NRCC already targeting McMahon

The NRCC is not wasting much time realizing they screwed up in 2008 by losing this seat. via Congress Matters we see McMahon is on a lengthy list of targeted seats. Brownsox over at dailykos calls it the "shotgun" approach as they have put 51 Democrats on that list. After being trounced for two elections now you can't say they are setting their sights too low with this announcement. Joining McMahon on this list from New York are Reps. Arcuri, Gillibrand, Massa, and Maffei. Also on that list are members the NRCC has unsuccessfully been trying to pick off for years so take the whole thing with a grain of salt. It might be a shot over the bow of Democrats but they are using nerf toys.

Any hopes of national Republican involvement is gone

The NRCC, the Republican equivalent of the DCCC today has pulled money out of ad buys in several seats showing tremendous weakness in their offensive plan. They have pulled money out of four of their top Democratic held targets. Additionally they have started building a firewall around certain incumbents they will try to protect, none of them will be competitive open seats.

With only about $22 million available to spend on races and many contests requiring a media buy of $1 million to make any impact, the NRCC simply cannot play in all the districts it needs to. And when Republican and GOP-leaning groups do spend their cash in the final weeks of the campaign, it may be too late to rescue Republican candidates who have picked up heavy negatives over the previous month.

I would say this is disastrous news for Bob Straniere, but honestly this is not high on his list of problems to worry about.

Bob from Manhattan declines judicial nomination

He is running for Congress! And with this kind of party support it will be a fun month;

“It’s over. Completely over,” said Guy V. Molinari, the former Staten Island borough president who had led the effort to seek an opportunity for Mr. Fossella to run.

“I think we had a good chance of getting him to run before this,” Mr. Molinari said. “But we ran out of time and Bob Straniere is not that kind of team player. He has a terrible, terrible record and we simply were counting on the wrong man. All the scurrying around that we did turned out to be for naught.”

Kind of funny that Bob Straniere, who lives in Manhattan, was nominated for a judicial position in the borough he lives in, Manhattan, and declined it to run for Congress in Staten Island. He really has the interest of Staten Islanders and Brooklynites as his top priority. So much so he said he will move to the district if he wins! Don't fret;

“Robert Straniere earned himself the Republican nomination for the 13th District,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “And we are fully behind him and his campaign.”

Unfortunately that support does not include money or actual, well, support.

Fossella's Money

Currently Vito Fossella is sitting on about $270,000 in campaign funds. Campaign funds that are going no where because he has no current campaign. He had been using this money to fund his legal defense in his DWI arrest but stopped after it became public knowledge. We don't know what he has done with the money since July 1 since his next filing isn't due until the end of September. What we do know is that from FEC records he has given no money to his National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) who is in desperate need of cash despite being able to move unlimited amounts to them. He had made 14 contributions, totaling $227,000 in the past. This is potentially quite telling of his relationship up to and since his arrest and announced retirement plans. Considering Bob Straniere only had about $11,000 and the NRCC was struggling to find money to support endangered incumbents across the country Fossella could use his funds to help his party. Or he could sit on it. It looks like he is choosing the latter.

DCCC confident? NRCC broke?

The DCCC has been doing some major ad buys in districts across the country but has yet to find the need to do any ad buys for this district yet. So far they have spent money in 32 congressional districts. The NRCC on the other hand hasn't spent any money in this district to support Bob Straniere, but for a very different reason, they are broke. It also may have to do with them having no confidence in Bob from Manhattan. Either way it looks like they have no plans to get involved in this race. It is not a year to be a Republican candidate. It is really not the year to be a Republican candidate no one likes.

Swing State Project is tracking all these expenditures and saving me some time in the process.

Is Fossella still part of the GOP plan to regain a majority?

Maybe the cause of the local Republican parties disfunction stems from the national party. They did place Fossella, an incumbent, on the front line of their regaining their majority despite him, well, not being able to pick up a new seat. All this happened just a couple of weeks before that whole DWI, I had an affair, I have a secret family/child "mistake." I wonder if the party still considers him a crucial part to regaining their majority because it looks like he is actually about to make them lose a seat. Semantics I realize, but I wanted to point that out.

