NRCC Audit: It’s everyone else’s fault

The  National Republican Congressional Committee's internal audit, which was leaked to Politico last Friday, is required reading for anyone who cares about the state of the Congressional GOP.  Politico’s main takeaway was the audit’s advice to “avoid the party brand,” but they missed the deeper problem the audit revealed – that the NRCC’s head is still firmly planted in the sand. 

The NRCC is one of the party’s cornerstone political institutions and it’s badly in need of reform.  After such a disastrous ’06 cycle and the debacle of three straight special election losses in very solid Republican districts it’s clear that the committee needs a serious house cleaning.  The tragedy is that while the NRCC has shown in the past it knows how to win, they're now badly, perhaps fatally, off course.  This audit shouldn't inspire confidence in incumbents or challengers.

The NRCC’s audit makes three key claims…

1)  It’s not our fault, the candidates were flawed!

2)  It’s not our fault, the candidates’ tactics and strategies were bad!

3)  It’s not our fault, traditional Republican messages just didn’t work!

…and none of these claims hold up:

1)  Let's be political realists: It’s the NRCC’s job to play in primaries when one candidate will be a clear disaster.  It's their job to encourage people who can run competitive races and win to step up to the political plate.  In these hardcore GOP districts we should be able to find winning candidates, even in 2008.

2) The NRCC plays a massive role in picking campaigns’ consultants and strategy.  You've all heard the stories.  "You can choose whoever you want for mail or media or phones or polling... but unless you pick so-and-so we're very concerned for the outcome of your campaign and we might not be able to be as helpful."  But of course, when the campaigns run by their hand picked staff and strategists lose, the campaigns' strategic blunders are the candidate's fault.

3) If “traditional Republican messages” are so bad then maybe the NRCC shouldn’t have used them for their IE campaigns in all three districts.  Many of the pieces they ran in these campaigns looked like they came straight from 1998, not 2008.

This is a problem too important to be whitewashed.  The NRCC is facing an existential problem here: the donor community is going to have a tough time signing checks to the committee in the coming months if by their own admission they've lost the power to win races and have made it very clear they aren't going to change.

A final note.  I’ve heard scores of stories about NRCC corruption, shenanigans and strategic blunders over the years, some of which I’ll be writing about.  If you’ve got any of your own, post them in the comments section.