Do Republicans have a counting problem? At the rate he’s going, Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, might wind up a dollar short and a month late come Election Day.

Cole (Okla.) this week e-mailed a fundraising letter, laden with exclamation points, to GOP supporters asking them to join the NRCC’s “Campaign for 16″ — named for, among other things, the number of seats needed to regain the majority and the number of months (he thought) until the election.

Cole explained that a donation of $16 a month would help target 16 Democrats who “have gone the extra mile for illegal immigrants” and who “voted against funding for a border fence!”

“We only need to win back 16 Congressional seats,” Cole declared in his e-mail, and “we have only 16 months in which to make it happen!”

No, Mr. Cole, you don’t have 16 months. Ya barely got 15! Sixteen months from the date you sent your letter, it’ll be Dec. 21, and the ballots will have been cast and counted.

Cole’s enemy combatants over at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee were delighted to intercept the NRCC chairman’s arithmetic-challenged e-mail. “With the NRCC’s new election math, it’s no wonder veteran Republican members are retiring,” DCCC spokeswoman Jennifer Crider said. “We wish Tom Cole and the NRCC luck in their December 21st election efforts.”

NRCC spokesman Ken Spain gave Crider a run for her money in the snarky department: “We must have confused the number of months left until Election Day with the Democrats’ approval rating.”

(For the record, he said, it was 16 months to Election Day when the NRCC formulated its “Campaign for 16″ strategy.)

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