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Posted on 03/24/2008 2:41:44 PM PDT by Bean Counter
The fallout between state Sen. Pam Roach and GOP leadership over alleged bullying has overshadowed another claim: Senate Republicans are doing a lousy job of recruiting candidates and managing campaign money.
That’s according to Sen. Don Benton, who sent a scathing letter to Senate colleagues last week after Roach was reprimanded for what Senate leaders called the mistreatment of staff members.
“This is a sad commentary on the effectiveness of our whole team in recruiting candidates,” the four-term lawmaker from Vancouver wrote. “Think about it seriously, 16 Democrat seats up, seven where we stand a good chance … and only two candidates. Holy cow does anyone see a problem here?”
By the numbers, Senate Republicans have recruited the fewest candidates of any group, and they raised the second-lowest amount of money in 2007.
Then again, they represent the smallest of the four party caucuses in the Legislature. There are just 17 Republicans to the 32 Democrats in the Senate, and Republicans are outnumbered 35-63 in the House.
Calls on Friday to the Senate Republican campaign committee, state Republican Party leaders, Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt and Sen. Mark Schoesler were not returned.
Schoesler, a Ritzville Republican who heads the caucus campaign committee, told The Spokesman-Review last week that he’d like the fundraising to be going better. But he defended last year’s spending, saying “there’s a lot of things that go into laying the groundwork for successful campaigns.”
Senate Republicans’ internal squabbling became public last Monday when Roach, the five-term senator from Auburn, sent an e-mail to the media that blasted party leadership for a number of failures, including a lack of a “cohesive and worthy platform.” She also said leaders were plotting her political demise.
“Our leadership is a disaster. We offer no plan for regaining the majority, we have no money to support viable candidates and now we attack our own,” she said.
She characterized Hewitt as an ineffective caucus leader. She even accusing him of bending over and aiming his backside at her during a recent spat.
In reply, Senate leaders disclosed that Roach was recently reprimanded for bullying staff members.
The leaders also said she “mischaracterized” the incident with Hewitt.
‘I KNOW THAT IT’S HARD’
So how are Senate Republicans doing with their preparations for the fall campaign?
A Senate Republican spokesman, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said the party has recruited three official candidates for 14 seats, and has interviewed dozens of others.
The deadline for filing to run for office is in early June.
Even Democratic Party campaign officials were somewhat sympathetic.
“It maybe is a little low. They have a lower number of seats, and it’s March,” said Tony Yuchasz, executive director of the House Democratic Campaign Committee.
The Senate Republicans’ three recruits are certainly behind their rivals, Senate Democrats, who have recruited six candidates to challenge Republicans, according to Chris Gregorich, executive director of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.
“I know that it’s hard. I’ve been out there myself. You ask a lot of people to give up nine months-plus of their lives to campaign,” Gregorich said.
House Republicans, on the other hand, have managed to attract candidates for all swing district races and a handful of others, according to Kevin Carnes, executive director of the House Republican Organizational Committee.
Carnes said the party has a roster of up to 28 people who have officially declared their candidacy or will soon.
He said Senate races are more expensive, which can also be discouraging, especially for candidates who don’t think they have a real chance at winning.
‘A CHICKEN-AND-EGG QUESTION’
Sen. Benton has also complained that Senate Republican campaign leaders haven’t raised enough money, and they’ve spent too much of what they’ve raised.
Senate Republicans raised $470,000 in 2007, according to reports filed with the state Public Disclosure Commission. The Senate Republican staff member said the party spent $271,000.
Senate Democrats raised more than $660,000 in 2007 between two campaign funds, more than any other campaign committee. A spending report wasn’t available Friday.
House Democrats raised $565,000 in 2007 and House Republicans raised about $307,000, according to commission reports.
“It’s extremely difficult to expand your donor base when you’re in the minority,” said Carnes, the House GOP campaign director. “It’s a chicken-and-egg question.”
He added that fundraising really gets going now, so there’s time for Senate Republicans to make up ground.
Gregorich, the campaign director for Senate Democrats, said the infighting among Senate Republicans could compound the GOP’s recruiting problem.
“I don’t know why anybody would run for the state Senate as a Republican,” Gregorich said.
Schoesler maintained that the public dust-up won’t affect Republicans’ chances to regain Senate seats this year.
“It boils down to the issues that we care about, not about personalities,” he told the Spokane newspaper.
“This doesn’t change the budget deficit” or other election-year liabilities for Democrats, he said.
“All of the bad stuff is still there,” he said, “and we’re going to continue to campaign on a positive agenda.”
Niki Sullivan: 360-754-6093
blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics
Sad state of affairs, but is anyone surprized?
With guys like Representative Jim Dunn and (former) Representative Richard Curtis out giving all Republicans a bad name it's a wonder there are any Republicans left in the Legislature. With the leadership in the Clark County Washington Republican Party what it currently is, I don't look for that to change here any time soon, either.
Someone needs to tell Senator Don Benton that for every finger he has pointing outward, there are three pointing backward...
In addition, you have local media here in SW Washington that will give a Democrat a pass on anything and everything, no matter what they do. I've never seen the columbian publish a harsh word about Representatives Bill Fromhold or Jim Moeller, and those two have done more to annihilate the taxpayers in this State than any Republican ever has.
The problem before us is not that we don't have enough Republicans, it's that we have far too few Conservatives.
Just disgusting. I didn’t realize we had slipped so far in the WA legislature (we had a 63-35 House majority in ‘95 and still held an even 49-49 split as recently as 2002 and a majority of the Senate as recently as 2004). Absolutely inexcusable. Even if we finally seat Dino Rossi in the office he won in 2004, he won’t have any decent numbers of Republicans to work with.
If true that means that all WA (not a resident myself) Conservatives reading this YOU HAVE BEEN RECRUITED (To Stand up for true Conservative principles) and some of you might win. I helped a Homeschooling family father win (with Zero Prior) experience in a State Indiana Senate race in 2006. It can be done!!
They’re telling all the conservatives to get out of the party. They wanted to be a 35% minority and they got what they wanted.
An online friend of mine’s brother-in-law was co-deputy speaker or something during the tie in the house, then Bush made him some regional FEMA thing.
Neither can I!
But at least we will have a Governor that won't be so willing to rubber stamp every spending Bill the Dems sends his way.
What’s really hilarious, is that the King County Republican leadership calls themselves “the winning team.” Meanwhile they refuse to support Conservative candidates and in fact fight to even allow them on the ballot.
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