Before Alabama’s Third District Republicans can choose their candidate for Congress, the National Republican Congressional Committee has tried to make up their minds for them. You see, the National Republican Congressional Committee has picked Mike Rogers as its candidate and may pump as much as $100,000 into his campaign during the coming months.Rogers is slated to face Jason Dial, son of state Sen. Gerald Dial of Lineville, and Jeff Fink, an Anniston city councilman in a Republican primary in June. But the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided that Rogers will be a recipient in its “retain our majority program.”
It’s fittingly called by its acronym, ROMP, because it romps into primary elections and selects the candidate that Washington powerbrokers and lobbyists most want to see join Congress. That’s before residents have the chance to pick the candidate they want to represent them.
With its largesse to Rogers, ROMP has put his opponents, Dial and Fink, at a tremendous disadvantage before they have had the opportunity to make their case to Third District Republicans. The ROMP money will buy a lot of television, newspaper, billboard and direct mail advertising.
Why doesn’t the National Republican Congressional Committee wait until after the primary to decide who will receive its financial backing?
A national interest pumping money into a local primary does nothing but taint the race. It brings the heavy hand of Washington politics into a local game when it’s not needed.
As Jason Dial said, “Washington has an eye on their interests, but they don’t go to the polls. The people of the Third District are the ones that matter in the campaign.”
Apparently the National Republican Congressional Committee has forgotten this fact and picked its own candidate before the people of the Third District decide.
