{"id":14883,"date":"2008-03-13T12:45:38","date_gmt":"2008-03-13T16:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14883.html"},"modified":"2008-03-13T12:45:38","modified_gmt":"2008-03-13T16:45:38","slug":"nrcc-exploits-spitzer-successfully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/nrcc-exploits-spitzer-successfully\/","title":{"rendered":"NRCC exploits Spitzer — successfully?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Republican Congressional Committee, in light of its many problems<\/a>, has become something of a punch-line lately. As retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va), a former NRCC chairman, put it<\/a>, “The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they’d take it off the shelf.”<\/p>\n

But the Republicans’ House campaign committee keeps plugging along. In some instances, logic be damned, it even gets what it wants.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, within a few hours of the Eliot Spitzer scandal breaking, the NRCC hoped to connect<\/a> the governor’s controversy to some of New York’s House Democrats. The committee sent out emails about Dems with titles such as, “Will John Hall Return Spitzer’s Sleazy Money?”<\/p>\n

Even The Corner dismissed<\/a> the NRCC’s efforts as being “a public relations exercise with no basis in moral reality.”<\/p>\n

What I didn’t expect at all was for New York Dems to actually give in<\/a> to this nonsense.<\/p>\n

“New York Democrats should resign themselves to giving up the disgraced Governor’s sleazy cash before it’s too late and they find themselves being escorted out of office by the voters in November,” said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain.<\/p>\n

Even after Spitzer resigned, the NRCC sent out a news release bashing three-term Rep. Timothy H. Bishop (D-N.Y.) for taking a $2,000 campaign donation from Spitzer.<\/p>\n

“Will Tim Bishop Return Spitzer’s Sleazy Money?” the headline blared. Noting that Bishop ran on an ethics reform platform, the GOP release asked, “Will Democrat Tim Bishop live up to his promise of holding elected officials to a higher standard or will he run and hide from his campaign promises once again?”<\/p>\n

Bishop quickly gave the money to charity, and in a statement said he was livid at Republicans for making Spitzer’s donations a campaign issue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then why did Bishop do what the NRCC demanded?
\n
\n“That the NRCC is attempting to link this shocking and disturbing situation to individuals who clearly had nothing to do with it points to their utter desperation,” Bishop said. “If such smear campaigns are all they have to offer, then they are destined to remain in the minority for a long time.”<\/p>\n

That’s all true, but the appropriate response, then, is to ignore<\/i> the NRCC’s absurd demands, not actually give away the amount of Spitzer’s support.<\/p>\n

What’s more, it’s not just Bishop. The NRCC went after Eric Massa, a Democratic House candidate, for accepting a contribution from Spitzer, and Massa also returned the cash. (Update: I spoke with the Massa campaign, which explained that he actually donated the money to a local charity, and didn’t “return” the money.)<\/p>\n

Isn’t this only going to encourage the NRCC to pull similarly nonsensical stunts in the future?<\/p>\n

It’s likely that the Dems just decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. Spitzer paid for sex, and they didn’t want to keep his campaign contributions and be associated with him. Fine.<\/p>\n

But with this in mind, CREW raises a good point<\/a> today:<\/p>\n

In light of the National Republican Congressional Committee\u2019s call for candidates and members of Congress to return soon-to-be former Gov. Eliot Spitzer\u2019s (D) donations, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wonders why members and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have not returned Sen. David Vitter\u2019s (R-LA) contributions. As widely reported, Sen. Vitter has solicited prostitutes in the past. Rather than being condemned and ostracized, Sen. Vitter received a standing ovation at a Republican Caucus luncheon after his transgressions became public.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point, I suspect the Vitter-Spitzer comparison is growing tiresome, but it’s actually helpful in this case. The NRCC insists that Democratic lawmakers shouldn’t keep contributions from someone caught hiring a prostitute. It stands to reason, then, that Republican lawmakers should also not keep contributions from someone caught hiring a prostitute.<\/p>\n

If so, CREW published a list of all kinds of GOP officials and campaign committees who’ve benefitted from Vitter’s generosity. Bishop and Massa returned Spitzer’s money — should we expect these Republicans to do the same with Vitter’s money?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Republican Congressional Committee, in light of its many problems, has become something of a punch-line lately. As retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va), a former NRCC chairman, put it, “The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they’d take it off the shelf.” But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}