NRCC's financial trouble to cost them this seat

Because the NRCC has no money to help any legitimate candidates they are left with looking outside those with any campaign experience. via NY1;

The GOP was also searching for wealthy business executives who could finance themselves.

The DCCC with $45 million, holds a $39 million cash advantage over the NRCC and their $6 million.

How cute, the NRCC thinks they will be able to help

The NRCC trails the DCCC $45 million to $6 million. The NRCC taking a cue from Fossella actually went down in cash on hand from March to April. But that won't deter them;

NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-Ok.) stopped short of promising campaign cash, but made it clear the GOP will do what it takes to protect the coveted House seat. “The National Republican Congressional Committee will be working quickly to ensure we have a solid Republican contender that will win in November,” he said.

Way to go Republicans. While you can't promise Donovan or Lanza money because you have none you are offering smiles and sunshine. Meanwhile the DCCC has an idea of what to do with their $39 million cash advantage;

“This is very much on our radar screen and we expect it will be one of the most competitive races in the country, so the answer is yes,” DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen told the Daily News when asked if the DCCC will help finance the race.

Good news though for Republicans. While the party won't be able to infuse any cash in this race they are planning on turning to people who for what ever reason aren't giving them money and ask them to give money directly to the candidates.
via Washington Post;

The party will step up its efforts to establish special fundraising committees for seats with contested GOP primaries occurring late in the season, which will raise cash that will automatically go to the eventual nominees. This fairly common practice will prevent those nominees from starting the general election race at a financial disadvantage after a costly primary. This effort will be led by Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas), who lost to Cole in the race to chair the NRCC for this Congress.

My condolences to Donovan and Lanza. But is it really worth giving up your office to jump into a race where you are almost assured to have less cash than your Democratic challenger?

Vito Fossella Resignation Watch, Part 1

Instead of bothering to try and keep up with the news roundups I am just going to focus on the inevitable, Fossella's resignation. Today's indications that he will not be up for re-elections comes from his own party;

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that fellow Republican Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) should do some serious thinking over the weekend about his political future.

snip

Fossella said Thursday he will be making no immediate decisions about his political future.

Fortunately for Fossella he does not need to hurt himself thinking over the decision as the NRCC has already made their own plans;

National Republican leaders have "lost all faith" in Rep. Vito Fossella and are poised to begin polling in the 13th CD on potential candidates to take his place on the ballot, despite the fact that he has yet to make a definitive statement about his future political plans.

The poll could start as early as today, according to a Washington GOP source, and will likely include at least two names: Sen. Andrew Lanza and Staten Island DA Dan Donovan.

So while the party has no money they will now be spending a significant amount on polling to see who they will clear the field for to replace Vito. This just a month after the NRCC added Fossella to their Regain our Majority Program. Maybe they knew they would lose this seat and were thinking long term?

NRCC deems Fossella vulnerable but can they help?

The NRCC has decided to try and bail out a flailing Fossella campaign by adding him to their Regain Our Majority Program, which despite its name seems to only funnel money to incumbents and is more of a 'Retain What We Have Program'. While their naming and spin are funny what may top that is that they probably have a worse fund raising cycle than Vito Fossella.

Steve Harrison sent out a campaign emailing hitting him on this;

The GOP has finally learned that supporters of the Harrison campaign are serious about getting America working again.

Earlier this week, the Regain Our Majority Program (ROMP) released a list of Republican candidates who will need even more aid to attempt to hold on to their seats.

You guessed it – Vito Fossella is on that list.

As of March 30, 2008 the NRCC has $7 million cash on hand to their rival the DCCC's $44.3 million. But before they start giving Fossella any money there are a few special elections for open formerly held Republican seats that they would like to keep and thus have to spend a little money on. Unfortunately one of those seats, IL-14 IL-04, Dennis Hassert's former seat went to Democrat Rep. Bill Foster, but not before the NRCC dropped $1.2 million into the race. This happened in March, so it is already accounted for in the NRCC's money and won't come out of that $7 million but is good to see how they are being forced to waste all of their resources before fall. This seat by the way has an R +4.5 PVI, meaning it is generally 6 points more favorable to Republicans than Fossella's seat.

