Chris Gibson Announces His Retirement From Congress. Is Luján Lame Enough To Re-recruit Sean Eldridge?

Moderate Republican Chris Gibson-- and a glance at ProgressivePunch voting records show he is the only actual moderate left among House Republicans-- won't be running for reelection in 2016. In fact, yesterday he announced that he will be retiring from Congress at the end of this term. The only Republican in the House who voted more progressively than any Democrats-- in this case, reactionary Blue Dogs Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Collin Peterson (MN)-- is looking towards a statewide run in 2018. His Upper Hudson Valley/Catskills district (NY-19) is one of the bluesy districts in the country held by a Republican. If-- and its a big and unlikely "if"-- new DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján doesn't follow Steve Israel down the defeatist rabbit hole, its a district that can be won by a Democrat, especially in a presidential year-- and especially with Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket. The PVI is D+1 and Obama won the district twice, 53-45% against McCain and 52-46% against Romney. Hillary is far more popular there than Obama and, it can be expected that thousands of Democrats who didn't bother voting last November-- when Gibson trounced pathetic Steve Israel recruit Sean Eldridge 124,428 (65%) to 67,024 (35%)-- will turn out in 2016.

But will Eldridge, a multimillionaire by way of marriage, be the DCCC recruit again? He thinks he's going to be the first openly gay president, so he does need to get elected to something to get that ball rolling. A few days after his stunning-- and costly-- defeat, we suggested that he buy a new mansion in the Hamptons and run for the Suffolk County seat Republican Lee Zeldin just won (NY-01). In 2012, Julian Schreibman, spending a fraction of the money, did a lot better than Eldridge against Gibson. Schreibman spent $1,331,223 compared to Eldridge's $6,333,592 (of which $4,255,000 came from his own bank account). Where Eldridge wound up with 67,024 votes (35%), Schreibman took 134,295 (47%), something maybe even Ben Ray Luján could ask Israel about when Israel insists the DCCC anoint Eldridge again.

A problem for the Democratic Party is that the creeping centralization of decision-making, away from the local level and towards DC (particularly towards the DSCC and the DCCC) has crippled recruitment of decent candidates able to make a case to actual voters. Instead we wind up with cardboard candidates who have honed the skills to make their case to transactional corporate whores like Steve Israel. Being suited to persuade Steve Israel you're a good candidate, pretty much excludes you from actually being a good candidate. Is there anyone on a grassroots level looking at the Gibson seat? For sure-- but is Israel-- with Luján in tow-- preparing the squash local aspiration for Sean Eldridge's bank account?

On the Republican side of the aisle, the early contenders are Assemblyman Steve McLaughin, Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, Assemblyman Pete Lopez and state Sen. Jim Seward. Aside from Eldridge, Democrats looking at the race include Ulster County Executive Mike Hein and former state Sen. Terry Gipson, who lost his seat in the Republican wave in November.

Don't Be Surprised That The NRCC Is Just As Incompetent And Lame As The DCCC

I don't know why the NRCC is wasting money on TV ads against Lower Manhattan multimillionaire Sean Eldridge in the Hudson Valley. You can watch it above. Eldridge will be lucky if he breaks 40% in November, very lucky. Although the district is blue and Obama won it against McCain in 2008 and against Romney in 2012, Eldridge has run a sappy, messageless campaign that's accomplishing nothing but making a bunch of slimy political consultants richer. The only publicly available polls show mediocre Republican backbencher Chris Gibson absolutely creaming him. In 2012, Julian Schreibman-- the Democratic candidate who had none of the personal wealth Eldridge has been throwing into the race ($1,340,000 from his own bank account at the time of the last FEC deadline in June)-- held Gibson to a 53-47% margin. Eldridge hired DFM Research to poll for him and they reported that Gibson was up 56-29%. And that was after Eldridge had already spent $962,959! Two weeks ago Siena, a non-partisan firm polled the district and didn't find much change. Gibson was leading Eldridge 57-33%. So why bother with the ad-- especially since the Chamber of Commerce and the NRA had already jumped in with, respectively, $650,567 and $28,600 in ads smearing poor (rich) Eldridge?

Not only is the ad unnecessary, it also is ineffective-- fine for a Republican primary but completely idiotic in a district like NY-19, using stale and failed Republican talking points that may help turn out the Fox News/Hate Talk Radio GOP base, but will do nothing-- zip-- to persuade independents, let alone Democrats, to turn against Eldridge. If anything, it will probably excite as many Democrats in his favor and it excites Republicans against him. This is typical clueless NRCC standard operating procedure-- the only reason someone as incompetent as DCCC chairman Steve Israel can walk around DC without being laughed at by busboys and parking attendants.

Yesterday the NRCC released 8 ads like the lame anti-Eldridge ad. Their targets are Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV), John Foust (VA), Aaron Woolf (NY), Staci Appel (IA), Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL), Emily Cain (New Dem-ME), and, of course, Eldridge. Most of the ads-- each of which can be viewed by clicking on the link under the candidate's name-- are self-referential, patently misleading Republican hogwash: failed talking points that persuade no one. The ads that aren't that just meaningless rote Republican dribble and so negative and vicious-- the ones against Woolf and Appel-- that they'll probably do the Democrats more good than harm.

But, no doubt some advertising consultants made a mint on this multimillion dollar buy. So… in the end that's all it's about for these Beltway sleaze buckets anyway. And, by the way, here's Eldridge's own latest ad. I wonder why someone thought reminding people that he's one of the richest candidates for Congress running anywhere-- by bringing up the role of money in politics-- was a good idea.

