Much has been made in recent days of the NY Times’ weekend story entitled “Democrats Plan Political Triage to Retain House.” The short version of the story is that the Democrats will abandon trying to help incumbents whom they think are pretty much dead in the water – the apparent poster child being Colorado’s own Betsey Markey, who was against Obamacare before she was for it, and is going to get demolished by State Rep. Cory Gardner.  They’ll take the money they would have spent on those lost causes and try to focus it on enough closer races to keep their House losses below the 40 seats the GOP needs to take back a majority.

Nancy Pelosi, who until recently has never expressed any fear of losing her gavel, is singing a different tune: “She called out Democrats who were delinquent on paying their party dues and instructed members with no re-election worries to tap into a combined $218 million from their campaign accounts to help save their majority.”

Some Republicans argue that it would be better for the GOP, especially for their prospects in the 2012 presidential election, for Democrats to keep control – but not enough of a majority to get anything done – so that Republicans can run against the image of an utterly ineffectual Democrat government.  I think that’s too clever by half.  Having control of the House brings so much power and visibility, the GOP would be crazy to even consider thinking not having it might be a good idea.

The main value, of course, is the committee chairmanship.  The party with the majority controls the committees, meaning they control what subjects become committee hearing topics and who is summoned to testify before those committees.

Imagine the value, not just political, but in terms of true education for the citizens, of hearing Donald Berwick, Obama’s socialist recess-appointee to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, pontificate on the virtues of British socialized medicine…which is bankrupting England while providing a far lower quality of care than we receive here.  Imagine the value of making EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson explain the radical – I would argue insane – positions her organization is taking in trying to control the nation’s economy.

And, politically, imagine the value of the GOP finally being in a position to prove that it is currently the Party of No, but not the Party of No Ideas, as the left likes to portray it.

This presumes of course that the Republicans have ideas and that they’re willing to campaign on them.  So far, few other than Paul Ryan (R-WI) have shown that courage.  But I think Ryan is leading the way toward, dare I say it, a new spirit of intellectually- and philosophically-based government, a government which can (and should) be truly based on outcomes rather than claims of good intentions.  It remains to be seen whether the GOP leadership understands that the public is ready for principle-based leadership – and that it has almost always been a success when tried.

Meanwhile the Democrats have a real problem: their own agenda and the president.  As Politico.com points out, several Democrats who voted against Obamacare are running ads trumpeting their opposition to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s signature “achievement", while not one of the 219 House Democrats who voted for the legislation is running an ad highlighting their vote or their part in destroying the quality and raising the cost of American health care.

A few political bettors have apparently read the NY Times article and think the Dems may have some success, with the chances of the Democrats keeping control of the House rising by 8%, a very large move in a short time with no “real” news.  Still, the betting still has the Democrats with just under a 1/3 chance of keeping the House, quite a remarkable thing to see given the party’s 77-seat majority.

Nancy Pelosi seems like to be encouraging her minions to spend millions of their campaign war chest dollars on hopeless races.

A little research into the history of campaign finance shows that one of the most imbalanced years in terms of various industry groups giving to Democrats more than giving to Republicans – which is what’s happened in this cycle – was the 1994 cycle.  And since money is fungible – meaning it will have the same effect, or lack of effect, whether it comes from Democrats’ campaign coffers or a trial lawyers PAC, it’s hard to see Pelosi’s efforts having much impact.  In all but the closest races, wherever a Republican is tied or in the lead in polls now, I expect the Republican to win by a wider margin than the current polls show, even if the Democrat spends 50% or 100% more money than the Republican.

A really expensive ad campaign trying to get me to buy rotten meat won’t overcome the cheap and infrequent ad campaign reminding me that no matter how that stuff is packaged, it’s still rotten.

That said, one can’t underestimate the importance of the Republicans having at least some money to respond to the Democrats packaging their rotten meat as gourmet steak tartare.  Furthermore, if the election ends up being closer than I currently expect, it’s not out of the question for several million dollars dumped into a small number of races to be the difference between a GOP and Democrat majority.  I don’t think the election will be that close, and political betting still has an over 40% chance of the Republicans taking 50 seats or more. (They need 40 to have the majority because the Dems have a 77-seat lead right now and there are two vacancies.)

One likely (and pleasing) outcome could be Democrats spending millions to defend seats they lose anyway, and then not having that money available in 2012.  If I were a relatively safe Democrat sitting on a pile of campaign cash, I’d be very worried about that outcome, especially if a strong GOP presidential contender were to arise for 2012, someone whose coattails could pose electoral danger for a Democrat who manages to skate through this cycle.  Therefore, I think Nancy Pelosi will have minimal success in her call for Democrat congressmen to spend their money helping other Democrat congressmen.  I also think her lack of fund-raising success will snow-ball, with more and more industry groups moving away from donating to Democrats, as the securities industry has done in rather spectacular fashion, going from 70% to Democrats in March, 2009 to 68% to Republicans in June of this year.

DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama are about to reap the whirlwind.  It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of tyrants.