[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

When the National Republican Congressional Committee turned to longtime Stockton developer Dean Andal to challenge incumbent Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney this fall, the GOP probably figured Andal if anything would be able to build a sizeable fundraising advantage thanks to his network of wealthy developer friends. Apparently, they overestimated Andal’s ability to tap into the GOP money machine.
 
According to today’s FEC filings, Andal raised only $90,313.45 in the first quarter of 2008. And of that amount, Andal spent more than $42,000 – almost half.
 
In comparison, the McNerney campaign raised more than three times Andal’s amount – more than $329,000 – adding to the Congressman’s substantial cash-on-hand advantage. Of that amount, more than $51,000 was raised from small, grassroots donors in amounts of $200 or less.

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by downwithtyranny [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

In recent days we've been talking about how incompetent individual Republican congressmen have been as guardians and stewards of public money. The current catastrophe on Wall Street flows directly out a GOP ideology of greed and selfishness that takes the laissez faire approach to such extremes that abuses, like the ones being exposed now, are positively invited. But that isn't the only financial scandal congressional Republicans are choking on. We've talked about the billions of dollars "missing" in the Iraq mess, missing meaning stolen by defense contractors who are kicking it back to their Republican patrons. With a policy of GOP obstructionism in full force, it will take Henry Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform years to sort that all out. But still another Republican financial mess is one they actually do want to get to the bottom of-- and pronto.  

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Poor Karen Hanretty. She takes a job as the chief flack for the Congressional Republicans (that's bad enough). Her first major role is trying to defend the historic turnover of ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat to a Democrat. And now there's grumbling in the ranks about her first week on the job from fellow Republicans.
 
Gee, it sounds just like the California Republican Party she left.
 
Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, has the story: 

Republicans took a big hit on Saturday, when a Democrat won the seat that had once belonged to former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), in a special election. And as if there wasn’t enough for GOPers to grumble about, now some are grousing that Karen Hanretty, the new communications guru for the National Republican Congressional Committee, was out mixing and mingling with Washington’s glitterati at the annual Gridiron dinner on Saturday, while her staff was back at NRCC headquarters working the phones.

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by Sandra Verthein [courtesy of Blog for America]

We did it!

On Saturday, March 8th Democrat Bill Foster became our newest member of congress, beating Jim Oberweis to win the seat that had been occupied by Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert for the last 20+ years. Turnout was absolutly key in this race, so kudos to all of our Northside DFA members who made phone calls and walked precincts to Get Out The Vote for this election -- ya' done good!

The bonus? Not only do we get a new Congressman who ran on a solid platform of getting out of Iraq, health care, and opposition to FISA immunity, but this makes things look even better for our other Illinois congressional races, like our adopted candidate Democrat Dan Seals, who is running against Republican Mark Kirk in the 10th Congressional District. Some points from an analysis in the Baltimore Sun (bolding is mine):

* Oberweis' loss will fan fears that Illinois demographics are trending away from Republicans. [...] Other Republicans in similar seats outside of Chicago - including Reps. Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam - are surely taking notice of that trend.

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[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Dixon, Illinois, the birthplace of Ronald Reagan and heretofore solidly Republican territory, just voted to replace former Speaker Denny Hastert with Democrat Bill Foster. And, it wasn't even close.
 
Apparently, not enjoying his new status as a rank and file Member, Hastert resigned his seat in late-2007. Thus, on Saturday Illinois held a special election to fill the remainder of Hastert's term. Democrat Bill Foster beat Republican Jim Oberweiss by a margin of approximately 53% - 47%. Oberweiss is well known and was well funded. In addition to his own substantial wallet, the cash strapped National Republican Congressional Committee pumped $1 million into the race. With three open seats in Illinois to defend, the GOP pulled out all stops to retain what should have been an easy win.

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[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) just compiled its target list for this cycle. Like a kid who makes out his list for Santa, despite Pop losing his job, the NRCC is greedy, unrealistic and likely to be disappointed.  How unrealistic is the NRCC?  Well, so unrealistic that NRCC is more likely to get a lump of coal than the seats it is targeting.
 
According to Roll Call (subscription required), "The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting 23 Democratic incumbents, including several freshmen, and one open seat." The only Californian included on the list obtained by Roll Call is Jerry McNerney.
 
The NRCC's efforts this cycle have been plagued by record-level GOP retirements -- 29 and counting. Republican House Members have been jumping ship faster than third class passengers on the Titanic. Republican officials are so alarmed at the rate of retirements that they persuaded one retiree, John Shadegg from Arizona, to reconsider his decision. Shadegg did just that.