The DCCC Should Open Up A School To Teach People How To Lose Races-- They're VERY Good At It... The Best

Congressman Don McEachin, DCCC Regional Vice Chair

I don’t know Don McEachin. I talked with him one time on the phone and he seemed like a very nice guy. I called him when he was elected-- with no opposition-- to the newly created post of DCCC Regional Vice Chair for the Southeast. He came across as very open-minded and, in fact, very open in all ways. He readily admitted he didn’t know what a DCCC regional vice chair does, told me he isn’t really interested in the job but that Jim Clyburn, the highest ranking African American in Congress, had asked him to run… so he ran. Clyburn didn’t tell him what to do in the job, though, and neither did anyone else. I tried running by some of the hot races in his region with him and he wasn’t familiar with any of them. I suggested he sit down with Ted Lieu, the one DCCC regional vice chair who takes the job seriously, and pick up some tips. He thanked me for the suggestion, seemed enthusiastic about it, and we said we’d stay in touch. I never heard from him again and judging by what came in the mail today, I doubt he got any tips from Ted Lieu either.

McEachin served in the Virginia House of Delegates and then in the Virginia Senate from 1996 until last year when he was elected to the 4th congressional district when Republican Randy Forbes, sensing the new district lines were unwindable for a Republican, moved on. The district stretches from Ginter Park, Highland Park, Westhampton, West of the Boulevard, Gilpin Court, Randolph and Forest Hill in Richmond due south through Hopewell and Petersburg to the North Carolina border, Chesapeake, Suffolk and the suburbs south of Norfolk. In the 2016 primary he had more votes than his Democratic rival and his two Republican rivals combined. On Election Day there was no doubt he was going to Congress. He beat Republican Henrico County Sheriff Mike Wade 191,939 (57.3%) to 143,261 (42.7%). So far this cycle, the Republicans don’t have a candidate running against him. The PVI is D+10.

McEachin didn’t join the New Dems or the Blue Dogs. Nor did he join the Progressive Caucus. He’s a classic backbencher who keeps his head down and doesn’t make waves. Progressive Punch rates him a “C” and his crucial vote score is 84.72, not bad, not good, just so-so, especially for someone in a district as blue as his. His voting record is “moderate,” not moderate in the way the Beltway uses “moderate” when they mean “conservative,” but actually moderate-- a little bit liberal, a little bit conservative, right in between.

All that said, let me tell you why I don’t think he got any tips about how to be a DCCC regional vice chair from Ted Lieu. Ted’s a progressive but when he’s doing his DCCC tasks he’s impartial. His job, as he sees it, is to help all the Democratic candidates running for seats held by Republicans in Alaska, California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon. He’s helpful to progressives and he’s helpful to the New Dems and Blue Dogs as well. Ted may personally favor one candidate over another but he would never act on that. As far as I can see the only congressional candidate he’s endorsed and donated to this cycle is one he knows personally and who is outside of his region, Wisconsin’s Randy Bryce, the guy running against House Speaker Paul Ryan. Ted spends time raising money for the L.I.E.U. PAC-- Randy was out in California a few months ago helping him do that in fact-- and that money can’t be used in Ted’s own reelection campaign, only to help other candidates. He’s eager to start using it after the primaries to help the winning Democrats beat Republicans like Darrell Issa, Ed Royce, Mimi Walters, Dana Rohrabacher, Jeff Denham, David Valadao and Steve Knight. Recently I ran into Rohrabacher who was bitching to me that Ted was doing a healthcare town hall in the middle of Rohrabacher’s district. Ted wasn't doing the appearance for progressive Laura Oatman nor for New Dem bobbsey twins Harley and Hans nor for the completely out-of-touch-guy who proudly describes himself as a “Reagan Democrat,” Omar Siddiqui. No, he was trying to help all of the candidates by raising awareness of Rohrabacher’s terrible voting record on healthcare. So what’s all this got to do with poor Don McEachin?

