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With seven months until the 2008 elections and filing deadlines now coming and going, House Republicans face a significant number of recruiting holes.
Some of them can still be filled in the coming months. Others have seen the window of opportunity close.
Already, deadlines have passed without top-tier challengers for at least three of the 30 seats Democrats took over in 2006, including solidly GOP districts held by freshman Democrats Heath Shuler (N.C.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.) and Zack Space (Ohio). All went at least 57 percent for President Bush in 2004, yet will not feature big-name GOP challengers.
At the same time, the party’s recruiting season is not finished, as it approaches a new round of deadlines in several other districts, including the open seats of indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) and retiring Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), as well as a quartet of New York seats that are still in limbo.
Reviews of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) recruiting have been mixed, with some harshly critical and others focusing on individual successes.
Whatever the case, the GOP’s less hands-on approach this year, compared with the strategy taken by Democrats, has produced some holes.
David Wasserman, a House race analyst with the Cook Political Report, said that given the environment, isolated examples of the GOP’s recruiting have been “impressive,” but that their offensive capabilities won’t be strong enough to have a real shot at retaking the House.
“The GOP seems to be able to find candidates to defend its own turf, but if the name of the game is knocking off incumbents, they simply don’t have the numbers to get to 16 seats,” Wasserman said.
Some GOP insiders have bemoaned the NRCC’s recruiting shortcomings. One top GOP consultant said the effort has “been a disaster.”
“The approach to recruiting has been weak, and it’s driven by a staff that doesn’t know the districts they’re recruiting in,” the consultant said. “[Chairman Tom] Cole [Okla.] can’t do everything, and he’s been let down by those who serve him.”
While the last of the major deadlines passed Monday on a poor recruiting cycle for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), House Republicans will have a few months to right the ship in some of their top-targeted districts.
The biggest recruiting challenge for the GOP going forward will be in New York, where the filing deadline isn’t until July but Democrats have used their sizable head starts to raise gobs of money.
Republicans don’t yet have top candidates for the seats of freshman Reps. John Hall (D) and Michael Arcuri (D), who both defeated GOP incumbents in 2006, nor for the open seats of retiring Reps. James Walsh (R) and Tom Reynolds (R).
Republicans have acknowledged their shortcomings in Hall’s district, where it has been more than four months since millionaire businessman Andrew Saul dropped out of the GOP primary.
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