Republicans are generally pretty good at recovering from money disadvantages, since their movement is full of people who can write the big checks. But let's hope they don't get their act together on this.
…[A]s the process gets underway ina series of first-round states, including New Jersey, Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana, some party insiders are concerned that Republicans have failed to amass the funding necessary to capitalize on their advantages.
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“The DLCC has been working with the Foundation for the Future and NCEC [The National Committee for an EffectiveCongress] for almost five years to make sure Democratic state legislators haveas much and as high-quality data as possible when they draw district lines and evaluate Republican gerrymanders,” [DLCC Executive Director Michael] Sargeant told C&E. However, he agrees that the failure of the MAPS project is a negative for Republicans. “By letting the MAPS project languish, the GOP isn't in as good of a position for redistricting as most think,” Sargeant said.
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Roll Call’s Gonzalez reports that donors to MAPS lost faith in the group when they discovered that its “vision was too broad.” Underscoring the importance of MAPS to the Republican redistricting strategy, former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie told Hotline last week that, while there was still time to recover from the loss, the failure of MAPS has left Republicans at a distinct disadvantage in the first states to redistrict.
They really are that disorganized.
Even though Republicans made historic gains at the state level in 2010 that gave them unprecedented control over redistricting, they are currently lacking a unifying organization to lead the process.
And the absence of such a group is starting to cause alarm in Republican circles.
One such Republican is former NRCC Chairman Tom Reynolds. Reynolds is particularly invested in redistricting because he helped spearhead the GOP's efforts in 2010 that netted Republicans nearly 700 new seats in statehouses across the country at the Republican State Leadership Committee. Reynolds directly oversaw the RSLC's REDMAP program, the group's primary fundraising arm.
Despite those gains, though, Reynolds said the GOP is in something of holding pattern without an organization dedicated to raising money and focused on redistricting.
"I've been surprised that I didn't see the party yearning for some sort of outside effort to get the map-making up and going," Reynolds told Hotline On Call. "Normally instead of having the party pay for that, someone on the outside would take that initiative and I haven't seen that leadership." [...]
It looked like Republicans had such an organization when former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and veteran Republican strategist Charlie Black set up Making America's Promise Secure (or MAPS) in 2009. That group is virtually non-existent now, according to Republicans involved in the redistricting effort, including Reynolds. (Efforts to reach MAPS were unsuccessful.)
"There needs to be some other entity to come forward," Reynolds said.
Another Republican deeply involved in redistricting at the state level described the GOP's organization toward redistricting in one word: "Chaos."
The Koch brothers will come to their rescue. But even if they don't, the fact that Republicans have unilateral control of redistricting in 15 states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Georgia, and MIchigan, portends some real pain after the new maps are drawn.