Roll Call is noting that the NRCC spent a little money on a mailer attacking Independence Party candidate David Dillon in the Third district:The National Republican Congressional Committee's independent expenditure arm has started spending money to knock a third-party candidate in Minnesota's 3rd Congressional district, where one of the most competitive races in the country is under way to fill retiring Rep. Jim Ramstad's (R) seat.
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The NRCC's IE unit spent $11,200 in mail opposing businessman David Dillon, the nominee of the Independence Party, according to online finance records. Although that is a small amount of money considering the millions of dollars both parties are investing in Congressional races, the spending suggests that Dillon is likely taking votes away from Paulsen. There's more to this story, however. This mailer may or may not have been sent to Republican-leaning voters who may be voting for Dillon instead of Republican candidate Erik Paulsen. Sources indicate that this mailer has definitely been sent to strong Democrats.
 Why would the NRCC be sending mail to strong Dems? It's entirely possible their lists are just bad. On the other hand, my sources indicate that the mailer (visible at right) attacks David Dillon for being too liberal on the issues -- that doesn't sound like the NRCC is worried about conservative voters crossing over for the third party. Rather, it sounds like they're trying to encourage a little dissention in the ranks of strong Democrats, and get Madia voters to vote third party. Under this theory (which, admittedly, is what it is), the NRCC doesn't care about Dillon, but are trying to play reverse-psychology games with the DFL base in CD3.
Sneaky, but not out of character for the NRCC. I'm waiting on Here's a scan of the mailer so you can have a good look at it. For $11,000, the NRCC gets maybe 20,000 pieces of mail, perhaps 40,000 voters. Not a huge universe for a mail piece like this one, unless they're really, really worried about losing by a couple of points. |
