Steve Israel's Biggest 2014 Red-To-Blue Flameouts

Top DCCC recruits who vanished without a trace: Suzanne Patrick, Joe Bock, Jennifer Garrison... so much wasted money

With Wall Street banksters flooding GOP campaign coffers with immense amounts of money for last minute TV blitzes in key races, a new NBC/WSJ poll shows a Republican advantage in the midterms. BUT— and there is a but— favorability ratings in the crucial “lesser-of-two evils” match-ups show that Democrats are liked by 37% of the voters and Republicans by only 27%. 43% of the voters have an unfavorable view of the Democrats and a full 50% of voters have an unfavorable views of the GOP. When asked who should control Congress, though, 46% say the Democrats would be better and only 42% say the Republicans. That’s not nearly as good as it looks because among "likely voters,” it flips: 46% say Republicans and only 44% say Democrats.

Yesterday the NY Times’ Jonathan Weisman kicked off the day with a hale and hearty Democrats’ Hopes To Gain In House Fade. That particular hope— gaining seats in the House— faded on the day Nancy Pelosi reappointed the most corrupt and incompetent DCCC chairman in history— or at least since 1866. Steve Israel’s candidate recruitment, targeting, strategy and messaging have been all wrong— all colored by his adherence to the strict Blue Dog, anti-grassroots/anti-working families ideology. If Pelosi was paying attention, she would have noticed that in 2012 and not reappointed him. But she wasn’t. And that was that.

After countless dire emails and months of fading bravado, national Democrats in recent days have signaled with their money what they have been loath to acknowledge out loud: They will not win back the House and they will most likely lose additional seats in November.

Since last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has essentially given up efforts to unseat Republicans in several races, pulling advertising money from a dozen campaigns in Republican-held districts to focus on protecting its embattled incumbents.

Democrats need 17 Republican seats to win back the majority, but of the 25 races still on the campaign committee’s battlefield, only seven currently belong to Republicans. That means Democrats are playing defense in 18 districts and offense in seven.

…[C]ampaign committee aides now say they never really expected to win the majority, and had not been able to gain traction because of President Obama’s stubbornly low approval ratings, Senate races that have gone poorly for the Democrats in states like Colorado and Iowa, and governors races that went sour (Illinois) or never really developed (California, New York.)

They called the retrenchment a “fine-tuning” of the battlefield.

“I absolutely would not say we’re in triage mode,” Mr. Israel insisted. “There’s a difference between triage and making strategic decisions.”

No matter what they call it, the moves over the past week have been drastic. The campaign committee has withdrawn from races once seen as the most promising in the country.

“The mystery for many Democratic consultants is, ‘Where is all the money? Where did it go?’” said David Wasserman, a House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, who pronounced himself “flabbergasted” by the committee’s move. “The general feeling had been they had more money than they had winnable races. Now the feeling is they don’t have enough money to counter Republican outside group spending. It’s a surprise.”

When she gets drunk enough, Israel’s second ex-wife, Judge Marlene Budd, tells people that Israel steals the money. I haven’t found any proof of that— but I don’t doubt it. DCCC corruption and donor fleecing, though, are more systematic and on a senior staff level. Meanwhile, the DCCC is still funding lame races for very conservative Blue Dogs, while ending the help they had promised to their own recruits, lying to them about how they have to help incumbents, while they ship loads of cash off to slimy, corrupt little lobbyist Pete Aguilar in CA-33 and right-wing Blue Dog Brad Ashbrook in NE-02. Israel has pulled the plug on over a dozen races including Andrew Romanoff’s, John Foust’s, Michael Eggman’s, all their candidates in Michigan and everyone else Israel led down the garden path with his patently false promises.

In California, Representatives Jeff Denham and David Valadeo, Republicans in districts carried by Mr. Obama, were supposed to be doomed by their party’s refusal to embrace immigration reform. A year ago, Washington Democrats hailed their recruits as rising stars.

Last week, the Democrats pulled out.

Two years ago, Rodney Davis, a Republican, won his Southern Illinois House seat by a mere 1,000 votes, and Democrats saw former Circuit Judge Ann Callis as a candidate who was tough enough to knock him off. The Democratic campaign committee even invited her to Mr. Obama’s inauguration in 2013 as they wooed her into the race. Last week, the committee also took its money from her.

“That is such a death blow to a campaign, when the national party pulls out their money,” said Andrea Bozek, the Republican campaign committee’s spokeswoman. “It’s ‘see you later.’”

…“What has surprised me,” Mr. Israel said, “is the unconventional has become conventional.”

This week, Roll Call’s Emily Cahn ran a funny piece on this cycle’s 9 biggest candidate flameouts. Many of the races she looked at are for Senate seats, but a third of Cahn’s picks are flailing Steve Israel recruits.

Erin Bilbray, Democrat, Nevada’s 3rd District


President Barack Obama narrowly won GOP Rep. Joe Heck’s district last cycle, making him a top target for Democrats in 2014. At the start of the cycle, Democrats touted Bilbray, a Democratic National Committeewoman from Nevada and the daughter of a former congressman, as a candidate who could oust Heck.

But Bilbray’s bid went almost nowhere this cycle.

When the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced its planned spending for the midterms earlier this year, this district was noticeably absent from the list. And as the committee shifts resources to play defense on the map this month, it’s unlikely that will change before Election Day.

Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call Rating: Favored Republican

Ann Callis, Democrat, Illinois’ 13th District


Democrats rolled out the red carpet to recruit Callis to run in this down-state district— even bringing her to Washington, D.C., for Obama’s 2012 inaugural festivities. Democrats deemed Callis as their best recruit to take out Rep. Rodney Davis, a freshman Republican who won this swing seat in 2012 by less than 1 point.

But for all of her hype, Callis’s campaign never got much traction.

With a month to go before Election Day, Davis leads by double digits in his polling, and national Democrats have all but conceded the race, pulling their television advertising dollars reserved for the district.

Rating: Favored Republican

Sean Eldridge, Democrat, New York’s 19th District


One of 17 Republicans representing districts Obama carried in 2012, GOP Rep. Chris Gibson started the cycle as a top Democratic target. Democrats were hopeful Eldridge— the wealthy husband of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes— could mount a serious challenge.

But Eldridge stumbled right out the gate with a New York Times profile that made him look out of touch in this largely blue-collar district, nestled in the far-reaching New York City suburbs and stretching into the Catskill mountains. As a result, Republicans nicknamed him “$ean Eldridge”— a moniker that’s stuck with him throughout the campaign.

Eldridge’s bid never really recovered, and the DCCC never reserved television airtime here to change that.

Rating: Leans Republican

Unmentioned by Cahn among Israel’s least savory recruits who went nowhere at all and flamed out almost immediately include anti-gay fanatic Jennifer Garrison (OH-06), CIA-plants Bobby McKenzie (MI-11) and Kevin Strouse (PA-08), Guantánamo gulag commandante Jerry Cannon (MI-01), Rocky Lara (NM-02), John Lewis (MT-AL), James Lee Witt (AR-04), Jackie McPherson (AR-01), Nick Casey (WV-02), Joe Bock (IN-02), George Sinner (ND-AL), Glen Gainer (WV-01), Suzanne Patrick (VA-02), Bill Hughes (NJ-02)…