GOP finds recruits to challenge freshman Dems in blue districts

22nd January 2008

GOP finds recruits to challenge freshman Dems in blue districts

By Walter Alarkon

Posted: 01/22/08 12:01 AM [ET] 

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is touting a new batch of challengers who will face freshman Democrats in the House, striking back at Democratic criticism of their recruitment efforts.

In New Hampshire’s 2nd district, radio talk-show host Jennifer Horn is running to replace Rep. Paul Hodes, president of the Democratic freshman class. In Pennsylvania’s 8th district, Tom Manion, whose son was killed in Iraq, this month announced his bid to take on Rep. Patrick Murphy (D), an Iraq war veteran. And in Kentucky’s 3rd district, former Rep. Anne Northup is seriously considering a rematch against Rep. John Yarmuth (D).

All three of the Republicans face uphill battles, running against incumbents in districts that have voted Democratic in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races. But NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) said that the new recruits, at the very least, put the seats into play. And he brushed away suggestions that the GOP candidates were starting too late to make an impact.

“It’s like Anne Northup coming off the bench when the team needs her the most,” he said. “She will be great if she makes the decisions that she has proven she can make, and take a very tough seat and make it instantly credible. It’s not like people don’t know who she is.”

The recent news of the NRCC’s recruits partly reflects the fact that filing deadlines are fast approaching. Democratic strategists, who said last fall that the NRCC was stumbling, remain skeptical of the recruits’ strength.

“This is the sort of promotion you’d expect from a used car salesman selling lemons,” said Doug Thornell, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “Republicans are desperately trying to spin a dire recruitment cycle by touting unknowns, a defeated congresswoman, and recycling already publicized recruits — it stretches the bounds of credulity.”

Democrats have argued that Republicans have yet to find committed top-tier challengers to 13 first-term representatives, including Reps. John Hall (N.Y.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), John Barrow (Ga.), and Ron Klein (Fla.).

But the NRCC is pointing to Horn, Manion and Northup as three of several recruits who could take back seats that Republicans had long held before 2006.

“We have stated all along that we would put together one of the best candidate recruitment classes in years. And we have lived up to our word,” boasted NRCC spokesman Ken Spain.

The NRCC also found a candidate it was not expecting in former U.S. Attorney Wendell Craig Williams, who will challenge Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania’s 7th district. Another NRCC recruit who has been considering a race for months, Arizona Senate President Tim Bee, announced last weekend that he is running against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) in Arizona’s 8th district. And the NRCC is poised to pick up at least one more recruit: Richard Hanna, a Cooperstown businessman exploring a bid against Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.). Hanna could fund his own campaign, something that could help the cash-starved NRCC.

For the Republicans to have a chance, they must raise funds and learn how to campaign quickly, said David Wasserman, House editor of the Cook Political Report.

 “These are races that would have moved into the solid [Democratic] column had it not been for Republicans’ ability to recruit someone,” Wasserman said.

Northup and Horn will benefit from name recognition within their districts, while Hanna, like other recruits the
NRCC has sought, could help by drawing from his own personal wealth.

Northup, in addition to having served five terms in Congress, ran for governor last year, losing to embattled incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.). Horn is known to residents of Nashua, N.H., as a daily radio talk show host and a columnist for the local paper, The Telegraph.

“I’m much more concerned about whether my neighbors are going to be satisfied … than whether Republicans are,” Horn said.

To appeal to swing voters they need to win, the GOP challengers are likely to run on pledges to rein in spending and taxes, which Republicans have charged the Democratic Congress has failed to do.

Hanna, for instance, calls himself a fiscal conservative while emphasizing that he supports abortion rights and has supported local women’s groups and environmental causes.

“For the first time in history, we have a chance to see our children live less well than we do,” he said. “In [upstate] New York … it’s already happening. It’s an example of what high taxes can do to wreck an economy.”

As Wasserman sees it, Republicans may see their chances improve with the focus shifting toward a faltering economy.

“This is not 2006,” Wasserman said. “Democrats will not run away with 30 seats. You have to give Republicans credit for toughing it out in a bad political environment [and finding] candidates to run.