Duncan running to keep RNC job

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Robert “Mike” Duncan will run to keep his job, he announced in an e-mail early Wednesday morning.

But he won’t have an easy time, as he faces as many as eight challengers who have already lined up for the job.

{mosads}Two years after President Bush hand-picked the Kentucky attorney to lead the RNC, Duncan’s fate now rests with the 168 committee members who will vote on leadership elections on Jan. 31 in Washington. With no Republican in the White House, the party will hold open elections for the first time since 1997, when Jim Nicholson stunned observers to win the post.

During his tenure at the helm, Duncan has proven an adept fundraiser, raking in $417 million since taking over in 2007. This year, the Republican National Committee was the only one of the three campaign committees to outraise its Democratic counterpart.

Occasionally criticized for his lack of communications skills, Duncan has made a point recently to appear more on cable news channels, taking on a much higher profile after the November elections. That will be important to committee members, many of whom are concerned with electing a talking head as much as a political strategist.

That higher profile has come in handy in recent weeks as Republicans swept the final three electoral contests of the year. In Georgia, Sen. Saxby Chambliss won an easy reelection, while the party won an open seat and defeated a Democratic incumbent in Louisiana.

In all three cases, Duncan issued statements congratulating the winners and claiming at least some credit. In an interview, Duncan shared the credit with local and other national party organizations while giving the RNC at least some due.

“It’s a partnership,” Duncan said. In Georgia, “the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] was doing the air war while we were doing the ground game, and the [state] party was providing us volunteers for the ground game.”

Many Republicans have noted President-elect Obama’s superior ground organization, an operation that started more than a month before Election Day and put the GOP’s once-vaunted 72-hour program to shame. By crediting “all those kinds of blocking and tackling things that we do,” Duncan may hope to associate himself with the future of the party’s organizational comeback.

“All of these victories have a lot of fathers, and we’re just happy to be a part of it,” Duncan said, adding that the latest wins are “a signal of the [GOP’s] resurgence.”

Duncan also wins points among backers for his attention to detail. That, says Oregon national committee member Solomon Yue, comes from serving on the committee, first as Kentucky state chairman and then as national committeeman, for so long. “He is one of us, rising from [our] ranks,” Yue said.

But having once had Bush’s backing is both a blessing and a curse for Duncan. The president enjoys overwhelming support among RNC members, but many acknowledge the need for a new direction, and several of Duncan’s foes are using Bush’s one-time support as an attack line.

“He was George Bush’s last appointed chairman. I think people are looking for a change,” Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis said of Duncan in an interview last week.

Others have criticized Duncan for focusing too heavily on battleground states at the presidential level at the cost of party-building activities that help lower-ballot races. “In a lot of states, what happened is that the McCain campaign and the RNC held joint fundraisers and basically took federal dollars and exported them to other states,” Arizona Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen said.

“If you weren’t one of the 15 battleground states, you were basically expected to do without,” Pullen continued. “The strategy was a winner-take-all strategy, and that’s great if you win. But if you don’t win, you’ve basically left 35 states out to dry.”

Though Duncan has his critics, observers say he remains one of the top contenders for the RNC job. Still, there are at least five other top-tier candidates, including Anuzis, South Carolina party Chairman Katon Dawson, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and ex-Tennessee Party chief Chip Saltsman.