OT - GOP = "Only the Rich need apply"

GOP is rapidly becoming the 5% party. That is, they really and truly
represent only the top 5% of the richest people in the country. But will
financially squeezed middle-class and working-class people (mostly
whites) still fall for the "you'll be one of us one day" hook?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/us/politics/26recruit.html?hp

November 26, 2007
Short of Funds, G.O.P. Recruits the Rich to Run
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 ? Confronting an enormous fund-raising gap with
Democrats, Republican Party officials are aggressively recruiting
wealthy candidates who can spend large sums of their own money to
finance their Congressional races, party officials say.

At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional
Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen
competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those where
Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most
vulnerable. They say more are on the way.

These wealthy Republicans have each already invested $100,000 to $1
million of their own money to finance their campaigns, according to
campaign finance disclosure reports and interviews with party
strategists. Experts say that is a large amount for this early in the
cycle.

In New York?s 20th Congressional District, in the Albany area, Alexander
Treadwell, an independently wealthy former State Republican Party
chairman, has invested more than $320,000 of his money in a race that
Republicans predict will cost each candidate at least $3 million.

While Mr. Treadwell, the grandson of a founding executive of General
Electric, plans to raise money from donors, he has privately told party
officials that he is ready to invest more of his money to unseat
Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a freshman Democrat, Republicans
close to him said.

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the House Republicans? campaign committee,
said that the recruiting effort has made the party more competitive
heading into the elections.

?We have been very fortunate in our recruiting efforts,? he said. ?There
will be a number of credible Republican challengers running for Congress
next year that happen to have access to personal financial resources.
They are in position to run strong, well-financed grass-roots campaigns
next year in some of our top targeted districts.?

But Democrats, who have been closely monitoring the Republican
millionaires, assert that the recruiting underscores the Republicans?
financial weakness since they lost control of Congress in 2006.

The most recent figures show that the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee has raised $56.6 million and has $29.2 million at its
disposal. By contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee
has raised $40.7 million with a cash balance of $2.5 million.

That is a striking turnabout for the Republicans, who have outraised the
Democrats by considerable margins for years. As recently as 2006, the
Republican Congressional campaign committee raised $40 million more than
its Democratic counterpart, $179.5 million to $139.9 million.

?National Republicans are in disarray, forcing them to recruit
inexperienced and unprepared self-funders,? said Doug Thornell, a
spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Self-financed, deep-pocketed Congressional candidates are nothing new
for either party, and the Democrats have their own share for 2008. But
the Democrats do not have a concerted campaign to find such candidates,
they say, while the Republicans describe the recruitment of these
candidates as central to their plan for the 2008 elections.

There were 14 Republicans who had already contributed at least $100,000
to their own campaigns, compared with nine at the same point in the
2005-6 election cycle, according to an analysis of campaign finance
reports and interviews with strategists. (One of those candidates is an
incumbent and one recently dropped out.) Republicans say they are in
discussions with other wealthy potential candidates, but declined to say
how many. In particular, party leaders are targeting Democrats from
districts that President Bush won in 2004.

Party strategists note that a 2002 rule known as the millionaires?
amendment has tended to discourage wealthy candidates from pouring large
sums into their own campaigns early on. The rule raises campaign
contribution ceilings to candidates whose opponents spend large amounts
of their own money.

The Republican recruiting process typically starts with party
strategists identifying wealthy contributors, businessmen or individuals
who have helped finance their own races in the past. Party officials
then try to provide extra help developing strategies and finding
consultants and staff.

Earlier this year, Republican strategists seeking a candidate for the
Eighth Congressional District in Illinois met with Steve Greenberg, a
wealthy businessman who was thinking about running for the United States
Senate against Senator Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat.

Over several meetings at the party?s headquarters in Washington, those
strategists showed Mr. Greenberg charts and maps of the district?s
demographic and voting patterns to make the case that he could unseat
the two-term Democratic incumbent, Representative Melissa Bean.

The pitch worked: Mr. Greenberg, who owns Herr?s Pacific, a chain of
stores that sell art supplies and craft materials, entered the race,
telling party leaders that he was willing to spend his own money to run
the campaign, party officials said.

National party strategists have not made any endorsements, because some
of the candidates face primary challenges. Other wealthy Republican
candidates who have been privately wooed include James D. Oberweis, an
Illinois dairy magnate who is seeking to replace Representative J.
Dennis Hastert, the former House speaker, who is retiring; Mike
Erickson, a business executive seeking to unseat Representative Darlene
Hooley, an Oregon Democrat; and Ed Tinsley, the owner of a restaurant
franchiser, who is running for an open House seat in New Mexico.

Some senior Republicans, frustrated with what they describe as anemic
fund-raising by the party?s House campaign committee, say that luring
wealthy candidates is no easy fix, as it does not guarantee victory.
?I?ve seen many a rich guy blow cash and still not become a member of
Congress,? said one top House Republican, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing his
colleagues.

This Republican and others argued that ready access to large sums of
money was no substitute for a candidate with the personal qualities and
political assets needed to meet the demands of a modern campaign, from
an unflappable manner on the trail to an established network of allies
and supporters.

In fact, past elections show that candidates who spend large sums of
their own money frequently end up losing. In 2006, for example, only 2
of the 10 candidates who spent the most of their own money on their own
races for House seats won the elections, according to an analysis of
finance records and election results.

The potential limitations of relying on candidates whose most
conspicuous asset is money were on display last week when a millionaire
expected to pour his own money into a Congressional bid in the suburbs
north of New York City abruptly dropped out of the running.

The candidate, Andrew M. Saul, a vice chairman of the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, quit the race after disclosures that he had
raised money from real estate executives seeking business from the
agency. Democrats say Mr. Saul?s aborted campaign shows the inexperience
of the Republicans? wealthy recruits.

But in a campaign when Democrats are trying to expand their majority,
some Republicans argue that candidates able to tap personal fortunes
may, at the very least, help put some Democratic incumbents on the
defensive and thereby tie up money party leaders might otherwise spend
challenging Republican incumbents.

?Democrats have cause for concern,? Mr. Spain said. ?Not only are these
candidates well-funded. But they are running full-blown campaign
operations that are already putting them on the defensive.?

Indeed, in Texas?s 23rd Congressional District, in the San Antonio area,
for example, Francisco Canseco, a wealthy businessman known as Quico,
has invested more than $700,000 of his own money in his campaign. He has
hired a staff, including a pollster, media consultants and fund-raisers,
and has already begun running television advertisements, including
during the San Antonio Spurs? N.B.A. playoff and championship games last
June.

Democrats, in turn, dispatched the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Texas
to headline a fund-raising event for the district?s first-term
Democratic incumbent, Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez, who has $600,000
in his campaign war chest.

Todd Smith, a top adviser to Mr. Canseco, says that the Republican
candidate?s willingness to bankroll his campaign allows him to reach out
to voters earlier than other candidates, who must instead court donors.

?Quico?s investment has given us an opportunity to put a full-scale
campaign operation in place,? he said. ?Right now, you have
Congressional candidates around the country meeting with donors just to
get the funds necessary to run.?



--
If I were a cactus, I wouldn't need so much water
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