Q:                    Well, this makes me wonder.  I guess I’m more — stepping back from this race for just a second.  Did the NRSC sometimes have an opinion about whether, in a race like this, the Republican Party could field a stronger candidate than the incumbent, and maybe even act on that opinion in some subtle ways?

TIMMONS:      Certainly not in ’04.  I mean, in ’04, again, you protected your incumbents first.  I don’t know what the policy or the thinking is since that time, but at that [00:28:00] point, we protected our incumbents.  Senator Bunning, I think a lot of folks actually thought he was going to retire; he decided not to retire, and for the most part, he was leading, although it was narrowing as the election got closer.  But if it followed the wave of the other elections, one would have assumed that he would have maintained his lead, or it would have increased.  But what happened is he made some errant statements toward the end of the campaign, about — if I can recall, two weeks to 10 days out–and all of a sudden, his poll numbers dropped fairly significantly.  We were polling all of these races and we saw that his numbers dropped, so we had to make a decision at that point.  We had very little resources left.  We were balancing our resources at that point between Kentucky, Colorado, and Louisiana.  And I know we’ll get to Louisiana later, but we had to figure out whether to reserve resources for a potential runoff election in December or [00:29:00] whether to pile the money into the pre-Election Day activities.  So we really wanted to preserve our resources in Louisiana, and it came down to Colorado and Kentucky, and it came back to that maxim that you protect your incumbents.  So we moved money out of Colorado, whereas I think if we would have kept it, we would have won Colorado, in order to protect an incumbent Jim Bunning in Kentucky.

You know, it’s one of those hindsight is 20/20 decisions.  I don’t think Jim Bunning would have won, had we not moved the money into that race.  As I recall, it was maybe around a half million dollars, perhaps three-quarters of a million dollars, and that was it.  That was the last move that we could make.  So we couldn’t put that money into Colorado in the last week, where I think Pete Coors really needed it.  Pete Coors was at a 50-50 race right up until the end, and he ran out of money one week before. [00:30:00] His campaign ran out of money.  He went dark and we saw that he was going dark, and I was thinking, gosh, surely he’s going to figure out a way to get money in there.  We had money on points in Colorado in that last week, and had to pull them right out.

Q:                    So in Colorado, Republican incumbent retires, Ben Nighthorse Campbell.  You’ve got Pete Coors as the Republican nominee after a primary, right, he had to fight —

TIMMONS:      After a primary, right, a very difficult primary.

Q:                    Ken Salaz–

TIMMONS:      Ken Salazar was the…

Q:                    State attorney general, Democrat.

TIMMONS:      That’s right.

Q:                    Was part of the thinking that — and I don’t know, I may be wrong about this, but when you hear former chairman of the Board of Coors Brewing Company, you think, this guy could write a half million dollar check himself.

TIMMONS:      Yeah you know — you don’t want to think that, right?  I mean, you want to think in terms of support from your — his contributors.  You’re hoping that they are going to come forward and you’re hoping that you have the resources [00:31:00] to be able to help.

I’m one that never really wants a candidate to have to spend their own resources, but when you’re Jim Bunning, you didn’t have any other resources.  Pete Coors might have other resources, so the decision had to be made to go into the Bunning race.  And of course, that’s a factor.  Was it the factor?  No.  The factor was protect the incumbent.

Q:                    Well, you mentioned Louisiana, and maybe it would be worth explaining that kind of odd —

TIMMONS:      If I can.  (laughter).  So it’s an open primary.  At that time, it was an open primary and there were two very viable Democrats.  It was Chris John, who was a very, very moderate Democratic congressman — great guy by the way — and then, John Kennedy, who I think was the state treasurer perhaps.

Q:                    Exactly right.

TIMMONS:      And then, David Vitter, who was a member of Congress and a very, very strong candidate.

Q:                    And the primary, the open primary takes place — [00:32:00]

TIMMONS:      On Election Day.

Q:                    — in November.

TIMMONS:      That’s right.  And so then the top two vote-getters, whoever they are, go on to a runoff in December.

Q:                    Unless…

TIMMONS:      Unless somebody gets 50% or more.

Q:                    So was that…

TIMMONS:      And I was trying to remember if — I was thinking about this earlier today.  I was trying to remember if at that time, one party — it was one from each party or if it was just the two top vote-getters —

Q:                    Top two vote-getters.

TIMMONS:      — at that time.  So, our decision was whether — we saw David Vitter’s numbers going up pretty significantly.  He was running an outstanding campaign, probably one of the best campaigns in the country, and we saw his numbers going up, so then we thought well, can we help push him over 50% on November 4, so we don’t have to deal with this December runoff.  And what had happened in previous cycles was it was always assumed that there would be a runoff, so the committees oftentimes spent all of their money before the November election, [00:33:00] and then they would raise money for the general election.  I really didn’t want to do that because we had just run a very expens — we had tapped as many of our contributors as possible.  Even though you could raise extra money for a runoff, it’s like the third cycle, primary, general, and then runoff.  You could raise another $2,000 a person.  But I think the wind was out of a lot of sails at that point.  You had a presidential campaign that was the most expensive in history, by far, at that point.  You had an extraordinarily expensive campaign for the House and the Senate, and we just figured donors were tapped out, so we rolled the dice and we decided we were going to go for it.  We put a lot of money into that race.  I think we ended up with $2 million right at the end in that race, and hopefully helped to contribute to the difference.  David Vitter ultimately was the reason that he achieved majority in that election, but that was the one that we really felt strongly about.