Why The DCCC Always Fails-- And How They Can Turn The Beat Around

If Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena and Jason Bresler read one piece of journalism this month, it should be this piece by Daniel Marans at HuffPo: Paul Ryan’s Exit Is A Reminder That Democrats Always Need Good Candidates. Marans introduced the good news by pointing out that "they" already have one. "They" do, but who is "they?" It sure ain't the DCCC. It's the people of southeast Wisconsin's first district. It's the people of Wisconsin. It's the labor movement. It's America's veterans. It's every single working family in this country. [You can contribute to Randy "IronStache" Bryce here.]

The DCCC had as much to do with recruiting (or nurturing) Randy Bryce as they did with creating (or nurturing) the Blue Wave. And that would be zero. No... less than zero-- less than zero for Bryce and less than zero for the Blue Wave. Instead the DCCC recruits and nurtures bags of shit they insist are the only candidates who can win-- the only ones.

The DCCC's candidates couldn't win-- and haven't for over a decade-- without the wave that Trump is creating. It's as if they are out scouring the land from coast to coast looking for the worst possible candidates they can find-- Jeff Van Drew in New Jersey, Jason Crow in Colorado, Gil Cisneros in Orange County, Susie Lee in Nevada, Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona, Brad Ashford in Nebraska, and Anthony Brindisi and Juanita Perez Williams in New York... to name a few that just pop into one's mind with no effort at all.

Reminder-- Democrats in most of these districts voted for Bernie, not Hillary in the 2016 primaries... so the DCCC is taking it into their own hands to force status quo, establishment garbage candidates on the districts. Last time the Democratic establishment made something like that happen... we wound up with Trump.

In his piece Marans quotes DCCC alum and campaign consultant, Mike Mikus: "Run strong candidates everywhere, because you never know what’s gonna happen. If you do that, you can take advantage of situations like [Ryan dropping out]." What Mikus and the DCCC don't understand is that Bryce isn't just there to take advantage of Ryan suddenly deciding he needs to leave Congress so he can teach little Charlie and Sammy to use bow and arrows. Bryce drove Ryan out of Congress. Now that's what I call a good candidate/ Another DCCC (and Hillary) alum, Jesse Ferguson noted that there is nothing to lose and everything to gain from running candidates in tough seats. "You don’t win a fight if you don’t show up for it. By having candidates in these districts, we might have a shot to win in a place we didn’t think we would-- or we might have a shot to make our case and convince some voters even if we come up short." Jesse's a smarter guy that most of his political colleagues.

Marans reminds his readers that "a state supreme court’s redrawing of the Pennsylvania congressional district boundaries in February suddenly made the Keystone State ripe for a raft of Democratic pickups. But as recently as 2016, the national Democratic Party did not even try to compete in many districts, including some that were genuinely competitive." Yep... that's the DCCC-- one of their fields of expertise... surrendering before the first shots can be fired at them. You think they would ever in a million years have recruited someone to run against Paul Ryan? They never had and until he was already winning they just smiled benignly at Randy Bryce, laughing up their sleeves. Marans:

No official Democratic Party organ tried to recruit Bryce, according to Lauren Hitt, his campaign’s communications director. Instead, it was the Working Families Party, an electoral organization that functions as a progressive faction of the Democratic Party, that approached him about running.

Bryce, who was active in his local union’s political work, was initially skeptical of the opportunity, recalled Rebecca Lynch, political director of the Wisconsin Working Families Party. At that point, Bryce had already run for state and local offices three times and lost.

But Bryce, who eventually relented to the Working Families Party’s entreaties, immediately drew a positive response. He became famous overnight in June after announcing his candidacy in a viral introductory video that depicted his struggle to care for his chronically ill mother.

The image of a burly hard hat-clad ironworker taking on a polished Ryan, the GOP’s chief apostle of trickle-down economics, proved to be an irresistible formula for the Democratic Party’s energized grassroots.

Bryce has since raked in $4.75 million in donations-- 75 percent of it in increments of $200 or less, according to his campaign. (The latest official financial disclosures, which date to the end of 2017, show him with a $2.7 million haul.)

And in an era of ideological division, Bryce’s bid has earned the backing of both establishment-aligned groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and End Citizens United, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more left-leaning outfits like Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America.

But it wasn't hard for Marans to find a moron to quote-- although almost anyone at the DCCC would have done as well: Zac McCrary, a partner at ALG Research, a top Democratic polling firm said "Was Bryce and his energy and resources the main reason Ryan is calling it quits? Probably not." What a fucking idiot. This is the DCCC and the Democratic establishment and why it has been losing and losing and losing for over a decade. How many millions of dollars has the DCCC and their rotgut candidates paid McCrary's firm. You don't want to know.

For Lynch, Bryce’s ability to defy the standard candidate formula not only gives a boost to Democrats, but also the party’s progressive wing, which has sometimes fought for the party to get behind candidates without deep pockets and a more traditional pedigree.

“There is a need to make space at the table in the Democratic Party for candidates that represent working people who would normally not be recruited to run for a seat like this by XYZ establishment organization,” Lynch said.

...Now the party has the benefit of both an energized voter base and at least one candidate in the district with a sophisticated organization and substantial name recognition, according to McCrary.

...Republicans are eager to paint Bryce as too liberal for the district. Bryce’s support for “Medicare for all” and recent announcement that he backed the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency put him firmly on the party’s left wing.

“With positions like those, it sounds like he’d be a better fit for San Francisco than Janesville,” deadpanned Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens.

Ferguson argued that Bryce’s progressive views at the very least are not a liability.

“The right question in most districts is not whether a candidate is too far to the left or too far to the center, but rather whether the candidate comes across as genuine, honest, authentic, and comfortable in his or her own skin,” Ferguson concluded. “One of the powers of Randy Bryce’s candidacy is that voters know why he’s in it, they know what he’s about and they don’t have any doubt that he believes what he’s saying.”

What Ferguson is talking about is AUTHENTICITY and SOLIDARITY, the 2 words that have fueled Bryce's campaign from the day he started running-- two words that frighten Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena and Jason Bresler... two words that Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena and Jason Bresler try to root out of the equation when they're looking for candidates to run... and since taking over the DCCC they've been largely successful at just that. Is it too soon to suggest that Speaker Lieu-- as far as I know, the first member of Congress to contribute to Bryce's campaign-- back Bryce for the 2020 DCCC chairmanship? And that ActBlue congressional thermometer on the right has another to do with the DCCC, nor with Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena or Jason Bresler. They may have glommed onto Bryce's came, but there are also candidates the DCCC hasn't recognized at all there-- from Kaniela Ing (HI), Jenny Marshall (NC), Dan Canon (IN) and Tom Guild (OK) to Lillian Salerno (TX), Levi Tillemann (CO), Sam Jammal (CA) and Katie Porter (CA)-- there as well. And more; give it a tap. Please.