Here’s the RNC “Growth and Opportunity Project” recommendations for the 2016 presidential primaries:

1. The Republican Convention should be held earlier in the summer. It should be moved to late June or sometime in July, allowing our nominee more time to begin the general election phase. (Note: The 2016 Olympics will be held August 5-21.)

2. Because the nominee will still need an estimated 60-90 days to prepare for the Convention,changes will need to be made to the primary calendar. If the Convention were to be held in July, the last primary would need to be held no later than May 15. If the Convention were to be held in late June, the final primary would need to be held no later than April 30.Moving primaries up will require states and state parties to cooperate.

3. We take no position on whether a contest should be winner take all or proportionate.The fact is, both methods can delay or speed up the likelihood of a nominee being chosen. It all depends on who is winning and by what margins in each primary or caucus election.

4. To facilitate moving up primary elections to accommodate an earlier convention, the Party should strongly consider a regional primary system or some other form of a major reorganization instead of the current system. The current system is a long, winding, often random road that makes little sense. It stretches the primaries out too long, forces our candidates to run out of money, and because some states vote so late, voters in those states never seem to count. Such a change would allow for a broader group of Republicans to play a role in selecting our nominee.

5. Recognizing the traditions of several states that have early nominating contests, the newly organized primaries would begin only after the “carve-out” states have held their individual elections. It remains important to have an “on ramp” of small states that hold unique primary days before the primary season turns into a multi-state process with many states voting on one day. The idea of a little-known candidate having a fair chance remains important.

6. We also recommend broadening the base of the Party and inviting as many voters as possible into the Republican Party by discouraging conventions and caucuses for the purpose of allocating delegates to the national convention. Our party needs to grow its membership,and primaries seem to be a more effective way to do so. The greater the number of people who vote in a Republican primary, the more likely they will turn out and vote again for the Republican candidate in the fall election.

A big question: Which states will qualify as “carve out” under a future plan? The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, almost certainly. Will South Carolina remain as “first in the South”? Will the Nevada caucus remain in the early mix? Will Florida be able to retain its status as the first large state?

Note that primary dates are selected by the states — although the national committee can punish the states that they deem have scheduled it too early by taking away some or most of their delegates. Probably the most high-profile example of this came in the Democratic presidential primary in 2008, with the big states of Michigan and Florida:

The Democratic National Committee determined that the date of the Michigan Democratic Primary violated the party rules and ultimately decided to sanction the state, stripping all 156 delegates and refusing to seat them at the convention. Despite this, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the primary could go ahead as scheduled. The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee later met on May 31, 2008, and agreed to seat all of Michigan’s delegates with each delegate having only receive half a vote. As a result of this compromise, Michigan had 78 votes at the convention. On August 24, the delegates had full voting rights restored.

Every state wants to go early, of course, and the front-loading too many primaries too early makes it nearly impossible for any underdog to catch fire.

As Priebus told me back in January, the RNC ultimately controls the nomination process – and through this, they can influence both the candidates and the states: “There is one major reason that a presidential candidate needs the Republican party: To get on the ballot in November, a presidential candidate must get a majority of delegates at a national convention to vote for him or her. If the presidential candidate can’t make that happen, he or she is not on the ballot.”

Also note the strong endorsement of eliminating caucuses (hurrah) and the implied endorsement of open primaries. Many conservatives are convinced that their preferred candidates lose GOP primaries because non-Republicans vote in the primaries; they contend that if you want to select a party’s presidential nominee, you ought to register with that party. Alternately, some fear mischief-making “Operation Chaos” style efforts by Democrats.

This may be less of an issue in 2016, if there is a competitive Democratic presidential primary going on during the GOP presidential primary.

The Republican National Committee has unveiled its web site for its “Growth and Opportunity Project,” an initiative established to help grow the Republican party and influence future Republican campaigns. At this point, the site’s primary feature is a survey.

I discussed the project with RNC chairman Reince Priebus back in December, and one of the noteworthy ideas was the RNC changing the rules and setup for the 2016 presidential primary, as well as attempting to provide some structure and order to the presidential-debate schedule in the primaries:

GERAGHTY: One of the intriguing points I saw raised in the discussions that this group has had is the recommendation of changes to the presidential-primary schedule. Are you hoping to see changes in how the primaries are set up?

PRIEBUS: One of the major topics that people discuss is the debate issue — controlling the debates and tying the nomination process to the debate calendar — is something we’re going to look at. Now, we didn’t have that opportunity two years ago; there is no mechanism to tie the nomination process to the debate calendar. But we have that opportunity now. We can do that with a three-quarters vote of the Republican National Committee. Here’s a hypothetical. The RNC could hypothetically say, “Look, here’s the debate calendar. Here are the moderators. We’re going to have one debate a month starting on this day.” And adherence to the calendar will be a requirement to achieving the nomination to the presidency — either through bonus delegates or penalties of delegates subtracted. There is one major reason that a presidential candidate needs the Republican party: To get on the ballot in November, a presidential candidate must get a majority of delegates at a national convention to vote for him or her. If the presidential candidate can’t make that happen, he or she is not on the ballot. So that is one idea that we will be looking at.

If you have ten presidential candidates, and seven out of ten or eight out of ten will take whatever two-hour slot that is open to them, then you end up with a debate any time some cable network decides to hold one. You can’t control that situation. Our endeavor is to come up with some idea that helps us control that situation.

Over on the home page, I have an interview with Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, mostly discussing the RNC”s new Growth and Opportunity Project, which is led by a five-member panel that will review their operations and strategies and those of the Republican party as a whole. Perhaps most intriguing and newsworthy was Priebus’s comment about an effort to limit the number of GOP presidential-primary debates and the format in 2016.

GERAGHTY: One of the intriguing points I saw raised in the discussions that this group has had is the recommendation of changes to the presidential-primary schedule. Are you hoping to see changes in how the primaries are set up?

PRIEBUS: One of the major topics that people discuss is the debate issue — controlling the debates and tying the nomination process to the debate calendar is something we’re going to look at. Now, we didn’t have that opportunity two years ago; there is no mechanism to tie the nomination process to the debate calendar. But we have that opportunity now. We can do that with a three-quarters vote of the Republican National Committee. Here’s a hypothetical. The RNC could hypothetically say, “Look, here’s the debate calendar. Here are the moderators. We’re going to have one debate a month starting on this day.” And adherence to the calendar will be a requirement to achieving the nomination to the presidency — either through bonus delegates or penalties of delegates subtracted. There is one major reason that a presidential candidate needs the Republican party: To get on the ballot in November, a presidential candidate must get a majority of delegates at a national convention to vote for him or her. If the presidential candidate can’t make that happen, he or she is not on the ballot. So that is one idea that we will be looking at.

If you have ten presidential candidates, and seven out of ten or eight out of ten will take whatever two-hour slot that is open to them, then you end up with a debate any time some cable network decides to hold one. You can’t control that situation. Our endeavor is to come up with some idea that helps us control that situation.

There were 20 debates last cycle, including seven between January 7 and February 22. More than a few analysts wondered if the seemingly endless succession of debates hurt the Republican brand, with the time and attention divided between nine candidates some evenings, and some of those candidates having little support.

Even if every candidate on stage was worth serious consideration, it’s easy to argue that having 20 debates, and sometimes more than one per week, made each individual debate less newsworthy and important. Many of the answers sounded the same (particularly when shoehorned into two minutes or less), and after a while they sounded like contests to see which candidates could denounce Obama the most, pledge genuine economic recovery the most, praise the Tea Party the most, and so on. Voters could learn just as much about the candidates in five or ten debates.

Quite a few conservatives didn’t like some of the moderators this time around (George Stephanopoulos asking the candidates about states’ banning contraception, etc.). Perhaps the RNC will contemplate a stipulation that no former Democratic lawmakers’ staffers may moderate one of the debates.

The RNC sends along:

Exit polls show 60 percent of voters say economy is the number one issue and 60 percent say economy is getting worse or has stagnated. Voters say Romney is the best to handle the economy and they trust him to handle the deficit.

Update from Ohio – high turnout in GOP counties, low turnout in Dem counties and Biden went to Cleveland. Clearly Chicago is nervous.

Good news from the Florida panhandle, Republicans continue to outnumber Dems in Colorado, Romney had a great showing in Pittsburgh and Paul Begala is concerned with the drop in enthusiasm with young voters.

For what it’s worth, I’m hearing the GOP turnout in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, may be a record; this county was key to Pat Toomey’s win in the 2010 Senate race. The Romney campaign also sounds quite pleased about the turnout in “coal country” of Pittsburgh. But then again, these are sometimes in the eye of the beholder.

Republican National Committee Political Director Rick Wiley sends along this summary of early-voting and absentee ballot voting efforts in swing states.

I have two very minor quibbles with the bright portrait he paints. First, in a bunch of swing states, Obama won by considerable margins – 120,000 votes in Nevada; 130,000 votes in Virginia; 150,000 votes in Iowa; 240,000 votes in Florida; 400,000 votes in Wisconsin, 600,000 votes in Pennsylvania. So Romney doesn’t have to do merely better than McCain did in 2008, he has to do considerably better; secondly, the under-funded McCain effort did such a poor job in early voting in these states that it’s not the highest bar to clear.

Having said all that, the broad outlines of the early vote in this cycle are clear: Republicans outperforming their 2008 early vote effort by a wide margin and Democrats not equaling their 2008 effort in most places.

The memo:

COLORADO

• Republicans are leading Democrats in absentee ballot requests and early votes by over 10,000 voters.
• Republicans are outperforming voter registration by 2.13 points.
• Republicans won the first day of early voting in Colorado. In 2008, Republicans lost early voting by nearly 4 points.
• Republicans have made 1.5 million volunteer voter contacts in Colorado since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

FLORIDA

• Republicans are leading Democrats in absentee ballot requests by over 44,000 voters.
• Republicans are outperforming voter registration by 5.6 points.
• Democrats are underperforming their share of 2008 AB/EV votes cast by 5.01 percentage points, while the GOP is over-performing their share by 3.78 points. The result is a net swing of +8.78 percentage points for Republicans.
• Republicans have made over 5.7 million volunteer voter contacts in Florida since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

IOWA

• At this point in 2008, Democrats led by almost 24 points in early voting. Today they lead by 8.3 points, a 65 percent collapse in Democrat support.
• Almost 5,000 fewer Democrats have voted early this year than had done so at this time in 2008.
• Democrats are underperforming their share of 2008 AB/EV votes cast by 0.41 percentage points, while the GOP is over-performing their share by 1.23 points. The result is a net swing of +1.65 percentage points for Republicans.Republicans have made nearly 1.1 million volunteer voter contacts in Iowa since the AB/EV turnout program began in the state.

MICHIGAN

• AB/EV activity is down from 2008 in Democrat-leaning Washtenaw County (-5.05%).
• AB/EV activity is up in Republican-leaning Ottawa County (7.90%).
• Republicans have made over 1.8 million voter contacts in Michigan since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

NORTH CAROLINA

• Republicans are outperforming our voter registration in absentee requests and early votes by nearly 2 points.
• Democrats are underperforming their share of 2008 AB/EV votes cast by 3.31 percentage points, while the GOP is over-performing their share by 1.83 points. The result is a net swing of +5.14 percentage points for Republicans.
• Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in One-Stop early voting by 10.51 percentage points compared to the same point in 2008. Republicans have seen 59% growth in early voter turnout compared to 2008, while Democrats have grown by less than 20%.
• Republicans have made nearly 2.2 million volunteer voter contacts in North Carolina since the AB/EV turnout program began in the state.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

• Republicans lead Democrats by over 5 points in absentee ballot requests in New Hampshire’s key towns.
• Republicans are outperforming our voter registration in absentee requests by 4 points.
• Republicans have made over 700,000 volunteer voter contacts in New Hampshire since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

NEVADA

• Republicans are outperforming our voter registration in absentee requests and early votes by 4 points.Democrats are underperforming their share of 2008 AB/EV votes cast by 2.11 percentage points, while the GOP is over-performing their share by 2.30 points. The result is a net swing of +4.41 percentage points for Republicans.
• In Clark County, Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in early voting by 13.4 percentage points compared to the same point in 2008.
• Republicans have seen 62% growth in early voter turnout compared to this point in 2008, while Democrats have only seen 14% growth.
• Republicans have made over 1.3 million volunteer voter contacts in Nevada since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

OHIO

• Republicans are outperforming our share of voter registration in absentee requests and early votes by 8.73 points.
• Democrats are underperforming their share of 2008 AB/EV votes cast by 7.60 percentage points, while the GOP is over-performing their share by 5.94 points. The result is a net swing of +13.54 percentage points for Republicans.
• Republicans have closed the gap on Democrats’ historic absentee and early vote advantage for 15 of the past 16 days.
• Republicans have made almost 3.7 million volunteer voter contacts in Ohio since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

PENNSYLVANIA

• Republicans are leading Democrats by over 19,000 absentee requests.
• Republicans are outperforming our share of voter registration in absentee requests by nearly 12 points.
• Democrats are under-performing their share of 2008 AB/EV votes cast by 4.06 percentage points, while the GOP is over-performing their share by 2.10 points. The result is a net swing of +6.16 percentage points for Republicans.
• Republicans have made nearly 3 million volunteer voter contacts in Pennsylvania since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

VIRGINIA

• AB/EV activity is down from 2008 in the Democrat counties of Alexandria (-10.12%), Arlington (-13.38%), Fairfax (-6.03%).
• AB/EV activity is up in Republican-leaning Loudoun County (14.60%).
• Republicans have made more than 2.7 million volunteer voter contacts in Virginia since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

WISCONSIN

• AB/EV activity is down from 2008 the Democrat counties of La Crosse (-19.25%) and Rock (-6.41%)
• AB/EV activity is up the Republican counties of Outagamie (12.06%) and Washington (26.14%).
• On the first day of in-person absentee voting, the Republican bastion of Waukesha County out-voted Dane County, a liberal Democrat stronghold and home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, despite visits to Madison by high-profile Democrat surrogates and celebrities.
• Republicans have made over 2 million volunteer voter contacts in Wisconsin since the RNC’s AB/EV turnout program began nationwide.

He also writes:

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the unprecedented GOP ground game is producing dramatic results in absentee balloting and early voting (AB/EV) that will give us a critical edge. We will continue to build on this momentum in the next thirteen days, meaning it will be increasingly difficult for Democrats to cobble together the necessary votes.

In the battleground states with available data, Republican AB/EV activity is strong. In addition to raw Republican versus Democrat turnout numbers, there are two key metrics by which we can measure this.

First, we can calculate the party’s share of AB/EV activity as compared to the party’s share of voter registration. The data show the percentage of AB/EV activity from Republicans is greater than the percentage of registered voters which are Republican, indicating higher turnout rates among registered Republicans than among registered Democrats. For example, Republicans are outperforming our share of voter registration in absentee requests and early votes by 5.6 points in Florida, 8.73 points in Ohio, and nearly 12 points in Pennsylvania.

Second, we can measure the party’s share of AB/EV activity as compared to its share in 2008. In most cases, the data show Republicans making up a larger share of early voters this year than they did four years ago. Democrats make up a smaller share, giving Republicans an important advantage.Across the eight states, Democrats are underperforming their share of 2008 AB/EV votes cast by a net 5.85 percentage points, while Republicans are over-performing their share by 2.13 points, yielding a net swing of +7.98 percentage points for Republicans.

In states without party affiliation data, we can still gauge partisan turnout by the overall AB/EV activity rate in Democrat-leaning and Republican-leaning counties as compared to 2008. In many Democrat-heavy counties activity is down from 2008, while in critical Republican-heaving counties, AB/EV activity is up.

In yet another sign of Republican strength, Gov. Romney is winning the independent vote, both on the national level and in key battlegrounds. Both the latest Quinnipiac/CBS News poll and PPP poll in Ohio show Gov. Romney winning independents by 7 points. A recent LVRJ/SurveyUSA poll gave Gov. Romney an 18-point lead with independents in Nevada.

We’re not just over-performing with our base; unaffiliated voters are breaking for us too because they recognize that only Gov. Romney offers a real plan and a positive vision for the future.

While many of the Democrat ballots cast come from high propensity voters who would vote regardless, the Republican turnout operation has been focused on getting low propensity voters who would otherwise not vote to cast ballots early. As such, turnout for the Romney-Ryan ticket on Election Day will remain as strong as expected.

