Well I did a little digging and found out some very disheartening facts about the College Republican’s current financial situation, at least according to their publicly released papers:

Year Amount Raised Amount Spent
2001 $928,388 $763,192
2002 $7,517,515 $9,887,519
2004 $5,498,325 $11,275,019

Source: The Center for Public Integrity

Now I am no mathematician, and we’re obviously missing 2003, for some reason but it seems to me the CRNC spent way beyond its means, running a deficit of over 5.5 million dollars for 2004, though since we don’t seem to have information from 2003 its hard to tell if maybe they had that money on hand, either way they can’t have much left in the bank, and more than likely they are in some serious debt. This is an angle of the story we have not heard much about, maybe this would explain why they are flooding mailboxes with fundraising letters still.

But the rabbit hole goes deeper, as they say….

Recipients of at Least $10,000 Amount Spent
Response Dynamics, Inc. and related firms $11,238,670
U.S. Postal Service $3,737,995
Direct Response Data Management $2,023,286
The Best Lists Inc. $530,390
Washington Intelligence Bureau $295,018
U.S. Bancorp $174,713
PrimePay, Inc. $151,907
Citigroup $103,477
Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn $69,624
Dell Computer Corp. $68,774
Republican State Leadership Committee $60,000
MBNA Corp. $37,137
Bonahoom & Bonahoom $26,568
Pitney Bowes Inc. $26,051
FDX Corp. $13,509
APEX Advertising, Inc. $13,198
Sprint Corp. $12,492
American Express Co. $11,515
Greenberg, Traurig, Hoffman, Lipoff, Rosen & Quentel $10,000
Source: The Center for Public Integrity

The italicized entries are all fundraising expenses (The USPS expense may be partially programming / administrative, but still…), meaning that almost $18million was spent by the CRNC on fundraising with little left over for actual programming. Now I am not saying that this is unethical, just that it isn’t very smart. I can’t confirm it, but rumor has it the CRNC doesn’t even own its “house” fundraising list, which if true makes this whole thing near criminal in its stupidity. To spend all that money prospecting and hitting your houselist and to have only 10% to show for it plus no long term list you actually own. Words can not describe how out of the ordinary such an arrangement is.

All the information contained in this post can be verified at The Center for Public Integrity.

Aren’t you glad you aren’t Bobby Byrd (D-KKK)’s press secretary…. I sure am.