WASHINGTON — A senior Republican National Committee strategist quit Tuesday, leaving behind a scathing resignation letter that blasts chairman Michael Steele for spending as much as 70 percent of donations on fundraising and credits other GOP groups for the party’s gains.
RNC political director Gentry Collins delivered to RNC members and Steele a five-page outline of where he views the party as it heads into 2012’s presidential election: broke and badly in need of repair.
Despite Nov. 2’s results that gave Republicans control of the House and gains elsewhere, Collins’ farewell on RNC letterhead is a clear summary of the challenges Steele would face should he seek to remain in charge beyond January, as well as a playbook for defeating him if Steele runs for another term.
“In the previous two nonpresidential cycles, the RNC carried over $4.8 million and $3.1 million respectively in cash reserve balances into the presidential cycles,” Collins wrote in the memo first reported by Politico. “In stark contrast, we enter the 2012 presidential cycle with 100 percent of the RNC’s $15 million in lines of credit tapped out, and unpaid bills likely to add millions to that debt.”
The RNC has raised more than $79 million this year and has spent all of it — and then some. Steele started the job with a $23 million surplus.
The committee responded with a statement noting that it raised, when adjusted for inflation, $24 million more than the RNC raised during the 1994 cycle when Republicans control of Congress.
The RNC also said it made 45 million voter contacts and worked with 200,000 volunteers.
Collins contended the committee spent too much on fundraising and should in the future “only spend to win elections.”
