Q: In hindsight [00:57:00], are there any — other than Colorado, are there any elections from 2004 where you think, you know, if we had gotten in early, and done all we could, we might have elected another Republican?
TIMMONS: I don’t. I wish I could say that about Washington State, but I just don’t think it was meant to be. You could not have asked for a better candidate, and that’s another example of a candidate that we helped recruit. You couldn’t have asked for a better candidate than George Nethercutt, but the political environment just wasn’t there for him. If I could wave a magic wand and say, if we could pick up one more, where it would be, it would be Washington. But it just wasn’t meant to be. I do think Colorado, though, is the one area where — the one state that you can point to and say, if not just for another half a million dollars, we would have had 56 instead of 55 Republican senators.
Q: Well, you know, the record shows that [00:58:00] both parties sort of invested their money intelligently, because as I said earlier, 25 out of 26 incumbents reelected by an average of 64%, so it doesn’t seem like there were any other opportunities waiting to be seized out there.
TIMMONS: Right. Yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment.
Q: What kind of legacy did you leave for your successor? In other words, this is an institution, and how was the NRSC different when you left it and the next person came in?
TIMMONS: Well, I think one of the things that we had to do is we had to figure out how to deal with a post-McCain-Feingold world, and our experiences were — you know, our experiences, and the bumps and the hurdles that we experienced during the two-year cycle, and trying to figure out how to navigate in the world of McCain-Feingold was something that we were able to pass on to [00:59:00] the next team. And a lot of the folks who worked in the financial side of the — the fundraising side of the committee stayed on under Senator [Elizabeth] Dole when she came in to take the chairmanship. I think she probably was glad to have those folks that had that experience.
Q: So what did you learn in 2004 about how to navigate this new world?
TIMMONS: Well, you just had to look at different ways to raise money. So, one of the things that was really built out during that cycle were low-dollar donors. So, say “low-dollar,” it’s a lot of money, but thousand dollar donors, two-thousand dollar donors, those folks when they start to get involved in the process, and they start to understand how they can help make a positive impact with a party committee, then graduate to become five-thousand dollar donors, and if they have the capacity, even more in future years. So, starting that — or I should say, [1:00:00] developing that team of donors who can be ambassadors for you, who can get other donors that are entry-level donors, and who can also grow as larger donors in the future, I think is one of the things we learned during that cycle.
Q: Were there things you observed about the — and I’m sure you were an interested and informed observer of the 2006 election which turned out to be a terrible year for the Republican Party, losing the Senate, were there things you observed where you thought, you know, if they had done this, if they had done that —
TIMMONS: No. (laughter)
Q: — we would have come out better, or —
TIMMONS: No, you know, I just don’t think you can second-guess any cycle. I don’t think you can second-guess any campaign, because every single campaign is different. Every campaign, every cycle for a political committee is different. [1:01:00] And I don’t think it’s fair to compare one cycle to the next; I really don’t.
Q: Last question, and this is back to fundraising. Oh-four was really the election that demonstrated the ability to raise political money on the internet. I mean, Howard Dean does that in ’03, and then the candidates in ’04. Was this something that you were able to introduce into Congressional fundraising?
TIMMONS: So, “introduce” is a really good word. A guy named Chris [inaudible] was responsible for that new realm, (laughter) you know, of fundraising, and he did a tremendous job. In fact, we were shocked at the returns that we got on small, small dollar donations from the internet. Having said that, at that time, and I guess probably still today; I don’t know; I’ve been out of it for a good number of years. [1:02:00] But you had to invest a lot of money going into it. So you didn’t make a lot of money back, but what you tried to do is you tried to then turn those donors into higher dollar donors later on. But it was the start of the process. They had actually started it the cycle before in earnest, and we just picked up on that. I would imagine what goes on at the committees today just puts what we did to shame. But it was the beginning of kind of a new era.
Q: Well, there you are comparing. You shouldn’t compare.
TIMMONS: That’s right. (laughter) You really can’t compare that one. That’s very different.
Q: Jay Timmons, is there anything I haven’t asked you about, that you would like to talk about with regard to the NRSC and the Senate elections in ’04, and anything else in ’04?
TIMMONS: Well, you know, you talked a little bit about recruiting; we touched a little bit on that. And I don’t think that there — this is the thing that folks really don’t see, and it’s the thing that is — it’s the thing, I should say that most in [1:03:00] Washington circles, it’s the thing that they know least about, but it’s the thing that they comment most on, early in the cycle, because there’s nothing else to talk about. So I know that during this cycle, the committee was criticized in the first year for its recruiting efforts. And if you look at today, they have a tremendous group of candidates, and nobody’s going to —
Q: In 2014.
TIMMONS: In 2014. And nobody’s going to be criticizing their recruitments after the election, whether they win or lose. I remember vividly in 2004, all the criticisms that George Allen, as chairman, and I got on the recruiting side, but nobody knew what we were doing behind the scenes. So I actually find that to be one of the more fascinating things about the committees, and the work that they do, and that’s what I think most people don’t understand, is how much activity the political committees have in trying to recruit candidates, and trying to help them understand, how they can put together a [1:04:00] a campaign operation, how they can put together a fundraising operation, and what the political environment — prognosticating what the political environment might be a year later. We had a great group of candidates, and I’m really proud of them, and I’m really pleased — we could have probably recruited a few others, but in the end, I think we focused on the right states, and we got the right candidates.