How Steele's troubles hurt the GOP, part IX

When a political party is launching an election campaign, not only must they figure out how to raise money, they must also figure out how to organize the money. And then spend it.

During the course of a campaign, the party coordinates with its national committee, its presidential campaign if any, Senate committee, House committee, state committees, and everyone else, to coordinate where the money is needed most acutely.

Enter Steele.

Now that his grotesque mismanagement of the national committee has become a national joke, the entire apparatus for managing money flow for 2010 is disrupted, and the traditional Republican planning for election funds is out of whack.

Perkins, the powerful rightwing advocate, is telling people not to donate to the national GOP -- give it to the tea party people instead! In other words, give it to people who are already incredibly disorganized even before you get to the friction between the teabaggers and the GOP.

Money is going to an anti-Steele group called American Crossroads.

Money is going to the Club For Growth which has actually attacked Republican candidates for being insufficiently wingnutty.

Money is going to the organization which the teabaggers claim doesn't exist -- Freedomworks, the group which launched the allegedly "grassroots" tea parties in the first place.

Then there's the Republican Trust PAC.

And a bunch of others.

And this is zero-sum -- money that goes to these offshoot groups is, by definition, not going to the actual party.

And all this chaos makes an organized campaign finance effort absolutely impossible for the Republicans. Not only do you have conservatives fighting conservatives, you have money fighting other money.


What a shame. Dang!

Oh, by the way -- guess who is starting to face some exposure for handling their money sloppily and dishonestly? You guessed it, the tea party groups. Suddenly the folks who are donating to those groups are asking -- where is that money going? And some of it is being wasted and/or stolen by the clowns running these groups. So what do you think that will do to their fundraising?

...and Palin's PAC is also under fire for spending very little on the candidates they're supposed to be supporting. So...Palin mismanages money, Steele mismanages money, the teabaggers mismanage money, but they're the ones who insist on grabbing control of America's financial future away from Obama.