Excellent post over at Red State Arizona on what’s really happening with the state GOP and how the media has conveniently left out key info.

Yes, I know I wasn’t happy with the Sunday edition of the Republic, but I do think that the GOP does need a strong vision if it plans to beat the Democrats in 2008.

Here’s a quick excerpt from RSA:

Pullen is doing fine. If you factor in the operating expenses of both parties, the Dems’ lead decreases substantially. The Dems have spent over $1 million this year on operating costs, compared to only $250k by the GOP; evidence the GOP is better at utilizing volunteers, which the article overlooked. Maybe I should get a job working at Dem headquarters, they must be paying their people pretty good. I’ve heard the Dems have a lot of staffers unlike the GOP. Operating expenses significantly take away from money that could be spent on campaigns and ballot initiatives. So if you subtract the Dems’ operating costs from the amount they’ve raised this year ($1.41 million), that leaves them with only $410k right now to spend on races. Subtract the GOP’s operating costs of $250k from the amount they’ve raised this year ($441k) and they have $191k left, which is almost half of the Dems’ amount – significantly better than less than 1/3 which is what the Republic article reported.

Read the rest of the article.

There has been a lot written lately about voter registration numbers. Without a doubt there has been a trend toward voters registering Independent or No Party (Other.) Some have made a big deal about current registration ratios between the parties.

If you look at the registration numbers going back to 2000 you do not find much difference between the parties. In November of 2000 the Secretary of State reports voter registration numbers of 43.35% Republican and 38.24% Democratic (14.50% other.) For the general election in 2002 the numbers are 41.52% Republican and 35.87% Democratic (21.97% other.)

The numbers for the past few years look like this:

Year       Rep       Dem      Other
2000       43.35     38.24     14.50
2002       41.52     35.87     21.97
2004       39.92     34.59     24.80
2006       39.51     33.26     26.55
Oct ’07   38.24     32.96     28.11

Excuse me for missing the party trend. Since 2000 Republicans lost 5.11% and Democratic numbers are down by 5.28%. Based on this view neither party has much of an edge.