The Fight For Congress-- Pelosi's DCCC Ties A Hand And A Foot Behind Its Own Back

Yesterday Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball reported they're not seeing any evidence of the big swing towards the Democrats that Pelosi and her team are running around hyping. Why would Pelosi build up expectations for something that's not going to happen? A notorious short-term, non-strategic thinker, she and her even less talented lieutenants are hoping if Democratic donors believe the bullshit about a wave, they'll contribute more money for the DCCC to waste on their favorite projections.

The fact of the matter is that Pelosi's grotesquely incompetent DCCC-- always more concerned with pushing forward New Dems and Blue Dogs and sabotaging progressives than in doing the formidable and well thought-out-over-cycles-work it takes to win actual elections-- failed at recruiting in can-win/must-win districts and even if there is an anti-Trumpanzee tsunami, the DCCC isn't even close to being in a position to take advantage of it. The DCCC staff is composed almost completely of losers who have never won anything and have no idea what winning even is. It was "politically incorrect" for Pelosi to fire incompetent boobs Chris Van Hollen or Steve Israel after their serial disasters-- and they keep on their corrupted and incapable staffers-- and the whole disastrous Rahm Emanuel Republican-lite theory of elections is still keeping the Democrats in the minority and will forever and ever until Pelosi and Hoyer are just a memory and someone-- Becerra?-- gets in there and straightens out the perennial mess. (Sharp Democratic congressmembers tell me the only chance of keeping Crowley or Wasserman Schultz-- far, far, far worse even than Pelosi and Hoyer-- out of post-Pelosi/Hoyer top leadership is Becerra. Jesus!

Loserism-- it's the dominant ideology at the DCCC

Kondik reports Republicans insisting that the pro-Clinton wave "will be like Godot-- it won’t show up. The wave’s absence will allow Republicans to run their own races, limiting damage to the Republican caucus in the event of a Trump loss and maintaining a big GOP edge in the House... Republican House incumbents," he writes, "have seemed largely insulated from Trump down the ballot. Yes, our current ratings do suggest that Democrats should net somewhere in the low double digits. If one assumes that all the Safe, Likely, and Leaning seats in fact vote that way, Republicans would have 227 seats, and Democrats would have 192, with 16 Toss-ups. Split the Toss-ups down the middle, and Republicans would have 235 House seats and Democrats would have 200, for a net gain of 12 for the Democrats. That’s actually a tiny downgrade for Democrats from our most recent ratings, which showed Democrats netting 13 seats if one allocated the Toss-ups evenly. But our basic projection of a Democratic gain of 10-15 seats remains unchanged." Those prospective Democratic gains include open seats and the newly created blue districts in Florida and Virginia-- where the DCCC made sure conservaDems would be installed.

Chane lost his primary to DCCC-favored Randy Perkins, a right-wing plutocrat

Changes in Crystal Ball ratings are good for weak, conservative Democrats who vote too frequently with the GOP and don't merit reelection-- Wall Street-owned New Dems Scott Peters (CA), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY) and John Delaney (MD) and porto-new Dem Raul Ruiz (CA). The chances of winning the open Ribble seat in Wisconsin and McSally's Arizona seat are fading. Seats that are winnable but that the DCCC refuses to contest because the primary winners were progressives are being starved of resources by Pelosi's venal DCCC-- and with virtually no pushback from House progressives who are, as always, more interested in policy than in politics.

The load of crap Pelosi tried selling Beltway reporters yesterday was that Trump is so awful that Hillary will win by a landslide and drag random Democrats to victories. It's a fairytale and it's just not going to make up for a goo, competent, hard-working smart DCCC that she made sure would never exist-- the biggest failing of her entire career. "I thought in December I would’ve told you we’d win 20 seats, left to our own devices," she told Politico. "Seeing the behavior of the [GOP] presidential candidates right after that when the debates, I became even more optimistic because they were so pathetic… Since then, I think anything is possible. I think it comes down to probably a single digit, one way or another... If Hillary [Clinton] were to win 54-46, oh my God. It’s all over. If it's 53-47, and I think that’s in the realm of possibility... that’s a big deal. Five or more [percentage points] is a big deal." Poor lady; I should stop making fun of her. It's kind of pathetic.

Pelosi, 76, was more optimistic than ever about her party's political footing as the election nears.

She declined to say whether she would run for speaker again if her party wins the majority, deferring to a caucus that has been unflinchingly loyal to her. Few believe Pelosi would pass up a chance to reclaim the speakership.

“It’s really up to the members,” she said. “We’ve been good to each other. Whatever they want is what I want. Right now all we are focusing on is amassing as many resources [as possible] … We can [only] win as many races as we can afford to win, so I spend a great deal of my time making sure we can win as many races as possible.”

If the Democrats were serious about taking back the House-- and had the competence to go for it (Lujan and Israel being two of the least competent DCCC leaders in living memory)-- they would be pursuing districts like WI-07, where Democratic stalwart Dave Obey was congressman for over 4 decades until 2010 when empty suit Sean Duffy got in. Duffy is one of Trump's most prominent congressional surrogates and extremely vulnerable. Obama won the district in 2008 (53-45%) and lost it narrowly in 2012 (51-48%). It's the kind of district the Democrats have to win to have even a shot to take back the House.

Bernie won every single country in the gigantic district. After progressive Mary Hoeft won a landslide primary victory last month, with 81% of the vote, despite being outspent by her opponent, the DCCC turned it's nose up at the district and professed no interest in going after the Trump-supporting Duffy. This isn't how you win back the House. This isn't how you build a competent DCCC either.

Yesterday, Mary told me that "five months ago when Duffy supported Marco Rubio for President, he referred to Trump as a man with no ideas when it comes to solving our nation's greatest problems. When called upon by media to explain Trump's second amendment threat to the life of Hillary Clinton Duffy wrote off Trump's remarks as 'not the most articulate' and suggested Trump 'stay on script.' Recently, Duffy said he felt 'left out' when Hillary speaks and praised Trump as a man who speaks to white males. So what are the qualities Sean Duffy is looking for in a presidential candidate? An inarticulate man with NO ideas when it comes to solving America's problems who can't be trusted to speak off script. Last night, at a gathering in Washburn, citizens found no humor in Duffy's support of Donald Trump, a man they regard as our world's greatest threat-- an angry, hot tempered, irrational man who, as President, would have his finger on a nuclear button."

Even if Pelosi and her DCCC henchmen refuse to get involved, please consider helping Mary replace Sean Duffy in Wisconsin. In fact, all the progressives at this page the thermometer takes you to have won their primaries and are being ignored-- or, in some cases, worse-- by the DCCC: