House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) would much prefer the title Speaker of the House, but at the moment a sizable deficit in sitting Republicans is standing between him and that goal. To help achieve his ambition, he has established the Regain Our Majority Program (ROMP), which is sending cash to targeted candidates in ten districts.
There are a few unfortunate truths about the program, however. First, CQPolitics points out that ROMP used to stand for Retain Our Majority Program. Second, seven of the ten candidates are sitting incumbents trying to hold back serious Democratic challengers; and two more are trying to hold Republican seats vacated by incumbents. Only one is trying to wrest a seat already held by a Democrat.
That is Anne Northrop (R-KY-3), who is trying to regain the seat she lost to John Yarmuth (D-KY). The incumbent recipients of cash from the Boehner fund include Michele Bachmann (R-MN-6), Vito Fossella (R-NY-13), Sam Graves (R-MO-6), Ric Keller (R-FL-8), Bill Sali (R-ID-1), Jean Schmidt (R-OH-2) and Tim Walberg (R-MI-7). The final two are Erik Paulson (R-MN-3), attempting to hold the seat vacated by Jim Ramstad, and Darren White (R-NM-1), attempting to hold the seat vacated by Heather Wilson.
RBR/TVBR observation: The one sure thing is that where Boehner’s money is flowing, Democratic cash will also flow. Add these districts to the list of 2008 battlegrounds.
