislative branch. Fair enough; so am I. But it's an election year, and if we want to have fights for offshore drilling (see also this) and investigations into possibly tainted mortgage legislation and logrolling bad legislation - and, oh, yes, doing their part to make sure we don't actually lose the war - then we actually need to have legislators in there doing the fighting.

So... this is the NRSC's donation page. This is the NRCC's donation page. If you can't bear it, really and truly, here's Senator DeMint's new Senate Conservatives Fund. Failing that, there's always the RNC, or a local race. And, of course, John McCain. There's got to be somebody on that list that you can give money to.

The situation is what it is, folks. And the thing about situations is: it can always get worse. It can always get worse.

Moe Lane

Posted in 2008 | GOP | John McCain | NRCC | NRSC | RNC | Senate Conservatives Fund — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:02am on Jun. 6, 2008 So I'm putting together a story about May 2008 fundraising.

Just a sort of snapshot.

By Moe Lane

The AP notes that McCain has raised $21.5 million in May, with $31.5 million in the bank; while the RNC has raised $23.5 million, with $53.6 in the bank. So I thought that it might be interesting to see what everybody else's numbers were.

I won't go over the gory details of the telephone calls: suffice it to say that you should reasonably expect the Democratic and Republican legislative groups to reveal their numbers somewhere around the filing deadline. And if the DNC ever gets back to me, they'll probably tell me about the same thing. Not bad phone service from any of the groups that I called up, by the way...

Except for the Obama Presidential campaign, oddly enough. You start with a automated voice messaging system (the Congressional/Senatorial groups have actual people taking the calls; that may be a volume thing, of course); followed up by the standard directory. The oddity, however, is that in five minutes of steadily-bemused calling I couldn't actually get a live person on the phone. The "leave-a-message" canned answers were always followed by a "Messages cannot be recorded," followed by a dial-zero-for-attendant, which led right back to "leave-a-message" - while trying to back into the system by hitting other options led to the all-operators-are-busy-please-call-back-later. The one exception I found to this was their contributions line, which gave the option to leave a message, which did work - or, at least, I got a beep. And, of course, the system took every opportunity to send people to the website, which (to me, at least) is corporate shorthand for "We don't actually want to talk to you." By contrast, John McCain 2008 connected me to an actual human being within one minute.

Not to be mean or anything, but I'm guessing that there's a certain difference in priority levels there.

Moe Lane

PS: I'm going to guess that the DNC / Obama folks release their numbers in a few weeks. Whether or it's going to be on a day with a natural disaster going on somewhere else is a question that each person must ask him- or herself.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | DCCC | DNC | DSCC | John McCain | NRCC | NRSC | RNC — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:00am on Apr. 29, 2008 Give me a freaking break, Tom Cole

By Erick

Sigh. Is it any wonder the GOP is about to get swept out to sea in the House of Representatives?

U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. said that even though Alaskans might be lukewarm about the Republican on the presidential ticket, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the state is so red that it won't matter when it comes to the congressional race. McCain will "provide cover" for Republican candidates in Alaska, including Rep. Don Young, Cole said. . . .

"But so far as I know, nobody's been charged with anything and I think that becomes really critical. At the end of the day, I've served with Don Young. I believe he's an honorable man. I don't have any doubt about it."

You know, if Mississippi 1 is not enough handwriting on the wall, the GOP deserves what it gets. Seriously. Don't get me wrong, I like Tom Cole. But I think he is at worst delusional and at best spinning to make up for dismal candidate recruiting this year.

I mean, heck, he defended Rick Renzi (R-AZ) too.

The embattled Renzi said months ago that he would not seek reelection this year but vowed to serve out the rest of his term. In February, after Renzi was indicted on 35 federal charges, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pressed for him to step down.

In the zeal to protect incumbents, the GOP seems hell bent on throwing the party under the bus. Obama must be advising them, considering he's an expert at throwing people under the bus.

Posted in 2008 | Death of the GOP | Don Young | NRCC | Rick Renzi | Tom Cole — Comments (37)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:32pm on Apr. 12, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #6: Should Conservatives Donate To The RNC, NRSC and NRCC?

Earthen Vessels.

By Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin: In today's campaign finance environment, you can support Republican candidates for public office in one of five ways (correct me if I am missing something here):

1. You can give to them directly through traditional fundraising.

2. You can identify and direct donations to particular candidates through web intermediaries like Rightroots, Big Red Tent, and Slatecard.

3. You can give to the formal party apparatus - the Republican National Committee (RNC), National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), or National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) - which then distribute funds to candidates as needed in their own judgment, as well as spending money and running ads for more general party-building activities.

4. You can support a PAC that, in turn, gives money to candidates, although in general that similarly means letting the PAC decide where they money should go.

5. Similarly, you can support advocacy groups (e.g., the Club for Growth) that get involved in campaigns.

Let's focus on #3. A lot of conservatives have been formally or informally boycotting some of these organizations for the past 2-3 years, in some cases due to protests on policy issues (e.g., immigration), but also in some cases due to frustration with the decisions made, most notoriously the NRSC's decision in to pour resources into defending more liberal incumbents in primary challenges by conservatives in Pennsylvana (Arlen Specter in 2004) and Rhode Island (Lincoln Chaffee in 2006), in Chaffee's case in a losing cause that drained away resources that could have been spent in close races in places like Ohio, Montana or Virginia.

The question is: should conservatives give money to these organizations, or some of them, or none?

Roundtable discussion below the fold...

Posted in NRCC | NRSC | Redstate Roundtable | Republicans | RNC — Comments (33)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:09am on Nov. 5, 2007 BREAKING: OH-15, Republicans Finally Found Candidate to Replace Deborah Pryce

By Naugle

Update at 7:56am- I posted this last news item Sunday night in my user blog. I believe that I was the first anywhere to report it. Sources tell me that the big reason why he changed his mind is that current Ohio Speaker of the House Jon Husted will be moving to the Ohio Senate, and there is no way Stivers could compete with Jon in terms of fundraising in a race to become Ohio Senate President.

Posted in columbus | Congress | Congress | NRCC | OH-15 | Ohio | pryce — Comments (31) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:05pm on May 10, 2007 Let Me Set The Record Straight

By Rep. Tom Cole

Let me be clear: I believe that cutting spending, lowering taxes and limiting government are core principles of the Republican Party and values that are indispensable to the future of our democracy. When it comes to the issue of spending and taxes, the NRCC has made it a top priority to point out that House Democrats are looking to enact a bloated federal budget that would pave the way for the largest tax hike in American history. That is unacceptable and I firmly believe that support for such a disastrous policy will come back to haunt House Democrats in 2008.

I want to clarify my comments in yesterday’s Washington Post on spending. There were many factors that contributed to the poisonous environment for Republicans in 2006, including spending, ethics, incompetence, and, as I noted in the article, a sense that Republicans overreached in Washington. However, numerous polls indicate that when it came down individual races the main issue for voters was, and continues to be, dissatisfaction with the direction of the War in Iraq.

The last election provided the worst electoral defeat for the GOP since the Watergate-era. The silver lining for conservatives is that the results were by no means an affirmation of Nancy Pelosi and MoveOn.org’s liberal agenda. Republicans in Congress are committed to getting back to our roots to regain the trust and support of the American people. Our goal is to become a governing majority that has the power to implement our conservative agenda of lower taxes, smaller government and a stronger defense. This is an objective on which I know we can agree.

Read on . . .

Posted in 2008 | NRCC — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »