DCCC Leaders Step Up To The Plate For Progressive Candidates

Blue America alum Bruce Braley worked with other Red to Blue chairs to support PFAW contest

People For the American Way is running a competition among 24 progressive candidates for the House. When their Voters Alliance launched the effort last week it was announced that whichever candidate brought in the most dollars for their campaign would win the PFAW prize money on top of that. Since then supporters of Judy Feder (D-VA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Russ Warner (D-CA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Eric Massa (D-NY), Dennis Shulman (D-NJ), and Mark Schauer (D-MI) have been especially active. Judy's campaign, for example, already collected over $15,000.

Today Debbie-Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Bruce Braley (D-IA) and Artur Davis (D-AL), the chairs of the DCCC Red to Blue program, got together and decided to sweeten the pot and make sure there were more winners. They matched the People For the American Way contribution and established two runner up prizes, for the candidate who brings in the most donors (regardless of amount) and for the candidate who brings in the second most donors (also regardless of amount). That's unique donors-- so your "vote" only works once for that category.

These 24 candidates are the real thing, men and women imbued with a spirit of public service who are eager to work with Barack Obama to bring the real change that America needs after the catastrophe of the reactionary Bush agenda. See if there's anyone on the list you'd like to help get into Congress.

This morning's Washington Post did a feature on DCCC chairman Chris Van Hollen and they make the point that he's accomplishing a great deal by bucking a trend that has parties losing seats after a huge "wave" election like the Democrats enjoyed in 2006. But the wave has been only getting stronger and Van Hollen differs from his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, in a significant way. Emanuel is distrustful-- even hateful-- when it comes to the party's grassroots activists and vibrant netroots. Van Hollen has been more cooperative and open. The DCCC's generous participation in efforts like this one for PFAW and the one last month with Blue America was not something even conceivable under Emanuel.

"Most people thought we'd have to circle the wagons to just protect the gains we made," Van Hollen said, as he cruised through Albuquerque on a recent 17-hour day of campaigning. "Our overall goal is to break that historical pattern" of giving back gains, he said.

Van Hollen, 49, has won plaudits for his work so far. Democrats have grabbed three House seats in special elections this year, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, has a 4-to-1 fundraising advantage over its Republican counterpart.

"He's raising a lot of money, recruiting good candidates. They've got a good team over there," said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst with the Rothenberg Political Report. He predicts that Democrats will pick up 10 to 20 House seats Nov. 4.

All true but what the report only hints at is one of Van Hollen's greatest attributes, namely that he is less ideologically driven than Emanuel and how healthy that is for the Democratic Party. Van Hollen just wants to elect Democrats, regardless of how progressive (like himself) or conservative they are. While I personally wish he would pay more attention to progressives who are likely to vote with Democrats in Congress, I'm at least happy that he isn't undermining them the way Emanuel did.

Van Hollen only has one goal: elect more Democrats. Emanuel always had a hidden agenda: elect pro-war/pro-corporate Democrats and undercut real progressives. Emanuel's media machine and p.r. savvy has created a myth that he was responsible for the 2006 wave, when real analysis shows that he was responsible for holding down the wave and for helping to elect reactionaries who vote more often with Republicans than with Democrats on key substantive issues (like Heath Shuler and Tim Mahoney, his two top recruits) and for wrecking the chances of liberal, anti-war and grassroots candidates across the country. Some of the Democrats' biggest gains happened despite Emanuel (John Hall, Jerry McNerney, Carol Shea-Porter for example).

The canary in the coalmine this cycle is NC-08, where Larry Kissell is up against Bush rubber stamp Robin Hayes again. In 2006 Emanuel never believed in Kissell and never offered him any assistance, wary that he is too progressive for The South without understanding the real nature of the district. On election day it was the closest race in the country, only 328 votes (out of over 120,000 cast) separating the two candidates. Emanuel cost Democrats that seat. The second Van Hollen took over the DCCC he made a commitment to Kissell and has followed through diligently. Van Hollen has already put over $600,000 in TV ads into the district in the form of Independent Expenditures and has reserved another $1.6 million. The latest polling shows that its working-- with Kissell up over 8 points (49-41%).