‘The McCarthy Theory’ links vulnerability to spending on district communications

A top-ranking Republican unveiled a new party strategy last week that gauges the vulnerability of Democratic members of Congress by the amount of money they spend on mailings to voters in their districts.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the chief deputy Republican whip who has headed up GOP recruitment efforts of House candidates for this year’s election, introduced an audience at a Ripon Society event to what he calls “The McCarthy Theory.”

{mosads}“My theory goes: After five terms is when you’re going to catch someone,” said McCarthy. “Because the first two terms you come here, you bring staff from your own district. You’re not on an ‘A’ committee. On average, you spend $250,000 on communications back home and you go home more.”

Citing the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and the Republicans’ in 1994, McCarthy argued that after four years in office, most lawmakers begin to lose touch with their voters by scaling back on communication with their district and hiring staff based out of Washington.

“By your third term your staff that came from your district either wants to get married or are burned out,” he said. “You’ve now moved to get on an ‘A’ committee [and] you think you need brighter staff. So how do you get brighter staff? You pay more money. How do you get more money? You start cutting back on your communications.”

McCarthy’s strategy lends its logic to the theory that a party transfer happens every 10 years, and by that reasoning the Republicans don’t stand a chance to regain the House until 2016. And that was the philosophy that he was operating under.

“I didn’t know that we could play for the majority,” he said. “I was recruiting for six years. I thought we’d have a good cycle this year, the presidential would be the presidential, and then we’d come back with another good cycle.”

But the sophomore Republican said that those odds have changed in favor of the GOP recently. McCarthy said that the recent release of the Republicans’ “Pledge to America” gave the party a far-stretching advance from when it released its “Contract With America” in 1994, the year it swept party control.

“The difference between now and 1994 [is that] we’re not sneaking up on the Democrats, and they have the money advantage,” he said. “[Democrats] played the money advantage so poorly right now than ever before.

“If you want to play the money advantage, you start early and you never let up and you demonize your opponent that they’re worse than you and you don’t let them come up,” said McCarthy, referencing Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) bid for reelection.