Don't Be Surprised That The NRCC Is Just As Incompetent And Lame As The DCCC

I don't know why the NRCC is wasting money on TV ads against Lower Manhattan multimillionaire Sean Eldridge in the Hudson Valley. You can watch it above. Eldridge will be lucky if he breaks 40% in November, very lucky. Although the district is blue and Obama won it against McCain in 2008 and against Romney in 2012, Eldridge has run a sappy, messageless campaign that's accomplishing nothing but making a bunch of slimy political consultants richer. The only publicly available polls show mediocre Republican backbencher Chris Gibson absolutely creaming him. In 2012, Julian Schreibman-- the Democratic candidate who had none of the personal wealth Eldridge has been throwing into the race ($1,340,000 from his own bank account at the time of the last FEC deadline in June)-- held Gibson to a 53-47% margin. Eldridge hired DFM Research to poll for him and they reported that Gibson was up 56-29%. And that was after Eldridge had already spent $962,959! Two weeks ago Siena, a non-partisan firm polled the district and didn't find much change. Gibson was leading Eldridge 57-33%. So why bother with the ad-- especially since the Chamber of Commerce and the NRA had already jumped in with, respectively, $650,567 and $28,600 in ads smearing poor (rich) Eldridge?

Not only is the ad unnecessary, it also is ineffective-- fine for a Republican primary but completely idiotic in a district like NY-19, using stale and failed Republican talking points that may help turn out the Fox News/Hate Talk Radio GOP base, but will do nothing-- zip-- to persuade independents, let alone Democrats, to turn against Eldridge. If anything, it will probably excite as many Democrats in his favor and it excites Republicans against him. This is typical clueless NRCC standard operating procedure-- the only reason someone as incompetent as DCCC chairman Steve Israel can walk around DC without being laughed at by busboys and parking attendants.

Yesterday the NRCC released 8 ads like the lame anti-Eldridge ad. Their targets are Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV), John Foust (VA), Aaron Woolf (NY), Staci Appel (IA), Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL), Emily Cain (New Dem-ME), and, of course, Eldridge. Most of the ads-- each of which can be viewed by clicking on the link under the candidate's name-- are self-referential, patently misleading Republican hogwash: failed talking points that persuade no one. The ads that aren't that just meaningless rote Republican dribble and so negative and vicious-- the ones against Woolf and Appel-- that they'll probably do the Democrats more good than harm.

But, no doubt some advertising consultants made a mint on this multimillion dollar buy. So… in the end that's all it's about for these Beltway sleaze buckets anyway. And, by the way, here's Eldridge's own latest ad. I wonder why someone thought reminding people that he's one of the richest candidates for Congress running anywhere-- by bringing up the role of money in politics-- was a good idea.