Governors Raise Record Funds Despite Depleted Ranks

WASHINGTON — Although GOP fundraising is lagging behind Democrats elsewhere, the Republican Governors Association is bucking the trend by collecting a record-breaking $21.5 million for a long-range strategy to rebuild its shrinking membership.

The drive has been spearheaded by a tag team of governors — first Georgia's Sonny Perdue and now Texas Gov. Rick Perry — who want to reverse the steady loss of Republican governorships, from 30 in 2000 down to just 22.

In the aftermath of GOP losses in the 2006 elections, a handful of Republican governors gathered around a conference table during their annual meeting at the posh Doral golf resort and agreed to launch a four-year recovery program.

They agreed, "OK, something's not working," recalled Nick Ayers, the former campaign manager for Perdue. The group asked Ayers to draft a plan and he was installed as executive director of the Republican Governors Association last year, when Perdue was serving as the RGA chairman.

After Perry took over as chairman of the governors group this year, he kept both Ayers and the four-year strategy.

"From Gov. Perry's perspective, the goals in 2008 are pretty simple," said Robert Black, spokesman for the Texas governor. "We need to raise money and focus on a handful of races this year" and also build up a donor base and develop innovative state policies that could win future elections, he said.

The RGA's gospel is that donors and the general public are far more favorable to statehouse solutions than anything devised in Washington, D.C.

So far, donors who have been slow to write checks for the Republican congressional campaign committees are responding to the party's governors.

With Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national party chairman and lobbyist, as finance chairman, the group raised $21.5 million last year for just three governor races. It has $9.5 million left as it begins the 2008 election year, when the group hopes to raise much more money for 11 governor races.

By contrast, the Democratic Governors Association raised $12.8 million last year and has $7.2 million on hand. The money advantage may not be that helpful this year, however. Both sides agree that the GOP has a steep hill to climb.

Brian Namey, spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association, said, "We're in a strong position politically" with 28 governor seats and the possibility of picking up additional ones in Missouri and Indiana this year.

Ayers conceded that "the math works against" Republicans in this year's statehouse races, since Democratic targets tend to be in northeastern states that are less friendly to Republicans.

But he held that prospects will change as the parties vie for governorships in 2010, when states begin the crucial, once-a-decade work of redrawing congressional districts in response to the latest census findings.

Ayers added that for the first time a governor, Perdue, is in charge of recruiting new candidates.

Republican governors, who took solace in the election of Bobby Jindal as governor of Louisiana last year, have adopted the multi-year approach, Ayers said.

"They knew it would take longer than one year to turn the battleship around."