How Do I Get Myself Into These Things?

Note: Doug Kahn is an occasional contributor to DWT and he's working on the Blue America Bad Dogs initiative (please take a look on that link). He ran for Congress as the Democratic candidate against one of the House's most entrenched far right extremists, Carlos Moorhead, back in the early 90s. He's an indefatigable activist who's putting together an interesting plan to help get rid of some Blue Dogs and he is looking for some input from readers.

-by Doug Kahn

I’m not going all cosmic on you; I don’t mean Why Are We Here? This is how it went.
 
I made a couple of special trips to Washington, the first one in 2006. From Union Station it’s a short walk down to DCCC headquarters, several blocks south of the Longworth House Office Building. My thinking was it’d be a good idea to have a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, Henry Waxman as the Chair of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Barney Frank as Chair of Financial Services. I sat in a conference room and talked about Democratic challengers in swing districts, but not the top tier DCCC targets. I wanted the second tier, really long-shot candidates, people who’d have trouble raising dough. In a Democratic year, some of them would win, as long as they had money to get in touch with voters. I contributed the absolute personal maximum permitted by law. That was the election that returned the House to a Democratic majority.
 
I ended up at the January 2007 dinner honoring the new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in a big-top on Embassy Row. I’m trying to remember who I sat with. Tony Podesta to my right. On my left, General Wesley Clark and his wife. Why am I blanking out on the rest of the table? Anyway, Pelosi’s speech was good. I missed most of incoming DCCC Chair Van Hollen’s, because I was still a smoking fiend then, and was taking a long break out on the grass. An excellent singer named Anthony Benedetto entertained. Said hi to Rahm, who to me looked ticked off about something, but maybe that’s just his usual look. (The only time I’ve seen him in person. When he’s being photographed or filmed he poses as Robert Kennedy.) Candidate Obama worked the room, shook everyone’s hand, told me to call him Barack. He seemed to mean it.
 
I had the same DCCC conference in 2008. We elected even more Democrats, lost some tough progressive races (like Bob Lord's, John Laesch's and Darcy Burner's). Then, something happened to progressive change on the way to the Oval Office. The dog ate my agenda.
 
Dogs, plural. Blue Dogs. I helped elect some problem Democrats to the House of Representatives. You can look up the specifics at fec.gov or opensecrets.org, or just take my word for it. $60,000 directly to the DCCC. $80,000+ to Jason Altmire, Judith Baker, Melissa Bean, Charles Brown, Darcy Burner, Joe Courtney, Steve Driehaus, Jay Fawcett, Paul Hodes, Ann Kirkpatrick, Christine Jennings, Ron Klein, Alice Kryzan, Bob Lord, Tim Mahoney, Jerry McNerney, Harry Mitchell, Chris Murphy, Lois Murphy, Patrick Murphy, Angie Paccione, Adam Schiff, Dan Seals, Joe Sestak, Heath Shuler, Ellen Simon, Zach Space, Dina Titus, Tim Walz.
 
Some of them made it, some didn’t. There are good people in there, and some of the really bad ones, like Tim Mahoney, are already gone. It looks like Dan Seals, one of the better ones who lost, might make it this November. But honestly, one extra good guy won’t be enough.
 
I’m going to put up $100,000 to help clean up the DCCC mess.
 
10 days before Howie first made space for me on Down With Tyranny, I sent the following email to McJoan on DailyKos:

Philadelphia, August 4 2009
 
Can you help put me together with people who think it might be a good idea to defeat a few current Blue Dogs, even if it means turning the seats back to the Republicans? I've been thinking it's a good idea, and if it really isn't, then maybe you can help convince me not to do it. I believe a relatively small independent expenditure [general, not primary] in certain Blue Dogs' House races could deny them reelection. 
 
I'm a substantial contributor to House campaigns and the DCCC, and as a result helped elect some of the people who are opposing what I consider to be absolutely essential progressive legislation. That is, the things that prompted me to contribute over $100,000 (not sure of the exact amount) over the past 3 years. I'm not happy about having helped elect people like Harry Mitchell, but I lacked the foresight to understand where that might lead.
 
I've already turned down requests for my usual maximum contribution to the DCCC, and told leadership the reason: they'll use it to defend Blue Dog members, and try to elect new ones. I've been talking to other substantial contributors (individuals) who agree with me on this.
 
I've been looking around the Internet for commentators who are tuned into to what I'm talking about here; you seem to be one of them. [I look at DailyKos every day, but until recently didn't pay any notice to the individual authors.] Of course I'll only support progressive candidates in House primaries. I assume most will be uphill battles, which is okay with me. I almost always give legal maximum contributions, and I will certainly try to raise money from other Democrats with money. I assume you folks will be doing a good job of keeping me informed about who I can support in various House races.
 