One of the hottest races in McEachin’s region is VA-10, Barbara Comstock’s very swingy district in the DC suburbs, primarily Loudoun and Fairfax counties. The PVI is only D+1 but Comstock is seen as ultra vulnerable. Although Romney had narrowly edged Obama in 2012 by about a point, Hillary killed Trump last year in the district, beating him 52.2% to 42.2%. The DCCC and EMILY’s List had gotten together to find the absolutely worst candidate they could find to run against Comstock, a meaningless, pointless nothing candidate whose ass Comstock kicked from Winchester to Leeburg and McLean and down to Chantilly and Manassas. With Hillary racking up big wins everywhere in the district the completely pathetic DCCC/EMILY’s List candidate lost 52.9% to 47.1%. Now that’s what I called failed candidate recruitment. But guess what… the DCCC and EMILY’s List have worked really hard to duplicate exactly what they did in 2016. They found another pointless, right-of-center, nothing candidate to push. This time though there is a whole bevy of more exciting Democrats running, candidates who are part of the zeitgeist, to replace Comstock, not to ask voters to pick someone who is an almost-Comstock but not as bad. So over the weekend, the DCCC regional vice chair, moderate Congressman Donald McEachin sent out this e-mail on behalf of this cycle’s DCCC/EMILY’s List candidate, Jennifer Wexton, the least likely candidate to actually win in November.

I served with Jennifer in Virginia’s State Senate, where I saw her commitment to her constituents and her willingness to go the extra mile to improve their lives first-hand. That’s why I know she will be an advocate for families across Virginia’s 10th district in Congress, and that’s why I’m proudly supporting her campaign.

And I’m writing now, Howie, because Jennifer needs your help. Tomorrow is the end of the fundraising quarter, but her team tells me they still have $1,445 left to raise before the books close.

Pitch in $10 or more to help Jennifer before her numbers go public here.

Jennifer has what it takes to win this race, Howie, but this campaign to turn VA-10 blue is going to get expensive, and she’s going to need every dollar to compete.

She is running a grassroots campaign powered by donors like you-- and she needs your support to end 2017 strong. Chip in here before the deadline to help her meet her Q4 goal.

Thanks,
Rep. Donald McEachin

He should resign as DCCC vice chair immediately. And whomever wrote the idiotic e-mail should leave politics and ad writing.

As far as I can tell there are 9 Democrats competing for the party nomination: Alison Friedman, Daniel Helmer, Dave Hanson, Deep Sran, Jennifer Wexton, Julia Biggins, Lindsey Davis Stover, Michael Pomerleano, Paul Pelletier, Kimberly Adams and Shak Hill. When you call out the DCCC for interfering in primaries they always deny it and when you press them and threaten to out Ben Ray Lujan as a closet case, they admit they do it but only to help “serious” candidates against vanity candidates and people just taking up energy but who (they deem to) have no chance. By that they mean, they interfere on behalf of the candidates who are raising the most money. But the crap candidate they and EMILY’s List are pushing has been a tremendous disappointment and she isn’t even raising the most money. These are the candidates who filed FEC reports as of September 30, along with how much each had raised:

• Alison Friedman- $694,187
• Dan Helmer- $528,860
• Jennifer Wexton- $457,040
• Lindsey Davis Stover- $443,492
• Deep Sran- $170,328
• Shak Hill- $53,052
• Dave Hanson- $20,978 (entirely self-funded)
• Kimberly Adams- $7,938
• Julien Modica- $34 (but with $548,402 in his war-chest from a couple of abortive U.S. Senate runs in 2008 and 2012)

Anyway, the DCCC tried running a dull moderate last year and got wiped out. So, incapable of ever learning anything, they’re trying to disadvantage better candidates-- at the very least Alison Friedman and Lindsey Stover are better-- in order to win the seat for a garden variety moderate in the hopes that even shitty candidates will win if the tsunami is big enough-- and when you pride yourself on being the lesser of two evils party, a big tsunami is all you can ever really hope for.