Was The DCCC Pestering You With Spam All Weekend?

As you know, tomorrow (June 30) marks the end of the FEC's arbitrary reporting quarter. Candidates are hysterical and following DCCC suggestions to burn their lists with a constant barrage of requests for contributions. If you're ever signed a DCCC online petition you've probably had dozens of content-free requests since Friday, including multiple pleas from Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Steve Israel, neither of whom seems to have thought it was relevant to tell Democrats that each had just voted with the Republicans against Tom Massie's amendment to end unconstitutional domestic spying by the NSA and, again, with most Republicans, against Barbara Lee's amendment to prevent another war in Iraq.

One of my friends, formerly a very major Democratic donor, Michael Wolkowitz, feels like almost everyone I've talked to about this barrage of e-mails. He sent this response to the DCCC when they consistently refused to remove his name from their spam files:

"Sorry!" does not come even close to making up for your incompetence, lack of integrity, and dishonesty. I have tried multiple times to unsubscribe from your list and the lists of the candidates you share it with. Self-evidently, it does not work. I am not giving money to you or any individual candidates for the House this year. Sadly, electronic mail is free so I cannot tell you to stop wasting your money. I will, sometime soon, use my small Huffington Post bully pulpit to talk about how sneaky and soulless your committee is. Please please stop sending me mail.

When I asked Michael if I could use his e-mail today, I said I could leave his name out for the sake on anonymity. I loved his response: "If you think it would be a plus feel free to name me. I am sick of the assault by the committees that don’t actually deserve to use the word Democratic, I am sick of the corporatist dominance of that party, I am sick of that party’s vast majority on Capitol Hill blanket support of the Department of War because they are so risk averse they would never dare be perceived as anything but hawks, I am sick of their risk aversion to ever taking a stand on an issue that either:  a) is not pre-guaranteed to pass AND b) not hurt them in a general election, c) and get 60 votes in the Senate. These motherfuckers won’t even get a highway appropriations bill passed let alone allow debate on climate change, immigration, the poor starving yearning to breathe free who happen to be U.S. citizens. I think you can write my next thirty paragraphs for me so I will leave it there. I feel like I have wasted a whole lot of money time effort energy and emotion over the last 10-15 years trying my best to work “within the system.” I am back to where I was after Humphrey was nominated. Outside, trying to look away instead of In. fuck ‘em."

One of the worst of the freshmen, New Dem Patrick Murphy, has been among the most abusive of the e-mail fanatics this weekend. I just got another one from his annoying finance director, Mandi Karp: "Did you see this? Patrick's is THE race in Florida. We need to make sure that we have the strongest showing yet at this FEC deadline. Give now and your gift will be DOUBLE MATCHED - but only until midnight!" That's followed by a false claim from Debbie Wasserman Schultz that Murphy is Boehner's top target. He isn't. JUst moments atom he followed the Mandi e-mail up with a "personal" one: "Sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but Mandi and I were going through our database of our biggest supporters and making sure that they were in before our biggest Federal Elections Commission (FEC) deadline of the year on Monday. If you've already given and our emails were wrong, I apologize for bothering you, but if you haven’t, I would be humbled if you would consider making a contribution before our June 30th deadline."

So far Murphy has raised $2,814,416 this cycle, only 6% from small donors-- most of the rest from special interests who admire Murphy's conservative politics. A crowded field of 4th-rate Republican opponents fighting it out among themselves haven't raised enough to make any of them real competition:

• Carl Domino- $578,305 ($429,527 with a check he wrote to himself)
• Brian Lara- $113,997 ($100,087 with a check he wrote to himself)
• Alan Schlesinger- $99,789 ($75,000 with a check he wrote to himself)
• Ellen Andel- $51,233 (every cent of which she has already spent)
• Beverly Hires- $36,770 ($36,000 with a check she wrote to herself)
• Calvin Turnquest- $21,751
• Frank Lynch- $10,000 (100% which he self-financed)
• Nick Wukoson- zero

This is not shaping up to be a competitive race and certainly not one that Boehner is targeting. Wasserman Schultz, as usual, is lying-- in her eagerness to see her fellow slimy New Dem get in position to run for higher office. Paying attention to e-mail from her and Israel, or from any of the Blue Dogs or New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party grappling to take control of the House Democratic caucus, will do two things: guarantee another catastrophic election year for the Democrats and help cement conservative power inside the caucus.

Allowing Israel, Wasserman Schultz and Hoyer to determine who will be-- and who won't be-- the funded Democratic candidates can only end in catastrophe on numerous levels. Short of assigning that function to MoveOn, PCCC, DFA or Blue America, a better-- or at least more entertaining-- method would be to let Bill Maher do it. As we first reported in January, he has a fun game going called Flip A District and the first step towards congressional change ended on Friday with the addition of Dave Reichert (WA-08) and Scott Desjarlais (TN-04). Maher now has 16 Republicans to target-- or at least have some fun abusing:

• Mike Coffman (CO-06)- D+1 Andrew Romanoff
• Steve Southerland (FL-02)- R+6 Gwen Graham
• Ted Yoho (FL-03)- R+14 Marihelen Wheeler
• Jackie Walorski (IN-06)- R+6 Joe Bock
• Steve King (IA-04)- R+5 Jim Mowrer
• Dan Benishek (MI-01)- R+5 Jerry Cannon
• Tim Walberg (MI-07)- R+3 Pam Byrnes
• Kerry Bentivolio (MI-11)- R+4 July 17 primary
• John Kline (MN-02)- R+2 Mike Obermueller
• Scott Garrett (NJ-05)- R+4 Roy Cho
• Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (NY-11)- R+2 Domenic Recchia
• Renee Ellmers (NC-02) R+10 Clay Aiken
• Scott DesJarlais (TN-04)- R+18 Lenda Sherrell
• Blake Farenthold (TX-27)- R+13 Wesley Reed
• Dave Reichert (WA-08)- R+1 Jason Ritchie
• Paul Ryan (WI-01)- R+3 Rob Zerban

Ten of the 16-- Coffman, Southerland, Walorski, King, Bentivolio, Walberg, Benishek, Kline, Grimm, Ellmers-- are DCCC targets or semi-targets and I'm guessing that 4-- Southerland, Walorski, Walberg, and Benishek-- of those are on the list simply because the DCCC tampered with the process. Most of these contests are very uphill for the Democrats but the underlined one are candidates who have exactly the same chance of winning that you do. Some of the others have an ever so slightly better chance of winning than you do. And some of the best shots, like against Paul Ryan and Dave Reichert, are bing studiously ignored (or worse) by the DCCC because the Democrats running are progressives. Maher missed out of the two best shots to really flip a district away from pure unadulterated evil. One has an R+1 PVI (Fred Upton in Michigan) and one that has an EVEN PVI (Steve Israel in New York). In fact, if I could contribute to just one House candidate this cycle, it would be to the Democrat running against Upton, Paul Clements. You can contribute to Paul's campaign here-- and keep in mind, everyone on this page has been carefully vetted as a progressive worth investing in.