Past trends in Iowa, North Carolina, and Nevada show that Republicans turn out for early voting in greater numbers as we get closer to Election Day. We’ve seen that already in Iowa and Ohio, and we are seeing the same trend develop again this year in North Carolina and Nevada, meaning the Republican advantage will grow in coming days.

Moreover, our superior ground game and organization will continue to drive Republicans to vote early right up to Election Day–thanks to the tireless work of over 119,000 volunteers who have already made 28 million voter contacts since our AB/EV turnout program began and 44.8 million contacts total since the spring.

If Republicans have a big year in 2012 — still a big if — a significant factor will be the fact that the Republican National Committee is exponentially more effective this cycle than in the past two cycles.

Today Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced the RNC raised $48.4 million in September and had $82.6 million cash on hand at the end of the month.

“The overwhelming support for the Romney-Ryan ticket has produced yet another impressive month for RNC fundraising,” said RNC Chairman Priebus. “We are proud to have raised over $48 million in September, with 97 percent of donations to the RNC coming in amounts of $200 or less.

“While we continue to put money into our ground game and fully fund our absentee ballot, early vote and Election Day GOTV efforts in all our battleground states, our historic cash on hand figure also allows us to continue funding our independent expenditure committee, run highly effective hybrid ads and assist in electing Republicans across the country at all levels.”

When I asked one of my RNC folk whether the aim was to spend just about all of the $82.6 million by Election Day, I was told, “We raise it, to spend it, to win.”

Hey, how are things going across town at Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s committee?

As of Sept. 30, the DNC reported having $4.6 million in the bank and $20.5 million in total debt – almost double the $11.8 million it owed at the end of August. The committee owes about $5.5 million of its total debt to creditors for services such as direct mail consulting, polling expenses and event consulting.

Attention, vendors: Stop falling for this, make Debbie pay you in cash.

Two quick questions.

Doesn’t this . . .

President Barack Obama has more than $88 million available to spend for the presidential campaign’s final stretch, giving him a sizable cash-on-hand advantage over Mitt Romney. . . . Romney has $50.4 million available to him at this point in the campaign.

. . . seem less important when you know this?

The RNC, which has consistently been crushing the Democratic National Committee in fundraising, reported having $75.6 million at the end of August. The DNC ended the month with $7.1 million.

Romney cash on hand + RNC cash on hand = $126 million.

Obama cash on hand + DNC cash on hand = $95 million.

And while I’m sure the chairman and his gang would be the first to say we should hold the applause until after November, isn’t the performance of Reince Priebus and his team at the RNC pretty stunning, considering the state of the committee when former chairman Michael Steele left it in early 2011?

UPDATE: My math is based upon the media accounts cited above; the RNC has other, higher numbers they’re distributing this morning:

• Cash On Hand: Romney/RNC $168.5 million vs. Obama/DNC: $125.1 million
• RNC: $76.5 million vs. DNC: $7.1 million
• 23 million voter contacts made by 65,000 volunteers
• More than 1.9 million swing voters identified since the start of the Victory voter contact program
• Surpassed the McCain ’08 campaign in total volunteer voter contacts

I just completed a quick interview with RNC chair Reince Priebus.

NRO: Isaac’s threat to Tampa appears to be passing, but there may be a serious threat to some other states. Do you have any worries or thoughts about changing the schedule if there’s a severe threat to New Orleans or to the Gulf Coast?

Priebus: Right now, I have not had a single discussion about doing anything other than going forward with the events and the schedule that we have planned. I will say, though, that we have to be nimble. And everyone can see that we can be nimble if we need to be. We have the ability to make alternative plans if we have to, but right now we feel that our message of the American dream and fixing this economy and putting ourselves on the right track for the future of this country — I think it’s a positive message and it’s a message that will always be good. When we’re optimistic about the future and how we’re going to fix this great country and put people back to work, it’s a message that works all the time.

Certainly, we have to be mindful of the effects of the hurricane and what that means to people who are pretty close by here.

NRO: This is traditionally one of the points of the year when the candidate really gets his chance to make his sales pitch to the American people. Any worries about a split screen on the cable news networks, or other big news events going on and getting in the way of the candidate getting to make his pitch to the people?

