It's champagne time at the Democratic campaign committees and blame time at the GOP panels, as Democrats exceeded everyone's expectations in both the House and Senate contests on Election Day. A close look suggests several factors. Since the Monica S. Lewinsky story broke in January, Democratic Party committees, organized labor and minority activists knew that their work was cut out for them. As a Democratic Party official said, "It was do or die, and we knew it."
By contrast, House Republicans have a tough question to answer: When you have nearly a 3-to-1 fund-raising advantage (see chart), how do you still lose five seats? There are two explanations. One is the law of diminishing returns in spending — and House Republicans managed to raise far beyond what any committee could effectively spend. The other is — reformers notwithstanding — that money isn't everything.
House Republicans, unlike their Senate counterparts, had sufficient money to fully fund every Republican candidate with a pulse and still have enough left over to air a highly questionable television campaign. One problem was that many of
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