2016 Cycle Has Begun

Republicans are counting on incredibly bad leadership at the DCCC and the DSCC to work magic for the GOP in 2014. Steve Israel has shown himself either uninterested or incapable of winning and Michael Bennet seems determined to take Patty Murray's incredible work that led to a breathtaking string of unlikely victories in 2012 and turning them into a smoldering ruin in 2014. Despite record contempt for Congress by American voters and a recognition that Republican economic sabotage is undermining everyone's financial well-being, the Republicans are likely to win back the Senate and retain the House. As veteran Democratic Party strategist Doug Sosnik explained in this week's DC big buzz memo, the Democratic Party is one hot mess. The Republicans know their big problem will come in 2016, not 2014. With only four vaguely, semi-vulnerable red Senate seats to worry about (Kentucky, Georgia, Maine and South Carolina, none of which have top tier Democratic recruits yet) and a half dozen solid opportunities in traditionally red areas with weak or no Democratic incumbents (Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, Alaska, North Carolina, and West Virginia), the Republicans aren't panicked about the Senate. Steve Israel is such an inept strategist-- handing out free reelection passes to senior Republicans like they were candy and showing more concern for winning nominations for fellow conservative Blue Dogs and New Dems than for actually electing real Democrats-- that the GOP knows the House is safely in their hands for as long as the DCCC stays in Steve Israel's hands.

So their energy is free to wander down the road to 2016. Then the Senate table is set nicely for the Democrats, where they have better than even shots of picking up seats in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and legitimate worries only in Nevada and Colorado. Pelosi is likely to retire by then and no one in their right mind will reappoint Israel to head the DCCC. Literally anyone would be an improvement. And then, of course, the ace in the hole: Hillary Clinton. Polls show her capable of winning even the most hard-core Republican states, like Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia. As Greg Sargent asserted yesterday: the right is in full attack mode against Clinton already.

You saw the deranged GOP Benghazi nonsense jumping from Fox to infect the rest of the media this week as virtually every Republican immerses himself in full-time conspiracy theory insanity. Look at that ad up top that Karl Rove's shady PAC is already running! They are petrified that a Hillary sweep will not just mean a victory for her but that she'll help Democrats win back Congress. They are panic-stricken. As Sargent reminds us, in the '90s "you could go on the TV-- night after night-- and accuse the Clintons of literally anything and no one blinked. There were multiple investigations into whether Hillary Clinton had somebody killed.” And they plan to do that again-- right into 2016... for the next three years! The NY Times editorial board explained the right-wing Benghazi Obsession. The Republicans don't care. They just want it in the news so that lo-info voters in those red states where she's ahead start thinking that where there's smoke, there could be fire.

Before Wednesday’s hearing on the attack in Benghazi, Libya, Republicans in Congress promised explosive new details about the administration’s mishandling of the episode. Instead, the hearing showed, yet again, that sober fact-finding is not their mission. Common sense and good judgment have long given way to conspiracy-mongering and a relentless effort to discredit President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

...The hearing did not prove anything like an administration cover-up or other hysterical allegations of crimes equal to Watergate that some Republicans, such as Representative Steve King and Senator Lindsey Graham, have alleged. Republicans have held numerous hearings and briefings on Benghazi and are threatening to hold even more. It is a level of interest they did not show during George W. Bush’s administration when there were 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets or in the years they spent cutting back diplomatic security budgets.

The real scandal is that serious follow-up on security in Libya is going unaddressed. Congress needs to make sure that State Department budgets for personnel and security improvements are sufficient and that security reforms are put in place as soon as possible.

Well... the real scandal is that the Republican Party is wasting government resources and avoiding addressing real issues so they can grandstand on their electoral priorities for 2016. Or, if you want a real scandal... there's always this one in Massachusetts, where Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez scammed the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and refuses to discuss it. Watch-- because this is a real scandal: