Redstate

Adam, that sounds great. However, I wonder if that's just another feel-good scheme that lets some folks wash their hands of the dirty feeling left over from donating to fake-R incumbents and while backfilling that cash imbalance to the rest of the approved slate of candidates with money donated by those who did not earmark their contributions.

That's the way it's done in a lot of places that have optional earmarking of donations. For example, the Combined Federal Campaign, which includes hundreds of charities, takes donations from federal employees every year. Standard donations go to the CFC's general fund, but people who don't want their money going to groups like Amnesty International or the GLBT Boys and Girls Clubs of America can earmark the cash they donate for certain other charities they do believe in.

The catch? Every -- every -- charity that participates in the CFC gets the exact same amount of money from their participation. So, if you earmark your $100 donation to, for example, the Boy Scouts of America, that just means that somebody else's (or a contribution of other people's) non-earmarked contribution will go to the organizations you specifically earmarked your donation to avoid helping fund.

I would not be the least bit surprised if this is how the NRSC's new earmark program will work -- that (in 2006 terms) somebody's $100 earmarked for, say, Rick Santorum would be balanced out by somebody's non-earmarked $100 being used to backfill the allotment for Lincoln Chafee's campaign.

Given their horrible judgment in 2006, the possibility (or "likelihood") of this policy means that folks who still care about that sort of thing might be better off sticking with direct giving, either through their preferred senatorial candidates' websites, or through third-party facilitators like Big Red Tent, RightRoots, or Slatecard.