John Boehner Launches Campaign for Speaker

John Boehner is launching his campaign to be the next speaker of the House. And he's not wasting any time.

Politico reported today that the Ohio Republican representative and current House Minority leader filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to create a "Boehner for Speaker" fundraising body in tandem with the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

The "special project" has also launched a website, which outlines the NRCC's "battleplan" and is accepting donations.

Their goals: recruit candidates, advertise in targeted districts, and stop Nancy Pelosi.

"Boehner for Speaker's purpose is to expose the dramatic differences between the policy agendas of Republicans in Congress, and liberal policies of Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats running for Congress as part of her team," the Web site declares.

Funds raised through the site will be funneled through the NRCC and used to assist Republican campaigns for Congress. Republicans will need to overturn at least 40 seats in November's mid-term elections for Boehner to take over Nancy Pelosi's job.

Recent successes for the party like Sen. Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts have buoyed GOP optimism for attaining majorities in Congress this November.

Newt Gingrich expressed his optimism for the upcoming elections in an address at the Heritage Foundation's Tuesday. "As of today, I would say the odds are even that Boehner will be speaker, and they're not quite that good, but they're getting better every week that McConnell is going to be majority leader."

The "Boehner for speaker" campaign is just the latest expression of the growing confidence within the GOP ranks that the party can repeat the 1994 "Republican revolution."

"The NRCC has one job: To retire Nancy Pelosi and make John Boehner the next speaker of the House," NRCC spokesman Ken Spain told Politico. "We are grateful for everything Leader Boehner has done to help the NRCC, including his vast fundraising efforts that are critical to our candidates' success in November"