Denial Reigns Supreme At The DCCC

The DCCC managed to lose 13 incumbents' seats and every single seat they went after held by a Republican-- with two exceptions, both right-wing Blue Dogs who are expected to vote fairly consistently with the GOP. And all this-- along with a system riven with internal corruption-- ate up the tens of millions of dollars Steve Israel never ceased bragging about-- plus another $12 million he borrowed, putting the DCCC into serious debt. Worse is that Pelosi picked a tepid placeholder as the new DCCC chair, Ben Ray Luján, who has no vision for changing anything at the failed committee Israel spent 4 years running into the ground.

Luján's first act as chair was to announce he would be keep everything as is-- as though everyone had done a fabulous job and the committee had won back the House-- starting with re-hiring incompetent and worthless Executive Director Kelly Ward and her pathetic self-serving staffers. The Republicans must be dancing for joy. Scott Bland at the National Journal had a chat with Luján-- and it sounds like he's determined to emulate Israel's losing ways. Like Israel, he's taking false solace in the fact that the DCCC didn't lose even more seats. He has the mindset of a loser. "I think we really have to take into consideration that based on some of the modeling and the national mood last cycle… we could have lost 20 or more seats.The team we had in place… kept that to 13. As we're moving into all of this, that's something to build off of." He was enthusiastic, for example, about the DCCC's horribly failed recruiting, which yielded dozens of losers.

After another disappointing election for House Democrats, one that gave Republicans their largest majority in almost a century, the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a seemingly incongruous message: Keep calm and carry on.

DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján is adamant, despite a 13-seat loss in November, that the committee has more to build on than to fix. After all, you don't have to make mistakes to lose an election, especially in the kind of horrible environment Democrats faced this year.

The committee has numerous building blocks-- its field program, digital program, aggressive recruiting, and especially its strong fundraising-- for 2016 that helped mitigate November's losses and will position the party to take advantage when there is a better political environment in the future, Luján said. Unlike the political environment or overall party messaging, those factors are under the DCCC's complete control.

But some Democrats on and off Capitol Hill have grown concerned since the election about whether the DCCC is reacting with enough urgency to another disappointing election result. Luján's first move as chairman was to retain Executive Director Kelly Ward, who echoed the new chairman's could've-been-worse attitude in a statement when she was rehired. The Democratic National Committee has convened a "Victory Task Force" to pinpoint areas where the party "can strengthen and improve operations," but Luján didn't offer specifics on areas where the DCCC could improve.

Asked to name one thing he would change at the committee after having some time to review things, Lujan said, "We want to win more seats." And, he said, he wants to keep fellow members engaged with the committee.

That's hardly a reboot.

"After three cycles of underperforming expectations, that would seem to highlight the need for new thinking," said one Democratic consultant who asked for anonymity to speak freely. (The consultant compared the DCCC's line to Kevin Bacon's character in Animal House, who shouts, "Remain calm! All is well!" during the movie's climactic stampede.) "I would think that at some point they're going to have a problem convincing donors to give money without results."

...On the campaign side, Luján is reprising Israel's early recruiting efforts from years past. One of Democrats' losing 2014 candidates, Emily Cain of Maine, came to the DCCC Wednesday morning for meetings with Luján and other party leaders about running for the Democratic-leaning district again in 2016. Luján cited districts Democrats lost in Nevada and Iowa, plus a GOP-held open seat in the Philadelphia suburbs, as top targets on which he's already focused.

President Obama carried 26 GOP-held districts when he won reelection in 2012, including the Maine seat that Luján wants Cain to run for again.

Cain is a pathetic New Dem who was unable to inspire Democratic voters because she didn't stand for anything except being a woman and a shill for EMILY's List. She lost to a Maine laughing stock, teabagger Bruce Polliquin, who wasn't considered a serious contender, but who beat her 133,112 (47.1%) to 118,070 (41.8%) in a district that Obama beat Romney in 53-44%-- and which had reelected Democrat Mike Michaud in 2012, 58-42%. And this despite Cain having spent $1,963,989 to Poliquin's $1,679,893. This was Cain's first ad; like the rest of her insipid, platitude-ridden campaign, it didn't convince anyone to vote for her.

Even worse than Cain is lifelong Republican Monica Vernon, an opportunist who switched to the Democratic Party and ran a losing campaign this year as Lt Gov. Before that, she had entered the IA-01 open seat primary when Bruce Braley announced he was running for the Senate. She came in a distant second to Pat Murphy, who beat her 36.7-23.6%. She's politically grotesque and a friend of mine at the DCCC tells me Luján is all excited-- excited that she's a former Republican and he's trying to recruit her. It's as though Steve Israel never left! Vernon and her husband, Bill, were GOP stalwarts and contributed thousands of dollars to local and national Republicans, including, in 2012 to Braley's GOP opponent Ben Lange, as well as to clowns like Chuck Grassley, John McCain and $4,000 to the Iowa State Republican Party. If anyone doubted Luján would be a Steve Israel doppelgänger, this should set them straight.