December 18, 2017 02:20 PM UTC

Crisis of Confidence Cripples "Con Man Cory"

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• by: Colorado Pols

A Washington Post post-mortem of the upset loss by Republicans of Jeff Sessions’ U.S. Senate seat in Alabama in last week’s special election doesn’t mention Colorado’s Sen. Cory Gardner by name, but nonetheless contains ominous words for the ambitious and cherubic junior senator from Yuma:

The president has told advisers that he wants to travel extensively and hold rallies and that he is looking forward to spending much of 2018 campaigning. He has also told aides that the elections would largely determine what he can get done — and that he expects he would be blamed for losses, such as last week’s humiliating defeat that handed a Senate seat in Alabama to a Democrat for the first time in 25 years…

But fundraising has been hurt in some quarters under Trump’s presidency, posing a financial challenge for a party increasingly spread thin in defending potentially vulnerable seats in the House and Senate. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, for example, has raised only about $2 million a month for the past four months and is spending more money than it is taking in. The White House has grown concerned about the anemic fundraising, according to one political adviser. [Pols emphasis] Committee officials declined to comment.

White House concern about Gardner’s weak fundraising performance since taking the helm of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), a subject we’ve discussed several times in this space this year, almost certainly has been aggravated in the last week by Gardner’s public split with President Trump over supporting Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore. Gardner came out on the “winning side” when Democratic candidate Doug Jones won that election, but that could still prove to be an unforgivable breach of party loyalty for the chairman of the NRSC. Moore’s narrow defeat last Tuesday has his defenders in the Republican Party hunting vengefully for scapegoats, and Gardner voluntarily put himself at the top of the list. As Scott McKay wrote for the arch-conservative American Spectator last week, fixing blame for not just Moore’s defeat but his nomination on Gardner’s machinations on behalf of NRSC-favored candidate Luther Strange:

It ought to be remembered that before giving a thumbs-down to Moore, the people of Alabama first gave a thumbs-down to Luther Strange, the Establishment puppet Gardner and McConnell tried to foist on them with some $10 million in national campaign funds poured into the race. Some $4 million of that lucre was spent carpet-bombing the one decent candidate in the GOP primary, that being Rep. Mo Brooks – a reliable conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus without any major scandal or defect in his background other than his perceived resistance to being controlled by McConnell…

This entire debacle was an exercise in denying the people what they wanted, not to mention attempting to cover up their own mistakes. That Gardner, McConnell, and the rest of the Establishment mouthpieces have fanned out across the media spectrum to tell GOP voters of the virtues of last night’s result is perfect evidence of this.

As 2017 draws to a close, multiple adverse storylines are converging on Sen. Gardner that spell big trouble in the year ahead. There’s the behind-the-scenes scandal over the NRSC’s apparent theft of fundraising leads from their House counterparts, which both entities sought to downplay until it was reported that some of Gardner’s NRSC staff had indeed lost their jobs. The related problem the NRSC has with not raising enough money to cover their expenses, which presumably made such desperate actions necessary, is further complicated by Gardner refusing to join President Trump and the Republican National Committee in resuming support for Moore in Alabama down the stretch. Now, with Republican donors looking at the possibility that the NRSC might work against Republican nominees depending on the circumstances, even at cross purposes to their own donations…

Why the hell would they give Cory Gardner any money? Why would anybody?

This, just maybe, is how Gardner’s limitless ambition gives way to his undoing.