CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY
Today the California Republican Party announced that it has transferred $3 million dollars from its very full coffers to help boost the efforts of the Republican Parties of Colorado and Nevada, as they work to win electoral votes for the McCain/Palin ticket as well as win important down-ticket races (including a competitive U.S. Senate race in Colorado).
As a member of the CRP Board of Directors, I can personally say that it is exciting to be able to help the national effort in such a meaningful way. While I remain personally optimistic that Senator McCain will close on Senator Obama’s lead here in the Golden State, our tremendous success at fundraising as a party here in California gave us the opportunity to really impact some nearby battleground states.
I should make it abundantly clear that our Board of Directors did not authorize the transfer of these funds until we were all very sure that we had fully funded our Victory 08 get-out-the-vote program for California, all of the way through to election day. In fact, I have been so pleased with our programs here in California, and was so convinced that this jolt of resources could help our Western colleagues, that I personally made the motion to authorize this transfer at our last Board of Directors Meeting.
Below is the text of a memo going out today from California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring and Tony Russo, the Chairman of the CRP’s Major Donor Program, Team California, on this issue…
Vice Chairman, South
California Republican Party
Our revitalized donor programs have demonstrated enormous success and have been embraced by the Republican donor community. Our Team California major donor program together with our joint fundraising agreement with the RNC have generated the funds to implement the entire California Victory 2008 program, support party operations, and generated an additional $3 million in support for the Western battleground states of Nevada and Colorado.
The CRP’s Victory program is fully funded through Election Day:
- You may have noticed that the new downloadable voter guides featured for the first time on our website promote all of our federal and state candidates, plus the local candidates endorsed by our county Republican committees. The same is true for our door hangers and other collateral material.
- Headquarters and field staff. Working with our county Republican committees the Victory program is operating 77 Republican Victory headquarters throughout the state, supported by a robust field staff of 22.
- Volunteer recruitment. Over 26,000 new Republican volunteers have been recruited through the over 1.7 million voter contacts we have completed since July. These volunteers will be shared with our county committees and volunteer groups so they are kept active as we enter the next campaign cycle.
- Voter contacts. Our Republican volunteers will reach another 850,000 voters in the final weeks of the campaign.
- Voter registration. Over 90,000 new Republicans have been registered through the Victory program alone, with special emphasis on our most competitive legislative and Congressional districts.
- Republican voter turnout. Recognizing that the world is run by those who show up, our absentee ballot and voter turnout programs include seven pieces of mail, 16 phone calls and 20 emails to targeted universes. As with our registration efforts, these programs are exceedingly aggressive in competitive districts.
We expect our successful Team California major donor program to continue to support state party operations throughout the year, and generate a substantial reserve so we begin the next election cycle with a significant reserve plus no campaign debt.
We look forward to the continued active participation of our volunteers and the donors who have joined our Team California and Golden State Leadership Team donor programs as we complete this campaign and prepare for the next. California will maintain its reputation as a national leader in the Republican Party.
Ron Nehring, CHAIRMAN, California Republican Party
Tony Russo, CHAIRMAN, Team California
October 24th, 2008 at 12:00 am
This is excellent news!
Anyone who thinks about running against Nehring’s re-election is an idiot.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Congratulations to Ron and team for a great job on turning around our finances.
To the jerk who author’s the occasional “Ron Watch” – Stuff it.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Does this mean that all our candidates campaigns’ for Congress, the state Senate and state Assembly have been stuffed full of cash?
October 25th, 2008 at 12:00 am
What this means, I fear, is that our party leaders have given up on trying to put California in the win column for McCain/Palin. Or to put this another way, California is no longer in play. Sad.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Even if California is not in play, that 3m would of been great to help support our state legislative candidates, from AD 10 all the way to AD80. We want to make it harder for the Democrats to reach 2/3rds.
If this gamble proves successful, I will give our chairman a re-election vote, its great the CRP is out of the red, its just our priorities need to be in order.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Congratulations to Ron, Tom, and Tony on the fundraising success. I do share the concerns, however, that some of our own congressional and state legislative candidates could use some more help because many are in very tight races. This year is not like 2006, when nearly all of our own state’s legislative candidates were safe in spite of the Democratic wave (we could have shifted some of the money spent on Schwarzenegger to McClintock and McPherson, but that’s another story). I agree with the previous poster that we’ll need to wait until after the votes are counted to determine if whether is a good decision.
California’s 55 electoral votes were never in play, even during the McCain/Palin ticket’s best days.