Next up is MS-01, which as a R +10 PVI. The NRCC dropped $300,000 into that only to come up second, but forcing a run-off in a district that easily went for Bush. The Democratic candidate took 49.3% of the vote and is in very good shape to take this seat considering how extremely Republican leaning it is. Now MS-01 will have to go another round of elections and certainly more money will be spent. Chances are the Republican candidate spent everything trying to win this the first time so most resources will have to come from the NRCC coffers. This has to make Republicans everywhere cringe.

Then there is LA-06, R+7 PVI, where the NRCC has already dropped $250,000 and will certainly spend more as the May election approaches.

The NRCC has already spent over $550,000 in just those two races, and neither are over, that is not going to go into to saving Fossella's seat. So the NRCC is going to bail out Fossella, but who is going to bail out the NRCC?

update: New totals in. The NRCC is now in for $570,518 in MS-01 and $312,206 in LA-06. They will have spent well over $1 million trying to protect these extremely Republican seats.

NRCC lists Fossella as vulnerable

His own party is now resorting to throwing money at his campaign and essentially creating a fire wall to stop the loses coming their way this November. Minority Leader Rep. Boehner (R-OH) has created a fund raising effort humorously called Regain Our Majority Program whose mission so far is to protect Republican incumbents including Rep. Vito Fossella. Via CQPolitics;

It’s not uncommon for congressional leaders to steer fundraising assistance to party candidates who are in difficult races and in need of extra campaign cash. One such effort is the House Republicans’ “ROMP,” an acronym for Regain Our Majority Program, which has released its latest list of Republican candidates who will benefit from additional aid because they are politically vulnerable and/or have been targeted by the Democrats for defeat.

The NRCC is significantly out fund raised by its Democratic rival the DCCC. They are facing serious problems recruiting top tier candidates. They have already lost the seat held by the former Speaker of the House Hastert in a special election and polling shows them down in special elections in Louisiana and Mississippi where they typically win easily. Republicans are in a world of hurt right now and are going to spend money protecting their vulnerable seats instead of going on the offensive. While Fossella has brushed aside the notion that Harrison and Recchia will be a tough campaign for him, his own party sees things differently and they are panicking.

Tom Wrobleski will probably think otherwise but Vito is vulnerable and now both sides recognize it.

Vito Fossella's ex-treasurer Chris Ward stole $740,000 from NRCC

This story keeps getting better. Today we learn Chris Ward stole $740,000 from the NRCC. via Roll Call;

An ongoing investigation into accounting irregularities at the NRCC has determined that ex-committee Treasurer Christopher J. Ward allegedly funnelled "several hundred thousand dollars" from the NRCC into his own bank accounts since at least 2004. The probe has also found that Ward submitted to the NRCC’s bank and to House GOP leadership "bogus" audit reports for years 2002-2005, with an additional "bogus" audit report provided to the NRCC’s bank for 2006.

An NRCC document detailing this information and prepared for the NRCC executive committee for presentation this afternoon represents the first time Ward has been publicly named by the NRCC as the culprit in the accounting scandal.

Even better possibly than this being Fossella's treasurer is that the NRCC now has $740,000 less to support floundering incumbents like Fossella.

The NRCC's statement. Oh and they lost nearly $1 million in 2006 too. Who wants to take a closer look at Fossella's books?

More Chris Ward, more possible bad news for Fossella

So remember Vito Fossella had to fire his treasurer Chris Ward after we found out he was under investigation by the FBI. Now it might be getting worse for Fossella.

via TPM Muckracker;

The FBI is currently investigating, and it's not clear yet why Ward was so keen to hide the real numbers. But as the Times reports this morning, the signs are not good. NRCC internal audits since Ward's discovery show that "hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen." And it gets worse: there are apparently indications that "the financial irregularities might extend beyond the national committee to the campaign funds of individual Republican lawmakers who also worked with Mr. Ward, a longtime party operative."

Bold text my own. Up to this point Chris Ward has just been another unfortunate corrupt individual tied to Fossella, but there was no indication that this issue was bigger than just his misdeeds at the NRCC.

NRCC preparing to save Vito Fossella?