Priebus: It is what it is, right? So we have a hurricane, and we have three days to have this convention and nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. We understand completely — they’re all newsworthy events. Competition among events is not uncommon, and we think it’s important for people to stay informed about the storm as well.

It’s just a balance. I think tone is important, but when you see how we’re operating at the convention, you’ll see we have a very respectful tone. Obviously, the message is about how we can provide a better future for America, and that’s a tone that works with everything.

NRO: You said at a briefing a few moments ago that [former Gov. Mike] Huckabee will be speaking Wednesday night. Were there ever any discussions about removing him from the speaker’s list for the controversy and his defense of Akin?

Priebus: No. It’s one thing to have a dispute with Congressman Akin. That’s one thing. Akin’s the one who put himself in this place. That’s one level of argument. But then to say that because you think that we should just move on, as opposed to me thinking he should step down and let someone else carry the water, that’s sort of a couple steps removed from the issue. I think that’s a little bit different.

NRO: Had you read his e-mail defending Akin?

Priebus: Sure, I read it. He’s entitled. Having an opinion — Mike Huckabee’s not the one who said the biologically stupid things. So it’s different.

NRO: One of the discussions here at the convention is people wondering about the bump that Romney will get, and whether it will be up to the traditional levels.  Some folks are wondering if it’s possible to get the traditional bump, with such a polarized electorate and so few undecided voters left. Are you expecting a bump, and if so, how large?

Priebus: I think we’re going to have a base that is energized and motivated. I think the convention is going to be great in telling the Mitt Romney story. Getting Americans to understand more about Mitt as a person and what his plans are for this country can only help us.

As far as assessing the bump and what percent, you know, the media cycle is so different nowadays. We’re just so saturated these days, and because the media is constant nowadays . . . Conventions of the past had a four-day event that was the only huge political news for the summer. I think it’s a different time now . . .

I think we’re going to be motivated, I think it’s great for our base, it’s a great opportunity to tell people who Mitt Romney is, introduce him to people who don’t know him yet, and I’m optimistic that we’ll have a good result.

NRO: I realize the decision to hold the convention in Tampa was made by your predecessor, but first, is it possible this is the last convention on the coast in the Southeast for a while, and second — let me guess, your first choice for the 2016 convention would be Milwaukee, right?

Priebus: (laughing) Milwaukee sounds great! But I’ll say this, in a rare defense of Michael Steele — we’ve had conventions in New Orleans, Houston, Miami, now we’re in Tampa — actually, New York could have had a hurricane. You could just eliminate so many places. This is just such an odd situation. I don’t blame him. The fact of the matter is, we’re happy to be here, the people of Tampa have been so hospitable . . .

And quite frankly, we’ve got to win Florida. And there’s no better place for us to spend our time and our money and our energy than Florida. So I’m happy we’re here.

The Morning Jolt kicks off the week with a look at the lost art of persuasion, whether Tea Party activists are too busy working to hold protests anymore, an all-time classic correction from the White House pool reporters, and then this bit of news from the campaign finance front:

Obama Campaigns Like He Governs… Expensively.

The New York Times doesn’t mince words:

 President Obama has spent more campaign cash more quickly than any incumbent in recent history, betting that heavy early investments in personnel, field offices and a high-tech campaign infrastructure will propel him to victory in November.

Since the beginning of last year, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have burned through millions of dollars to find and register voters. They have spent almost $50 million subsidizing Democratic state parties to hire workers, pay for cellphones and update voter lists. They have spent tens of millions of dollars on polling, online advertising and software development to turn Mr. Obama’s fallow volunteers corps into a grass-roots army.

The price tag: about $400 million from the beginning of last year to June 30 this year, according to a New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission records, including $86 million on advertising.

But now Mr. Obama’s big-dollar bet is being tested. With less than a month to go before the national party conventions begin, the president’s once commanding cash advantage has evaporated, leaving Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee with about $25 million more cash on hand than the Democrats as of the beginning of July.

And you thought talk was cheap!

Rick Moran says we shouldn’t look at the early spending as good money lost:

That early spending will pay big dividends in the end. The network of state campaign offices and grass roots outreach by the campaign is unprecedented in American political history. The online efforts of the campaign include some very sophisticated data mining efforts, as well as creative use of social media.

