GOP's strength elsewhere backfires on party in Ohio
By Joe Hallett
The Columbus Dispatch
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele conceded today that the national party will shortchange its Ohio affiliate this election cycle, but he portrayed it as a positive effect of the GOP's unexpected competitiveness in many other states.
Riding his "Fire Pelosi" luxury bus to a state GOP campaign office on Dublin Road, Steele told reporters after addressing about 50 volunteers that there will be "a reduction in what Ohio has gotten in the past," confirming the fears of Ohio GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine.
"I'll take whatever he sends and spend it wisely and appropriately," DeWine said after acknowledging that he sent a letter to Steele complaining about the RNC's allotment to the state party.
The $556,900 that the state GOP received from the national party is well short of the $1.1 million promised and "simply pales in comparison to the investment of the previous three cycles," DeWine said in the letter. The national party gave the Ohio GOP nearly $5 million for the 2006 campaign.
DeWine told Steele in the letter that the state party needed the full $1.1 million, plus an additional $1 million, "to fortify our ground game" against a vaunted get-out-the-vote drive by the Ohio Democratic Party.
After warmly introducing Steele today, DeWine declined to discuss the letter beyond confirming that he sent it. He refused to say whether the Ohio GOP would get more money from the national party, but he said it will have enough to counter Democrats' voter-turnout effort.
"We can't match them dollar for dollar," DeWine said. "We will match them with intensity and will be able to do what needs to get done for our candidates."
Steele said a favorable political climate has expanded the national playing field for the Republican organization, requiring it to spread out its resources to an uncommon number of congressional districts now deemed winnable in the party's bid to wrest control of the U.S. House from Democrats.
"If we're going to take back the House, we're going to have to be in some congressional districts and some states that we wouldn't ordinarily be in," Steele said. "We're competing in 100 congressional districts around the country. That's a whole different thing for us."
Steele and DeWine said they had discussed DeWine's funding request, and both said, separately and vaguely, "We're on the same page."
The national party has raised $154 million since Steele became chairman last year, about $90 million less than in the 2006 campaign cycle.
Robert T. Bennett, the former Ohio GOP chairman who was among party officials and candidates to greet Steele, said national fundraising is down because more money from Republican givers has flowed to independent groups since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision this year allowing corporations and unions to donate unlimited amounts.
"There's a lot of competing groups out there right now, and that's made it difficult for Chairman Steele to raise money," Bennett said.
Steele has been touring aboard his bus emblazoned with the script: "Need a job? Fire Pelosi." It refers to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat. Today, Steele made stops in Columbus and Zanesville.
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