Hey, DCCC, Why Does Devin Nunes Get To Run Basically Unopposed Year After Year After Year?

I believe McCain when he stated yesterday that "Congress no longer has the credibility to handle this alone, and I don't say that lightly." He was referring to the investigation into Putin-Gate, which he's come to realize that his own party is approaching as a partisan endeavor meant to impede and perhaps coverup rather than get to the bottom of what happened. And no one has been worse player than California Republican Devin Nunes. Thursday Nunes apologized-- more or less-- to the House Intelligence Committee for betraying Congress and the American people on Wednesday. That's a serious investigation? Elijah Cummings, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee called for an investigation into Nunes and why he went running to Trump with committee information. "What he did," Cummings told Chris Cuomo on CNN, "was basically to go to the president, who's being investigated, by the FBI and others and by the intelligence committee, to give them information... [which] put a cloud over his own investigation."

  Nunes, financed by PhRMA and Big Insurance, was first elected in 2001 in a brand, new deep red Central Valley district, CA-21 (now CA-22). The 2001 primary was his last-- his only-- serious election challenge. The district is made up of much of two counties, Fresno and Tulare, including the northern part of Fresno itself (including Cal State) and it's northern and eastern suburbs, Clovis, Dinuba, Visalia and Tulare.

The DCCC has always dismissed it as "too conservative" and has never run a candidate against Nunes-- never. He skates to reelection without serious opposition. Last year his unsupported Democratic opponent, Louie Campos, didn't even raise the $5,000 that would have triggered an FEC report, while Nunes raised $2,459,235, almost entirely from special interests; only about 1% of his contributions ($25,038) coming from small donors. The bulk of his money came in the form of outright bribes from PACs ($1,623,714). He's widely considered one of the most corrupt characters in Congress and today he's sitting on a formidable $3,177,900 war-chest, interesting in a district that the DCCC has never looked at. He beat Campos 143,333 (68.2%) to 66,802 (31.8). Yes, Campos did terribly but he took 66,802 votes spending no money and with no DCCC help. One district west and south-- CA-21-- saw the DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC spend $94,400 in 2014 and $1,778,846 in 2016 (primarily on ineffective-- and commissionable-- mass media) and the two Democrats who ran spend $1,690,530 (2014) and $648,918 (2016). Now remember how Campos, with his grassroots field operation turned out 66,802 Democratic voters against Nunes? In CA-21 there were just 33,470 Democratic voters in 2014 and just 49,643 in 2016. Even with money, you only win if you know what you're doing. The DCCC has absolutely no idea and local Democrats are-- at best-- out of practice, everything atrophied from lack of use.

The district is minority-white now. Ethnically, it is 45.9% Latino, 41.9% white, 7.0% Asian and 2.5% black. McCain and Romney both beat Obama with just over 56%. Last year Trump beat Hillary 52.1-42.6%. According to the old CBO report, if TrumpCare becomes law, 87,694 Nunes constituents will lose their health insurance. That number, with the changes Ryan put through to placate extremists, is probably closer to 100,000. Now. Remember, Nunes only netted 143,333 votes in 2016, not that many more than the people who are liable tol lose their health care. The DCCC should be working on organizing and registering those voters now. They aren't.

Nunes feels so completely, even arrogantly, unthreatened that he can pull off the kind of bullshit-- and self-villainization-- that he's been doing without endangering his reelection chances. How many other elected officials would go out of their way to make themselves potential electoral targets? Nunes knows he has nothing at all to fear from the lunkheads and sad-sacks at the DCCC. Nunes has been so sure of his invincibility that in 2014 he campaigned against Republican Justin Amash in Grand Rapids, Michigan, spending money on Amash's establishment GOP primary opponent and calling Amash "al-Qaida's best friend in Congress." Imagine if there was a competent, functional DCCC who understood how to exploit something like that-- not to mention Nunes' current status as a genuine Putin-Gate villain?

This week I spoke with local Democratic activists in the district. I suggested that more important than money big per se at this point, is an inspiring-- like in non-corporate-- candidate willing to commit himself or herself to 2 cycles of uphill guerrilla war. That's what it'll take, even in an anti-Trump tsunami and that kind of strategy is against the DCCC's religion, which is why the are the ultimate Beltway losers.