NRCC's Target List

The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting 23 Democratic-held seats - including several freshman - and one open seat in this November's elections, Roll Call reports today (subscription). The paper obtained a memo prepared by the NRCC for a March 5 briefing to political action committee officials.

A table that includes receipts and cash-on-hand for the Democrats currently in those seats and the best-funded Republican challengers can be found here. On the list of targets are 10 members of the House Democratic Blue Dog Coalition - a group of moderate-to-conservative Democrats. (Can't have too many of those centrist voices up on the Hill, now can we?)

Some of the names include: Florida Rep. Tim Mahone, D-16th (who was catapulted to the Hill after news of former Rep. Mark Foley's X-rated e-mails with Capital pages surfaced), New York Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-20th (who represents parts of upstate New York, is expected her second child in May and who made the cover of the latest issue of National Journal - due out Friday - as one of the "new players in the ideological middle of the House"), and Texas Rep. Nick Lampson, D-22th (who had major heart surgery last year and considered running for the Senate seat of Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn). Republicans have been chomping at the bit to reclaim that seat, which was vacated in 1996 by the departure of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. There were 10 GOP candidates heading into the March 4 primary hoping to oust Lampson.

Also making the list is Kansas Rep. Dennis Moore, D-3rd, who is serving his fifth term. The NRCC just today lobbed a grenade specifically against Moore, saying that he "made history" late last night as he and other Democrats on the House Budget Committee voted to "pave the way toward the largest tax increase in American history, totaling a whopping $683 billion." The panel approved a $3 trillion FY2009 budget plan at 12:30 a.m. this morning. "Moore's irresponsible actions are unacceptable and are yet another clear indication that Moore has grown out of touch with the voters of Kansas' rd Congressional District," NRCC spokesman Ken Spain said.

Yesterday, the NRCC issued another press release targeting Moore and fellow Kansas Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda (also on the target list, representing the 2nd district), for their votes on terrorist surveillance.

But the NRCC is going to need big cash infusions if they want to win those seats. The Campaign Finance Institute recently found that Democrats in competitive House races have been raising unprecedented amounts of cash, while Republican challengers have been raising about the same amount as they were two years ago. In 2007, Democratic incumbents with announced challengers raised 29 percent more than their GOP incumbent counterparts. In 2005, that same set of Republican incumbents raised 16 percent more than those on the other side of the aisle. The financial picture is better for Democrats than Republicans battling for open seats. Among the 30 contested races for freshman members, the 24 Democratic incumbents have raised more, on average, than their GOP counterparts.

Today on MyDD.com, in a post about the NRCC spending buckets of money to keep the seat vacated by former House Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., directs readers to the NRCC's latest campaign filings, which show that the group had $6.4 million cash on hand, in comparison to the $35.5 million the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had, at the end of January.

Seems like the success of Barack Obama - the fundraising phenom - has been rubbing off. In case you hadn't heard everywhere else today, Obama raised a whopping $55 million for his presidential bid last month alone.

I'm shaking my head in disgust - once again - at the amount of money being dumped into this race, thinking about what other great causes that money could be used for instead of a $17.6 million media buy and $1.6 million in paper mailings.