The following is a message from Brad Dayspring Communications Director for the NRSC:

This might be the week in which the door was slammed on the post election honeymoon and/or doldrums, depending on your political leanings.  As President Obama worked to minimize the failed sequester strategy damage has caused, Republicans began to get our mojo back by standing up and fighting. And yesterday, a 2014 map that was already sorta difficult for Senate Democrats became even tougher.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal’s Neil King begins to pull back the curtain on the NRSC’s plans for the new election cycle.  ”Republican prospects for taking the Senate in 2014 brightened Thursday with Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin’s announcement that he won’t run for re-election,” King writes. “But the man in charge of the GOP’s Senate campaign arm says the party has work to do to capitalize on this and other opportunities, mainly by identifying and supporting candidates it sees as electable. ”The last election taught us that candidates matter,” said Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in outlining his strategy for an election year that aligns well for the GOP effort to take the Senate.  ”We can’t simply take a hands-off approach and say it doesn’t matter to us,” he said in an interview.”

Conservatives inherently understand that Washington doesn’t know best, in fact it’s in our DNA. That’s why the NRSC is hard at work building relationships in all 2014 battleground states with local grassroots organizations, elected officials, and potential 2014 candidates and staff.  ”Unlike in 2010, when the GOP ran a nationally focused campaign attacking the Obama administration’s stimulus spending and national health-care overhaul, Mr. Moran said the party intends to tailor next year’s campaigns to appeal to local interests and local sensitivities.  Each state needs to have a state campaign that is independent of any national campaign,” he said.

Battleground states are different entities, there is no one size fits all solution, and the path to victory is going to look different in each.  ”Mr. Moran was diplomatic in saying the campaign committee likely wouldn’t endorse primary candidates outright. But he said the group was already working alongside governors, chambers of commerce and legislators in various states “to find candidates that are electable.”  By building trust early, fostering and harnessing momentum, and synergizing our efforts with those on the ground, the goal is simple: to get the Senate functioning so that it works or the people again, instead of just the powerful in Washington.

Seize the day,

Brad Dayspring
2014 BATTLEGROUND SONAR

KENTUCKY: NRSC Announces Email Recruiting Bid for 1st Candidate of 2014 Cycle…  ASHLEY JUDD..The email is designed to look like a fundraising pitch for Judd from Democrats.vv“Ashley Judd needs your help. Despite the fact that she lives inTennessee, Judd desperately wants to run for Senate in neighboring Kentucky. I know what you’re thinking: how can a person who has said “Tennessee is home,” that San Francisco is “my American city home” and that she “winters in Scotland” run for Senate in Kentucky?” the email reads.  “Well, that’s where you come in.,” it says. Littered with links to “donate” to Judd’s campaign, the email also includes photos of the Versailles, Kentucky castle and urges donors to “donate $10,000, $25,000 or $50,000 we can start to piece together a down payment for a house that provides Judd all the amenities that she has grown accustomed to as she jets between Hollywood, Scotland, San Francisco and Tennessee.”

MICHIGAN: Who Will Fill Levin’s Seat? “Michigan Republicans have a lot of strong potential candidates, and we are more than ready to have a real conversation with Michigan families why Republican leadership is necessary to fix Washington,” Michigan Republican Chairman Bobby Schostak said in a statement Thursday.   Republican consultant Stu Sandler described the Levin retirement as “a once-in-a-30-year opportunity.” He noted 2014 will be a non-presidential year and said he expects the GOP will have “a very strong ticket” headed by Gov. Rick Snyder. …”This has just gone from being a sure thing to a competitive race,” said Lansing political consultant Ken Brock. “I would expect large fields on both sides.”

SOUTH DAKOTA/ILLINOIS: Are Durbin and Johnson I next?  Other potential Democratic retirements include Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who many expect to leave the Senate, and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who has yet to make a public decision.

ARKANSAS: Mark Pryor is vulnerable…  ”In 2014, Arkansas offers Republicans a chance to replace Democrats in the Governor’s Mansion, where Gov. Mike Beebe is term-limited, and in the Senate, where Sen. Mark Pryor is vulnerable. Democrats, of course, will not simply hand over those seats… …It’s rare for incumbent senators to lose in the general election, but this is the first time Pryor has had a Republican opponent since President Obama was elected, and the state is in the midst of a historic shift. That means the national GOP and its allies will make Pryor’s seat a top priority. The Club for Growth, a powerful group backed by big donors that supports limited government, has already produced an ad tying him to Obama — complete, as is usually the case with both sides, with a faceless narrator, unflattering photos, and sound effects.  The Supreme Court has ruled that these groups, unlike the actual campaigns, can raise and spend unlimited money when they don’t donate directly to candidates. So expect to see ads like this every time you tune the TV to a local station in 2014.”