How Big Will The Anti-Red Wave Be?

Joe Cunningham (SC) & Amy McGrath (KY)-- their races will be the 1st reported. If they both win, the  Republicans will lose 60 seats

Next Tuesday we may have an idea how big the wave is going to be because of something that happens in South Carolina. SC-01 is, generally speaking, the coast-- not counting the stretch from Georgetown to Myrtle Beach and the North Carolina border. It includes most of Charleston (the white parts of the city), stretches down through Beaufort to Hilton Head and takes in a lump of inland country northwest of Charleston to Summerville and Moncks Corner as far north as Lake Moultrie. The PVI is R+10 but Trump (53.5%) didn't do as well as either McCain (56.1%) or Romney (58.3%). I'll guess it's the least Trumpified of the 6 red districts in the state. And the Republican candidate for Congress this cycle, Katie Arrington, is pure Trump. With Trump's help she ousted Mark Sanford in the GOP primary and now she has to face Democrat Joe Cunningham. People will still be voting in most of the country when South Carolina polls close on Tuesday. If Cunningham wins, it will signal a humongous Democratic wave is sweeping the country. Can he?

Well... as of the October 17 FEC reporting deadline he had outraged her $1,908,175 to $1,313,382 and outside spending has been modest on both sides. A very conservative 538 underestimates his chances, which are not great to start with.

In June, soon after Arrington beat Sanford 33,089 (50.6%) to 30,428 (46.5%), she was in a serious auto accident suffering a broken ribs and a back fracture that have kept her from vigorous campaigning. There hasn't been any public polling since the end of August when PPP found Arrington leading Cunningham 49-42%. What's changed since then? Cunningham has become much better known. And Trump has become more disgusting than ever. This week the Post And Courier reported that Sanford won't endorse Arrington. "Sanford’s silence," wrote Caitlin Byrd, "comes as Arrington’s race with Democrat Joe Cunningham is showing signs of being much closer than Republicans envisioned months ago, with the National Republican Congressional Committee on Monday sinking $87,000 into TV ads on her behalf.

The buy signals the race could be more competitive than initially thought, experts say, in a district traditionally considered “safe Republican.”

“She’s in a fight,” College of Charleston political scientist Jordan Ragusa said of Arrington. “She is still likely to win that fight, but it’s going to be a tough battle.”

...The fact the NRCC is investing at all in this race is raising eyebrows among political watchers.

If Arrington wins in an R+11 district it won't say anything at all about the rest of the night's results. If Cunningham wins, the GOP nationally should be on suicide watch. J.D. Scholten's district is also R+11. But the next bellwether seat that will probably be reporting is KY-06 (with an R+9 PVI), where Democrat Amy McGrath has outraised Republican incumbent Andy Barr $7,767,610 to $4,778,302 and has him on the ropes. Ryan's sleazoid SuperPAC has felt that it had to jump in to save his seat and has spent $3,237,558 smearing McGrath. The DCCC and Pelosi's PAC responded weakly with around $1.3 million. If Cunningham and McGrath both win, Republicans waiting on line to vote in Orange County and the Central Valley will stop waiting and start to drift home, understanding that they've lost the House-- by a lot. Cunningham and McGrath victories will signal that the pundits and pros had it all wrong again and that the Democrats won't be taking 25 seats by closer to three times that number!

So what happened to all that GOP enthusiasm because of Kavanaugh? It motivated more Democrats than Republicans. And Trump's rallies? They're  motivating more Democrats (and independents) than Republicans. If anything, the hate rallies are actually turning off mainstream Republicans! The frontlines are mow deep in the heart of Republican territory... like the aforementioned districts in South Carolina, Iowa and Kentucky. No, Democrats can't wage plausible battles against Mo Brooks or Rob Aderholt in Alabama or in the Florida, Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, serious fighting in those districts would be like Republicans trying to win inner city districts in Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles and New York. Instead, there are no longer any safe GOP seats in California... and Orange County-- once the soul of the party-- is about to be free of Republicans completely. Washington state has 4 GOP-held seats. 3 of them are all but gone. Democrats-- if not the lame and short-sighted DCCC-- are fighting seriously for Amish country in Pennsylvania, for Wichita, Kansas, for severely gerrymandered Texas districts, for at-large seats in Alaska and Montana... even for seats in West Virginia.

It looks like this is the year that women take their revenge on the GOP for its anti-family agenda, its anti-education agenda, for its anti-women agenda, for its gun agenda, its pollution agenda, and for the divisiveness, bullying and immoral essence of its contemptible leader. Here's where they get pay-back for the enabling and the rubber stamp attitude just when a Congress with some guts and dignity is most demanded. You think Kavanaugh is going to help GOP incumbents with women in suburban districts.

And the #MAGAbomber Trump rally nut from Florida and the murderous #MAGAshooter in Pittsburgh... you think women appreciate that? Or independent voters. That was a last straw for many-- even in Republican strongholds in Utah, Kansas, North Carolina... where the party never expected to be forced to spend millions of Sheldon Adelson's dollars to defend incumbents in carefully gerrymandered seats Trump won on auto-pilot.

Writing for super-cautious RealClear Politics, Sean Trende reports the outdated conventional wisdom that even he doesn't believe: "The consensus view is that Democrats are favored to take the lower chamber. Analysts disagree on just how large a majority they are likely to win, and how likely that majority is. If you split the RealClearPolitics tossups in half, it results in Democrats gaining about 25 seats, for a narrow 220-215 majority. I tend to think that the tossups will break disproportionately toward Democrats, and see something more on the order of a 225-210 Democratic majority." It's hard to realistically see the Republicans with 200 seats.

He also admits that almost all their House polling comes from a gimmicky and totally unreliable source, the worst polling operation of the cycle-- sillier than GOP polling firm Rasmussen: "[M]ost of our House race polling has come from the New York Times, in partnership with Siena.  On the one hand, this is good, because without them we would have virtually no polling. On the other hand, polling is both an art and a science, and having a disproportionate amount of our data coming from a single view of what the electorate looks like increases the chances of" absurd assumptions and ridiculous mistakes. (My words, not his.)

Lexington Mayor Jim Gray Jumps In Against Andy Barr... And Amy McGrath

See that video up top? Amy McGrath made a HUGE splash with that video-- at least as big as the splash Randy Bryce made with this one. The video got her almost a million and a half views on YouTube. And was entirely responsible for her raising $800,000-- the 2nd or 3rd biggest haul among Democratic congressional candidates last quarter. She wound up with an interview on Chelsea Handler's show and some more national exposure. But where Bryce's introduction video was a jumping off point that was a foundation that built a platform on which he shined and proved himself far better than the video, Amy's video was the high point of her campaign. She's wasn't ready for a national spotlight and her campaign stumbled... badly. Her second video attempted to replicate the excitement of the first... but it got less than a tenth of the views. Word on the street is that her fundraising has fallen way down this quarter too. She hasn't succeeded in making a compelling case for her candidacy. And this morning, something that started with so much promise hit an iceberg. Lexington's popular mayor, Jim Gray, announced he is running for the same congressional seat.

Being the mayor of the district's biggest population center-- Fayette County provides as many votes in congressional races as the other 18 counties in the district combined, especially in Democratic primaries-- is a major advantage for Gray. And having just come off a Senate race that pitted him against Rand Paul is a plus too. Although he lost statewide 1,090,151 (57.3%) to 813,222 (42.7%)-- outpolling Hillary by almost 200,000 votes and by 10 points-- he won KY-06. And, more important, he took Fayette County 82,401 (60.4%) to 54,064 (39.6%). He also won Franklin County 58.1% to 41.9% and Nicholas County more narrowly. Trump won KY-06 54.7% to 39.4% but there were thousands of voters who cast their ballots for Trump and then switched to Gray in this R+9 district. But before Gray can take on Republican Andy Barr, will he be able to beat McGrath? Every pro I spoke to this morning said, basically, "yes, hands down."

After months of will-he, won’t-he whisperings among Kentucky Democrats, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray made it official early Tuesday-- he’s running for Congress.

“I experienced the American Dream … but that American Dream is threatened...” Gray said as he announced his candidacy Tuesday morning in Berea. “This is why I’m running for Congress.”

Gray enters the race as the presumed favorite in a Democratic field that includes former Marine Corps fighter pilot Amy McGrath, state Sen. Reggie Thomas and perennial candidate Geoff Young.


...As the first openly gay candidate to run for statewide office in Kentucky, Gray won around 51 percent of the vote in Central Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District during his failed 2016 bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Rand Paul. President Donald Trump won the district by 15 points.


Gray has the ability to self-finance a campaign, having spent $2.5 million of his own money over the course of his Senate campaign.

But he’s playing catch-up.

Bolstered by national media attention-- including an appearance on The Chelsea Handler show in Los Angeles-- McGrath had raised more than $800,000 and had $551,500 on hand in October.

“I love our chances if he gets in,” McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas said in a Nov. 21 Facebook post. “It’s a possibility that I’ve been planning for since word leaked in May that he was considering jumping in. If he does, it will be a rough and expensive primary.”

Gray’s announcement kicks off a tour of all 19 counties in the District over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday.

“I’ve talked to many people in this district. Many of them are mad as hell, many of them are scared as hell,” Gray said Tuesday morning. “That’s why I’m making this race.”

Is there an actual progressive in the race? Not in terms of national politics, although by "Kentucky standards," kind of both of them... in a centrist kind of way. McGrath's DCCC-style website lists no issues and no positions and no platform. It's just about who she, not about the voters. That's always the mark of a loser. Gray hasn't put up a website yet but his Senate website was as pathetic as McGrath's-- no issues, no platform, no nothin'. Unless there are some big changes, don't expect a Blue America endorsement in this race. Here he was at Fancy Farm last year:

Time For A Democrat To Win Another Congressional Seat In Kentucky

If the Democrats are going to win back another seat in Kentucky, it's likely to be the 6th district, which includes Lexington and Frankfort and is currently held by Andy Barr, who was first elected in 2012 by ousting conservative Blue Dog Ben Chandler. It's the only red district in the state that has a PVI that isn't double-digit Republican and the only red district in the state where Obama busted through 40%. Statewide, Trump beat Hillary 62.5% to 32.7% but in KY-06 it was a less humiliating loss, "only" 54.7% to 39.4%. When Barr first beat Chandler it was 153,221 (51%) to 141,436 (47%). Let's look at how the KY-06 counties voted in the presidential primaries last cycle:

• Anderson- Bernie- 1,649; Hillary- 1,132; Trumpanzee- 560
• Bath- Bernie- 641; Hillary- 628; Trumpanzee- 119
• Bourbon- Bernie- 1,087; Hillary- 1,1092; Trumpanzee- 253
• Clark- Bernie- 1,888; Hillary- 1,810; Trumpanzee- 797
• Estill- Bernie- 440; Hillary- 1446; Trumpanzee- 313
• Fayette- Bernie- 17,048; Hillary- 20,014; Trumpanzee- 3,727
• Fleming- Bernie- 806; Hillary- 627; Trumpanzee- 329
• Franklin- Bernie- 5,398; Hillary- 5,218; Trumpanzee- 582
• Harrison- Bernie- 1,059; Hillary- 886; Trumpanzee- 265
• Jessamine- Bernie- 2,113; Hillary- 1,875; Trumpanzee- 1,074
• Madison- Bernie- 4,385; Hillary- 3,441; Trumpanzee- 1,625
• Menifee- Bernie- 323; Hillary- 311; Trumpanzee- 96
• Montgomery- Bernie- 1,322; Hillary- 1,289; Trumpanzee- 447
• Nicholas- Bernie- 420; Hillary- 353; Trumpanzee- 59
• Powell- Bernie- 744; Hillary- 623; Trumpanzee- 259
• Robertson- Bernie- 177; Hillary- 95; Trumpanzee- 35
• Scott- Bernie- 2,394; Hillary- 2,505; Trumpanzee- 912
• Wolfe- Bernie- 499; Hillary- 414; Trumpanzee- 39
• Woodford- Bernie- 1,918; Hillary- 1,862; Trumpanzee- 562

That doesn't look like a hopelessly red district-- and it sure isn't Trump Country! So maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are a whole lot of Democratic candidates competing for the party's nomination to take on Barr, pretty much a garden variety rubber stamp for all of Paul Ryan's anti-working family agenda. The stunning introductory video up top, by Obama ad man Mark Putnam, for Amy McGrath's campaign-- which was released yesterday and is the best political ad I've seen since Randy Bryce's video was released-- tells you something about McGrath's character, if not where she stands on specific policies. If a video can win a campaign, she'll be the next congressmember from KY-06. Barr foolishly tried to label her a carpetbagger even though she left Kentucky to serve in the military and teach at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

The other candidates include state Senator Reggie Thomas, Colmon Eldridge-- a former staffer for former Governor Steve Beshear-- Leslie Combs, a former state rep from Pikeville, possibly Lexington Mayor Jim Gray and frequent candidate Geoff Young. I was checking on their publicly-stated positions on issues and couldn't find much. But I came across something interesting on Geoff Young's website. A little background. The DCCC is doing this "let's recruit Blue Dogs and other anti-Choice candidates" now and for some reason they're blaming me for "dividing" the party. No, really, one of them called up and screamed at me yesterday. I thought Young had an interesting way for a Democrat in a red state to speak about Choice-- Reducing Abortions:

The Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 made abortion legal during the first trimester of pregnancy. The so-called “Right-To-Life” movement arose in order to overturn that decision and make all abortions illegal after conception. In 1980, the GOP put a plank in their platform calling for a constitutional amendment that would make all abortions illegal forever. It’s still in their platform, and no Republican politician ever denounces that plank as immoral, which it is.

Here’s the tragedy: Making abortion illegal and hard for women to obtain actually raises the abortion rate. It means MORE abortions every year, not fewer. The proof comes from countries all over the world.


I recently debated Kent Ostrander, founder of the Family Foundation of Kentucky, on the topic of “Abortion and Public Policy.” I proved that Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party have the right strategy to reduce the abortion rate, and that we are the true pro-life Americans. Here’s Part 1 of 4 parts on YouTube:



I call on every Kentuckian of good will:   If you deeply desire to see the number of abortions decrease, please join Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party today and quit supporting “Right-To-Life” and the Republican Party. Planned Parenthood is the most effective abortion-preventing, abortion-reducing organization that exists. “Right-To-Life” and the GOP, on the other hand, are pushing laws that will actually increase the number of unborn babies who will be murdered every year if more Republicans get elected. In addition, making all abortions illegal will cause many more women to die every year in illegal abortion mills. “Right-To-Life” is wrong, while Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party are right.

If you or your pastor feel I’m wrong about the issue of Planned Parenthood & abortion, please use the email message form on the “Join the team” page and try to change my mind. Better yet, if you belong to a church in the 6th District, please contact the campaign team and we’ll try to arrange for a debate on the issue. I love to spread the good news about how Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party are helping to lower the abortion rate every day. Andy Barr claims to be “pro-life,” but he never has been and never will be as long as he stays in the GOP. The GOP is objectively pro-abortion, but Planned Parenthood and we strong Democrats are the true pro-life Americans.

Did Mitch McConnell's Bluster And Extremism Just Throw Democratic Candidates A Lifeline?

It's been nearly a year since Move On, in the wake of the Republican government shut down, polled dozens of competitive congressional districts in Republican-held districts across the country asking, among other inquiries, these two questions:

1- Would you be less likely or more likely to support [your congressman] if you knew he voted to support shutting down major activities of the federal government as a way to stop the health care law from being put into place, or does it not make a difference?

2- Now that you know [your congressman] supported the government shutdown, I’ll ask you one more time: If the election for Congress were held today, would you vote for re-elect Republican [your congressman], or would you vote for his Democratic opponent?

The responses were nearly universal. Most respondents said they would be less likely to vote to reelect their Members of Congress if they voted to shut down the government and, when they were informed that their Member had indeed voted to shut down the government the Members re-elect numbers went down. I'll give you a few examples from random districts. Let's take a look at a dozen-- first 6 that the DCCC is involved in and then 6 where the DCCC is either refusing to help or where they have sabotaged attempts to beat the Republican:

• CA-10- Jeff Denham vs Michael Eggman- 60% opposed a shut down

• C0-06- Mike Coffman vs Andrew Romanoff- 62% opposed a shut down

• IL-13- Rodney Davis vs Ann Callis- 59% opposed a shut down

• KY-06- Andy Barr vs Elisabeth Jensen- 59% opposed a shut down

• NY-19- Chris Gibson vs Sean Eldridge- 66% opposed a shut down

• VA-02- Scott Rigell vs Suzanne Patrick- 65% opposed a shut down

• IA-04- Steve King vs Jim Mowrer- 57% opposed a shut down

• OH-14- David Joyce vs Michael Wager- 59% opposed a shut down

• WI-07- Sean Duffy vs Kelly Westlund- 59% opposed a shut down

• FL-27- Ileana Rose Lehtinen (unopposed- 62% opposed a shut down

• MI-06- Fred Upton vs Paul Clements- 69% opposed a shut down

• WA-08- Dave Reichert vs Jason Ritchie- 68% opposed a shut down

In every case, voters opposed shutting down the government "as a way to stop the health care law from being put into place." The most adamantly against that proposition were the voters in MI-06, where the DCCC absolutely refuses to help Paul Clements beat Fred Upton, who did vote to shut down the government. Even in the reddest and most backward/primitive district of the lot, IA-04, 57% opposed shutting down the government and said that Steve King's vote to do so would make them more likely to help elect a Democrat to replace him. Again, the DCCC is refusing to help Jim Mowrer, King's Democratic opponent.

In most of the cases, the Democrats have failed to close the circle and adequately make the case. In most districts they have allowed the issue to fade. Sean Eldridge, for example, one of the most inept of Israel's gaggle of third-rate mystery meat recruits, is now polling at 29% after writing himself a $1,340,000 heck and spending $962,959. Is there any way the Democrats or Steve Israel's incredibly incompetent DCCC could revive the issue? Nope-- but Mitch McConnell just did it for them. This morning, Politico published an interview with the embattled 72 year old Minority Leader and he started babbling about shutting down the government again if the Republicans can win both Houses of Congress.

Mitch McConnell has a game plan to confront President Barack Obama with a stark choice next year: Accept bills reining in the administration’s policies or risk a government shutdown.

In an extensive interview here, the typically reserved McConnell laid out his clearest thinking yet of how he would lead the Senate if Republicans gain control of the chamber. The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to “move to the center” if he wants to get any new legislation through Congress.

In short, it’s a recipe for a confrontational end to the Obama presidency.

“We’re going to pass spending bills, and they’re going to have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy,” McConnell said in an interview aboard his campaign bus traveling through Western Kentucky coal country. “That’s something he won’t like, but that will be done. I guarantee it.”

McConnell's plainly stated intent to provoke confrontation and the kind of shutdown and dysfunction that is only popular on the far right fringe Ted Cruz inhabits. After Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Steve Israel made sure there would be no Democratic opponent to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-27-- a district Obama won 53-47% against Romney-- no amount of crackpot right-wing extremism is going to win this one back, but McConnell's threats and bluster against the American people today should be able too help every Democrat running for the Senate and every Democrat running for the House. Elisabeth Jensen, who represents the Democrats best chance at winning a House seat in Kentucky, was quick to recognize how angry moderate voters in her central Kentucky district would be. This isn't what voters in Lexington and Frankfort are looking for from their political leaders. Earlier today she told us that “Mitch McConnell, Andy Barr and the Republicans shut the government down one year ago, and in reality with their games in Washington it is still shut down. Now McConnell is making it clear he and Andy Barr will continue to grind Washington to a halt if we send them back to Washington again in this election. Everywhere I go in Central Kentucky people tell me this broken dysfunctional government is making them very angry and costing us good jobs and opportunity to move forward. This is a problem we can only solve with new leadership."


Paul Clements was speaking for all the Blue America candidates this morning when he drew a shape contrast between himself and Fred Upton, the knee-jerk Republican congressman from southwest Michigan who knew he shouldn't but backed the government shutdown anyway. Upton may be sorry now because his is the district with the highest percentage of voters that say they are more likely to vote against a congressman who voted for the shutdown. This morning, Clements told us that "Everyone knows the federal government isn't working. We need officials from both parties to focus on solving the problems America faces. Voting to shut down the government, as Congressman Upton did last year and as Senator McConnell is threatening to do again, is the height of political irresponsibility. Let's get representatives who will not act like children."

Is Steve Israel paying any attention-- to anything beyond lining his own pockets and promoting his own miserable career? That was a rhetorical question. Everyone but Nancy Pelosi knows the answer to that.

Virtually The Entire House Financial Services Committee Should Be Indicted For Bribery

For much of the year we've been talking about the corruption that, to a great extent, defines the New Dems in Congress and pointing specifically to the bad apples among them that managed to get onto the House Financial Services Committee, one of the principal conduits of bribery cash from the Wall Street banksters to Congress. Of the seven Democratic freshmen who were "lucky" enough to be rewarded with the plumb assignment-- Bill Foster (New Dem-IL), Dan Kildee (MI), Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), John Delaney (New Dem-MD), Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ), Joyce Beatty (OH) and Denny Heck(New Dem-WA)-- 5 are New Dems and a 6th, Beatty, has a long reputation for sleaze and corruption. Last year we tried pointing that out to Ohio primary voters-- but after she won, Hoyer, Israel and Crowley must have been drooling at the description: Joyce Beatty, the business community’s hand-picked political shill, just "finished" her $326,000 a year job with Ohio State University (A do-nothing giveaway position that OSU won’t even bother filling after her departure) to run for election in the newly created district. So how does one receive a job that pays $326,000 at a public university, and how can you get one? Well, in 2008 former state Representative and Minority Leader Joyce Beatty used her influence to lobby for a job at Ohio State and instantly almost quadrupled her salary from $75,971 to $320,000. Since Ohio calculates pension rates based on the top three highest salary years, Beatty's pension payment quickly ballooned to a starting payout of $211,200 annually. Her 18 year pension total will balloon to a whopping $4,771,008. BOOM! She must be extremely special to merit such a high rate of compensation in a state where most people struggle to make $25,000 annually without benefits.

I wonder what she did to get that position. Well, this wonderful "business Democrat" voted in favor of the biennial budget, which included an increase in tuition rates. Hey, somebody has to pay for her salary and pension, right? Why not drop it on the backs of Ohio’s youth? The budget specifically allowed Ohio State University to raise tuition 12.9 percent. Ca-ching! According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer "… the $320,000 salary and the timing of [the] job offered to outgoing State Rep. Joyce Beatty [has] people talking. The Columbus Democrat will become OSU's senior vice president for outreach and engagement in January, just after term limits force her out of the legislature."

She may be "business friendly," but at least she didn't join the New Dems. She's more of a lone wolf crook. The New York Times story about corruption endemic to the House Financial Services Committee, doesn't even mention the words "New Dems" but that group is at the heart of their story, which starts out castigating a crooked Republican, Andy Barr of Kentucky, who had no experience with the intricacies of Wall Street when he won the committee jackpot.

Now, half a year into his first term, he has emerged as a telling example of why the panel is sometimes called “the cash committee”-- a place, critics say, where there are big incentives for freshmen to do special favors for the industry.

Mr. Barr, 40, a first-time elected official, has raised nearly as much money this year from political action committees run by major banks, credit unions and insurance companies as longtime lawmakers like Speaker John A. Boehner and other party leaders.

The flood of financial industry cash-- $150,000 in political action committee donations to Mr. Barr in just six months-- is hardly an accident.

One afternoon in April, Mr. Barr hosted credit union lobbyists and executives in his House office just before a committee hearing, promising that he would help protect a federal tax break worth $500 million a year, the executives said. Last month, he introduced legislation to eliminate a new federal rule intended to prevent banks from issuing mortgages to customers who could not afford to repay the debt-- a measure pushed by bank lobbyists who had visited his office.

“People support him because they agree with him,” Catherine Gatewood, Mr. Barr’s spokeswoman, said after he declined requests for an interview.

But Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat who served on the Financial Services Committee until January, when he left Congress, said the intense focus on fund-raising by freshman lawmakers like Mr. Barr is a potent sign of the harmful way that money distorts priorities in Washington, for both Republicans and Democrats.

“Freshmen are pushed and pushed and pushed to raise money-- it’s how they are judged by the leadership and the political establishment in Washington,” said Mr. Miller, who added that he felt the same pressure when he joined the Financial Services Committee in 2003 as a freshman. “It’s only natural that it has got to be on your mind that a vote one way or other is going to affect the ability to raise money.”

After the elections in November, Democratic Party leaders gave a PowerPoint presentation urging their freshman members to spend as much as four hours a day making fund-raising calls while in Washington, and an additional hour of “strategic outreach” holding breakfasts or “meet and greets” with possible financial supporters. That adds up to more time than these first-term lawmakers were advised to spend on Congressional business.

Much of this reflects the political reality that freshmen like Mr. Barr, particularly those from districts in which neither party dominates, are considered vulnerable. And that explains why a seat on the Financial Services Committee is so coveted.

Political action committees-- set up by lobbying firms, unions, corporations and other groups trying to push their agenda in Congress-- have donated more money to Financial Services Committee members in the first six months of this year than to members of any other committee. The $9.4 million total is nearly $2 million more than the total for the Armed Services Committee, the only House panel with more members.

With so many lawmakers clamoring to be on the Financial Services Committee, it has grown to 61 members from 44 since 1980, forcing the installation of four tiered rows of seats in the Rayburn House Office Building-- with the first row of lawmakers on the floor, just in front of the tables used for witnesses.

The committee’s chairman, Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, remains the top recipient of donations from industry PACs this year, taking in $282,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that tracks the influence of money in politics. But three Republican freshmen-- Mr. Barr and Representatives Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ann Wagner of Missouri-- have raised more money from industry PACs than many longtime committee members like Representative Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican who served as the panel’s chairman until the end of last year.

The imbalance is apparent on the Democratic side as well. Each of the seven freshman Democrats on the committee has raised more industry PAC money so far this year than the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Maxine Waters of California, who has had a testy relationship with the industry.

These freshman Democrats joined this year with Republicans on the committee-- over the objection of Ms. Waters and the Obama administration-- to support measures advocated by Wall Street banks that would roll back some of the strictest provisions of the landmark Dodd-Frank financial regulations, which were passed in 2010 in the aftermath of the global recession.

A spokeswoman for Representative Patrick Murphy, a Florida Democrat who has taken in more industry PAC money than any other Democratic freshman, $53,500, said his votes had been cast based on what he believed was in the best interest of his constituents, not to please potential contributors. But she agreed that the pressure to raise money was intense.

“The system is what the system is,” said Tiffany Muller, Mr. Murphy’s deputy chief of staff, adding that her boss supported changing campaign finance rules.

Mr. Barr’s industry outreach started even before he was sworn in to office-- at a “debt retirement” luncheon at Charlie Palmer Steak, two blocks from the Capitol, that he co-sponsored with a lobbyist who represents companies like Bank of America and MasterCard International. Tens of thousands of dollars came in to help Mr. Barr eliminate his campaign debt, including large checks from the American Bankers Association and PNC Bank, among others.

In one closed meeting with credit union executives in April, which took place after the PAC for the national credit union trade association donated $5,000, Mr. Barr promised to help defend the special tax-exempt status enjoyed by credit unions and fight new regulations.

