At 1pm EST today, Americans for Tax Reform and The Daily Caller will host a debate of all announced candidates for Chair of the RNC. The 168 members of the GOP Committee will vote January 14th to select a Chair for a new two-year term, which, of course, includes the period of redistricting and the critical 2012 election.

The race for RNC Chair won’t get a lot of attention from either the media or, sadly, the grass roots, but it is an important campaign. It seems counter-intuitive, but the national GOP actually underperformed this past November. Yes, they won the House and picked up an historic 60+ seats, but it could-and should-have been 75-80 seats. They left 3-4 Senate seats on the table.  Worse, the GOP came up short in Governor’s races, which are critically important with redistricting on the agenda this year. (They lost to Jerry Brown (!), Rod Blagojevich’s Lt. Gov, and a retread who supports socialized medicine, for example.) Don’t get me wrong, it was a great victory, but, watching from the front-lines, it hurts to realize it could have been even greater, but for the disfunction of the national party.

As I have written before, the first job of the RNC Chair is to ‘do no harm.’ Don’t make gaffes on the Sunday shows or in speeches, raise lots of money and execute a robust ground game for election day. In the closing days of the midterms, the RNC pulled out of most of its election-day GOTV operations…because they didn’t have any money…because the current Chair and organization had alienated the grassroots, which cost them lots of donations. (You can see a theme, right?) Who knows how many more races the GOP could have won with a normally functioning party?

But, enough with the past. This isn’t about the RNC we had, but about the RNC we want to have. And that election is in less than two weeks.

So, let’s recap where we are on this race. Because, while most of us were gorging on College Bowl games or ignoring the world because we gorged on things that weren’t College Bowl games, several interesting things happened. So, let’s have a roundup.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Alex Pappas, a writer and reporter at the Daily Caller, to discuss the race for RNC Chair including, who’s running, and how the Tea Party may impact the race.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

RNC chairman race narrows; Conn. chairman, Chris Healy, says he will not run
Dick Cheney hosts fundraiser for potential challenger to RNC chairman Michael Steele
Hotline Whip Count: The RNC Chairman’s Race
Alex Pappas’ articles at the Daily Caller

(more…)