KY-03: Yet another Republican recruiting fiasco

Seriously, this is getting embarrassing for the GOP; even the few decent candidates they can actually convince to run, won't stay in the race...

Kentucky Republican Erwin Roberts is officially ending his campaign to unseat freshman Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth in the Louisville-based 3rd District. Roberts, a lawyer and former state official, had put his campaign "on hold" one day earlier after learning that his U.S. Army Reserves unit almost certainly will soon be called into active duty.

In a statement issued by his campaign Thursday afternoon, Roberts said he would not file the requisite paperwork with Kentucky election officials to qualify for the May 20 primary election. With the candidate filing deadline coming up on Jan. 29, Roberts needed to make a definitive statement about his political plans.

Oh, darn, what a shame.

Roberts had been in the race since last May, after bailing out of Ernie Fletcher's administration just in time. The GOP was just pleased as punch to have him in the race, partly because if elected, he would have been the only African-American Republican in Congress. Sadly, that was not in the cards.

Yarmuth's Louisville-based district is the most Democratic in Kentucky, the only one of the state's six districts to go for John Kerry in 2004. Since being elected, he has voted with a majority of Democrats 97% of the time, including on several key votes.

Apparently, the GOP is now turning to the district's former Rep, Anne Northup, who held this Dem-leaning district for five terms before losing to Yarmuth in 2006. Since then, however, she suffered the ignominy of losing the Republican nomination to scandal-battered incumbent Ernie Fletcher, who himself went on to be crushed in the general election by Steve Beshear. I wonder whether Northup really wants to risk three big losses in three years with a run against Yarmuth, who had raised nearly $700,000 through September 30.

Losing Roberts is only the latest in a series of recruiting failures and losses for the GOP. They blew the VA-Sen race by forcing out Tom Davis in favor of presidential failure Jim Gilmore.

They failed to recruit Scott McInnis or John Suthers for CO-Sen, they failed to recruit Mike Rounds to challenge Tim Johnson, they failed to recruit David Wallace for TX-22, they lost their top four choices for OH-15 before Steve Stivers changed his mind, and they failed to entice Greg Ball into the NY-19 race after their initial candidate, Andrew Saul, dropped out.

In addition, they are so cash-strapped that they've been forced to recruit as many self-funders as they can find for House races, not being in a position to help their less affluent candidates financially.

Congressional Republicans, it seems, are on the road to nowhere.