Blue Indiana has a handy-dandy chart with Indiana Congressional fund raising numbers. As I’ve mentioned before, Nels Ackerson in IN-04 has posted some solid numbers in his bid to unseat Steve Buyer. He raised $134,000 for the quarter. But, he still has a ways to go. Buyer raised only $73,000 for the quarter but has over $400,000 on hand. Another potentially interesting race is IN-03 where Mike Montagno has $147,000 on hand versus Mark Souder’s $145,000. (Sylvia Smith has an article on this money race in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.) Again, money isn’t everything, these candidates have to overcome demographics in those districts that have consisted of a good deal of Republican brand loyalty over the years. But, that brand has been undergoing New Coke-esque tarnishing over the past few years, and the Republicans haven’t yet shown that they have a willingness to return to Coke Classic. (Man, that was a strained metaphor, but it’s early, so I’m going with it.)
Things like the SCHIP vote will come back to bite these guys in the arse, I would think. I also agree that the national GOP is at a crossroads in regard to their “brand,” and unless they figure out where they are going to go with themselves, I don’t see the coherent Republican machine of the past showing up next year.