posted October 10, 2008 12:00 PM            

We’re starting to see the first tangible impact of the financial deficit that House Republicans are facing.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, after reserving advertising time in 26 Congressional districts, has begun to cancel or dramatically scale back some of its ad reservations across the country. Many of the hardest-hit candidates are among the GOP’s leading challengers.

Reid reported yesterday that the committee is reducing its buy in New Mexico’s First District, where the Republicans have been touting its recruit, Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White. White is locked in a neck-and-neck race against Democrat Martin Heinrich.

The news is just as tough for another leading Republican candidate, state Rep. Erik Paulsen, running in the suburban Twin Cities seat of retiring Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.). Much of the money originally slated to go to Paulsen will now go to protect GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann, running in a much more conservative district to the north.

Stu Rothenberg recently reported the committee has also cut back its buy on behalf of Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.), leaving him to fend for himself until the campaign’s final weeks.

And operatives are reporting similar cutbacks in the GOP buys against freshman Reps. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.) and Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.). As the committee needs to first protect the growing number of vulnerable Republican incumbents, their top challengers are facing the reality of the money crunch.

The timing couldn’t be worse for many of these first-time Republican candidates. At a time when the Republican party is taking the brunt of criticism for the growing economic crisis, many of their candidates are ill-equipped financially to respond to the barrage of DCCC attacks.

And as the GOP needs to allocate more money to a growing crop of vulnerable GOP incumbents, less money will be available to assist the party’s best-and-brightest candidates, who are most in need of the financial boost.