The DCCC Claims It Spent Its Money Well... Did It?
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DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen sent me this while I was in Mali. I knew it would come in handy:
How effectively did the DCCC spend money last year? If "effectively" has anything whatsoever to do with enhancing chances that the Democratic Party will be in a position to help protect working families against the corporate predators represented by the GOP, there is only one answer: not very effectively at all.
Since the DCCC has already declared, wrong-headedly, that the 2010 cycle will focus on incumbent protection rather than on expanding their majority in the House, let's take a look at the work they did on incumbents in 2008. The candidate who was the #1 recipient of their Independent Expenditures for the year was right-wing Democrat Travis Childers of Mississippi-- $1,208,918 (+ another $1,651,337 in negative campaigning against his wingnut opponent, Greg Davis), although some of this money was spent in a special election and some was spent in November. Still, according to Progressive Punch's report on voting records for 2008, Childers was the Democrat who voted most frequently with the Republicans for their agenda against his own party's attempts to protect working families. No one was worse, not even Nick Lampson (TX), John Barrow (GA), Don Cazayoux (LA) or Jim Marshall (GA), the Republicans' Trojan horses within the Democratic caucus. Democrats spent more to win and save this reactionary Mississippi bastion than on any other district in the entire country and the result is a "Democrat" who will continue to vote against Democratic Party priorities and drag the caucus further and further away from what Americans want from the Democrats. Van Hollen talks about how the Democrats will now work to help Obama change America. He's not naive enough to think a reactionary like Childers will be on that team.
And Childers wasn't the only incumbent the DCCC lavished money on. With only 3 exceptions-- fighting progressives Carol Shea-Porter (NH) and Steve Kagen (WI) and Jerry McNerney (CA)-- the DCCC incumbents were all reactionary Democrats and filthy, treacherous Blue Dogs with a tendency to vote with the GOP on important substantive matters and who have problems raising money from Democratic donors for that reason. The incumbents that the DCCC spent at least $100,000 on:
Don Cazayoux (LA)- $528,021 (+ $1,074,234 in negative ads against his KKK opponent ). Cazayoux, deservedly, lost his bid for re-election.
Harry Mitchell (AZ)- $603,982
Paul Kanjorski (PA)- $472,943 (+ $428,343 against his crazed xenophobic opponent), who's not a rightist per se, just a moderate with an embarrassing record when it comes to ethics.
Bill Foster (IL)- $428,343 (+$977,802 against his multimillionaire opponent, Jim Oberweis)
Chris Carney (PA)- $355,268
Baron Hill (IN)- $353,418, new head of the Blue Dogs
Tim Mahoney (FL)- $220,038, a Republican who ran as a Democrat in 2006, won then and voted with the GOP frequently and then wound up in a sex scandal and lost his seat, ironically since the only reason he won in the first place was by exploiting the sex scandal of his predecessor, Mark Foley.
Ciro Rodriguez (TX)- $199,917
Nick Lampson (TX)- $191,334, another slimy Blue Dog who voted with the GOP again and again and was tossed out by the voters this year
Gabby Giffords (AZ)- $178,302
When it came to supporting challengers, the DCCC made a big show of adding a wide variety of Democrats, from far right, anti-choice reactionaries to actual progressives, to their Red to Blue program and associated lists. The lists turned out to be meaningless when you look at who they actually doled the cash out to-- generally the reactionaries-- and who they gave only lip service-- generally, with some significant exceptions, the progressives. Let's see who got the big bucks-- and who didn't:
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)- $671,752, a clueless party hack
Larry Kissell (NC)- $642,284, one of the DCCC's best moves in 2008, making up for Emanuel's venal stupidity in 2006
John Boccieri (OH)- $641,804, a moderate we'll have to keep an eye on
Mary Jo Kilroy (OH)- $616,007, a fighting progressive
Ashwin Madia (MN)- $589,964, a fighting progressive
Martin Heinrich (NM)- $559,425, a fighting progressive
Bob Lord (AZ)- $542,285, a fighting progressive
Ethan Berkowitz (AK)- $519,090, an Emanuel-associated party hack with questionable ethics
Linda Stender (NJ)- $509,906, a moderate
Debbie Halverson (IL)- $484,242, a moderate
Steven Dreihaus (OH)- $470,842, an anti-choice conservative
Frank Kratovil (MD)- $446,148, a Blue Dog reactionary
Dina Titus (NV)- $443,212, a moderate
Alice Kryzan (NY)- $441,272, a loser with questionable political instincts (and loyalties)
Gary Peters (MI)- $434,505, a fighting progressive
Jim Himes (CT)- $402,151, a fighting progressive
Mark Schauer (MI)- $395,561, a fighting progressive
Kathy Dahlkemper (PA)- $385,422, an anti-choice activist
Harry Teague (NM)- $384,534, a corporate-oriented conservative
Suzanne Kosmas (FL)- $338,005, a party hack
John Adler (NJ)- $334,107, a decent moderate
Gerry Connolly (VA)- $315,949, a corporate-oriented conservative
Bobby Bright (AL)- $315,906, an anti-choice reactionary
Andre Carson (IN)- $314,526, a moderate
David Boswell (KY)- $287,860, a conservative
Darcy Burner (WA)- $276,577, a fighting progressive
Parker Griffith (AL)- $257,619, an anti-choice reactionary
Dan Seals (IL)- $231,450, a decent moderate
Betsy Markey (CO)- $220,310, a moderate
Judy Baker (MO)- $199,430, a progressive
Kay Barnes (MO)- $194,604, a party hack
Glenn Nye (VA)- $171,518, a moderate
Progressive Democrats who came close enough to winning without any DCCC help who may well have won had some of those millions doled out to reactionaries been given to their campaigns.
Nick Leibham (CA)- $28,500, who would have beaten Brian Bilbray (who won with 50% of the vote) if he had gotten adequate support from the DCCC
Sam Bennett (PA)- 0
Debbie Cook (CA)- 0
Larry Joe Doherty (TX)- 0
Judy Feder (VA)- 0
Jared Polis (CO)- 0
Dennis Shulman (NJ)- 0
Annette Taddeo (FL)- 0
Doug Tudor (FL)- 0
Russ Warner (CA)- 0
Bill Durston (CA)- 0
Bill Hedrick (CA)- 0
Labels: Chris Van Hollen, DCCC, reactionary Democrats, Red to Blue
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 7:00 PM
7 comments
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7 Comments:
Glad to see you're back, Howie
Amazingly they didn't spend any money on Rahm favorite and corporate Blue Dog Christine Jennings, who pulled an embarrassing 38% in her loss to fake moderate Vern Buchanan.
Can't wait to see who Blue America endorses in 2010, and hopefully we'll see some primary challenges. Traitors like Cheney co-conspiraor Jane Harman (AIPAC/Blue Dog-CA), corporate hack David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), and right-winger Dan Lipinski (anti-choice-IL) should be top on the list.
How does the DCCC determine where the money will be spent?
and,
Wouldn't Congressional elections rely more heavily on money inside the district?
@ Will
To answer question number two... no. There will never be enough money inside a district to win (you will need lots of money from elsewhere). Also, think of the places Democrats were competing this cycle -- conservative, rural places like Idaho and Wyoming. Not exactly Democratic strongholds with activist Democrats clamoring to pour loads of cash into the local race.
Fortunately, most Democrats in major cities do not have to worry about whether their Democratic representative will be reelected and can help out our brothers and sisters elsewhere. If you live in San Francisco, you would be a fool to give to a safe incumbent like Nancy Pelosi and would have been very bright to give to someone awesome like Charlie Brown just a few hours away (and who came oh-so-close).
And then there are those of us who wants our bucks going to candidates we believe in. Your local congress member may be a Republican extremist challenged by a reactionary Democrat or an incumbent reactionary Democrat. Are you going to give to that race? I won't. So I go to wonderful places like Howie's ActBlue page. There, I remember that one vote in the House is the same one vote as any other and by sending people we believe in to Washington, we are doing the entire country a service, whether they are in my district or not.
FLDem, Jennings spent $2,382,471 to lose the race with just 38% of the votes cast, an abysmally low number. (Doug Tudor, who got nothing but disdain from the DCCC and Beltway insiders wound up with 42% of the vote against a far more formidible incumbent, Adam Putnam, and he spent only $88,985-- against Putnam's $2,012,608.) Emanuel whipped labor into supporting her with hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can't find any Independent Expenditures from the DCCC but the state of reporting is so bad that that doesn't mean there weren't any. The DCCC doesn't give a lot of cash to challengers directly but Jennings got $3,537, more than any but 8 challengers.
Meanwhile, she got maximum permitted donations from all the reactionary Emanuel-associated PACs: Blue Dog PAC ($10,000), New Democratic Coalition ($10,000), Rangel's National Leadership PAC ($10,000), Hoyer's AmeriPAC ($10,000)... plus $7,500 in tainted money from Wasserman-Schultz' Democrats Win Seats.
Hopefully we won't be hearing from her again.
This is why I overspent my little budget (I'm on a fixed income) giving what I could to ActBlue. I'll do the same next election cycle. Thanks for being there. I wouldn't dream of giving money to either the DCCC or the SCCC.
And isn't it interesting that guys like Tudor will run again -- thankfully -- while Jennings and her ilk will not. Guess it goes to show you who is actually running for principled reasons and not just self-enrichment.
Luckily Jennings won't run again....unfortunately Vern is so popular here now (despite his corruption, which the media outlets here regularly ignore) that I think the only way we turn this district blue is if he decides to run for Senate (and he's so corrupt he could NEVER win statewide)
I'm sure the local Democratic party, which has a very weak bench, will put up another stinker candidate. The only person I could see taking on Buchanan and having a chance is State Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, who is used to the negative, lying attacks from the Sarasota GOP Political Machine.
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