Where Was The DCCC When A GOP Tracker Was Manhandling Kara Eastman's Daughter?

Early in the cycle, the DCCC identified NE-02, basically the Omama Metro, including all of Douglas County and some rural areas in Sarpy County, as "must win" district. Obama won it in 2008, Romney won it in 2012 and Hillary beat Trump 48.2% to 46.0% in 2016. It's a very swingy district with a miscalculated R+4 PVI (should be R+2). Anyway, the DCCC said that to win back Congress they had to take back NE-02 and quickly endorsed a Republican-lite Blue Dog, Brad Ashford, who was defeated while Hillary was winning, primarily because his short stink in Congress turned off progressive voters who recognized him as too conservative for them. That didn't matter to the DCCC. When Ashford lost his county job and suddenly jumped into the congressional race, the DCCC immediately began boosting him and undercutting the progressive woman, Kara Eastman, who was already in the race. (Keep in mind that Bernie beat Trump in NE-02 55-45%, but somehow the DCCC felt a defeated very conservative Blue Dog, who had earned an "F" during his two years in Congress, was preferable to a popular progressive woman.)

In the end, Kara beat the Blue Dog and was eager for some help from the DCCC. Playing the old Rahm Emanuel game, the DCCC instead, disappeared NE-02 off the map, refusing to help Kara and leaving her to the tender mercies of the GOP, which immediately started pouring money into the district on behalf of Bacon. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce alone, spent a quarter of a million dollars building up Bacon and Paul Ryan's superPAC started spending as well. The DCCC ignored the situation and spent their money in much less winnable districts where they could support their favorite kind of candidate-- corrupt conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, mirror images of the decision makers at the DCCC.

Yesterday Kara-- who has been endorsed by Blue America-- sent an e-mail to her supporters to let them know that various elements of the GOP has been sending aggressive trackers out to plague her campaign and stalk and harass her and her family, staff and supporters.

Nothing is out of bounds for these trackers. One went so far as to physically touch my daughter, Sabina, in an attempt to provoke me. When we called the police, Bacon’s team reacted by sending not one, but five trackers to our Independence Day parades-- for the sole purpose of pestering and trolling our team and our volunteers.

Sabina, 17 years old, is a friend of mine and I was horrified by this. A poised young lady, she was still in high school when I had dinner with her a couple of months ago; she was trying to decide which college to attend. The idea of one of these Republican goons-- paid by Paul Ryan with grubby Adelson money-- grabbing her so they could film an angry response from Kara made me absolutely nauseous Ryan refuses to comment. As Kara said, "These actions tell me one thing: Don Bacon is scared of our success. We are making waves in the polls and our message is resonating on the ground. They can’t stop the momentum of our ideas and instead have resorted to intimidation and dirty politics." I have an idea-- the DCCC refuses to respond to any of these Republican lowball politics. How about if DWT readers do? See that thermometer on the right? Please consider clicking on it and contributing what you can to Kara's campaign. "His attempts to intimidate and hound us with these trackers will not," wrote Kara, "deter me from continuing to run this campaign with integrity and heart."

And one more thing, if anyone calls you from the DCCC asking for money, ask them why they're not backing Kara Eastman and the other progressive primary winners in competitive districts. Suggestion: tell them you're contributing the money that would normally go to the DCCC to Kara instead. Maybe the implication will make its way up the chain to Pelosi and Lujan.