Are The Senate Democrats Cutting Their Own Collective Throat By Making Schumer Leader?

Yesterday we took our first look at how dismally the DCCC performed. I'm sure Lujan and his revolving door staff of congenital losers will all get some kind of a performance bonus. After all, they netted 6 seats, right? As I mentioned, Tuesday was even worse for the DSCC. Schumer's insistence at picking the party's nominees is the second biggest catastrophe for the Democrats for the cycle. The Democrats held onto their seats in California, Maryland, Colorado and Nevada and picked up Illinois but they should have won Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, New Hampshire (which they may have, by a thread), Indiana, Iowa, and Arizona.

A Gravis poll last week showed that had Schumer not interfered in Pennsylvania and allowed Sestak to win the primary, Sestak would have out-performed the horribly flawed McGinty. I suspect Grayson would have out-performed Murphy, PG Sittenfeld would have out-performed Strickland, Hogg would have out-performed Judge and maybe even Baron Hill-- the primary winner who Schumer forced it step aside-- would have out-performed Bayh. We'll never know... because Schumer decided to pick his own team of losers. Had he not pre-empted a good primary race by declaring the unelectable Kirkpatrick the nominee, maybe the primary process would have found someone who could beat McCain. That's what the primary process is for, after all.

In Iowa, Judge did 15 points worse against Grassley than Clinton did against Trump. In Ohio, Strickland did 13 points worse. In Arizona, Kirkpatrick did 8 points worse. In Florida, Murphy did 7 points worse. But Feingold and Ross, whom Schumer did not pick, did only two points worse, the same as Duckworth. The only DSCC recruit who exceeded expectations was Kander, who still lost his race by three points, while Missouri torched Clinton.

Given the fact that the Presidential candidate is the same everywhere, but that each Senate candidate can be nominated to conform to favorable local conditions (important local issues, identity politics, etc.), it's appalling that the great majority of the DSCC picks ran far behind Clinton in their own states. But Schumer knows more than anyone about everything so...

The Senate Democrats have to be crazy to give their leadership position to Schumer. And they are. One furious Senate staffer told me early Wednesday morning that "Our candidates ran three points BEHIND Clinton nationwide.  Leaving aside the incumbents, whom Schumer couldn’t pick, they ran more than SIX POINTS behind Clinton. So Schumer gets to pick absolutely anyone he wants, backed by a quarter of a billion dollars of party money, and he picks such stiffs that they can’t even get close to Clinton in their own states. It’s utterly disgraceful, and it’s why we will never take back control of the Senate as long as he is in charge."

People have been asking me how it was possible that Russ Feingold could have lost. The final score was 1,479,262 (50.2%) to 1,380.496 (46.8%). Trump won the state 1,409,282 (47.9%) to 1,381,923 (46.9%). The NRSC and their allies spent almost 13 million dollars against Feingold. The DSCC and it's allies answered with just 4.7 million, far less than the Democrats spent in other states:

• Pennsylvania- $32.5 million- lost
• New Hampshire- $30.7 million- won?
• Nevada- $18.6 million- won
• North Carolina- $15.7 million- lost
• Indiana- $13.3 million- lost
• Missouri- $8.1 million- lost
• Ohio- $7.9 million- lost