Did Ben Ray Luján Just Make His First Really Bad Mistake As DCCC Chairman... IA-01

Monica Vernon-- not a progressive, barely even a Democrat but... rich

Ex-Republican Monica Vernon officially announced that she's running for the IA-01 congressional seat-- the northeast corner of the state (Dubuque, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown). It's a D+5 district that Obama won in 2008 with 58% and in 2012 with 56%. Last year, it was another solid blue district Steve Israel managed to lose to a Republican while he wrote The Global War on Morris on his cellphone. Israel has been running around whispering that the Democratic nominee, former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy, was lazy and didn't work hard enough to win. Israel's problem with Murphy, though, is that Murphy-- who is anything but lazy-- is an unabashed progressive with a spectacular record of leadership on progressive issues in the state legislature-- the kind of record that makes a viper like Israel shed his skin. He told Ben Ray Luján, who he's directing as DCCC Chair, to jump on Vernon, who is wealthy, conservative, without any sense of mission outside of careerism... exactly the kind of candidate Israel loves.

In 2012, before becoming Jack Hatch's 8th choice for lieutenant governor in his failed campaign for governor-- the other 7 all passed-- Vernon had self-financed a run for the IA-01 House seat, writing herself a nice $388,768 check for the primary, the kind of money that makes Steve Israel drool uncontrollably. She came in second in the primary:

• Pat Murphy- 10,189 (36.7%)
• Monica Vernon- 6,559 (23.6%)
• Swati Dandekar- 5,076 (18.3%)
• Anesa Kajtazovic- 4,067 (14.7%)
• Dave O'Brien- 1,846 (6.7%)

What does she stand for? Well, nothing whatsoever, except a belief in her own destiny to hold higher office. At a meeting with a labor union she was asked if she supports the Keystone XL Pipeline and her response was basically that if they endorsed her she would back it or oppose it depending on what they wanted. (They declined to endorse her.) She's a classic political opportunist. She and her husband, Bill, were GOP stalwarts and contributed thousands of dollars to local and national Republicans, including, in 2012 to Bruce 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. Bill's still a Republican.

Israel was unhelpful to primary victor Pat Murphy, once suggesting he write himself a big check, incapable of understanding what it means to be an actual member of the American middle class. Over-confident that the PVI would carry the day, Israel underspent in IA-01 and when the votes were counted Pat wound up with 141,145 (48.8%), not enough to beat self-funding multimillionaire Republican Rod Blum who took 147,762 votes (51.1%). It was a very bad cycle for Democrats in Iowa and Murphy was stuck between a bumbling Bruce Braley and non-starter Jack Hatch.

So... will Murphy run again? He's certainly the best qualified-- by leaps and bounds-- of anyone talking about running... and a way better candidate than Vernon. But it's never easy for someone from a working family to make the kind of commitment it takes-- especially not when you have sleazy DC characters like Israel and Luján running around recruiting rich people whose only qualification, aside from ego, is an ability to self-fund. But I wouldn't write Murphy off and my guess is that he'll declare his intentions once Iowa Democrats are ready to focus on local races and not just Hillary Clinton and her sparring partners. Worth noting-- there is another progressive thinking about running as well, state Rep. Anesa Kajtazovic.