Fossella can't rely on NRCC for support

Following on Fossella's 3Q filings and his sub-par fund raising abilities comes more bad news. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), counter part to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is yet again struggling to raise any money and lagging incredibly far behind the DCCC. In fact just like Vito Fossella the NRCC is in operating debt. via the Wall Street Journal;

The Republican congressional campaign committee is in debt, while the Democrats' committee said Wednesday it has raised $28 million.

The article goes on to list many more agonies for the NRCC such as not having the money to recruit challengers to take on incumbent Democrats, having to defend many more seats to retirement than the Democrats (12 R's to 2 D's) and that independents have been breaking towards the Democrats because of opposition to the War, aka Fossella's War in Iraq.

If this doesn't spell bad news for Fossella, it most certainly does not help him sleep at night. His party must start to decide if they spend money defending incumbents, defending open seats or going after Democratic freshmen (typically the easiest incumbents to challenge). Chances are there will be no money coming from the party to help Fossella or in terms of opposition spending (going after the Democratic challenger). Fossella's fund raising is hurting and not likely to get any better as his party already is getting ready for at least another two years in the minority.

If that wasn't bad enough having Independents, the real kind not the kind Fossella claims to be, break for Democrats makes running in a district with a Democratic voter registration advantage that much harder. And then there are the conservatives within his own party frustrated at unheard of spending on this war and the chance Fossella could lose the Conservative Party ballot line.

Vito, just retire and then you can take trips to Vail all you want without worrying about those nagging ethics problems.

h/t to Brandon English over at The Stakeholder once again for drawing attention to this WSJ article.