The Republican National Committee just announced that it raised more than $83 million in 2007 which will be used to help defeat Hillary Clinton Barack Obama some Democrat.

Excerpt from the release:

In raising more than $83 million over the course of the year, more than 800,000 supporters sent an average of $227,000 to the RNC every single day. The RNC is debt free and had $17.2 million cash on hand at the end of the year, all of which will be dedicated to helping elect Republicans in 2008.

Let's hope some of that money goes to an effective online strategy.

UPDATE Jan. 3; 8:21 AM: While we're on the subject of the RNC, I'll point out Marc Ambinder's post from yesterday where he briefly pointed out two staff hirings which I'll expound upon here:

1. Liz Mair has accepted a new position as the RNC's Online Communications Director. Liz is known well in the Right-o-sphere as the founder of GOPProgress.com, a "RedState-style blog for libertarian, mainstream and moderate Republicans." I haven't yet talked with Liz specifically about what her role will be (is she the first "online comm dir ever?"), but my assumption is that she will be responsible for helping articulate the RNC's message through modern mediums and act as the Spokesblogger for the conservative blogosphere. I'm left wondering if she will be in eGuru Cyrus Krohn's department or the RNC Communications team but I guess it's funny how it's all merging toward the Internet delta.

2. In non-tech news at the RNC, my friend Alex Conant has become the new press secretary. I first met Alex when he worked for Senator John Thune and then later worked with him directly when he served at the White House as a regional spokesman (one of the states in his region was Michigan where I was the Communications Director for a Senate race). Alex is an extremely hard worker with a pithy tongue who always offered strong advice to me on how best to frame messages.

The RNC has an important job tomorrow and it looks like they're gearing up for it today.