Suddenly that Bowflex machine looks less defensible than I thought. In fairness, the RNC was in transition last month while Steele started putting his people in place so there’s no way yet to compare his organization to Mike Duncan’s RNC running on all cylinders.
But even so, the ice is getting thinner.
The RNC has consistently outraised the Democratic National Committee on a month-by-month basis. Observers say that streak is likely to end this month.
New RNC Chairman Michael Steele has committed gaffes that may embarrass his party in the short term, but Republican insiders say they are worried several of his actions will hit a fundraising trifecta: wounding party efforts to attract big donors, small donors and those who give on the Internet…
Even now, as Steele enters his seventh week as chairman, the RNC has no finance director, and several staffers in the finance division were among those who got the ax during the course of Steele’s top-to-bottom review of RNC operations…
The lack of a fundraising staff with institutional knowledge and relationships with key donors will affect the party’s big-dollar donations, observers said. Larger donors account for between 20 and 30 percent of the party’s donations, but without a stable of long-term professional fundraisers, that number could drop off…
Fundraisers and party insiders also repeatedly pointed to the departure of Cyrus Krohn, perhaps the most widely respected technology specialist in the Republican Party.
Krohn, a former Yahoo! and Microsoft software guru whose signing-on at the RNC was hailed as a major coup, left the committee in early March after Steele’s team tried to revamp the party’s Internet operations.
Krohn’s departure will hamper the party’s Internet fundraising efforts, an area in which they already trailed Democrats. Internet fundraising numbers rose throughout 2008, according to those involved in the effort, but now former officials say the party will have to start from square one.
He can spin this for the time being — short month, deepening recession, etc. — but if fundraising’s down again in March and the Dems hold Gillibrand’s old seat in the NY-20 special election despite the money the RNC’s dumping in there, confidence in Steele will reach Geithnerian levels. Exit question: Second look at Norm Coleman?
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