DCCC Abandoning Weak Members Who Followed Their Awful Advice For Two Years

No one-- except, of course, a deranged right-winger-- ever accused Ohio freshman Steve Driehaus of being a progressive or a liberal. He's a middle-of-the-pack moderate, probably more driven towards conservatism by political cowardice and bad advice from the DCCC than by ideology. His ProgressivePunch score is a less than stellar 50.41, which means he votes with the Republicans and Democrats on the tough, contentious issues about equally. In fact, lots of Blue Dogs have better scores than he does, although he's better than fellow Ohio freshmen John Boccieri and Zack Space, each with a 44 score. No one's going to mix him up with Dennis Kucinich or Mary Jo Kilroy or Betty Sutton. So I had to snicker a little today when he reacted angrily-- as he should-- to the DCCC's abandoning him to the tender mercies of a massive wave of Republican funding sweeping over OH-1, basically Cincinnati and most of its suburbs.

In 2008 Driehaus ousted reactionary incumbent Steve Chabot 52-48% (around 15,000 votes). At the same time Obama was beating McCain 55-44% among the same voters (which followed two consecutive close wins by Bush). The GOP had this one targeted from the day after the election and Chabot, a close ally of Boehner's, wants his old seat back. As of June 20, Chabot and Driehaus had raised around the same amount of money. The difference is the huge amount of outside money Boehner is directing towards the district in the form of attack ads paid for by corporations and foreign powers eager to see Boehner take the Speaker's chair from Nancy Pelosi. Driehaus is being swamped. He had been counting on the DCCC riding to the rescue. They're not going to.

Yesterday Driehaus cut the video above for an ActBlue page he put up. He sounds good, like a real populist, in fact-- but, alas, his voting record hardly backs up his message. The DCCC also cut loose worthless corporate shill Suzanne Kosmas (FL) and anti-choice fanatic Kathy Dahlkemper (PA). Incredibly, Kosmas, who spent her first two years in Congress getting to know every lobbyist in town, has the exact same miserable ProgressivePunch score as Driehaus (50.41), just a tad better than Dahlkemper (47.97), the difference being her consistent anti-choice votes. More incredible yet is that these chumps were guided to vote conservatively by Steny Hoyer and the DCCC who told each of them to not worry about the Democratic base but to reach out to conservatives. Well, conservatives are voting for Republicans and teabaggers and the base is fed up with these three shills.

It's a little late for Driehaus to go all populist now after following the Hoyer game plan for his entire-- albeit short and stunted-- congressional career. His whining that the DCCC is putting all their money into much worse conservatives than he is, is perfectly true. "The DCCC," he complains, "recently pulled millions of dollars in advertising from members who stood for our Democratic principles and are re-investing that money in the races of Democrats who didn't have the guts to take the tough votes.” Driehaus is dead-meat. I hope other Democrats learn from his sad tale and take a very different approach to the one he took. Steny Hoyer backs Steny Hoyer. He doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone else's career.

One ray of good tidings. The DCCC also pulled out of the conservative Tennessee district held by Blue Dog John Tanner, who's retiring. Tanner's equally conservative political heir, Roy Herron, got the bad news that the DCCC had given up on his race as well. He flipped out and told West Tennessee voters that they had bailed on him because he had vowed not to vote for Pelosi as Speaker. I'm guessing most people who would have been happy about that vow are in the other party. His opponent, Stephen Fincher is leading him by double digits and whatever there is of a Democratic base is repulsed by Herron.

"The people of my district are independent-minded folks who put patriotism above partisanship and are not looking to hire a yes-man for either party,” Herron said in a statement on Tuesday that confirmed neither Pelosi nor Boehner would get his support.
 
When asked if Herron had an alternative in mind for speaker, his campaign spokesman Brandon Puttbrese said that “hasn’t been a topic for conversation.”

The move could be construed as a Hail Mary attempt to woo independent and undecided voters in a campaign that seems all but lost to Democrats. The Hotline reported today that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee cut a significant chunk of its ads on Herron’s behalf in the district.