Moe Lane

Well, it’s for sure that the DNC isn’t going to help.

The DCCC confirmed to Roll Call today that the committee has shifted its Badger State operation, in place to aid Democratic Congressional candidates in the fall elections, to boost the party’s effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R) and replace him with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Today, the DCCC today sent an email fundraising appeal asking its supporters to help underwrite its participation in the recall campaign.

The worst news for the Democrats?  In a demented way, it even makes sense.  The DCCC is struggling to regain ground in Wisconsin’s current 5/3 GOP/Democratic split: the two Republican freshmen (Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble) are the only ones really vulnerable this go-round, and even then only in relative terms.  If the latest batch of Wisconsin recall elections end as mind-bogglingly disastrously for the Democrats as it’s currently looking, then the DCCC will not only find themselves not even close to winning back either seat; they might even be stuck worrying about Ron Kind’s again*.  So they’ve got a stake in the recalls. (more…)

I say “threatened” because if the NY state legislature doesn’t come to a deal by Wednesday, this is the map that is very likely going to be the one to get used:

…and there’s going to be several Members of Congress who will be very unhappy if that happens.  Including Steve Israel of the DCCC. (more…)

I apologize for having to use the term, but unfortunately it is a public record utterance by a then-Congressman.

This particular hypocrisy on the part of the Democratic party is almost… pure in its brazenness, really. It goes like so: the Democrats have put together a program called ‘Majority Makers’ where Democrats with good fundraising ability who are expected to win their elections are being tapped to spread some of that raised money around to candidates who aren’t doing so well. This in itself is hardly unusual, and not actually pernicious. No sense wasting money, right? – and it’s also expected that the money being passed along would be going to a candidate that shared the original candidate’s values.

The problem is that one of the keystones of the ‘Majority Makers’ program is Alan Grayson, running in FL-09; and his value system includes crude sexual-themed attacks against women who dare to have a different opinion than him on economics.

“…this lobbyist, this K Street Whore, is trying to teach me about economics.” (more…)

Yeah… I think that somehow DCCC chair Steve Israel didn’t think this one all the way through when he came out in support for the Occupy Wall Street ‘movement.’

Steve Israel Stands With Them.

Note that I am utterly unsympathetic to the argument that the OWS movement is merely not being utterly hostile to any random anti-Semites stopping by.  Personally, I take the position that if your organizational criteria requires you to not show the door to anyone who starts ranting about how the International Zionist conspiracy runs the banking system, then you’re doing it wrong.  It’s nice to see one of the two major political parties agree with me; it astounds me that it’s not both.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Don’t get me wrong: it’s early days yet.  But this line from a Politico article detailing the solidifying trainwreck which is the Democrats’ attempt to take back the House:

The DCCC is working 24/7 recruiting excellent candidates and helping them and our members build top-notch campaigns.

…has pretty much no backup evidence for it.  At all.  The so-called “Drive to 25” initiative that the Democrats were supposed to be pushing heavily has sort of… dissipated.  Not to be mean-spirited about this, but if the DCCC has any people running for all those open/Republican held seats, then the committee has done an excellent job at hiding its light under a bushel.  An examination of the site reveals, well, no recruits at all.

Again, it’s early days yet.  And obviously the NRCC shouldn’t get complaisant.  Still, this was a fairly uncritical acceptance of Democratic agitprop on Politico’s part: tsk, tsk.

Moe Lane

Ach, forgive me: in DCCC chair Steve Israel’s mind former Democratic Congressmen who are now the aforementioned dirty, dirty lobbyists are really just poor souls who have to eat and pay the bills.  They’re also the only hint of a glimpse of a hope that the man has at putting up something like a competitive roster of candidates in 2012, too.