Sean Eldridge Taking Upstate New York By Storm?

Sean at home in his $5 million dollar Soho loft

-by Concerned Monticello Democrat

As far as campaign budgets go, Sean Eldridge has more money than God. Or, to be more precise, $3,069,179 raised so far ($1,340,000 from his own bank account); $962,959 already spent, albeit mostly wasted on over-priced consultants taking him for a ride; and $2,106,220 cash-on-hand, all as of the June 30 filing deadline. It could easily double as campaign professionals (hustlers) persuade Sean to pay no attention to the polls that show him losing by over 20 points.

This self-funding multimillionaire, married to lucky Facebook billionaire Chris Hughes, has the resources to employ nearly the entire Hudson Valley with campaign jobs-- and every unemployed comedian in the Catskills to boot. Let’s take a quick geographical tour of the district to see if there would be individuals who could benefit from such jobs.

This upstate New York District has some of the poorest areas of the region. The Poughkeepsie and Albany/Troy areas plus Ulster County and Oneonta (home to most of the Democratic base) are filled with unemployed residents and struggling students who would love nothing more than a paid canvassing position in a giant, robust Sean Eldridge field campaign.

I am willing to bet Sean Eldridge could spend a fraction of his fortune building a paid canvass that would inspire the entire region and leave voters with the feeling that Sean is a truly philanthropic member of their community who does care about something in New York State beyond Soho-- and something beyond a career move to Congress.

Not to mention, it would set Sean up pretty well for a potential 2016 primary by giving him access to political machinery necessary in a Democratic primary.

But, as my source at the DCCC willingly told me, Sean wants nothing to do with such a field program. Sean doesn’t want to employ poor minorities in his campaign, but rather, he wants to spend millions in paid advertising that lines pockets of talentless consultants who he likes partying with when he and young Chris fly into town (Washington, DC) with a $10 million dollar check for the DNC. Paid field operations may win elections for serious candidates but they are difficult, tedious and, worst of all, they don't yield any fat commissions for the Beltway power brokers and consultants to way paid media buys do.

Sean Eldridge is this year's ultimate rich dilettante in his quest for Congress. He believes that money should be spent lining his friends’ pockets, while leaving his district’s poorest residents starving and unemployed. Not a good get-out-the-vote strategy, at least not for a Democrat.

Sean Eldridge believes that money will buy him a seat in Congress. He believes that he can spend millions to dupe the residents of New York 19 with glossy mailers, and TV and digital ads just like Steve Israel was able to dupe him into thinking he was the next Barack Obama by sending his staff weekly bagels and cream cheese via Federal Express. I hope he didn't soil his Gucci sweater vest with cream cheese and chives.

Shame on you, Sean Eldridge. You know nothing about how to win a political campaign and you're wasting a good opportunity Democrats have in a swing district Obama won twice. You waste your money, and you leave the most needy in the district hungry and unemployed.

Go back to your 4,000 square foot loft on Crosby Street with it's 12-foot high ceilings and spend your loot on nicer things than polling and TV ads. Go to the Brunello Cucinelli store, or Ascot Chang, and buy some more nice shoes and shirts.

If you're not going to help Upstate New York’s poor communities stay in Soho and Tribeca with your millionaire pals. Your Prada and Tom Ford style/mindset will ruin your potential political career and render you unelectable anywhere.

You are the ultimate loser, a perfect Steve Israel recruit. Speaking of which... is it really such a good idea for the DCCC ads to keep putting Gibson down because he supports tax breaks for millionaires? Generically, it isn't a bad line of attack, but when most NY-19 voters hear the word "millionaire," they probably immediately think of Sean!

All Is Not Lost For Sean Eldridge… He Has A 1% Chance To Win

Chuck and Sean-- haimish?

Monday the New York State AFL-CIO rolled out its congressional endorsements, It endorsed all the Democrats-- almost. Steve Israel's DCCC failed to recruit candidates against Chris Collins (in Kathy Hochul's old suburban Buffalo district), Richard Hanna in the swing district he took from Michael Acuri in 2010, and, of course, against Israel's crony Peter King on Long Island. The AFL-CIO ignored Democrats Pat Maher in the Long Island district, ignored Jim O'Connell's race against Collins and actually endorsed Hanna where no Democrat or WFP candidate is even running. The AFL-CIO did endorse every other Democratic challenger in the state-- except multimillionaire Sean Eldridge, who's running against the House's only real moderate Republican, Chris Gibson (NY-19). So, endorsements for vile corporatists Kathleen Rice (NY-04) and Domenic Recchia (NY-11), for Aaron Woolf (NY-21) and Martha Robertson (NY-23) but nothing for Eldridge. Looks like AFL-CIO endorsements-- unlike DCCC backing-- aren't for sale.

It could have been worse. The New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), which refused to endorse Andrew Cuomo, not only didn't endorse Eldridge… they endorsed Gibson! And on top of that, the latest polling shows Eldridge-- in a 50/50 D+1 district-- unable to even break 30%. Worse yet, the Environmental Defense Fund’s Action PAC today launched a $230,000 ad buy in favor of Gibson:



As of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline Gibson had raised $2,261,120 and had $1,910,550 in cash on hand. Eldridge had raised $3,069,179 and had $2,106,220 on hand. But $1,340,000 came right out of Eldridge's personal bank account and most of the rest came from his wealthy friends in Manhattan, where he lives. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has already spent $350,000 bolstering Gibson and the DCCC's response? $9,136 (mostly in the form of bagels and lox Fed-Exed to Eldridge staffers weekly by Steve Israel).

The irony of all this, is that left to his own devises, Eldridge probably isn't a bad candidate. He may be too young and self-entitled but I hear he's got some progressive instincts. The problem is that in an effort to cement backing from the DCCC and Blue Dog Steve Israel, he's repressed those progressive instincts and come out like a tepid centrist. Multimillionaire tepid centrists may give Israel a woody but that isn't what inspires Democratic voters-- ergo the 29% support even after spending all that money (although, admittedly most of it was wasted on really horrible consultants the DCCC pushed on poor Sean like Jeffrey Pollock at the Global Strategy Group and the maker of insipid SKDKnickerbocker ads, Andrew Shipley). And to add insult to injury, even after Eldridge twisted himself into a pretzel to fit into Israel's mystery meat loser model, the DCCC support for him… doesn't go beyond the bagels and cream cheese.

The DCCC didn't even include Eldridge on their Red-to-Blue list until Eldridge threatened that he and his husband would stop financing Democrats and when Israel announced which districts the DCCC would be investing all those tens of millions of dollars they trick the Democratic grassroots to give them, NY-19 was not on the list. Israel is willing to throw away millions on absurd races in Michigan and Arkansas-- and is pumping money into NY races to help Recchia, Woolf and Robertson (all in tougher districts than Eldridge's) while studiously ignoring NY-19. Their House Majority PAC has taken the same stance: No money for NY-19.

Advice to Eldridge: forget Steve Israel and his failed Blue Dog stratagems. Think about how Elizabeth Warren displaced Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, how Alan Grayson beat GOP incumbent Ric Keller (in an R+3 district) and how Matt Cartwright beat Hoyer/Israel-backed Blue Dog Tim Holden last cycle in a Pennsylvania not very far from where you are. Hint: none of them bought into the mystery meat/GOP-light precepts of the Beltway Democrats that are wrecking your campaign. Candidates shall not live on bagels alone.

Eldridge's consultant-heavy campaign can do a lot better than this tepid, uninspiring, cookie-cutter, DCCC-grade crap he released yesterday, an ad that will neither inspire Democrats to go to the polls nor change the mind of a single independent or Republican-- just a total waste of money for everyone but the consultants who are getting rich while leading Eldridge down the garden path:

A Centrist Platform Will Not Turn Out Democratic Voters In NY-19… And Neither Will Steve Israel's Bagels And Lox

After college, a whole lot of friends of mine chose to move out of NYC and raise their families in the northern Hudson Valley. The ones who moved up to Dutchess, Ulster and Columbia wound up in a quintessential swing district, NY-19. The district is 89.7% white and the median household income is $53,769, a bit below the state's $55,246. This area used to be part of the Republican heartland of the Northeast and even a very successful local boy, Franklin Roosevelt, never carried the area in any of his presidential runs! Even George Bush won the district both times. More recently, as the Republican Party has shown itself to be a Confederate Party based on hatred and bigotry, it has become safer for Democrats in national elections.

Obama beat McCain 53-45% and four years later beat Romney 52-46%. The PVI is D+1, one of only 5 D+ anything congressional districts in the entire country with a Republican incumbent. And in the case of NY-19 that incumbent is literally the only genuine moderate left in the Republican Party: Chris Gibson. In the current session of Congress (2013-14), Gibson's 40.00 ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is more in line with progressive policies than 8 Democrats (Matheson, Barrow, McIntyre, Barber, Peterson, Gallego, Sinema and Owens) and virtually identical to his next door neighbor to the south, Sean Patrick Maloney. Dullards at the DCCC can call him a teabagger all they want, voters are aware that his record is more nuanced than the way their cookie cutter attacks portray him. And more nuanced than their cookie cutter candidate, Sean Eldridge, tries-- unsuccessfully-- to portray him.

DMF, polling for Amtrak, released a nonpartisan survey for NY-19 this week. Beyond the questions about Amtrak, however, is a glimpse about how voters see politics in this very bellwether, swing district. Let's start with who they know, who they don't know, who they like and who they dislike:

Despite having written himself a check for $1,340,000 and having already spent $962,959, 45% of the voters have never heard of Eldridge and another 35% have no opinion of him one way or the other. His favorability is 10% as opposed to Gibson's 48%. Eldridge was recruited by Steve Israel because he and his husband, Chris Hughes of Facebook fame, are such generous contributors to the party. But Israel has done nothing for the campaign other than give Eldridge disastrous advice that will prevent him from ever being elected to anything-- and sending weekly care packages for his staff of mostly unappreciated bagels and lox every Friday.

The district doesn't seem blue enough to throw our a decent congressman for a political unknown-- even a rich one who's spreading around the money among local entrepreneurs. Obama's favorable/unfavorable is 38/57%, Cuomo's is 41/51% and the Democratic Party is even more disliked than the Republican Party-- 41/49% for the GOP and 41/50 for the Dems. When asked if the election were held today 29% say they'd vote for Eldridge and 56% say they'd vote for Gibson. 15% haven't made up their minds yet. 50% of the voters in the district want to see the Republicans maintain a majority in Congress and only 41% want to see a Democratic takeover.

Delusion swept Eldridge headquarters when they saw the poll, claiming it's not that bad and pointing out that Gibson is "underwater" in terms of favorability. No one in the country likes their congressmen this cycle but, in reality, Ginson is one of the least disliked. Sure, he's not quite at 50% but his favorable/unfavorable rating is 48/16%. His reelection prospects seem pretty solid.

