Will Grassroots Democrats Gain Control Over Their Own Party With The Fall Of The DCCC & The DSCC?

You want to trust this with your contributions?

Inherently conservative, and either overly cautious or cowardly by nature, the leadership of the DCCC and the DSCC have caught themselves in a devastating trap. In yesterday's Washington Post T.W. Farnam and Paul Kane reported that the DCCC and the DSCC, charged, respectively, with maintaining Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, are facing two serious revolts from donors, in fact, not just serious, but devastating. Contributions are down 65% from two years ago, even though two years ago the Obama and Clinton campaigns were sucking up nearly all the Democratic money. Most of the report-- this being the Post after all-- dwellings on how "the drop in support comes from many of the same bankers, hedge fund executives and financial services chief executives who are most upset about the financial regulatory reform bill that House Democrats passed last week with almost no Republican support." But that isn't the only source of financial woes for the two poorly-run, even clueless, committees.

In reviewing the FEC records, the Post analyzed fundraising data for New York City and its suburbs in New Jersey, on Long Island and north of the city -- a region that had become an outsized source of Democratic campaign cash. In the 2008 cycle, 28 percent of the two committees' itemized individual contributions came from the region. Manhattan alone accounted for 20 percent.

In this election cycle, the percentage raised in New York is less than 10 percent of the total.

More than 600 regular donors from the New York area-- whose four- and five-figure checks added up to $10 million for the DSCC and DCCC in 2006 and 2008-- have so far abandoned their effort to retain the Democratic majorities.

Take Jamie Dimon, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase, who is known for his close relationship with President Obama.

In 2006 and 2008, he donated $65,000 to the Democratic committees. This election cycle, he has not contributed at all to the DSCC or DCCC. At the end of March, however, he gave $2,000 to the campaign of Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who is seeking to claim Obama's former Senate seat. A spokeswoman for Dimon noted that he has given to individual Democratic candidates, just not to the campaign committees.

And that's true. The crooked financier, who many observers think should be rotting in prison and awaiting trial, has donated around $25,000 to federal races so far this year, almost all of it going to conservative Wall Street shills like Rob Portman (R-OH), Melissa Bean (D-IL) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR). His wife, Judith Dimon, who fancies herself a "philanthropist" contributed $1,000 to the primary campaign of Reshma Saujani, a Democrat running against financial reform advocate Caroline Maloney (N-NY). The JPMogan Chase PAC, to which Dimon gives generously, has passed along $89,500 to Democrats, mostly overtly corrupt conservatives like Melissa Bean (D-IL- $5,000), Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR- $1,000), Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID- $7,000), Scott Murphy (Blue Dog-NY- $10,000, biggest bribe of the year so from the PAC), Michael McMahon (D-NY- $3,500), John Adler (D-NJ- $5,500), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR- $6,500), and Paul Kanjorski (D-PA- $1,000), all die-hard opponents of Wall Street reform, and $84,037 to the Republicans who have fought the hardest against reform, sleazy operators like Paul Ryan (R-WI- $1,000), John Boehner (R-OH- $5,000), Spencer Bachus (R-AL- $2,000), Scott Garrett (R-NJ- $1,000), Chuck Grassley (R-IA- $5,000), Patrick McHenry (R-NC- $3,500), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX- $2,500), Pete Sessions (R-TX- $5,000), David Vitter (R-LA- $2,000), Richard Burr (R-NC- $6,000) and Pat Tiberi (R-OH- $7,000). Plenty of that was Dimon's money, but it doesn't "count" because he laundered it through the PAC he controls.

But at least as interesting-- albeit buried way at the very end of the story after how Wall Street is showering Republicans with campaign cash-- are two final paragraphs that should be just as worrying for Democrats. These aren't ex-donors moving their money to Republicans though:

Some Democrats said there is an overall enthusiasm gap among large donors, who were energized to help claim the congressional majorities in 2006 and to expand them in 2008 while electing Obama. But that excitement has waned, especially among wealthy liberal donors who are frustrated that the Obama agenda often seems compromised by conservative Democrats on Capitol Hill.

"There's something fundamental going on, which is a complete disaffection with the committees," said one New York donor in the finance industry who raised about $3 million for Democrats in the 2008 cycle. The fundraiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Democrats freely, said progressive donors were reluctant to give the party committees money out of belief that they often back the more conservative candidates. "Progressives have been throwing up their arms," the fundraiser said. "There's a tremendous amount of disaffection with the administration and how the caucuses have performed-- or not performed."

These ex-contributors are Democrats who give not because of the color of someone's jersey-- or because they're handing out legalistic bribes in return for special treatment-- but because they believe in something-- like equality or Choice or peace or Change or Hope... you know, the stuff Democrats campaign on but don't always deliver on. Why would anyone donate to a DSCC run by a crook like Bob Menendez whose entire career is centered on punishing Cubans or who wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to thwart the will of Democrats who want progressives like Elaine Marshall as their nominees instead of corporate shills like the empty suits Menendez digs up? And the DCCC, if anything, is even worse. They spend virtually all their money propping up a gaggle of reactionary Blue Dogs and Blue Dog-like corporate shills who vote against health care reform, against Choice, against equality for gays, against Wall Street reform and dependably support John Boehner in his crusade against American working families.

And who even needs these outdated, Stalinist committees and longer. If you want to donate to a stalwart progressive like Alan Grayson and make sure none of your money goes to a conservative whose votes always cancel out Grayson's, you can go directly to ActBlue and donate to any Democrat you want. Act Blue has collected nearly $140,000,000 for Democrats so far. Blue America, the PAC this blog helps run, carefully sifts out the conservative Democrats and finds progressives and populists with strong moral fiber. Right now we have 11 House candidates, fully vetted and endorsed: Tarryl Clark, who is running against Michele Bachmann in Minnesota; Justin Coussoule who's running against John Boehner in Ohio; Joyce Elliott who's up against Rove protege Tim Griffin in Arkansas; Grayson, of course, who's has a pack of God only knows how many right-wing sociopaths running against him both as Teabaggers and Republicans; Bill Hedrick who's running against Ken Calvert; Billy Kennedy who's taking on Virginia Foxx; Beth Krom, vying for the seat currently held by John Campbell in Orange County; Ann Kuster, in a primary battle with Liebermanoid Katrina Swett; and three progressives battling it out with three Blue Dogs in the next few weeks: Regina Thomas vs John Barrow in Georgia, Doug Tudor vs Lori Edwards in Florida, and Jim Wilson vs Dan Boren in Oklahoma. Forget the DCCC until they start supporting Democrats instead of Blue Dogs and give directly to the candidates who stand behind the same ideals you do. Please do it here.