Meanwhile, Romney is limited in what he can spend until after the election when he will become the official nominee of the party… Even though Romney will probably match the Obama campaign dollar for dollar in fundraising, and even surpass them with the help of conservative super pacs, Obama’s early spending has given him a decided advantage in the trenches where elections are often won or lost before the first ballot is even counted.

Still, with all of that early spending, Obama is up three in the RealClearPolitics average (which still includes that ridiculous D+19 Pew poll – take that one out and it’s a 2.1 percentage point margin) and they’re even in the Pollster.com average. Obama’s deluge has kept him narrowly ahead – but in the coming months, are Americans likely to be more pleased with what Obama has done as president or less pleased?

I hear it now: “Jim, Jim, it’s an Electoral College battle, not a national popular vote contest.” Yes, but you’re not going to see wild divergence between the national numbers and all of the swing states. As Larry Sabato observed, “Obama can’t be +6 in Florida and Ohio and be -1 nationally.”

Anyway, as of this morning, the Romney campaign and RNC combined have approximately $185.9 million in cash-on-hand.

It has now been twenty days since President Obama made his “you didn’t build that” remarks.

The RNC is continuing to pound on the theme, offering this contrast between the president and Mitt Romney on their social networks:

They summarize the race as “collectivism vs. free enterprise.”

The RNC offers a new video this morning, entitled, “These aren’t gaffes.”

If the statements from President Obama are indeed gaffes, what is particularly troubling for him is that he keeps accidentally misspeaking in a way that just happens to reinforce his foes’ criticism of him – that he is all talk and no action, that his desire to see his policies work causes him to underestimate how persistent and severe the unemployment rate is, that he sees the private sector as essentially subservient to the government’s will, and ultimately dependent upon government for its success…

In other words, it’s not a mere gaffe — “Is our children learning?” — but a Kinsley gaffe: “when a politician tells the truth–or more precisely, when he or she accidentally reveals something truthful about what is going on in his or her head.”

The RNC greets Monday morning with an infographic . . .

One of the fascinating developments of this cycle is the near-bipartisan consensus that President Obama “can’t run on his record.” (Bob Shrum, Maureen Dowd, John Cassidy of The New Yorker, ABC News’s Jake Tapper, and The Economist, for a few examples.)

So what we have is a widespread agreement that Obama’s record, by itself, does not warrant a second term . . . and yet the debate continues. But once both sides concur about the incumbent’s proven inability to improve the state of the nation . . . isn’t the debate effectively over?

The RNC chuckles at DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse finding himself defending the Bush tax cuts:

Broadly speaking, Republicans and Democrats don’t want to see, especially at a time where the economy needs all the fuel it can get, don’t want to see us raising taxes on the middle class. So for example, some of the Bush tax cuts did some good things for the middle class, and certainly don’t want to see, this time, tax increases on the middle class.

Bipartisan agreement!

As mentioned below, this is “Debt and Deficit Week” for the Romney campaign. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of fish in a barrel.

This morning, the Republican National Committee takes batting practice on President Obama’s big promises, bigger disappointments, and biggest deficits.

It is a bit maddening how the debt comes and goes as a resonant issue… but it just grows, bigger and bigger.

As of May 10, the debt is $15.67 trillion. The day President Obama took office, it was $10.62 trillion. So Obama has now run up roughly $5.05 trillion in debt in less than four years. For comparison, the national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush.

Remember, on the campaign trail, Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt over Bush’s eight years was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.”

And of course, while discussing his budget plan in 2008, Obama “I am cutting more than I am spending.”

But perhaps the best illustration of spending under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama comes from PoliticalMath.com:

The RNC goes back to the footage of Obama on the campaign trail in 2008 and just tears apart his record:

“We need a president who will change this economy so that it finally works for your family.”

“The real question is will this country be better off, four years from now?”

“If you have health insurance, the only thing that will change under my plan is that we will lower your premiums.”

“As president, I will go through the federal budget, line by line, ending programs that we don’t need.”

