The state Republican Party’s focus next election cycle will be on legislative races, a top party official said.
“In the past, this has been a very top-down party,” said state GOP Executive Director Sean McCaffrey. “They have worked to elect the top of the ticket and they have hoped that the races lower down the ballot will just carry along.” 
In 2008, the aim is to retake seats lost to Democrats in the state House and Senate, McCaffrey said. “And if those seats go Republican, we believe the top of the ticket races will go Republican. And that’s where our money will go.”
The strategy will change in 2010, when the focus will be the governorship, along with other statewide races, he said.
Raising money has been a problem for Republicans both in the state and nationally. With $1.41 million, the state Democratic Party has raised three times as much for federal races so far this year compared to the state GOP, which raised about $441,600.
Nationally, the figures were hardly encouraging for Republicans. The National Republican Congressional Committee only had $1.6 million cash on hand as of Sept. 30. Its counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, had $28.3 million.
McCaffrey said several factors led to the state Republicans’ low fund-raising totals this year: The party didn’t elect a chairman until January; and a financial director was not hired until about the middle of spring.
Another cause, he said, was the “party divide” over the bi-partisan immigration bill in the U.S. Senate, which put Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., under criticism from his own party.
“Whether you agreed with it or disagreed with, it was a contentious issue and that disrupted two areas — telemarketing and mail,” McCaffrey said. But other fund-raising programs are on track, if not higher than in previous election cycles, he said.
One question is how the Republicans’ dismal fund-raising figures would affect the congressional races in Arizona, which both parties see as a battleground state in 2008.
“It spells trouble for the NRCC for their ability to wage effective, aggressive campaigns against specifically Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords,” said Doug Thornell, DCCC press secretary.
“It is also going to stretch them protecting the Renzi open seat and protecting John Shadegg,” Thornell said.
He said Arizona was a priority state during the November 2006 elections, which saw Democrats take control of Congress. Arizona will remain just as important for the DCCC next year. Specifically, the group is mounting an aggressive defense of the seats being held by Mitchell and Giffords, Thornell said.
“Not far behind that,” he said, “we are aggressively going after the Rick Renzi open seat, and we are very high on the John Shadegg’s seat as well.” Already, Democrats have been running radio ads against Shadegg for his stand on the child health care program SCHIP, he said.
The conventional view is that without money to spread around, candidates can’t get their message out.  “Buying time on television is particularly expensive, and candidates need to have a deep financial well to afford enough television to get a message across,” said state Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily Bittner.
The trouble for the GOP was perhaps best summed up by Republican fund-raiser Jim Click in an article in The Arizona Republic. “I don’t care if you have the best candidates in the world. If they beat us 28-to-1 (in fund-raising), they’ll clean our clock,” he was quoted as saying.
In an interview with Arizona Capitol Times, McCaffrey said he is not panicking.
“The reason I don't panic is because we are 12 months out. If we are like this next September, then it's going to be a very tough election cycle,” he said. “But if we continue to do the job that we have been doing for the last two to three months, then the donations will be there. The question is: Can we stop ourselves from stepping on our own feet? And I don't know the answer to that question because I didn't think it was possible for us to shoot ourselves in the foot like we did in 2006, but we certainly did.”
McCaffrey said he also expects more party volunteers next year than in the last presidential elections.
Among those urging state Senate President Tim Bee to take on Giffords were D.C.-based Republicans. Asked how the NRCC’s low fund-raising figures would affect Bee’s potential run in the 8th Congressional District, McCaffrey said, “The most important thing for every campaign is that the individual campaigns have their resources to get their message out to the voters. And I’m confident that every Republican congressional candidate in the state will have those resources.”
He also spelled out what each congressional candidate has to do to secure support of the NRCC, which he said “cannot win a race for a candidate” but can help put someone over at the top.
No party can be stronger than its candidate, he added. Accordingly, the party has worked hard to find candidates who “match” their districts, he said. 
“If they are in suburban districts, it’s important that they care about issues that matter to soccer moms, that they care about issues that matter to people struggling to make their housing payments,” he said. “If we ran an entire campaign in 30 legislative districts based just on tax relief, we'd lose a lot of seats because in some districts, border security is the most important issue, in some districts safe schools is the most important issue, in other districts, health care is the most important issue.”
The best candidate, he said, is one who can say, “Sean, that’s great what you believe in, but my voters here want to talk about these things.”