GOP Young Guns aim to win 22 House seats

A group of energetic House Republicans known as the Young Guns are shooting forward with a plan to help like-minded GOP candidates and the cash-strapped, scandal-worn National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Paul Ryan (Wis.) launched the Young Guns fundraising program earlier this year, grabbing the headline of a Weekly Standard feature in the process. It heralded the 30-to-40-something swashbuckling trio as just the right fresh faces to lead the party and wrest the majority back into Republican hands.

{mosads}The threesome has trained its sights on a list of 17 challenger races and five open-seat contests. The idea, McCarthy says, is to select candidates who share the group’s sense of fiscal responsibility and conservative values.

They also want future colleagues who are dedicated to upholding congressional ethics and represent a stark departure from the scandals of the past that helped bring down the GOP majority in 2006.

Already, nearly 50 GOP House members have committed to donating a minimum of $1,000 to each candidate on the list. Many of those also have agreed to serve as political and strategic mentors in the critical months leading up to November and to hold at least one D.C. fundraiser for a candidate. The growing number of Young Gun members meet for breakfast every other week to talk politics and strategy.

The idea, McCarthy said, is to support not only those candidates who are relatively young in age, but also those who have fresh, new, formidable résumés. Tom Manion, an executive at Johnson & Johnson, served 20 years in the Marine Corps, retiring as a colonel. He was inspired to run for Congress after his son Travis, a naval officer, died in the Iraq war. He is running against Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), an Iraq war vet elected in 2006 after campaigning as a harsh critic of the Bush administration’s handling of the war.

Despite the focus on generating new blood, however, some of the Young Gun candidates are familiar names who would not be new to Congress. The group is supporting former Rep. Melissa Hart (Pa.), who lost her seat to Jason Altmire (D) in 2006, as well as former Reps. Anne Northup (Ky.) and Mike Sodrel (Ind.), who lost to Democrats John Yarmuth and Baron Hill, respectively.

The NRCC needs all the help it can get. It has raised a feeble fraction of the funds its Democratic counterpart has taken in this cycle, and an accounting scandal discovered earlier this year spawned an FBI investigation, as well as distrust among many would-be GOP donors.

As a result, only the most optimistic and determined partisans think winning 17 seats and retaking the majority is a real possibility. McCarthy, however, is undaunted.

The freshman McCarthy, who served as the district director to former Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) before becoming Republican floor leader in the California Assembly and winning his ex-boss’s seat, still finds Washington a new challenge and fighting on the political front lines invigorating.

The fourth-generation Californian from the dusty town of Bakersfield is often touted as the next NRCC chairman, and he bubbles over with enthusiasm and political stats when asked about his role in the Young Guns program.

“We’re going on offense,” McCarthy declares in his usual ebullient, guns-blazin’ style. “We’re supporting those candidates who have shown that they are dedicated to conservative values and a commitment to rebuilding the Republican Party. ”

One of those challengers is Pete Olson, who is running to retake former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s Texas seat. Republicans lost the district to Nick Lampson by 10 percentage points in 2006 after a string of ethics scandals forced DeLay to resign. Olson, a decorated officer in the Naval Reserve, served as chief of staff to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) until last year, when he began his campaign. He previously served as a top aide to former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas).

Lou Barletta, who is running against Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.), served as mayor of Hazleton, the third-largest city in the district, and his record on unions and immigration could make conservatives salivate.

According to a Young Guns brochure, during his time as mayor, Barletta reformed four illegal union contracts with the city and erased a city deficit.

He also “passed one of the nation’s strictest municipal laws against illegal immigration fining landlords for renting to illegal aliens, revoking business licenses for five years if found to hire an illegal alien, and declared English the official language of the city,” the brochure said.

Cantor, who serves as the GOP chief deputy whip and the NRCC’s finance director, says the effort will supplement, not compete with, other party committee fundraising programs.

“Our goals are the same: regaining House seats,” said NRCC spokeswoman Julie Shutley. “We’re always happy to have anybody and anyone helping us to rebuild the Republican majority.”