What Will Hurt Democratic Chances More In 2014, A GOP Wave Or Steve Israel's Incompetence?

Yesterday Reid Wilson made the point at the Washington Post that there appears to be a Republican wave building that could increase the GOP majority in the House and win them control of the Senate. Obama's popularity is sinking, the Obamacare website is making the entire healthcare reform agenda look like a mess, and the huge Democratic advantage in the generic congressional polling numbers of last month have turned into a bizarre preference for the GOP. I'm more sanguine than Reid appears to be that most of this is as likely to turn around as it is to turn into an actual wave on election day a year from now.

On the other hand, the DCCC has a largely incompetent staff and is led by a corrupt and profoundly ignorant man with a strategy already proven to be a loser. I've warned all year that the Democrats will never win back the House, regardless of any kind of wave in any direction, as long as Steve Israel chairs the DCCC. He's taken too many winnable Republican incumbents off the table. Without effectively challenging the Republicans in blue-leaning seats who he protects-- like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Fred Upton, Dave Reichert, Jim Gerlach, Pat Meehan, Mike Rogers, Buck McKeon, etc-- there are just not enough seats to flip the House. But instead Israel is attempting to re-stock the House with conservative Democrats like anti-Choice/anti-gay fanatic Jennifer Garrison and former Guantanamo comandante Jerry Cannon in unwinnable red districts. And wasting money trying to elect Joe Paterno's son Jay in in a deep red district (PVI is R+8, just like in the district Garrison is running in). Israel's loser strategy aside, there are probably a dozen conservative freshmen who have followed DCCC instructions to amass voting records that would turn off the Democratic base-- the same way it did in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010-- and help sweep them to defeat. (And that's apart from endangered non-freshmen likely to lose their seats like right-wingers John Barrow, Jim Matheson, Bill Owens, Ron Barber and Mike McIntyre.) The 10 freshmen, mostly New Dems, most likely to lose in 2014 are because of sickening conservative voting records are:

• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Pete Gallego (New Dem-TX)
• Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)

They all deserve to lose. The tragedy is that they may drag good solid Democrats down with them, which is what happened in 2010. Blue America has only endorsed two vulnerable incumbents so far, Mike Honda because of a primary for conservative money man Ro Khanna and stalwart grassroots progressive Carol Shea-Porter, who's in a tough district but has not buckled under to the DCCC the way her New Hampshire neighbor in a much safer seat, Anne Kuster, has. Please consider helping Carol in a bid to keep her seat, which is being contested by the Tea Party extremist she beat last year, Frank Guinta. This is from a letter she sent her supporters this week:

The New Hampshire Union Leader reported in early November that "The American Action Network, a self-described "center-right action tank," will begin send(ing) mailings on Thursday to Democrat Shea-Porter's constituents, especially seniors, urging them to call her and tell her to "stop putting people out of work," "it's wrong to make us pay more for health care," "she's harming the quality of our health care" and "it's wrong to make seniors pay more for health care." 

The only thing funny about this is that they call themselves "center right" instead of who they really are-- right wing extremists who specialize in dirty tricks.

Dirty tricks is a great way to describe them, and more accurate than most people realize. One of their founders is Fred Malek, who, as an aide to Richard Nixon, obeyed Nixon's order to tell him how many Jews were in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He threw his money and his lies at me before, and he and his pals are back again.

They have so much money from so many shady organizations. They practice dirty politics. You and I reject that. Let's make sure this campaign has enough money to defeat them and their miserable agenda. Please give now, and ask your friends to help also. We cannot let these guys get this seat back. Please contribute $5 or anything you can afford today!

At the end of her note she reminds her readers of something that infuriates Steve Israel and the rest of the losers at the DCCC: "I don’t accept money from Corporate PACs or DC Lobbyists, never have, never will. I get my financial support from the people, people like you!"