The Senate Republican campaign committee’s motto from early on in the 2008 cycle has been “Two Seats” — the net gain it needs in November to retake the majority.

But a resigned National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) said this week that goal is a “very long stretch” at this point, and he conceded that recruitment failures and an unhelpful Senate GOP conference have hindered his efforts in what was already a perilous cycle.

Ensign said about half of the Senate’s 49 GOP members are “not even close” to being on pace to raise the amount of money they are expected to for the committee and fellow candidates. The members are expected to raise between $750,000 and $3 million, depending on seniority and stature.

Ensign stressed that five GOP senators have already exceeded their goals and said some members – particularly Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) – are seen more and more frequently at NRSC headquarters. But it’s become clear they are there to save their GOP colleagues and their open seats, rather than go after control of the Senate.

“There is no question that getting back in the majority now, because of some of the recruiting – some of these just terrific candidates that we wanted ended up not running – would be a very long stretch,” Ensign said. “That’s the best way I can say it.”

Ensign describes his job as challenging and did not hesitate when asked if he is ruling out running the NRSC next cycle: “That’s correct. … The job’s very important, and I think it is good that it is only a two-year cycle. I can’t believe [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] is doing this for four years.”

In recent days, wealthy businesswoman Anne Estabrook (R) dropped out of the race in New Jersey, a large-scale recruiting effort failed on former South Dakota Lt. Gov. Steve Kirby (R), and the filing period passed for Sen. Mark Pryor’s (D-Ark.) seat without one GOP candidate on the ballot.

The filing deadline for two other targeted races, Iowa and Montana, is Friday and Thursday, respectively, and no major or well-funded candidate has yet signed up for either one.

With the West Virginia deadline already passed, the committee is basically limited to recruiting in New Jersey and South Dakota. It has less than a month, though Ensign said he hopes to have an answer from a candidate in the latter this weekend.

Ensign currently has top recruits only in Louisiana and, arguably, Massachusetts, where retired Air Force Lt. Col. Jim Ogonowski (R) is trying to build on his special House election campaign last year and running against Sen. John Kerry (D).

Ensign called the Massachusetts race a sleeper but said the failures have a lot to do with bad luck, including potential candidates in Iowa and New Jersey who couldn’t get out of business obligations.

He would not say who those potential recruits were.

“We had a full-court press on Steve Kirby; we had everyone calling him – everybody, including myself, multiple times,” Ensign said. “At the end of the day, unfortunately, he didn’t make the decision that we wanted him to make, because he would have been a top-notch candidate. He could have won that race.”

But a lack of targets hardly means a lack of action. Ensign could have to defend upwards of 12 Republican-held seats in November, as Democrats have landed solid candidates in even some long-shot races.

Member giving and fundraising is a huge part of assembling the funds necessary, and Ensign said that aspect of his job is looking up, even though lots of members are still slacking off.

The financial woes are not limited to the committee, which has less than half of its Democratic counterpart’s $30 million in cash on hand. The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute issued a report Thursday that showed incumbent Democrats up for reelection raised, on average, $1.2 million more than Senate Republicans with expiring terms did in 2007, and that Democratic open seat candidates raised about $1.4 million to their GOP counterparts’ $800,000.

Ensign said the leadership is using future committee assignments as incentives and threats, and that the conference is and should continue to move away from seniority-based assignments.

“There are different ways to motivate people,” Ensign said. “We’ve tried fear, we’ve tried positive reward, positive reinforcement, we’ve tried being a little harder on them, we use different things at different times – begging, we begged a lot.”

Asked about members’ excuses, he added half-jokingly: “I think they’re all pathetic excuses, but that’s just my own take on it.”