What Good Does The DCCC Do?

It's only a 30 second clip but a lot of Democratic Party congressional candidates think the only way they can win in November is to have the DCCC make one of these for them and then spend a million dollars (or two million dollars) on broadcast TV ads in their district. Candidates positively obsess over getting on "the list," in this case mostly the Red-to-Blue list which is where money for challengers goes. The time and energy that goes into "working" the DCCC and kissing up to Steve Israel and his cohorts would be much better spent campaigning. Plenty of candidates-- especially independent-minded progressives who overwhelmingly can't get the time of day from Israel (an "ex"-Blue Dog with outsized career pretensions)-- learn this... sooner or later. The smart ones spend as little energy as they can pursuing the DCCC and communicate with voters instead.

So far this cycle (as of July 31), the DCCC had raised $115,499,329 and spent $80,132,768. Of that $25.4 million has gone into the salaries of the employees and other administrative expenses (like rent, utilities, travel, etc) and $16.1 million has gone into raising money. That's over half. They spent another $1,714,644 on polling and $1,072,809 on their consultant buddies (who worked at the DCCC last year and will work at it next year when the current crop is looking for work... as consultants). And so far they've contributed $1,987,973 to candidates and put $3,309,709 into independent expenditures. An independent expenditure is, for example, when they make a spot like the one above-- paying a gigantic premium to a video maker with little or no talent to come up with an ad that will do little to no good for the candidate and then run it on TV. Lots of people make lots of money but the candidate doesn't get much benefit.

Right now there are 47 candidates on the DCCC's list, the Red-to-Blue list. Of the 47 there are 25 Blue Dogs and New Dems-- some of whom are both Blue Dogs and New Dems and one of whom is a Republican vaguely trying to make believe he's a Democrat, Steve Israel's favorite kind of candidate. On the other hand, there are 5 grassroots progressives on the list-- just 5: Mark Takano (CA-41), Joe Miklosi (CO-06), David Gill (IL-13), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) and Annie Kuster (NH-02). I was told by one of Israel's staffers that if I held my breath long enough today I would see Joe Garcia (FL-26) finally added to Red-to-Blue as well. [I wrote that yesterday and, sure enough, Joe was added to the list, as was another progressive Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.]

People often ask me what the difference is between a Blue Dog and a New Dem. There isn't much but there is some. Both are strictly corporate-oriented and do not ever represent ordinary working families, only Big Business interests and both groups are driven by corporate donors. With just one or two odd-ball exceptions, the Blue Dogs also tend to be social conservatives-- so anti-Choice, racist, homophobic... all that stuff-- and tend to vote with the GOP over half the time, sometimes more than 80% of the time. New Dems tend to be less socially conservative, but just as corrupt and venal, often tools of Wall Street, the US Chamber of Commerce and Big Business in general. They're driven by careerism and usually vote with the Democratic leadership more frequently than the Blue Dogs and do their most destructive work in committees, where they always act as a bloc to water down and destroy progressive legislation. It's not likely that the Blue Dogs will survive another year and all the garbage in that caucus that's left will just migrate over to the New Dems and make that caucus worse than it already is. The New Dems are headed by Joe Crowley, widely considered one of the most corrupt individuals to have served in Congress in the last 3 decades, on a par with crooks like Tom DeLay and the whole Abramoff batch of criminal legislators. He he's very bipartisan in his support for monied interests. The photo of him above is of him playing in a band with Mike Huckabee, another fraud putting it over on ordinary working Americans.

I used to watch every video made for Warner Bros Records when I was running Reprise. If someone walked into my office with one like the above 30 second spot, I would have called our video department head and asked her to have it done over by a different vendor and to cross this vendor off the list. Friends of mine in Illinois say I'm being too harsh and that folks in Illinois are sick of seeing their governors go to prison. OK, I get that... but what does it have to do with electing David Gill to Congress? David Gill, the progressive running for the same set as Rodney Davis but who isn't mentioned in the ad. David's own ad isn't as slick or fancy-- and not nearly as expensive-- as the DCCC ad, but something tells me this is more likely to help him get elected. Please watch it and consider contributing directly to his campaign to he has the funds to run it on TV. You can find David Gill here on the Blue America page for progressive House candidates.




UPDATE: An Answer To My Question-- Here's What The DCCC Does For Their Candidates

I stopped counting how many identical hack-jobs from Debbie Wasserman Schultz like this I got yesterday:

Friend--

When Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan, he made this race about Medicare and an end to our nation's most sacred promise.

That’s why I am supporting my friend Louise Slaughter because I know she will stand up for Medicare and be a partner to President Obama to protect the middle class -- while the Romney-Ryan plan takes away the Medicare guarantee and turns it into a voucher system while giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

With the Republican convention this week, and a huge fundraising deadline on Friday, all eyes are on Democrats’ fundraising. Louise urgently needs your help right now.

The next 48 hours are critical. Please make a donation to Louise Slaughter now.

Thank you for standing up for what we believe in.

Debbie

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

------


Howard,

When Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan, he made this race about Medicare and an end to our nation's most sacred promise.

I am supporting my friend Patrick Murphy because I know he will stand up for Medicare and be a partner to President Obama to protect the middle class -- while the Romney-Ryan plan takes away the Medicare guarantee and turns it into a voucher system while giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

With the Republican convention this week, and a huge fundraising deadline on Friday, all eyes are on Democrats’ fundraising. Patrick urgently needs your help right now.

The next 48 hours are critical. Please make a donation to Patrick now.

Thank you for standing up for what we believe in.


Debbie

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

---

Howard,

When Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan, he made this race about Medicare and an end to our nation's most sacred promise.

That’s why I am supporting my friend Annie Kuster because I know she will stand up for Medicare and be a partner to President Obama to protect the middle class -- while the Romney-Ryan plan takes away the Medicare guarantee and turns it into a voucher system while giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

With the Republican convention this week, and a huge fundraising deadline on Friday, all eyes are on Democrats’ fundraising. Annie urgently needs your help right now.

The next 48 hours are critical. Please make a donation to Annie Kuster now.

Thank you for standing up for what we believe in.

Debbie

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Damn! I wish I got a dozen like these from Joe Crowley too!