Imagine How Brilliant The DCCC Would Be If It Could Learn From Its Mistakes!

With Trump failing so completely and so stupendously as a "president," Inside-the-Beltway imbeciles are wondering if the Democratic Party establishment should manufacture it's own billionaire outsider as a 2020 candidate. One of the politics trade publications, the Washington Post, suggested yesterday that "there is a real opportunity for an outsider to take over the party and challenge Trump, the first American to be elected president without political or military service, on his own terms. The problem has been finding the right person to do it, particularly in a party whose voter base is more inclined to favor government experience. The potential 2020 field already includes about two dozen traditional politicians, from mayors to governors to senators." They then suggest Disney chief Bob Iger, mega-mogul Oprah Winfrey, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg. Don't forget-- or please do forget the coffee guy from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

I had a really pleasant Sunday, playing the part of auctioneer at an event for the Blue Momentum PAC, Ted Lieu's leader PAC. All the money collected goes to 2018 Democratic candidates. Ted was very eloquent in explaining the state the nation and his own role. And a good time was had by all. His events are always fun. (I think the next one is at the end off July and I heard that a mega super-star is performing at it. Whether that's true or not, if you're in the L.A. area, you should try to make it to a Ted Lieu event. One of the bidders who won a Nancy Ohanian drawing I was auctioning, "Active Shooter," was Paula Poundstone (below). When Politico mentioned yesterday that the Democratic Establishment, lost and confused, is turning to Hollywood for messaging help, I knew it would be too much to ask that by "Hollywood" they meant the congressman from thereabouts, Ted Lieu. They didn't. And if it's the group of naïfs I think it is, they literally do not know the difference between a progressive and a Blue Dog-- literally. I know them. Nice people but... oy veh!

Of course what everyone waits for at these events is an opportunity to ask their congressman questions-- and Ted loves that part too. One of the first questions came from a constituent wanting to know if the DCCC has any plans for an overarching, cohesive message so that voters, especially younger voters-- you know, the kinds who weren't alive when FDR was president-- will have any solid idea what the Democratic Party stands for.

That's a tough one. How does such a big tent party-- so big that's it's become a circus tent-- have a message that doesn't offend some of those inside the tent? The DCCC, for example, has been busy recruiting A+ NRA allies like Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ) and Anthony Brindisi (NY) to add to their list of current Blue Dog NRA allies, so how do you come out strongly against assault weapons? If the "party" does, it leaves these candidates outside the tent.

The most powerful congressional cohort inside the party used to be the Progressive Caucus. Now it's the Wall Street owned-and-operated New Dems. The DCCC and party leadership, in fact, is now, as Pelosi's grip has loosened, an arm of the New Dems. The party is now increasingly hostile to populist ideas and progressive policies. The establishment wing of the party now openly embraces a lesser-of-two evils case for itself in elections... literally. This came from the DCCC, not the DWT art director:

On Monday, the AP's Bill Barrow reported that Democrats are testing liberal messages in midterm House elections. Ted could have told his questioner that "Weeks [it's actually months] into the primary season, Democrats’ midterm class is shaping up to test what liberal messages the party can sell to the moderate and GOP-leaning voters who will help determine control of the House after the November election." Interesting, when the Democrats need to turn out their base with huge enthusiasm to have even a chance to win, along with independents who are sick of Trump and his Republican enablers. "Moderate" Republicans? A waste of time.

Straight from the DCCC press office, Barrow wrote that "Democratic voters typically aren’t tapping the most liberal choices in targeted districts. But, taken together, the crop of nominees is trending more liberal than many of the 'Blue Dog' Democrats swept away in Republicans’ 2010 midterm romp." I guess they didn't tell Barrow about how stalwart progressive Kara Eastman beat the DCCC's heavily backed Blue Dog, Ben Ashford in Omaha. Or how much-touted (and funded) DCCC Blue Dogs like Jay Hulings (TX), J.D. Huffstetler (VA) and Jim Grey (KY) were defeated by more progressive candidates. Last Tuesday in Orange County, an Elizabeth Warren backed progressive, Katie Porter, beat a Schumer-backed New Dem, Dave Min. The DCCC covers it's ears and yells 'na-na-na" if anyone tries discussing those races. They have no ability whatsoever to learn from their mistakes, only an ability to twist reality for gullible members of the media. Why not dig up one of the architects of DCCC failure and one of the personifications of why Paul Ryan is Speaker? Maybe Rahm was too smart to volunteer for the task, so...

[V]oters now represented by a Republican will be asked to consider some or all of the mainstream Democratic priorities that may have been considered “too liberal” in the past: more government involvement in health insurance, tighter gun laws, a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally, reversing parts of the GOP tax law, support for LGBTQ rights.

“You have ballpark 60 districts as diverse as Kansas and Staten Island. One bumper-sticker message will be self-defeating,” said former congressman Steve Israel of New York, who led Democrats’ national House campaign in 2012.

The question is whether that path results in Democrats gaining the 23 new seats they need for a majority.

Israel disputes that the current slate represents an overall leftward shift, and national party leaders have still angered liberals with some of their recruitment choices.

Still, resistance leaders are confident of their influence. “We are seeing grassroots action and organizing in a meaningful way,” said Maria Urbina, national political director of Indivisible, founded after Trump’s 2016 election. “We see the party apparatus coming in behind some of this action on the ground.”

To be clear, not every surviving candidate is a carbon copy of Bernie Sanders, the 2016 presidential candidate whose insurgent campaign emboldened the left with his calls for universal health insurance, a $15-hour minimum wage and tuition-free college. But the influence of Sanders’ inspired base is palpable, as winning nominees have adopted pieces, if not the whole, of an agenda that has become more typical within the party since it lost the House majority eight years ago.

At least to date, it’s staved off a Democratic version of the 2010 tea party rise, when GOP leaders, even as they marched in lockstep opposition to then-President Barack Obama, watched archconservative outsiders defeat incumbent Republicans and fundamentally reshape the party’s identity on Capitol Hill. The Democratic path seems to be more incremental evolution.

And now for the outright lie from the DCCC's propaganda shop-- which quickly moves to erase evidence of their failures, which superficial reporters always fall for. "Would the DCCC lie to me? I can trust what they tell me, right?" No, wrong.

A key indicator is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program, the party’s top candidates for flipping Republican seats. Twenty candidates with that designation have faced primaries already; only one of them-- among the party’s most conservative choices-- has lost. (About two dozen more Red to Blue candidates have upcoming primaries, and the DCCC could add to its list.)

And Mike Levin, who the DCCC is touting as "an environmental lawyer," eagerly picked up by saps like Barrow, is actually someone who worked as an attorney getting rich by fighting against environmentalists. Twisting messaging is a DCCC speciality. Just wait 'til they role out Jason Crow, the attorney for pay day lenders in Colorado, who the DCCC calls a fighter for the underprivileged.

And how does Barrow prove his independence after shilling for the DCCC so unashamedly for so many un-fact-checked paragraphs? Don't worry, it isn't by firing up a brain cell. His closing sentence: "Wacky, far-left positions," said Courtney Alexander of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC aligned with Speaker Paul Ryan, "aren’t going to fly in suburban swing districts this fall." Take that! No DCCC shill I.