I have said several times before that Vito Fossella can not rely on the National Republican Congressional Campaign to come in and throw money into his race if it is looking bad for him this fall. They are devastatingly underfunded and having the FBI investigating their accounting is not helping. But news comes today that they may be preparing fire wall plans including Vito Fossella's seat;

Republicans also are defending seats in very expensive media markets. In the New York City media market, the NRCC will have to decide how much to spend on the New Jersey open seats (the 3rd and 7th districts) and Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays' 4th district seat. The NRCC will also have to decide if Democratic target Rep. Vito Fossella needs help in New York's 13th district.

Certainly there are more doubts about Vito Fossella holding onto his seat than there were this time in 2006.

DCCC to go after Rep. Vito Fossella

We hoped. We saw signs. Now it is official. Rep. Van Hollen released a list of the 40 House seats he has on his radar as chairman of the DCCC. Rep. Vito Fossella is one of those targeted seats. Clearly the DCCC believes they can make major gains in NY with four seats on this list (NY13, 25, 26, 29). via Roll Call;

"We're now letting our base know, our supporters around the country know, that it's critical that they now start directing resources to some of our key challengers," Van Hollen said. "We think we've done a good job putting our Frontliners in good shape."

Remember this is even more of an impact given the Republican counterpart to the DCCC, the NRCC like Fossella is in debt and nearly out of money and currently won't be able to bail out Fossella's campaign or even match the DCCC spending here.

h/t to MyDD

Politico on Fossella's abysmal finances

The Politico puts together a run down of House members who have low, or in Rep. Fossella's case abysmal fund raising numbers. We knew his numbers were going to take a big hit after he lost one of his committee seats, but his fund raising efforts are starting to surprising political insiders.

$50,286 - Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.)
$115,249 - Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
$108,336 - Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio)
$206,084 - Rep. John R. Kuhl (R-N.Y.)
$376,692 - Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.)

He has less than half what the next closest House member, Rep. Schmidt has. On top of that he already has one of the most expense media markets, but no one on this list comes close. Rep. Lamborn serves in a Denver suburb and Rep. Schmidt more than likely has to compete with Cincinnati markets. Neither can compare with NYC and they have more money for a cheaper market. Fossella's numbers really are surprising pathetic for a ten year incumbent. His party has to be cringing at the thought he is making this a much easier pick up opportunity.

Speaking of his party remember that the RNCC has more debt than cash and more likely than not will not be able to throw cash into this race on his behalf should polls start showing this as close as it is.

update
via CQPolitics;

The DCCC spent $2.7 million in November, leaving it with $30.6 million in cash on hand, according to FEC reports. The NRCC, meanwhile, spent $2.9 million — more money than it raised for the month. It lags way behind the Democrats in cash on hand, with just $2.3 million.

DCCC plays offense, but will they play here?

via Politico;

"With a huge cash advantage over the National Republican Congressional Committee, Van Hollen and Emanuel are cautioning their colleagues that the DCCC wants to have money to put into 40 challenger races next year — and if these vulnerable Democrats are not facing serious races or any effort by the National Republican Congressional Committee to unseat them, the DCCC will spend its resources elsewhere."

This is for the most part only interesting news in this district because if you recall earlier this year the DCCC listed Vito Fossella as one of the most ethically corrupt members of Congress that they were going to target as part of their effort to put 35 seats in play. They are now talking about putting 40 seats in play mostly because the DCCC holds a $23.4 million to $9.5 million cash advantage over the NRCC.

On the opposite side remember that hte horrible fund raising by Vito Fossella's NRCC means he is likely to receive little to no help from them in terms of cash infusions or attack ads on his behalf. The only reason that may change would be if they believe Fossella is in trouble and want to include him as part of their firewall, or fall back line where they will focus on stopping their loses.

Fossella learns from the NRCC

via The Hill;

A New York man who pleaded not guilty last week to charges of supporting terrorism contributed about $15,000 to the House Republicans' campaign committee and claimed to be involved with the Senate Republicans' campaign committee in recent years.

SNIP

An indictment states Alishtari accepted money to send $152,000 to Afghanistan and Pakistan to support a terrorist training camp. He is charged with terrorism financing, material support of terrorism and money laundering, and faces 95 years in prison.

SNIP

"We are extremely concerned and disturbed by these charges, but we need to be careful not to rush to judgment as the judicial process moves forward," NRCC spokeswoman Jessica Boulanger said.

This means that the NRCC is going to hold on to his money, just like Fossella is holding on to Tom DeLay's $10,000 in contributions.