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.

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.

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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.