That said, Eldridge has a couple of things going for him. He has $2,106,220 cash on hand-- and has access to unlimited amounts of personal wealth-- while Gibson only has $1,910,550 on hand. (The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is in big for Gibson though, and has already spent $350,000 on his behalf. It's unlikely the DCCC will spend more than the $9,136 that Israel has already spent on Eldridge, presumably for the bagels and lox.) There are, however, two very populist measures that could work for Eldridge… if he was a populist candidate instead of a Steve Israel candidate. Take into account the anti-Democratic Party mood in the district and then look at how these same respondents answered these two questions:

• Many in Congress are saying that the only way to truly cut federal spending is through entitlement reform. One proposal would increase the age one can get Medicare, from age 65, to age 67. Do you approve or disapprove increasing the age one can receive Medicare?

Approve raising age…………... 24%
Disapprove raising age………. 70%
Unsure………………………………….. 6%

• Others have suggested to cut federal spending by increasing the minimum age one can receive reduced Social Security benefits, from the current age of 62, to age 64. Do you approve or disapprove increasing the age one can begin receiving Social Security?

Approve raising age………………... 34%
Disaprove raising age………………. 61%
Unsure………………………………………... 5%

Tossing out the losing Steve Israel playbook and going the populist route could win this seat for Eldridge. Sticking to the failed DCCC formula isn't going to even get Eldridge to the 47% that Julian Schreibman got against Gibson in 2012. He'll do better than the 29% the poll is predicting… but not that much better. Schreibman won Sullivan and Ulster counties and came close in Dutchess and Otsego. Other than squeaking to a win in deep blue Ulster, I'd be surprised if Eldridge's centrist message gets him anywhere in these counties and he's not going to make any headway at all in Rensselaer, Greene, Broome or Delaware-- especially in light of the findings of a new CBS poll released this morning that show that among those who say they are more enthusiastic about voting, Republicans lead 47-40%.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post asked CBS’s polling team for a more specific breakdown of who's fired up about voting and who isn't. Bad news for the Democrats, especially those following the DCCC corporatist game plan, a proven loser.

• Among unmarried women, only 29 percent are more enthusiastic about voting, while 57 percent are less enthusiastic. By contrast, married women (who are more likely to vote Republican) are more enthusiastic by 45-42.

• Among nonwhites, only 31 percent are more enthusiastic about voting, while 56 percent are less enthusiastic.

• Among voters aged 18-29, only 35 percent are more enthusiastic about voting, while 45 percent are less enthusiastic.

It’s still too early to read too much into these numbers. But findings like these bear watching to see if we will again see those core Democratic groups drop off in a midterm year. Those groups are key pillars of the emerging Democratic coalition that appears increasingly formidable in national elections, but their tendency not to show up in midterms is also central to continued Republican dominance in Congressional races despite the GOP’s national demographic challenges.

If the DCCC can't beat Chris Gibson in NY-19-- which it appears they can't-- this is going to be another really bad cycle for Steve Israel 

Did Steve Israel Send Lox With The Bagels And Cream Cheese To Sean Eldridge's Campaign?

Yesterday there was all kinds of commotion on the right from a hum drum post about Sean Eldridge firing his campaign manager and the quality of assistance his campaign gets from Steve Israel. One person in the campaign seems angry that I mentioned Israel sent widely unappreciated bagels and cream cheese every week and another told me the story lacked credibility because I didn't mention the lox (while another refused to even confirm that there ever even was lox).

On the other hand, my suspicions about why Eldridge dumped campaign manager Mike Reid were partially confirmed. Ever hear of a Beltway outfit called Global Strategy? They do expensive "internal polls" for Blue Dogs and New Dems that the DCCC backs. Their polls are generally kept away from the press or just released in bits and pieces to help whomever is paying for the poll. Bad results are buried. Reid got the blame from some especially bad results, I'm being told.

We mentioned yesterday that Eldridge raised and self-funded $2,448,887 so far. But as of the June 4 FEC filing deadline he only had $1,564,418 cash on hand. That's because he-- Reid-- had already spent $884,469. That's not an inordinate amount to introduce a well-heeled challenger in a contest against an incumbent. But many critics thought a great deal of the money was wasted on nonsense that did him no good. I'm told that the secret Global Strategy poll confirmed that and that for all that money spent-- $965,000 from his own checkbook-- "poor" Sean was losing miserably-- in the vicinity of just 25% of the vote to Gibson's 60%.

NY-19 has a PVI of D+1 and last year's DCCC candidate, Julian Schreibman, spent a total of $1,331,223 for the whole campaign (against Gibson's $2,153,689). On top of that, the DCCC put in $1,685,047 and their House Majority PAC put in another $352,665, mostly in negative ads about Gibson. The end result was a 53-47% victory for Gibson-- even as Obama beat Romney 52-46% on the same day. Schriebman lost 9 of the 11 counties:

• Broome- Gibson 70%
• Columbia- Gibson- 56%
• Delaware- Gibson- 61%
• Dutchess- Gibson- 54%
• Greene- Gibson- 64%
• Montgomery- Gibson- 68%
• Otsego- Gibson- 53%
• Rensselaer- Gibson- 63%
• Schoharie- Gibson- 67%
• Sullivan- Schreibman- 52%
• Ulster- Schreibman- 58%

There are 7 full counties in the district and parts of 4 other. Bolded are the full counties that were won by Obama. For Sean to win in November he needs to do better in these counties and he needs to discourage GOP participation in the counties where Gibson and Romney did best, especially Schoharie, Delaware, Sullivan and in the heavily Republican precincts in the other counties.

