RNC to Phone Banking Staff ... You're Fired!

That's right, the RNC as fired all their phone bankers. The excuse reason given is that the phone bank technology is outdated and difficult to maintain. A spokesperson for the RNC told the conservative Washington Times, "the RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable."

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee's chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

An RNC spokeswoman is denying there has been a drop-off in contributions, but former employees are telling a much different story.

"Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007," said one fired phone bank solicitor who asked not to be identified.

Republicans have traditionally had a larger base of small-dollar donors than Democrats, but their base is upset and their small-dollar donations are starting to dry up. And the main reason for the drop off?

There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, another fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call "amnesty" for illegal aliens.

In September 2005, during a benefit for Hurricane Katrina survivors singer Kanye West caused a stir when he said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Well, now it seems that Bush's base doesn't care about brown people, either!

Hekebolos, at My Left Wing, writes:

Time catches up with everyone, it would seem. The Republican Party had done a fantastic job of keeping the theocons, neocons, paleocons and corporatecons united under a big tent by playing both ends against the middle--but eventually, that jig had to come to an end, and now we're seeing it in action with the immigration issue. Bush and the Republicans are compromising and "granting amnesty" to keep their corporate masters happy, and the base is finally getting around to realizing that they have, in fact, been sold down the river. And they've finally stopped parting with their dollars in the hopes that this election cycle will be different.

Looks like corporate America will be choosing the next Republican presidential candidate.