See, here’s the underlying structural problem for the Democrats: they didn’t just lose a lot of their major-league players in 2010 – i.e., Congressmen.  That happens, and that can be sometimes a blessing in disguise, because it will at least give openings for promising newcomers and/or minor league players.  Give an example from our side: when NY-26 went vacant the state GOP tapped Assemblywoman Jane Corwin for the replacement.  By all accounts, she’s at least two steps up from Chris Lee – three if you include the Craiglist thing – so we end up with a net improvement in our Congressional delegation.  So there’s opportunities to be found, in other words. (more…)

Back in the day, it was pretty strongly alleged that the Democratic party unceremoniously threatened Rep. Steve Israel in order to keep him from running against appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in her primary this year.  Strenuously denied at the time, of course – remember, this was before the Sestak and Romanoff scandals erupted – but plausible, very plausible.  Both the threats (loss of donor money, active campaigning by the President, deliberate organizing of the African-American vote against Israel), and the promises (the gratitude of the Democratic party for not going up against a weak candidate, and maybe even a promotion to the inner circle).  And after all of that, oddly enough: Steve Israel didn’t run for Senate.

And now look here: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday named Representative Steve Israel of New York to lead the House Democratic campaign committee into the next election, putting him in charge of the party’s effort to regain the majority it lost in November.”  Which certainly qualifies as “inner circle” – and which keeps him from even thinking about a Senate bid until 2016.  Guess the Democrats learned their lesson from the Blanche Lincoln debacle: lock up the primary challengers early, and all that.  A little too smart for my liking: I prefer the Democrats to have the kind of thinking that causes them to keep the same House leadership team that threw away sixty-two seats and counting. (more…)

I like and respect Charlie Cook and his Political Report, but the title of this article (“No Losers Here“) is blatantly incorrect. It’s an article about the two Congressional and two Senatorial national committees… and, in fact, two of them were losers this cycle. Hint: they were the ones with Ds in their acronyms.

To summarize:

• DCCC. Never mind for a moment that the Democrat/Republican ratio went from 255/178 to 190/241, with prospects for another +3 GOP. Never mind that 62 seats flipped (25% of the Democratic caucus). And never even mind that GOP incumbent losses were in areas that we weren’t grieving to lose. Look at their own admitted battleground. 29 candidates: 17 challengers to GOP-held districts, and 12 recruits trying to hold open seats*. 4 won: 3 challengers, and one recruit.  That works out to a 14% success rate for the DCCC’s Red-to-Blue program… and it should have been 17%: IL-10 was not expected to be a retention for the GOP.  All of those were the ones where the DCCC thought that they had a chance, mind you: the rest of us thought that Van Hollen was being insanely, wonderfully optimistic.  Which he was: and, for the record, all that preparation that the DCCC supposedly made didn’t do diddly.  Convincing more Democrats to not commit suicide via voting at Pelosi’s direction would have.
• DSCC.  The Democrats had 19 seats up for re-election.  They lost 6 (32%).  The Republicans had 18 seats up.  They lost 0.  Democratic incumbents lost in 2 states.  The Democrats likewise lost 4 open seats, in critical states like Pennsylvania and Illinois.  Worse for the Democrats, they failed to deliver in good prospects like Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio – all of which were open seats.  They couldn’t even make the races close in states like Louisiana and North Carolina.  In other words: Menendez completely mucked up his recruitment drive.  He also had to rely on incumbency advantages to avoid losing the Senate, but that’s another post entirely.

And that’s pretty much all I have to say on the subject.  Except that this story should hopefully tell you everything that you need to know about who won, and who lost.

Moe Lane

*Which means close to half of the Democrats’ vaunted Red-to-Blue program was actually Blue-to-Red-and-Let’s-Try-to-Make-it-Blue-Again.

And one Republican – but that’s unsurprising of the DCCC.