But Eldridge is playing right from a losing DCCC playbook, calling Gibson, the single least right-wing Republican in Congress-- less right-wing than a dozen Democrats, including New Dem-next-door Sean Patrick Maloney-- a Tea Party candidate and a conservative. Voters know better and aren't buying Steve Israel's failed, moronic messaging. What Gibson should be having done by a third party-- is informing core Republican voters in the reddest precincts that Gibson votes with the Democrats on key GOP values issues and that he's not worth voting for. If Eldridge ignored Steve Israel's proven failure of a strategy and failed, hackish strategists, he could actually turn this thing around and win. But that isn't what he's doing. He's following Israel's idiotic, cookie-cutter campaign-in-a-box precepts and… well, a 25% polling result speaks for itself.

As long as we're talking about polls, by the way, Lynn Vavreck had a fascinating piece in the NY Times this morning, Why Polls Can Sometimes Get Things So Wrong. "The science of polling is sound," she asserts, "but if you ask the wrong group of people your poll questions, you can get the wrong answers."

The pre-election poll that generated so much attention was done by McLaughlin & Associates just ahead of the Virginia primary. It showed Mr. Cantor ahead with 62 percent of the vote. Of course, Mr. Cantor did not win with 62 percent of the vote. He lost, winning only 44.5 percent. In a memo detailing the results of a postelection survey, McLaughlin & Associates explained that a different set of voters turned up at the polls than those they had expected.

This is an error in judgment, not a failure of polling as a science. Right after that election, some people said Mr. Cantor’s poll demonstrated that polls cannot predict elections. But that glosses over the important point that it is nearly impossible for a well-executed poll to produce an estimate as far off base as the one in Mr. Cantor’s race.

…It’s getting harder for pollsters to identify the right set of people from which to draw a sample as campaigns in low-turnout elections become better at mobilizing voters, many of whom pollsters hadn’t anticipated voting. It’s a bigger challenge in primaries and midterm elections as far fewer people participate in these contests relative to presidential races. Using lists of registered voters and their turnout histories may have been a way for pollsters to gain efficiency in identifying potential primary voters in the past, but that efficiency is now looking like a liability.

This morning, Beltway mouthpiece Politico succinctly laid out Gibson's winning strategy against Eldridge: "Eldridge, a 27-year-old Democrat, has been beset by perceptions that he is an inexperienced, wealthy, out-of-touch transplant in New York's 19th District, where he is taking on Republican incumbent Chris Gibson, a war veteran with four Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart." Polling isn't going to save Sean Eldridge's campaign any more than bagels and cream cheese (with or without lox) will. Ignoring Steve Israel, ignoring the foolish, incompetent operatives he sends around the country to make sure money is spent "properly," and ignoring his failed DCCC could. But Eldridge doesn't have the intestinal fortitude or the vision to do any such thing. So… who will be the Democratic candidate against Gibson in 2016 when Hillary is on the top of the ticket?

Bagels And Cream Cheese And A Million Of His Own Dollars Won't Win Sean Eldridge A Seat In Congress

Chris, Nancy, Sean

Poor Sean Eldridge! Well, not really… he's very rich. He married Chris Hughes, the former Harvard roommate of Mark Zuckerberg and the ultimate example of being in the right place at the right time. When he left Facebook he became started MyBarackObama.com and was lauded as The Kid Who Made Obama President; How Facebook Cofounder Chris Hughes Unleashed Barack's Base-- and Changed Politics and Marketing Forever. How do you top that? He married Sean and they started hunting for some congressional seat Sean could run in (skipping last cycle and picking NY-19 this time; bad timing)-- and he bought the New Republic, once an esteemed progressive magazine. He gives a fortune to the DCCC and other Democratic Party committees and his net worth is estimated to be between $800 million and a billion.

Sean was political director of Freedom to Marry. And somehow he turned himself into a DCCC "mystery meat" candidate. Friends have told me he has a progressive heart (or a progressive soul; I can't remember). But he adheres strictly to Steve Israel's diktat that his candidates keep their opinions to themselves. Other than gay marriage, no one knows what Sean stands for and no one has any solid reason to bother voting for him other than he's better than Chris Gibson, the Republican incumbent (who happens to be the least right-wing Republican in Congress). Gibson, in fact, regularly votes more progressively than around 10-12 Democrats, half of them being financed by the DCCC. Here are tProgressivePunch crucial vote scores for the current session of Democrats the DCCC has on financial life-support and who all vote more conservatively than Gibson:

• Chris Gibson (R-NY) 39.69
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY) 39.18
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) 36.6
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ) 33.87
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX) 32.46
• Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ) 29.03
• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA) 26.29

Sean Patrick Maloney… he's the Wall Street-oriented schnook who does his call time from a hedge fund office and who grabbed poor Sean's first choice for a district, the one right next door to NY-19-- and closer to where Sean and Hughes live in Soho. Gibson actually votes better than Maloney. Is there any reason to think Sean would be any better? Any worse? Who knows? That's what buying mystery meat entails.

So why "poor Sean?" Things aren't unfolding that well for him. DCCC Chairman Steve Israel, eager to keep Hughes' money flowing, has played him for a fool, not even giving him a coveted Red-to-Blue slot until Sean went bonkers on him. "Israel doesn't help at all," one heartbroken staffer told me. "All he does for this campaign is ship us bagels and cream cheese every week. We'd all rather have local donuts. He can shove his crappy bagels up his ass with the cream cheese." Apparently he isn't the only staffer who doesn't see things going well. Despite reporting $2,448,887 (of which $965,000 was self-funded) to Gibson's $1,799,331, the pundits still see this as a race Sean has little chance to win. Obama took the D+1 district in 2008 with 53% and in 2012 with 52% but Cook rates it a "Lean GOP" with a Gibson +4 and Rothenberg called it "Tilt GOP" with a Gibson +2. So, last Friday Sean fired Michael Reid, his campaign manager.

