Assigning Fault For Impending Democratic Congressional Losses

Last night we took a look at some of the poor schlubbs Steve Israel had recruited to run for Congress and has now abandoned, tainted by his losing strategies and unable to gain any traction on their own. Michigan is a particularly ugly victim of the “Steve Israel Effect.” The irony there is that the DSCC has run a perfect race in Michigan— so perfect that as the DCCC packs up its tent and heads down to Arkansas or West Virginia or whichever red hellhole Israel has decided to take a last stand in, the Republicans have raised the white flag in the Michigan Senate race. Pelosi should be scratching her head and asking her staff how her fate wound up in the hands of Congress’ most clueless, incompetent and corrupt moron. This kind of coverage has been reserved for the DCCC this cycle:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has cut the remaining television it had reserved in Michigan amid signs former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R) is having trouble catching Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.).

The NRSC's independent expenditure arm has canceled television reservations for the last two weeks of the campaign, pulling more than $850,000 out of the state, The Hill has confirmed.

And Peters— a Wall Street-oriented New Dem— isn’t any better than the crappy candidates Israel dredged up from the bottom of various barrels (except maybe Jerry Cannon, the guy who ran the Guantánamo gulag while people were being rendered and tortured. What a great candidate to recruit… what could possibly go wrong?) The difference between Gary Peters’ winning race in Michigan and all the written-off blue-leaning House districts in the state is, obviously, Steve Israel and his useless DCCC.

A couple of days ago Alexander Bolton, at The Hill opened the conversation about who will have lost the senate for the Democrats if they lose. Maybe a little premature? It could have just as well been called which genius is responsible for the Senate Democrats holding on? Bolton doesn’t talk about Steve Israel’s role in the sure catastrophe shaping up for House Dems. No one Inside the Beltway dares go there… yet. But Bolton wrote that “Democrats are starting to play the blame game as they face the possibility of losing the Senate in November… If Democrats keep control of the Senate, Reid will likely be given much of the credit. But if they fail, the blame could fall on his shoulders.” And, although he points out several missteps. the first race he points to is the Harry Reid-manufactured disaster in South Dakota:

The behind-the-scenes tension broke into the open last week when former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) questioned Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) decision not to endorse Democrat Rick Weiland in South Dakota’s Senate race.

The Hill’s coverage— by Bob Cusack and Jessica Taylor— includes blatant misinformation that still hasn’t been corrected. “In an email on Monday, a DSCC official stated in an email, ‘The DSCC has endorsed Rick. Rick attended the DSCC’s big retreat on Martha’s Vineyard earlier this year. The DSCC has also conducted polling on Rick’s behalf.’”

The DSCC has not endorsed Rick. This screen shot of the DSCC website I made a few hours ago doesn’t read like an endorsement to me:

As for the infamous retreat at Martha’s Vineyard, Rick was there— uninvited by the DSCC but encouraged by a dozen Democratic senators to just show up. He practically had to hop a fence to get in! The polling the DSCC has done in South Dakota was hardly conducted “on Rick’s behalf.” It has been used by Harry Reid, Guy Cecil and the ridiculous Michael Bennet as justifications for writing off South Dakota and Rick’s vibrant grassroots campaign. Last week embattled Democratic Senator Mark Pryor told a public gathering that “the best thing that could happen” would be for McConnell to lose his reelection bid and for Reid to step down and be replaced as Democratic Leader by Chuck Schumer.




UPDATE: Reid Couldn’t Take Anymore Heat

The DSCC finally relented— halfway— and started pouring negative ads into South Dakota to smear the very smear-worthy Mike Rounds. The DSCC doesn’t care who beats him. They’d be as happy with conservative Republican Larry Pressler as they’d be with progressive Democrat Scott Weiland. I’ve noticed many of the least trustworthy and least knowledgeable voice among superficial Democrats already whining that Weiland should step out of the race. This is really sick— and really typical of a moribund party and moribund activists. The DSCC says they’re throwing in a million bucks and say they’re doing it because the polling is so close. They're not doing any positive ads for Weiland, just negative stuff against Rounds. Lawrence Lessig's non-partisan, good government PAC, MayDay, is also spending a million dollars in South Dakota and it seems to all be going into positive ads for Weiland.