Tough Love For The DCCC

Ever since Rahm Emanuel was handed the reins of the DCCC-- the beginning of Pelosi's downfall as a force for good-- this blog has spent a good deal of time exploring what's wrong with that organization. In the last few weeks the eruptions have been so frequent and vitriolic that DCCC-connected congressmen and staffers have been asking me to cool it and one even called a friend of mine and asked him what they had to do to stop. My friend was savvy enough to tell them if they stop the crap, like what they've been doing to Laura Moser and Levi Tillemann, to mention just two-- I'd have nothing to denounce them for. (Sure, sure...)

But don't get the wrong idea... the Republican dirty tricks are, at best, just as bad. In fact, the DCCC staffers don't have the brain power to think up their own dirty tricks and have been using the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove playbook to come up with how to savage progressives. But... the Republicans: horrible. I recall how Debbie Wasserman Schultz used to deploy this one when she was trying to sabotage the Democratic Party's efforts to dislodge her amiga, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Matt Volz reported on how the Republicans are employing it this cycle in their fervor to defeat centrist Montana Democrat Jon Tester from the Senate.On Monday Timothy Adams filed to run as the Green candidate in the Senate race that pits Tester against... well either Troy Downing, Matt Rosendale or Russ Fagg. Adams registered as a Green, which qualified as a political party in Montana 3 days ago, but he's was an employee of the state Republican Party’s-- on their payroll-- from 2013 to 2015. The GOP is clearly using Adams to siphon votes from Tester. He also heads an anti-tax "group," Montanans Against Higher Taxes. (Montanans Against Higher Taxes is a new legal entity formed to oppose a legislative referendum on the ballot this fall for a 10-year property tax extension for the state’s university system.)

15 year old me in the middle

Maybe I don't spend as much time attacking the NRCC, NSCC and RNC as I spend on the DCCC, DSCC and DNC because I don't give a damn about the Republicans and don't care if they reform themselves or not. I was born a Democrat, made it onto the front page of the New York Post with a sign about Brooklyn liking LBJ at the Atlantic City Democratic convention in 1964 (yep, above; I was 15), worked as an elevator operator for Bobby Kennedy when he was running for the Senate that same year, and was president of my college's Young Democrats the following year. I rode a horse into Kabul from the mountains once so as not to miss a chance to vote in a midterm election at the embassy. Yeah, it's tough love-- albeit no love at all for Blue Dogs, New Dems and others from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- like Brad Ashford in Omaha. We haven't held his feet to the fire for a while. This story below was written by one of his "ex"-staffers.

The gloves are off in the Democrats’ Omaha House race, well at least one set of gloves.

As Kara Eastman picks up the backing of the progressive “Blue America” group she has some choice words for her opponent, former Congressman Brad Ashford.

• (Ashford’s) taken contradictory stands on almost every important issue over his long political career.

• People in the district tell me they are unhappy with Ashford’s voting record.

And then there was this:

• They also feel like he is not in it to win it.

Now, Ashford, the handpicked candidate of the whole Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the Blue Dogs, New Dems and DCCC (EMILY's List is staying out of this one, for obvious reasons.) All he ever talks about is how he can work with the Republicans. No kidding! Why is the DCCC backing him? For the exact same reasons they're backing, another wretched Blue Dog, Dan Lipinski, in Illinois.