Cutting and Running

The RNC is abandoning a whole batch of Congressional races that they don't see as winnable, says the New York Times. The Times pointed to incumbent Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, who had previously appeared quite safe, but now is trailing his opponent seriously in internal polls. The RNC has pulled funding from his campaign and is pouring it into other races.

The decision involving Mr. DeWine offers the most compelling evidence so far that Republicans are circling their wagons around a smaller group of races, effectively conceding some Senate and House seats with the goal of retaining at least a thin margin of control when the 110th Congress is seated next January. Democrats need to win 6 seats to capture the Senate and 15 seats to win the House on Nov. 7...

In interviews, Republican strategists said that the flow of bad news out of Iraq and the resignation of Representative Mark Foley after admitting he had sent sexually suggestive messages to teenage Congressional pages had soured the environment for incumbents and blunted the impact of a long-planned crush of negative advertisements Republicans had prepared to undercut Democratic challengers this month.

In one sign of the shifting political environment, as of this weekend, national Republicans were running advertisements in 29 districts; of those, 26 are held by Republicans and 3 by Democrats, though Republicans plan to begin running advertisements this week against an Illinois Democrat, Representative Melissa Bean. National Democrats are on the air in 30 districts, and defending Democrats in just 3 races.

The shitstorm is coming, fellas. Watch out. The only worry I have is that this might slow the momentum for 2008. Any thoughts on that?