NRCC head: GOP 'far ahead' of where it was by this time in 1994

Republicans' campaign efforts are "far ahead" of where they were the year before they took back the House in 1994, the leader of their midterm campaign efforts asserted Monday.

Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), said that key components of the GOP's 2010 election campaign were ahead of the cycle when they last took back the House.

"In terms of candidate recruitment, fundraising, and issue development, we are far ahead of where we were at this point in 1993 — and you remember what happened in ’94," Sessions told the conservative website Human Events in an interview posted Monday.

That claim mirrors a Republican meme that has been growing as GOP lawmakers go into 2010 more confident that they have a shot to make inroads into Democrats' 256-vote majority in the House.

"If you are not interested in winning and making [Minority Leader] John Boehner [R-Ohio] Speaker of the House, then I don’t have time for you," Sessions said in the interview, in which he defended the NRCC's support for more centrist candidates in some districts in order to win back some seats lost in the 2006 and 2008 landslides for Democrats.

"Candidates are flocking to us, wanting to run in districts against Democratic congressmen that most folks wrote off as unbeatable years ago," Sessions said.