It would be fun if the next time Obama tries to go over the head of the White House press corps by doing a sit-down interview with some local television reporter from a swing-state city, they brought up these pledges and asked the president why his results are so different from what he promised.

Over on the home page, I have a wide-ranging interview with Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, including his filing of a complaint with the comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, accusing President Obama of using government funds to stage campaign events and demanding a formal inquiry into the matter. Among his remarks:

Sometimes I think a there’s a special device strapped onto the bottom of Air Force One that allows it to land only in battleground states.

It also seems as if that million-dollar bus the president bought last summer just happened to go down every interstate highway of every battleground state, and never found its way into North Dakota and Tennessee.

What took so long? Like any legal analysis, the issue of what’s reasonable can change depending upon the facts. But the president has reached the point of obnoxiousness with campaigning on the taxpayer’s dime.

It wasn’t even credible to try to compare what Obama was doing in three and a half years with what George W. Bush did in eight years. He dwarfed anything Bush did. It reached a point where we said, “Listen, this is so out of line and obnoxious, we have to send this letter.” On the question of whether Obama’s people will blow it off or not, it was pretty interesting that we sent the letter at 4:30 and an hour later their campaign sent an e-mail for a 6:30 conference call, and then they released a statement that their official campaigning was about to begin. Is it a coincidence? I’m not sure, but it certainly looks as if it woke them up.

The RNC examines Barack Obama’s “I’m not going to make any excuses” pledge . . .

His team didn’t realize how deep the recession was, bad luck, earthquakes, Arab Spring, economic headwinds, automation is taking away manufacturing jobs, ATMs . . .

Remember, nothing about the performance of the American economy in the past three and a half years is his fault!

The Republican National Committee offers a web ad this morning that offers visually what we have been observing for a while: the 2012 edition of Barack Obama, with the deeply disappointing record, endless excuses, harsh and hyperbolic negative attacks, etc., now embodies precisely what he ran against in 2008.

So think of this as the “contrast ad” that the 2008 edition of Obama would run against his future self:

The Republican National Committee is running an anti-Obamacare television ad in six battleground states: Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

RNC chairman Reince Priebus said in a released statement:

Barack Obama was elected in 2008 under the guise that he would focus on creating jobs and turning the economy around. Instead, Barack Obama pandered to his liberal base by ramming through a government takeover of health care that the American people did not want.

Three years after promising lower costs and greater access to health care, the average American has seen the opposite. Premiums are up, and it’s harder to make ends meet today because of it. Furthermore, the cost to the taxpayers is $111 billion higher than projected. Worse still, most of the job-killing provisions haven’t even gone into effect. This fall, Americans have a chance to vote for better health care and more jobs by making Barack Obama a one-term president.

I’m told this particular advertising push is a “five figure” buy starting in DC today and then going up in markets where the president and vice president are traveling over the next two weeks, as well as states where Priebus is traveling to argue against Obamacare.

The good folks at the Republican National Committee send along word about what is really at stake in tomorrow’s caucuses . . . which is . . . not that much:

To:       Political Reporters

From:  Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Directors

Subj:   Reporting on Delegates for Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri

For those of you covering the race for the GOP presidential nomination and writing about the current delegate count, please keep in mind that no delegates will be awarded tomorrow.

Colorado is a non-binding precinct caucus. Their 36 delegates will be chosen at district conventions held between March 31 – April 13, 2012, and at the state convention on April 14, 2012.

Minnesota is a non-binding precinct caucus. Their 40 delegates will be chosen at district conventions held between April 14 – 21, 2012, and at a state convention on May 5, 2012. Delegates are not bound unless the state convention passes a resolution to bind the delegates.

Missouri will hold a primary tomorrow that is not recognized as being a part of any delegate allocation or selection process. A precinct caucus will be held on 3/17/2012 to begin the process of choosing their 52 delegates which will be chosen at district conventions on April 21, 2012, and a state convention on June 2, 2012. Candidates for delegate must state a presidential preference at the time of nomination and will be bound to support that candidate for one ballot at the national convention.

Right now, Mitt Romney has 73 delegates, Newt Gingrich has 29, Ron Paul has 8, and Rick Santorum has 3. Another 30 are currently unbound.

(Remember, Iowa awards its delegates based on the results of the state convention.)