Republicans still short on cash

The GOP sets fund-raising quotas for House Representatives depending on their status. Those in the leadership positions are expected to raise more money than other Representatives.
It's not looking very good, either. Less than half of their "target" has been met so far.

Rep. Davis of Virginia has only raised $50,000 of the $605,000 he was expected to come up with, and he is the head of the NRCC. On the Senate side, the NRSC had $19.4 million on hand as of April 30. The Democratic counterpart had $37.6 million on hand, by comparison.

One of the reasons that we are seeing so much slander from Republicans this cycle is because it generates free media attention. A campaign can come up with any kind baseless charge or rumour, and the media will run with it without investigation, qualifying it with the cryptic "some are saying...", and the opponent's campaign will then have to spend money debunking and discrediting it.

Obviously, the Republican's cash shortfall will reduce the number and quality of ad buys. It will also, however, restrict the number and quality of promotional events and campaign workers. And with Republican enthusiasm markedly down this cycle, it will be harder to fill volunteer positions. The only upside is that Bush's economic policies have created more unemployed people with more free time to work on campaigns for free, but that's a factor working in "favour" of both Parties.

Republican House and Senate campaigns have thus far made heavy use of "cookie-cutter" ads, a generic, one-size-fits-all ad in which the candidate's name and picture merely fills in the appropriate blanks. While cheap, it fails to appeal to local issues and ties the candidate to the Bush Administration by virtue of its national nature.

The only good news for the GOP is that the RNC has raised almost double the amount the DNC has raised so far. But this money is for the convention and Presidential campaign, and the McCain ticket is unlikely to boost down-ticket races (e.g. House and Senate) significantly. Also, McCain is generally failing to gain traction against Obama in spite of recent major media buys.


story from AP:

WASHINGTON - House rank and file Republicans are tens of millions of dollars short of meeting fundraising targets set by their own campaign committee in advance of this fall's elections, according to figures circulating among the leadership, heightening concerns inside the party about major losses in November.
Most recent figures show that GOP lawmakers have brought $27 million into the coffers of the National Republican Congressional Committee in the past 17 months, far short of the target of about $58 million. Compounding the challenge, they will soon be asked to raise another $20 million or more to help candidates in selected battleground districts.
...
Republicans concede that the perception of another impending defeat makes potential donors even less inclined to contribute.

On top of this, one of the NRCC's accountants has swindled them out of a lot of money:

Compounding the problem, the committee has spent months trying to untangle the affairs of a former key staff member, Christopher Ward, who is alleged to have stolen at least $725,000 from the organization. An internal probe alleged that the former treasurer used his authority to siphon money from 2001 and 2007. The FBI is also investigating.
Ward's lawyer, Ronald Machen, declined comment on the internal probe. The NRCC said it spent $500,000 to pay for the investigation and another $300,000 to upgrade its accounting operations.

Did they really spend $800,000 chasing after $725,000? It looks that way. The money Ward is alleged to have embezzled is only 1% of the total target amount, and it was allegedly embezzled over a period of six years, so it's not as if this is the big reason for the fund-raising shortfalls.

Overall, the NRCC, which began the election cycle with a debt of more than $10 million, showed cash on hand of $6.7 million as of April 30 in its most recent report to the Federal Election Commission. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reported cash on hand of $45.2 million.