DCCC On The Warpath Against Anti-Family Reactionaries-- Several Great Targets Are Missing

I know I've been complaining a lot about how the DCCC used millions and millions of dollars from unsuspecting Democratic contributors to elect (and re-elect) reactionary candidates like Bobby Bright (AL- $1,177,847), Parker Griffith (AL- $1,050,042), Frank Kratovil (MD- $1,799,476), Chris Carney (PA- $1,152,546 ), Walt Minnick (ID- $425,886), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ- $2,051,277), Harry Mitchell (AZ- $1,334,194), etc, conservative so-called "Democrats" who have voted with the Republicans more frequently than with the Democrats (at least on meaningful issues). It's a disgrace when you think how that money could have been used to elect grassroots progressives like Annette Taddeo and Doug Tudor in Florida, Dennis Shulman in New Jersey, Larry Joe Doherty in Texas, Judy Feder and Andrea Miller in Virginia, Sam Bennett in Pennsylvania, and Debbie Cook, Russ Warner and Bill Durston in California; so you can expect to keep reading about DCCC perfidy here as long as they insist on being part of the anti-grassroots Insider game in DC. However when they do something right-- and they sometimes do-- I'll be happy to trumpet that as well.

And today they did. Chris Van Hollen and his team announced a new campaign, Families First, letting voters in 28 congressional districts across the country know, starting tomorrow, about how their obstructionist representatives have voting records that demonstrate "out of step priorities by putting bank bail outs and building schools in Iraq before the needs of the Americans in the struggling economy."

House Republicans just don’t get it. They celebrate being the party of no and status quo, while more than 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs, the stock market has plummeted wiping out nearly $7 trillion stock market wealth and endangering thousands of investors' nest eggs, and one in 10 homeowners was delinquent on mortgage payments or in foreclosure this fall.

And the targeting was fantastic. The Republicans whose district radio stations will be running ads explaining how their congressmen have been voting are primarily vulnerable members in districts where polling has shown voters want cooperation and solutions, not partisan and extremist obstructionism. The list (along with November's vote percentage):

Don Young (AK-AL- 50%)    
Dan Lungren (CA-03- 50%)
Elton Gallegy (CA-24- 58%)       
Ken Calvert (CA-44- 52%)     
Brian Bilbray (CA-50- 50%)      
Bill Young (FL-10- 61%)        
Tom Rooney (FL-16- 60%)       
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21- 58%)        
Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25- 53%)        
Tom Latham (IA-04- 61%)        
Donald Manzullo (IL-16- 61%)         
Brett Guthrie (KY-02- 53%)    
Joseph Cao (LA-02- 49%)   
John Fleming (LA-04- 48%)   
Bill Cassidy (LA-06- 48%)      
Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06- 58%)   
Michele Bachmann (MN-06- 46%)  
Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-09- 50%) 
Lee Terry (NE-02- 52%)    
Leonard Lance (NJ-07- 51%)  
Christopher Lee (NY-26- 55%)   
Henry Brown (SC-01- 52%) 
Pete Sessions (TX-32- 57%)   
Eric Cantor (VA-07- 63%)     
Dave Reichert (WA-08- 52%)
James Sensenbrenner (WI-05- unopposed)   
Shelley Moore-Capito (WV-02- 57%)

Obviously the way for the DCCC to be even more effective and to clean up its own image and make itself trusted would be to apply the exact same standards to which it's holding Republicans to the reactionaries within its own caucus. Were that the case, they would be running these ads against Bobby Bright (AL), Parker Griffith (AL), Walt Minnick (ID), Heath Shuler (NC), Gene Taylor (MS), Jim Marshall (GA), Collin Peterson (MN), Travis Childers (MS), Dan Boren (OK), Mike McIntyre (NC), Joe Donnelly (IN), and several other "Democrats" who don't seem to understand that their party is supposed to look out for working families, not help Republicans and Big Business victimize them.