National GOP: Elaine Marshall already in U.S. Senate

Thanks to NC Policy Watch for pointing out that the National Republican Senatorial Campaign needs to do just a wee bit more research before going public with new website info. The NRSC is asking for donations to help the GOP gain seats in the U.S. Senate, but perhaps they should have a list of actual senators available for their writers. It turns out that the NRSC wants money to keep Elaine Marshall from “going back to the Senate.” Here’s the text of their pitch:

Help Defeat Elaine Marshall! For nearly two years, America has suffered from the liberal Democrat’s control of Washington and if Elaine Marshall is sent back to the Senate, we can only expect more of the same: increased spending and soaring national debt. The only way to stop our country’s backward movement is to defeat the Democrats at the ballot box. The National Republican Senatorial Committee wants to help Richard Burr and all of our GOP Senate candidates win in November, but we need your help to do so . . .

NC Policy Watch jokes that the NRSC has a creative strategy: “In a year unfavorable to incumbents, just claim that the other candidate is the one in the Senate.” The NRSC made a stupid, but simple mistake, but frankly, the same kind of thing could just as easily happen to the national Democratic campaign. The point we get out of this snafu is that if Richard Burr had ever done anything in Congress that was memorable, rather than slogging along as a corporate-owned knot on a log, someone at the NRSC would probably have caught the mistake. Considering Do-Nothing Dick’s record, however, you can easily picture some GOP honcho’s eyes passing over Burr’s name without it even registering that he’s a U.S. Senator.

This article appears in Aug 17-23, 2010.