The Rhode Island Republican State Central Committee spent nearly five times as much in the 2006 election on consulting fees to people connected to the party than it gave to its own General Assembly candidates, who then failed to pick up any seats.

After providing more than $80,000 in cash and in-kind donations to its State House candidates in 2004, the state Republican Party provided cash donations totaling just $5,095 to a dozen legislative candidates last year, according to campaign finance reports. Those donations, coming three weeks before the general election, ranged from $270 to $500 per candidate.

Though several General Assembly races were close, the Rhode Island GOP suffered a net loss of one lawmaker in the last election, losing an open House of Representatives seat after a Republican incumbent decided not to run for reelection. Governor Carcieri was the only Republican to win a statewide election in November.

A few people connected to the party made out better than its candidates. In the last cycle, the Rhode Island GOP paid:

• $8,300 in consulting fees to the Torrey Group, the firm of Jeffrey Britt, a consultant who advises Carcieri.

• $2,000 for consulting by Carcieri campaign worker Mark McKiernan.

• $2,000 for consulting by Adam Gabrault, whom a state party spokesman also identified as a former Carcieri campaign worker.

• $11,630 for legal work by Giovanni Cicione, a former U.S. House candidate who is currently campaigning to be chairman of the Rhode Island GOP.

Republican Andrew Lyon, who lost a race for state treasurer in November, said the state party suffers from a lack of a commitment to party building in Rhode Island. Republicans hold 18 of 113 seats in the Rhode Island House and Senate.

“We thought we made strides two years ago when we picked up seats,” said Lyon, who ran unsuccessfully in 2004 for the General Assembly. “But we’ve just gone backwards two steps.”

Lyon said party leaders, whom he declined to name, had promised him financial support if he would run for the open state treasurer seat last year.

“There were a lot of promises made — ‘we’ll get you this, we’ll get you that, you’ll be able to run TV commercials’ — and when it doesn’t come about, it turns into a rout,” said Lyon, an assistant vice president/underwriting manager working in banking. “A lot of people in the party let me down. It’s very disappointing. If you don’t have the resources to get your message out, you’re done.”

In an interview this week at Republican headquarters in Warwick, party spokesman Chuck Newton said the Rhode Island GOP battled through a “horrible” year for fundraising in 2006, as candidates for major offices, such as governor and U.S. Senate, gobbled up much of the available campaign donations. He defended the way the party spent its money.

“We spent too little on candidates and we spent too little on consultants that could do us some good,” Newton said. “The party can be criticized for failing to do a good enough job raising money. And that’s the central focus of what we need to do.

“If you assume that a typical House race cost somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000, then take all the money we spent on consultants, divvy it up between the 40- or 50-odd campaigns we were trying to support — it wouldn’t have amounted to a hill of beans. Do I think we overspent on consultants? No. Do I think we underspent on candidate support? Yes. Would loved to have done both, but we didn’t have the wherewithal.”

He acknowledged that “there were a few candidates who expected more financial support” from the state party. “I think everyone had the intention that there would be more direct party support — we just didn’t have the money.”

The GOP hired Britt for his counsel on campaign strategy; Gabrault and McKiernan were paid for “organizational work,” Newton said. Cicione’s legal work for the party included training poll checkers to monitor the elections and guard against voter fraud. Cicione could not be reached yesterday.

Newton said the party tried a new strategy in the last election cycle: hiring full-time staff to help oversee the campaign. “Those dollars to fund the full-time staff were not available for candidates,” he said. “What we chose to do is provide resources for candidates without putting money directly into their hands.” The staff, including Newton and field director Andrew Berg, recruited candidates, updated the party’s voter database, researched the voting records of incumbent Democrats, and developed campaign strategy, among other duties — all of which benefited Republicans running for local offices, Newton said.

He estimated that the party spent $100,000 on fundraising expenses in the last election, which included about $30,000 in fees paid last year to Darcie Johnston, a Vermont-based fundraising consultant who also worked for Carcieri and former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee.

The GOP also paid $6,192 last August to the consulting firm Northeast Strategies, a company controlled by the wife of James Tobin, a former Republican National Committee campaign official who was found guilty of criminally violating election law in New Hampshire, for jamming Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks in 2002. (Newton said the party dealt with consultant Kathie Summers from Northeast Strategies, and that he has never met Tobin or his wife.) The company helped organize phone banks and voter ID efforts, Newton said.

The state party also paid for direct-mail blitzes in support of Republican candidates, and organized bulk discounts for local candidates on direct-mail pieces designed by the party, he said.

Right up until Election Day, Republicans were confident in their strategy. “We felt very good,” Newton said. “We thought we would pick up a net of five or six seats — eight if we were really optimistic.”

Newton blamed the party’s losses on an “anti-Bush vote,” as voters vented frustrations with the president on local Republicans; the Narragansett Indian casino referendum, which, he says, drew large numbers of left-leaning people to the polls who normally wouldn’t vote; and a surge in straight-ticket votes, which overwhelmingly favored Democrats.

Republican John Robitaille doesn’t blame money for his 4-vote loss to state Rep. Amy G. Rice, D-Portsmouth. He raised enough on his own to be competitive, he said. The party donated $500 to his campaign in October.

Nobody ever promised him that the state party would come through with much cash, he said. “I was originally given the heads up that there was not going to be a lot of resources available.

“The party has a long way to go. This is going to be a year of rebuilding the GOP. We need to bring some new blood into the party.” Robitaille acknowledged he is interested in running again.

Republican Brian C. Newberry got $350 from the state party for his race against Democratic incumbent Rep. Raymond C. Church, who took 51.8 percent of the vote to Newberry’s 48.2 percent, in a district representing North Smithfield and part of Burrillville.

Newberry agrees that he was caught in an anti-Republican wave. But with such a close loss, he cannot say whether more money from the party would have made a difference, he said. “They gave what they could, which unfortunately was less than I had hoped. Everyone was disappointed in the money the party raised for candidates in the General Assembly in 2006… It was not a good year to have an R after your name on the ballot.”

marsenau@projo.com