Cole Announces 2008 NRCC Lineup

[Ron Burgundy]

CQPolitics.com - As the new chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole (news, bio, voting record) is responsible for developing the party’s House campaign strategy for the 2007-08 election cycle. And Cole continues to build a quasi-cabinet of House Republicans who will assist in the quest to reclaim the majority they lost to the Democrats in last fall’s elections.

Cole announced Monday that he will be utilizing the counsel of Virginia Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, who had a successful run as NRCC chairman early this decade. Davis will head the NRCC’s executive committee, a governing body composed of House GOP members.

Davis, who won a seventh term last November in Northern Virginia’s 11th District, headed the NRCC in the 2000 cycle. In that year, House Republicans lost just one seat overall and defended their majority, even though they were defending nearly three times as many “open” seats — those in which no incumbent ran — as the Democrats.

Davis topped that as he oversaw the NRCC in the 2002 cycle, when the Republicans scored a net gain of six seats.

Cole also said Monday that Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor (news, bio, voting record), the chief deputy Republican whip in the House, would serve as NRCC fundraising chairman during the 2007-08 cycle.

In the run-up to the 2006 elections, Cantor headed the NRCC’s “Battleground” program, which solicited surplus campaign funds from politically “safe” House Republicans for use in assisting GOP candidates in tough races.

Cantor also has a influential “leadership PAC,” Every Republican Is Crucial (ERIC), which gave more than $1.3 million to GOP candidates and committees in the election cycle just past — more than any other congressional Republican’s political action committee. Cantor won a third term last November in Virginia’s 7th District, a Republican stronghold that extends north from part of Richmond and its suburbs.

Last week, Cole announced that seven-term Rep. Phil English, of northwestern Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, would head up efforts to retire the NRCC’s post-election debt of $14.4 million. English was a contender for the NRCC chairmanship after the November elections, but was eliminated after finishing third to Cole and Texas Rep. Pete Sessions (news, bio, voting record) on a first ballot of House Republican members. Cole then defeated Sessions on a second ballot.

The 110th Congress convened last week with 233 Democrats and 202 Republicans — meaning that Cole and his House GOP colleagues would need to make a net gain of at least 16 seats to wrest back the majority.