If You Want Change... You Gotta Back It Up

It's just two and a half weeks 'til election day.If someone feeds you a line about the Democrats taking back the House, you're talking with a dishonest huckster or someone steeped in ignorance. The House Democrats' sealed their fate when-- in the light of their 2012 disaster-- they allowed Pelosi to reappoint Steve Israel to chair the DCCC. The districts he chose to target (and not target), his third-rate recruits, his conservative talking points and block-headed strategies were all guaranteed to lose again. The Democrats will not win back the net of 17 seats it would take to win control of the House and replace Boehner with Pelosi. The Democrats will not win a net of even one seat. The Democrats will lose seats. That's what Steve Israel knows how to do-- lose. It's all he's ever done. He is a loser. Losers lose.

Two of his most egregious "errors"-- both by design-- were in MN-02 and MI-06, Democratic-leaning districts with especially vile senior Republican policy makers, respectively House Education and Work Force Committee Chairman John Kline and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton. Israel has been actively protecting both of them. Just yesterday Israel was again on the phone berating a Democratic-oriented PAC about contributing to Paul Clements' race in Michigan. This is a really repulsive character who knows if Clements beats Upton-- while the 4 awful recruits Israel backed (and has now abandoned) lose-- Israel may look bad to his colleagues... to put it mildly.

The best progressives can hope for this cycle is the election of more solid progressives, like Bonnie Watson Coleman in New Jersey, Pat Murphy in Iowa and Ted Lieu in California. Those look like the most likely wins. And there are two more up for grabs in a very major way, one in Michigan and one in Minnesota.

As one Steve Israel candidate after another is left behind as roadkill-- their dreams and hopes shattered-- the strongest campaigns standing are the ones that weren't touched by the plague, The Steve Israel Effect. And the two strongest and most competitive House campaigns right now-- the best places for last minute progressive money-- are MN-02 (Mike Obermueller) and MI-06 (Paul Clements). Both are busy mounting get-out-the-vote field operations. Obermueller's brand new ad (above) went up on TV yesterday. Lawrence Lessig's non-partisan, good government MayDay PAC spent $1.4 million on independent ads against Upton this week alone! These are the races to put smart money. You can find both right here.

Paul Clements needs field volunteers in the Benton Harbor/St. Joseph/Niles area. If you're in western Michigan, please consider giving them a hand right here.

MayDay PAC, Lawrence Lessig's non-partisan, good government, crowd-sourced, peoples' PAC, just released their latest TV spot for South Dakota. I thought you might want to take a look. And if you'd like to contribute to Rick Weiland's get-out-the-vote field operation, you can do that right here.