Mr. Barr, in the five minutes he was allotted to speak during the April committee hearing, asked a series of friendly questions of an industry representative and made comments that echoed the points the credit union executives had raised. “The regulatory burden is very challenging for credit unions today,” Mr. Barr said, and then asked the credit union executives to describe what it was like before Dodd-Frank.

The credit union group gave Mr. Barr an additional $5,000 contribution two months after the hearing.

Mr. Barr has introduced separate legislation that would permanently exempt banks that keep mortgages in their own portfolio from a requirement in Dodd-Frank that they follow a prescribed set of steps to ensure that customers can afford the loans. Mr. Barr’s proposal, introduced with no co-sponsors, moved with extraordinary speed through the legislative process. Within two weeks, Mr. Barr boasted, it was wrapped into a larger House bill that was passed by the entire Financial Services Committee, a coup for a House freshman.

Ms. Gatewood, Mr. Barr’s spokeswoman, said his proposals were intended to make sure that Kentucky businesses and residents had sufficient access to credit, which has been harder to come by since Congress passed the new regulations.

Mr. Barr is hardly the only freshman to introduce bills that would benefit the industry. Ms. Wagner of Missouri, another Republican freshman on the committee who has pulled in a large number of industry contributions, sponsored a bill that would block or delay Labor Department rules intended to prevent life insurance agents and other brokers from selling financial products that they know may not be in the client’s best interest.

Consumer groups like AARP have joined with groups representing investment advisers-- who are already required to meet this so-called fiduciary standard-- to protest the legislation, saying the bill Ms. Wagner introduced is an unnecessary gift to the industry. “If you want to carry industry water, carry industry’s water,” said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. “But don’t pretend you are doing it to protect investors.”

A spokesman for Ms. Wagner said her legislation would ensure that consumers had access to a range of financial services.

One industry lobbyist, who asked not to be named because client matters are supposed to be confidential, said his political action committee was sizing up all of the Financial Services Committee freshmen as it tried to determine who could best help deliver on the industry’s agenda.

“It is almost like investing in a first-round draft pick for the N.B.A. or N.F.L.,” the lobbyist said. “There is potential there. So we make an investment, and we are hopeful that investment produces a return.”

Conservative and/or corrupt House Democrats on the Agriculture Committee and the Financial Services Committee are voting with Republicans to gut Dodd-Frank. In March, writing about what a corporate shill Ann Kuster had twisted herself into, I mentioned that the derivatives vote she backed "is an especially bad idea-- one that crosses a bright red line. Former Goldman Sachs banker Jim Himes (R-CT) is working with Republicans to pass it and Kuster was one of the Democrats who went along. She's touting her connivance with corrupt New Dem Patrick Murphy, an opportunist and lifelong Republican who switched parties to run for Congress, on a phony-baloney bipartisan caucus (which includes mostly extreme right-wing Republican sociopaths like domestic terrorist Steve Stockman) and she told a New Hampshire audience recently that 'On social issues, I am what they call progressive. But on the rest of the issues, I’m business-oriented.' So a Republican on economic justice?"

And doing the same thing on House Financial Services is another phony "liberal," careerist Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ).

At a House Financial Services Committee meeting, Arizona freshman Kyrsten Sinema, who's racked up one of the most reactionary voting records of any Democrat in Congress, might have thought no one was looking when she sold out her own constituents in favor of Wall Street banksters. She backed all the GOP's deregulation proposals and then touted it in the Democratic caucus. She wasn't who I was talking about here... but she certainly could have been.

...Don't expect heroism from the Kyrsten Sinemas of the word. Careerism... sure, but not heroism or anything remotely resembling courageousness. Steve Israel dictates her votes; he told the "Frontline Democrats" how to vote and there are only 7 of them who have followed his orders "100% of the time," to quote one of them feeble enough to send me a note about it defending a crap record. These are the 7 freshmen with 40% ProgressivePunch scores (same as right-wing sociopath Paul Broun (R-Pit of Hell)-- who have voted as a block 60% of the time against progressive positions on crucial roll calls:

• Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY)
• Bill Foster (New Dem- IL)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Ann Kuster (NH)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)

Yes, all of these men belong in prison, not in Congress

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