Toomey Sucks Up To China And... Steve Israel: As Lame As Rahm Emanuel But Without The Charming Potty Mouth

I was eagerly trying to get all the info I could on the Senate Tea Party Caucus inaugural meeting in DC yesterday when Amato called to tell me about some tennis player and how he saw Steve Israel, the slimy new corporatist head of the DCCC, on with Andrea Mitchell and how Israel sounded a lot like a Democrat. I'll come back to Israel in a moment; it was actually more interesting that the Martian Tea Party Caucus. Although, speaking of corporatists, Pennsylvania's freshly minted extreme right senator-- and former Wall Street derivatives trader-- is cut from the same sharkskin as Israel.

Toomey, who was looking to curry favor with teabaggy types from Erie to Chester, slathered it on about how the teabaggers are a "wonderful example of the intrinsic self-corrective element of our society." But what he really wanted to yammer about was his new "Pay China First Act"-- although he's calling it something less incendiary. You may recall that during the campaign-- with the possible exception of Wisconsin's Ron Johnson-- there were no candidates running more blatantly as a Chinese puppet than Toomey. In fact, China helped finance Toomey's campaign through contributions to the U.S. Chamber which spent heavily against Joe Sestak and for Toomey



And China is certainly getting their money's worth from the new junior senator from Pennsylvania. His new legislation would require the U.S. Treasury to meet interest payments on its debt obligations first-- should the debt limit not be raised and the government finds itself short on cash. Toomey, who opposes raising the debt ceiling is determined to make certain his Chinese benefactors are protected. "Under no circumstances is it acceptable for the U.S. to default on its debt," Toomey wrote in a Wall Street Journal OpEd last Wednesday. "Not only are we morally obligated to honor our debts, but we benefit greatly from the nearly universal conviction that those who lend to us will always be repaid, on time and in full. We should never undermine that conviction." Toomey and China, of course, are less concerned about the U.S. meeting its obligations to senior citizens on Social Security, disability or Medicare or to Vets or to schools or to... well or to anything. That, after all, is why everyone but Toomey is calling it the Pay China First Act.

Now about Chairman Israel. I don't know exactly what he said to charm Andrea Mitchell but when I was looking for it, I came across a report by Sean Miller and Shane D’Aprile in The Hill that showed very much where his head is-- right up his ass, of course. He did not learn a single lesson from last November. If there are any Democrats still in Congress after 2012, it will be despite Steve Israel and the DCCC, not because of them. "I’m Rahm Emanuel without the curse words," he clucked. The curse words were Emanuel's only redeeming virtue. His policy of recruiting Blue Dogs and other conservatives-- even actual Republicans-- practically destroyed the Democratic brand, completely confused the voters and led to the catastrophe of 2010 in which nearly all of Emanuel's "wins" were defeated, dragging down dozens of other Democrats in the tsunami. and if Emanuel weren't bad enough, he's also getting recruitment advice from Chuck Schumer, who only managed to win back Montana for Democrats (with Jon Tester) because his own hand-picked corporate shill, John Morrison, was thoroughly thrashed by the anti-DC, populist grassroots in the primary.

Schumer has already talked to Israel about candidate recruitment-- a hallmark of the senator’s successful tenure as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee-- not even letting the State of the Union address stop him from asking about one of his favorite topics. 

Walking into the House chamber Tuesday night behind President Obama, Schumer, with his arm on Israel’s shoulder, leaned in and asked, “How’s the recruiting going?”

“That’s how Chuck wins,” Israel told The Hill, after doing a spot-on impersonation of his fellow New Yorker’s accent. “It’s the mechanics, and that’s critically important to us as well.”

...He’s already made a handful of recruiting trips to court potential candidates, including in Arizona and Illinois, where Democrats have as many as eight targets.

But to win the 25 seats necessary to retake the chamber, Israel is eyeing the 61 Republican-held districts that President Obama carried in 2008. Among those seats, 14 went for both Obama in 2008 and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 presidential race.

The districts are held by a mixture of freshmen and veteran GOP lawmakers, but, to Israel, it doesn’t matter how long the Republicans have been there.

“We start with those 14 seats,” said Israel. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a [committee] chairman or not. We’re not going to be distracted by personalities. It’s going to be driven by the numbers, driven by our message, driven by our ability to mobilize.”

Asked how often he talks to Democrats who lost close races in 2010 and are weighing bids again in 2012, Israel said emphatically, “Every day.”

On his way to this past weekend’s House Democratic retreat in Maryland, Israel held a conference call with a dozen former members who might try to win their seats back next year.

“We talk to them about what we’re doing here, what they’re doing there and we feed intel back and forth,” he said. “The majority of the members who lost are engaged, they’re interested and they’re keeping the door open to varying degrees.”

We'll have to watch and see which defeated Democrats Israel encourages-- or discourages. Yesterday Jim Oberstar (MN) announced he wouldn't be running again. I hear constant rumors, on the other hand, that Carol Shea-Porter (NH), John Hall (NY) and Steve Driehaus (OH) are. The DCCC was eager to get Suzanne Kosmas (FL) to run again but she's mire in booze and going downhill rapidly, probably even a no-no for them.