The six House Democrats in question would be “Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Gene Taylor of Mississippi, Pete DeFazio of Oregon, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina and Jim Marshall and John Barrow of Georgia:” those are the six House Democrats who have gotten endorsements from a group called ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC), which is fairly obviously a group that heavily favors a stronger line on immigration policy. Why this exercise in bipartisanship is relevant – and so entertaining – is because ALIPAC had also endorsed AZ-08′s Jesse Kelly, which led DCCC spokesman Andy Stone to refer to a combat veteran as follows:

“Another [National Republican Congressional Committee] Young Gun candidate, another Nazi tie[*] — it should come as no surprise,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement Monday. He said the group was “on the racist fringe” and that it was “backed by anti-Semites and white supremacists.”

And – just to make it clear – at least one of those delegates (Mike McIntyre) was bragging about his ALIPAC endorsement. Which I believe means that Andy Stone, DCCC spokesman, has just called at least one of his own employers a Nazi, anti-Semite, white supremacist.

(pause)

Oops?

Moe Lane (crosspost) (more…)

Via Hotline, here are the latest races where the DCCC has begun the euthanasia process:

• AZ-08.  The incumbent is Gabrielle Giffords, facing Jesse Kelly.  The DCCC has cut one week’s worth of ad buys, claiming that Giffords doesn’t need its help.  Cook rates this race as Leans Democratic; polling is very sparse, but shows a tie.
• CO-04.  The incumbent is Betsy Markey (yes, the one who has her supporters babbling about internment camps): her opponent is Cory Gardner.  They’ve cut back her outside ads, probably because she can’t get any traction (and has supporters babbling about internment camps).  Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: the most recent polling shows Gardner ahead.
• FL-24.  The incumbent is Suzanne Kosmas; her opponent is Sandy Adams.  Like Markey, her outside ads have been cut.  The DCCC is claiming to be planning to still match the NRCC’s buys there. Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: there is no recent polling, but RCP lists the seat as Leans GOP.
• KS-03.  Open seat.  Democratic candidate Stephene Moore, facing Republican candidate Kevin Yoder.  The DCCC has canceled one week’s worth of ad buys. Cook rates this race as Leans Republican: there is no recent polling, but RCP lists the seat as Leans GOP.
• NM-02.  The incumbent is Harry Teague; his opponent is Steve Pearce.  Here the DCCC is moving its ad buys down a week in either an attempt to firewall, or as a preliminary to canceling them altogether. Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: the most recent polling has Pearce ahead.

There’s also LA-02, but that might legitimately be the DCCC thinking that they don’t need to worry about that race. The article also mentions IN-08 and TX-17, but that were covered a couple of days ago. (more…)

Via Jim Geraghty, reports are in that the following three districts have been abandoned by the DCCC.  Well, technically, all that’s happening is one week’s worth of ad purchases have been canceled by the DCCC.  Then again, there’s only four weeks left – and it’s not like any of them are considered safe retentions at this point:

• IN-08.  Open seat: the old incumbent is Brad Ellsworth, who decided not to run again in favor of losing a Senate race to Dan Coats. The Democratic challenger to Larry Bucshon is pretty much irrelevant at this point; Cook rates this seat as Likely Republican.
• IN-09.  The incumbent is Baron Hill (best known for this); his opponent is Todd Young.  Cook rates this one as Toss-Up.
• TX-17.  The incumbent is Chet Edwards; his opponent is Bill Flores.  Cook rates this one as Toss-Up.

It should be emphasized that Chet Edwards has been in Congress for twenty years; he survived the Texas Redistricting Massacre of 2003 and has been holding on ever since; he’s on the Budget and Appropriations committees.  Baron Hill was in Congress from 1998 to 2004, got beat in 2004, then came back in 2006.  These are not political neophytes, nor are they unskilled (Hill is conceited and arrogant, but not unskilled).  Their seats should not be hard to defend.

Which makes you wonder which seats are in even worse shape.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

The DCCC is cutting Hill loose; while it’s being – nervously – categorized as being merely an internal dispute, the practical end result is that the section of the DCCC that can do unlimited funding (independent expenditures) has canceled critical ad time while the section of the DCCC that cannot (coordinated) will be offering, at best, a token 87K. Hill, of course, is the super-genius who did this last year:

(more…)