Mid-Morning Roundup

Randy Kuhl has endorsed John McCain for president, even though he disagrees with McCain's moderate immigration policy, and his involvement with campaign finance reform.

The New York Times has a roundup of the large number (28) of Republican retirements in the House:

“The open-seat situation is so lopsided as to deny Republicans any chance of taking back the House in 2008,” said David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan publication.

Compounding their problems, Republicans face a worrisome financial gap in comparison to House Democrats. New fund-raising figures to be made public on Thursday will show that the national campaign committee of the House Democrats ended 2007 with $35 million in the bank and $1.3 million in debt. The Republicans’ committee had $5 million in the bank and $2 million in debt.


Comments

From RealClearPolitics.com

And Washington has been buzzing lately about another New Yorker, Rep. Randy Kuhl, whose spokeswoman pointedly refused to confirm or deny retirement rumors - or that an announcement of any kind was imminent - when asked by RCP.

Thanks. Here's the whole post if others are interested:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/house_republicans_face...

I don't think he's retiring, but it will be interesting if all the buzz about it gets Kuhl to declare his intentions.

massa raised 4Q- 275k COH-414k

Kuhl raised 4Q - 156k COH-326k

I think Kuhl is a)either going to retire since he isn't raising any $$, or b) is in trouble because an incumbent member is being considerably outraised as each week progresses.

Plus some of the early $$ Kuhl got from unions has dried up, and he wont be able to hit them up again, as most campaigns seem to do as the campaign heats up (and some early PACS have also maxed out to him).

Its not just us that see this, but also the DCCC, NRCC, the Washington people, and national people.

Maybe McCain will bail him out, since Randy really went out on a limb and staked allot my endorsing him (after almost everyone else dropped out).

Thanks for the heads-up on the money. I pick choice (b). It's just hard for a Republican MOC to raise money nowadays. There's no chance that Republicans will win back the House this cycle, so corporate donors, the Republicans' traditional stalwarts, don't see the return on their investment.

no way Randy will retire. but what is happening, if anything, with the conservative town supervisor from monroe who ran unsuccessully in the primary, randy's lst time out? a couple of us have asked about this and are curious.

Mark Assini -- still blogging, not running AFAIK:

http://www.writersontheloose.com/writers/MAssini/index.cfm?person=868&pr...