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.