I haven't even been able to get Sean to return a phone call to tell me where he stands on Chained CPI or the Keystone XL pipeline so I'm not going to even try to find out why he fired Reid, who was successful last cycle winning a tough race for Lois Frankel against Adam Hasner in Florida. What I do know is that poor Sean is interviewing candidates who have just lost other races around the country. One of the campaign managers was so dreadful that everyone else involved with the campaign blamed him for the loss and when I asked the candidate if there was any chance he had been a plant from the opponent, the reply was that he was a plant from the DCCC, even worse. If Sean calls me back to talk issues, if he asks nicely I'll tell him which candidate he's interviewing is that one and which candidate is a drunken incompetent.

Still WAY Too Many Multimillionaires In Congress For A Functioning Democracy

This week I had dinner with Eloise Reyes, the grassroots progressive running in the CA-31 jungle primary against two conservatives: corrupt GOP incumbent Gary Miller and the DCCC recruit who lost to Miller last year, Pete Aguilar. I stay away from DC with a vengeance so I don't go out to meals with many politicians. But I talk to them on the phone all day-- usually not Republicans though. With just a few exceptions, Republicans won't talk with me. Democrats do, however, even Democrats I've been unkind to here at DWT, like Blue Dog John Barrow (GA), New Dem Anne Kuster (NH) and leader-of-the-pack Steny Hoyer (MD)-- whose p.r. person gave as a condition of the interview that I not call him a "hack" or a "whore" on the phone.

One Democrat who has absolutely not talked to me-- and I've been trying-- is the DCCC's NY-19 candidate against Chris Gibson, Sean Eldridge. Today, Steve Israel added him to the DCCC's Jumpstart program. He's gay and cute and married and the gay media is all excited about him. Maybe they know something more than I do about his politics. But I do know that gay candidates-- mostly on non-LGBT issues-- are all over the place politically. You'll get solid progressives like Mark Takano (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), middle-of-the-roaders like Jared Polis (D-CO) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), outright conservatives like Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Aaron Schock (R-IL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and raging reactionaries and bizarre extremists like Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Trent Franks (R-AZ). This month a national gay magazine, Out, takes a few paragraphs away from their all-advertising format for an interesting, if somewhat gratuitous, piece by Ilya Marritz comparing Eldridge to Gore Vidal. Marritz's most relevant remark is in the first sentence-- and it has nothing to do with Gore Vidal per se. Sean Eldridge isn't going to lose because he's gay. He's going to lose because he's a millionaire outsider trying to buy himself a random congressional district. Last cycle he wanted the seat Sean Patrick Maloney ran in but was talked out of it. So he bought another mansion up the road in the next district and decided to run there instead. Steve Israel is always happy to welcome a self-funding multimillionaire to the DCCC.

Gore Vidal suffered vicious press when he ran for Congress in 1960. The gay man now running for the same district has other reasons to worry.

What the hell is a fauteuil?

“Gore Vidal, Democratic candidate for Representative in the Twenty-ninth Congressional District, sprawled barefooted in a gilded fauteuil of his luxurious octagonal Empire study as he considered the question whether he would win the election.”

This is not overwritten fan fiction about a dead novelist. It’s the opener to an article published in the New York Times in September 1960. Vidal, already a successful playwright and novelist at 34, was indeed running for Congress.

Unable to use the word gay (the Times only began allowing it in 1987), and unwilling to write homosexual, the reporter resorts to rich innuendo; readers are told that Vidal is a bachelor living in “lonely splendor in an 1820 Greek Revival mansion on the edge of the Hudson River.” (Actually, Vidal’s lover, Howard Austen, was living there too). The reporter watches as Vidal “lets his cocker spaniel lick the Chateau Yquem [sic] off his fingers.”

“I don’t drink Château d’Yquem,” Vidal shot back, decades later, in his memoir, Palimpsest, still sore at the newspaper he believed was out to get him.

Fast-forward 53 years. Another well-connected young gay guy with an impressive house has his eye on Congress. The district lines roughly correspond to what they were when Vidal sought a seat: New York’s Hudson Valley and the Catskill mountains.

His name is Sean Eldridge, he is 27, and he is married to Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. Their joint fortune is estimated at between a half-billion and a billion dollars.

In a photo that appeared in The New York Times this summer, Eldridge wears a serious expression and his dark hair is neatly trimmed; blazer, no tie, husband beside him looking equally scrubbed in a black V-neck. What appears to be the horn of a phonograph hovers behind Hughes’s shoulder, gently confirming the old saw that gays love antiquing.

There is no innuendo in the Times’s coverage this time, but there are plenty of touchy questions: Will voters in a largely rural district get comfortable with a vision of squeaky-clean domesticity that just happens to be gay and fabulously wealthy? And how established in a place do you need to be in order to represent it in Congress?

Eldridge and Hughes have lived in the district for less than a year. When their $5 million mansion turned out to lie outside the district where Eldridge thought he had the best chance, they simply bought another house within the lines, for $2 million, and called it home. (They also have homes in Manhattan and D.C.) “It’s a little bit presumptuous,” one of Eldridge’s new neighbors tells the Times. “In a community like this, you like to know who your neighbors are. How can he expect to represent people he doesn’t know?”

