A New Jersey Democrat Explains Why He's Stopped Contributing To DCCC Candidates

Fressers from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party

Jack Hannold is one of the DWT regular sources on political news in New Jersey. Rachel Maddow has Steve Kornacki. Ken and I have Jack. Today the South Jersey Times published an OpEd by Jack that may be difficult and confusing for Democrats who don't pay close attention to electoral politics.

In the waning days of August, my email account was flooded with 30 messages from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, all of them urging me to donate to their campaign fund before some Aug. 31 deadline.

I didn't contribute, and here's why.

The DCCC is controlled by self-styled "centrist" Democrats-- actually conservative, Wall Street Democrats-- who routinely use the funds they raise to support only candidates who share their views, which are often not those of grassroots Democrats.  Some of their favored candidates are former Republicans who were persuaded to switch parties and run as Democrats.

In a race where a grassroots progressive wins a primary against a more conservative DCCC-backed candidate, the DCCC usually withholds its support in the general election. But the progressive usually gets trounced by a well-financed, DCCC-directed campaign. The case of Christine Cegelis is a good example.

Cegelis had built a strong local organization in the Illinois Sixth District, and in 2004 she gave Henry Hyde his closest race since he won his first term in 1974.  When Hyde announced his retirement in 2005, the DCCC began looking for a more conservative candidate to run for the open seat in 2006.

  Their candidate, Tammy Duckworth, spent nearly $1 million, most of it DCCC money, on a three-way primary she won with 44 percent of the vote, but then went on to lose the 2006 general election to Republican Pete Roskam, a far right state senator.

And the DCCC is no better today. In the Thirteenth District of Illinois this year, progressive George Gollin, who was endorsed by three important newspapers, lost to DCCC-backed candidate Ann Callis. And in Ohio's Sixth District (in what I believe is probably the worst single example of a DCCC candidate at odds with Democratic Party values), progressive Greg Howard lost to anti-choice, pro-gun, pro-fracking, pro-Keystone XL pipeline candidate Jennifer Garrison, who has been called "Ohio's Sarah Palin."

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? No progressive should donate one red cent to a bloated beltway organization that is trying to turn the Democratic Party into some kind of "G.O.P. Lite."