I plan to make it very clear to the House members who run the DCCC that their strategy needs to change, or I'll be spending the maximum against their candidates, instead of for them. I believe the election of Obama has fundamentally changed the political landscape, and key people like Patrick Murphy haven't realized that yet. I myself have changed, I guess because I see the possibility of getting back to work on action items that became politically impractical about 35 years ago. My intensity has come back. I'm not very good at explaining myself; I hope you get the picture.
 
My thinking is that the Blue Dog group has gotten big enough that it has attracted 10 or 20 'hangers-on', members who just use it as cover. I'm talking about people who have come to believe that their own reelection is much more important than passing the progressive parts of the Democratic agenda [which they may agree with, in contrast to other Blue Dogs]. The legislative behavior of these people ends up being 'controlled' by independents and moderate Republicans, instead of by the Democratic base vote. 
 
I've decided that deliberately defeating one or two Blue Dogs by driving progressive voters away from voting for them in a general election would have the effect of causing the rest of the Blue Dogs to pay attention to the Democratic base. It makes sense to me that this sub-group of relatively unprincipled Blue Dogs, since they are all about getting reelected, can only be moved by credible threats to their reelection. I believe the threat is only credible if it can be demonstrated. Of course this would have to be the overt and public purpose of the independent expenditure, so it would be certain to anger a lot of Democrats, not least because it would reduce the Democratic majority in the House. However, it would tend to help the progressive agenda in the Democratic caucus.
 
I would ask that you not publicize this, but please pass my thinking along to people who are interested in talking to me about getting it done. I guess if you need confirmation that I'm a serious person, and a progressive, you can get in touch with Bob Lord [ran against John Shadegg]. I live in Florida but I'm in Arizona half the time.

I never heard back. I’m not saying I should have expected to. I could see that most progressives online were spending all their time and influence leaning on Senators and Representatives, trying to get the best Health Care legislation possible. They might have been thinking about ditching a few Blue Dogs, but it’s easy to lose influence in DC by being negative. The people there are used to the rest of us Democrats being nice to them, and disapproval gives them the collywobbles. You see what the displays of disapproval from the wingnuts accomplished; it really moved the lawmakers.
 
Of course, that’s why I kept pushing people to get behind a mass demonstration in DC last fall, basically with zero takers. I promise you that’s going to happen before the elections this November. At this point, you really have to admit that Congress needs us leaning on them. We have to get in their space. But that’s another day, another post.
 
You’ve noticed that Howie, Digby and John Amato are all about political reality. Political reality is a messy, scary concept for a lot of political people; they need it to be dressed up respectably, they need to pretend it has manners and rules. Forget about it. Politics exists because we all want to be in charge of making decisions, and sometimes preventing decisions. However you practice it the result is a who, not a what. Who is in charge; who do you put in charge. Nobody who’s really involved in this thing defers voluntarily to the other guy. You don’t give the other side their turn, they have to take it.
 
Progressives have to take the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives, take it from the Blue Dogs, who own it right now. Progressives have to take control of the Democratic caucus in each committee, so that legislation that really helps people advances to the floor of the House. It would be really great to elect a lot more progressives, but we already have enough progressives in the House to get the job done.
 
The problem is the DCCC, Chris Van Hollen, Patrick Murphy, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rahm Emanuel. They help Blue Dogs get elected, defend them once they’re in office, and with the assistance of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, give these people the best committee assignments. Nobody ever gets thrown off a committee, so there’s only one solution. We have to throw a couple of Dogs out of the House, and scare the rest of them.
 
That’s the theory, here’s the reality. I spend money on politics. I’m going to personally spend $100,000 before election day 2010 in the districts of 2 Blue Dogs, telling Democratic voters just how badly they’re being represented. That’s a promise.
 
Just who these Lucky Dogs are going to be isn’t clear yet, but it won’t be a secret. We just have to wait and see who’s vulnerable after Labor Day. Some of the Blue Dogs are going to lose, and lose badly; polling will tell us who they are. There isn’t any point in piling on in these races, and making someone lose worse. We’ll be picking districts that are clearly in play, spending the money where we’ll be going up against the DCCC. Maybe Frank Kratovil (MD-1).
 
And it’s Blue Dogs only. Any Dog who wants to avoid the attention has options: publicly resign the Blue Dog Caucus by Labor Day, become a Republican, retire from the House, or be losing badly in September.
 
Negative is cheaper than positive, but even so, $100,000 may not be enough. I’ll be asking for your help. We’ll be doing something no one else wants to do, but it just has to get done.