Like Vidal, Eldridge is challenging an incumbent with deep roots in the district.

And, sensing an opportunity, the Republicans have mobilized. They’ve set up a deceptive “Sean Eldridge for Congress 2014” website that includes photos of Eldridge with Nancy Pelosi, several references to Eldridge’s prowess as a political fundraiser, and a generous sprinkling of words like elitist. Gay is nowhere to be found, though.

In short, Eldridge probably should worry more about being called “carpetbagger” than “queer.”

For Vidal, defeat in the 1960 election became a point of pride. For years afterward, his author bio included this defiant line: “Although he lost, he ran better in the traditionally Republican stronghold than any Democrat since 1910.”

Did his sexual orientation play a role?

Reporters in 1960 certainly knew Vidal had published The City and the Pillar, a coming-of-age story involving two male lovers. But pre-Stonewall, there was a cloak of invisibility around Vidal’s sexual tastes. Journalists, Vidal wrote, “did not realize that their sort of gossip was almost impossible to transmit to the public in those days.”

Can Eldridge, a former political director of Freedom to Marry, do better? In August, his campaign reportedly paid a focus group to watch some possible lines of attack against the incumbent. The group was also shown a dull video about high-tech manufacturing in the Hudson Valley, in which Eldridge appears, looking very much like the young president of the local chamber of commerce. He’s also invested in bakeries and breweries-- the kind of feel-good businesses that make good photo ops.

In 1960, Vidal didn’t bother trying for any effect other than artsy, opinionated wunderkind. His play The Best Man was a hit on Broadway. He argued against war, and for more social spending, and admitted his candidacy was a long shot.

He told the Times, “If this is subversive, all right, I am out to subvert a society that bores and appalls me.”

A fauteuil, by the way, is an armchair. I Googled it.

As I explained last summer when Eldridge was making believe he hadn't made up his mind about running yet, "My only interest in Eldridge is his political philosophy. Someone that wealthy-- who thinks he understands people of modest means because both his parents were "merely" doctors-- is more likely than not to vote with conservative scumbags when it comes to issues of economic justice-- like Maloney next door routinely does. Eldridge and his husband have contributed quite a bit of money to Maloney's campaign so presumably they approve of his reactionary-- or cowardly-- agenda. I sent him a message asking if he'd like to have a talk. Five Eight months have gone by and he hasn't responded." He has a Facebook page and I sent him a message through Facebook and another through Twitter. I wonder if that'll work."

And, yeah, there are already way too many millionaires in Congress. Maybe there should only be one or two instead of over two hundred and then Congress would be a little more in touch with the reality of the people they're supposed to be representing. The tragedy here is that NY-19 (which has a PVI of D+1 and which Obama won handily in both 2008 and 2012) is ripe to replace their GOP incumbent with a Democrat. Polling shows that if the election were held today, a generic Democrat would beat Gibson 44-43 and that when voters are made aware that Gibson voted with Cruz and the Tortilla Coast Suicide Caucus to shut down the government, his Democratic opponent pulls further ahead-- 48-42%. The DCCC will blow that advantage by pushing the multimillionaire outsider who lives in Manhattan instead of in his new mansion.

DCCC Targeting And Expediture Strategies Just Do Not Add Up

Chances are slim that you saw Shira Toeplitz's Roll Call post yesterday, Triage Looms Over Campaigns. Pure Beltway hackishness... from someone who can do better. The idea is that the all-knowing and all-powerful heads of the NRCC and DCCC take on their shoulders the onerous task of deciding who's going to win and who's going to lose and then make the tough decisions about who to back financially. Like so much of Roll Call it sounds like it was put together by the publicists of the DCCC and NRCC. Very large sums of money are already being allocated and reallocated but, according to this story, only for the purest and most mathematical of reasons.

In the coming weeks, the national party committees will decide which races are deemed winnable and merit their resources-- resources Members themselves donated and helped raise-- and which should be abandoned.

...Last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shifted a week's worth of airtime from Rep. Larry Kissell's (D-N.C.) uphill re-election bid to target Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.). House Democrats did not cut off Kissell completely, but the move signals that the DCCC believes its funds are better spent on other races.

There's more of that to come in October, and it won't be pretty.

The DCCC reserved $61.7 million in airtime across 41 districts through Election Day. The NRCC reserved less airtime, $43.8 million, and is currently on the air in 35 districts.

Those reservations will shift frequently between districts as parties cross non-competitive or hopeless races off their lists.
Currently, committee staffs are poring over data daily, including polling, finance reports and media buys, to determine the state of every race in lengthy "around the world" meetings.

"The overriding question is, 'Can we win?'" said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), a former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman in 2008 and 2010. "You have to allocate resources to maximize the number of seats you win-- and that does require some tough decisions."

In the 2010 cycle the DCCC spent $163,582,280. These were the big bets these dispassionate statisticians made-- the 29 races where they spent a minimum of a million dollars on Independent Expenditures. These were all for TV and radio ads opposing the following Republicans:

• Rick Crawford (AR-01) on behalf of Blue Dog challenger Chad Causey- $1,771,179

• Robert Dold (IL-10) on behalf of  New Dem challenger Dan Seals- $1,746,826

• Jaime Beutler (WA-03) on behalf of New Dem challenger Denny Heck- $1,728,127

• Harold Johnson (NC-08) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. Larry Kissell- $1,705,393

• Tim Burns (PA-12) on behalf of ultra-reactionary Rep. Marc Critz-,$1,609,853

• Keith Fimian (VA-11) on behalf of New Dem Rep. Gerry Connolly- $1,605,028

• Andy Harris (MD-01) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. Frank Kratovil- $1,529,305

• Bob Gibbs (OH-18) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. Zach Space- $1,512,697

• Jim Renacci (OH-16) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. John Boccieri- $1,449,105

• Jeff Perry (MA-10) on behalf of challenger Bill Keating $1,433,412

• David Rivera (FL-25) on behalf of challenger Joe Garcia- $1,422,235

• Martha Roby (AL-02) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. Bobby Bright- $1,411,243

• Tim Walberg (MI-07) on behalf of New Dem Rep. Mark Schauer- $1,388,063

• Joe Heck (NV-03) on behalf of New Dem Rep. Dina Titus- $1,382,353

• Todd Young (IN-09) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. Baron Hill- $1,376,745

• Dan Benishek (MI-01) on  behalf of conservative challenger Jason Allen-$1,319,440

• Rep. Charles Djou (HI-01) on behalf of New Dem challenger Colleen Hanabusa- $1,304,284

• Randy Hultgren (IL-14) on behalf of New Dem Rep. Bill Foster- $1,303,014

• David McKinley (WV-01) on behalf of rabid Blue Dog challenger Mike Oliviero- $1,264,732

• Vicky Hartzler (MO-04) on behalf of New Dem Rep. Ike Skelton- $1,247,956

• Scott Bruun (OR-05) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. Kurt Schader- $1,247,472

• Scott Tipton (CO-03) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. John Salazar- $1,192,722

• Mick Mulvaney (SC-05) on behalf of New Dem Rep. John Spratt- $1,124,027

• David Schweikert (AZ-05) on behalf of Blue Dog Rep. Harry Mitchell- $1,094,545

• Bobby Schilling (IL-17) on behalf of progressive Rep. Phil Hare- $1,067,806

• Paul Gosar (AZ-01) on behalf of New Dem Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick- $1,056,845

• David Harmer (CA-11) on behalf of Rep. Jerry McNerney- $1,031,192

• Sean Duffy (WI-07) on behalf of New Dem challenger Julie Lassa- $1,017,175

• Richard Hanna (NY-24) on behalf of New Dem Rep. Michael Arcuri- $1,008,039

There were another 26 Republicans the DCCC spent between half a million and a million on and the patterns are identical to the ones above-- as are the catastrophic rates of losses. They spent an awful lot of money and won 7 of the 29 top races, a dismal performance. Of the 29 races by the end of the cycle Cook, Rothenberg, Sabato and Real Clear Politics had all rated the #1 race the DCCC spent on, Blue Dog Chad Causey's "Leans Republican." Of the 29 races, Real Clear Politics had rated 17 Leans Republican" and 12 as "Tossup." Perhaps Roll Call should have asked the DCCC to justify that kind of spending on that kind of record of losers. And if they claim they just do it by the math... maybe some remedial courses are in order... for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

At nine this evening (PT) we're going to take one of those contested districts from 2010 and catch up with the DCCC and check their math this cycle. It's not this race in NY though, the one that saw Chris Gibson beat conservative New Dem freshman Scott Murphy. (The New Dems gave Murphy $20,000 and the Blue Dogs gave him $15,000.) This year New Dem Julian Schreibman is trying to win the seat back for the Democrats by taking on Gibson. Redistricted (and renumbered the 19th CD from the 20th), it's a district in which Obama would have beaten McCain 53-45%. Although things are looking up for more and more Democrats across the country, that isn't the case here. A brand new Siena poll shows Schreibman losing by a massive 16 points. Gibson is backed by 52% of the voters, Schreibman 36% and 11% are undecided. Obama leads Romney 49-45% in the district. The DCCC, which is aggressively ignoring progressives who are running for far more winnable seat, started running this expensive ad this week:

"We Are Your Constituents-- Not Grover Norquist"

After Blue Dog Kirsten Gillibrand left the House to run for the open New York Senate seat, she was replaced by am even more conservative Democrat, Scott Murphy, in a special election. Last November Chris Gibson beat Murphy 130,176 (55%) to 107,077 (45%), winning in 9 of the 10 counties in the upstate New York district that had voted for Obama over McCain 51-48%. (In 2008 Gillibrand had won ALL 10 counties.) The only county that voted to retain Murphy was tiny Essex. The drop off across the district was gigantic. Democratic voters just didn't come out to vote in NY-20 in 2010, primarily because Murphy's adamantly conservative voting record was very much in line with the GOP so... why bother? It didn't make Republicans vote for him... they had an even more extreme candidate of their own; and it didn't make Democrats vote for the Republican. It just held down the Democratic and left-leaning independent turn-out.

Gibson has been a lockstep clone of Boehner's and Cantor's, a sure vote for obstructionism on every single thing President Obama has tried to accomplish for the economy. He may not be as dangerous a sociopath as Ann Marie Buerkle in Syracuse, whose ghastly record we looked at Thursday-- but he votes as through he's representing a bunch of backward, ignorant southerner bigots instead of a moderate Northeast district.

Gibson, an eager supporter of the Satan Sandwich and of Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicare, has been angering constituents by promoting a dangerous nuclear plant and waste reprocessing facility in the district. But Grover loves him. As you can see in the video of a Gibson town hall meeting this week, his affair with Norquist is infuriating his constituents. And-- probably not counting the deepest red bowels of the Old Confederacy-- this is happening everywhere in America.