There is undeniable energy among the Democratic base for the 2018 elections. Much of that energy is on the left, with grassroots activists advocating for unabashedly progressive policies. Candidates, including record-braking numbers of women, are tapping into this energy and running for state legislatures and Congress. So how is the DCC responding, and determining which candidates are viable and who isn’t?
Are they looking at community support, a history of organizing successfully, social media presence and ability to energize voters into making small donations?
Not really, though they are now (for the first time) considering support from groups like Indivisible. For the most part, they’re picking favorites by doing exactly what they’ve done for decades, asking candidates pull out their contact lists and run through the names of donors who can give $500-$2300.
Why you wonder, would they do this?
So what is the DCCC doing here? Serving as a full-employment program for former staffers who now run consulting shops?
If this was purely about greasing a few palms, it wouldn’t be that bad. But that’s not all it is. This approach has an impact on who gets to run, and what policies they support. By focusing on big-money donors, the DCCC largely ends up supporting candidates with deep pockets or connections to wealthy donors. This usually means corporate executives, lobbyists or professional fundraisers. Who gets left out? Well, community leaders, coaches, schoolteachers, union representatives, that’s who. You know, people who interact with their community every day, are actively engaged at a broad level and can appeal to working families.
Since they aren’t on the cocktail circuit or members of the local country club, they can’t open up a rolodex and call people who can cut $2000 checks. More often than not, that means they’re going to be ignored by the DCCC.
Karen Mallard is running for Congress in Virginia Beach, VA-2. She’s a schoolteacher running in a district the Republican won by 23% in 2016. She’s been trying to get the DCCC and other establishment organizations to support her candidacy. So far, the DCCC has picked two other candidates who’ve subsequently dropped out. They’ve now settled on a third, all the while studiously dismissing Karen.
Mallard, however, thinks her experience in the community will pay off. “Everywhere I go, I see somebody I taught or coached. The DCCC needs to listen to people. Just because you can stroke a check for $100,000 doesn’t mean you’re the best candidate,” she said. “EMILY’s List gave me some consultants to hire, but I’m a public school teacher. I can’t afford to hire anybody.” — theintercept.com/...
The DCCC has an official policy of remaining neutral, but in a number of races, they have openly endorsed specific candidates in the primary. Who they choose to endorse largely depends on how well connected the person is in the party and whether or not they can raise large sums. In a number of cases, the DCCC is endorsing primary candidates who have previously run consultant-driven races at great expense, only to lose.
If money isn’t necessarily the best path to victory, that smart Washington-based operatives continue to make it the key variable regardless raises the question of what other motivations may be in play. For [Rep. Stephen] Lynch (MA-8), the answer is simple: It’s a racket. “The Democratic and Republican parties are commercial enterprises and they’re very much interested in their own survival,” Lynch said. “The money race is probably more important to them than the issues race in some cases.” — theintercept.com/...
The conventional wisdom is that Democrats are going to win the House and possibly the Senate. This has led big-businesses to consider hedging their bets. It means the Democratic consultant class’s wildest dreams may be about to come true. The biggest of big-money donors, the Koch brothers, are doing business with Democrats again, specifically Democrats who favor tax cuts and union busting, aka blue dogs:
Right now, across offices in DC, sharp-eyed politicos are wondering how many mid-six-figure consulting salaries can be supported by the Koch PACs. The answer is, a lot. The Koch network collected and spent hundreds of millions of dollars in 2016. I can only imagine the internal monologue playing in so many heads:
If only 25% could be redirected towards my “Democratic” consulting firm, that would surely be worth “compromising” to make the Trump tax scam/cut permanent wouldn’t it? And if those pesky lefties disagree, we can always yell at them about how hard it is to pass a tax hike, even if it’s on the 1%, and why are they sabotaging us, do they want Republicans to win!
Here’s the problem with this. If the Kochs manage to buy, ahem influence five or ten Democrats in the house, and that happens to be roughly the margin Democrats have, guess what happens when a progressive tax bill comes to the floor.
There is another clear pattern to the types of candidates the DCCC is recruiting. It is focusing on candidates who can self-fund campaigns and appeal to suburban Republican voters. These tend to be “business-friendly” candidates. And by that we mean opposed to progressive policies like a $15 minimum wage, Medicare-For-All and free public college.
Why would the DCCC advocate for candidates who oppose policies that will help women, minorities and working-class people the most? Beats me, but...
For the first time since 2006, the Blue Dog Coalition, the right-leaning Democratic group that prides itself on promoting socially conservative, business-friendly lawmakers, has worked with the DCCC to select the party’s candidates for the 2018 midterms. — theintercept.com/...
Perhaps this blue-dog crush explains the love affair so many in the DCCC and party apparatus have with former Republicans. For example, here’s what’s happening in in TX-21:
Several national Democrats, including Rep. Hoyer, have endorsed Joseph Kopser, a former Republican now running as a centrist Democrat. Kopser has raised the most money, but he’s being challenged for the nomination by Derrick Crowe, Elliott McFadden and Mary Wilson. — theintercept.com/...
What’s going on here? Does the DCCC really want to stack the caucus with former-Republicans? I mean it’s good and all they’ve seen the light, but shouldn’t they be given some time to maybe you know, demonstrate their conversion isn’t a passing fad?
Despite the poor showing in 2016, the DCCC still clings to the belief that suburban Republicans turned off by Trump will be the road to victory in 2018. This might be why in NE-2, they’re endorsing a candidate who has been iffy on abortion-rights, while shutting out Kara Eastman, who is unabashedly pro-choice and has the support of local unions.
The fact is, these patterns carry very serious risks for 2018. We cannot rely on hatred of Trump alone to coast to victory in 2018. Voters already know, and remember what Trump has said. We’ve had and will continue to have saturation level coverage of whatever bigoted and idiotic thing the president said yesterday. To win big in 2018 will require explaining to voters how Trump and Republicans in general are bad for them, and that explanation has to go beyond the words/language he uses. It has to focus on the actual harm and hurt Trump’s policies are causing to Americans, especially the most vulnerable. And it has to present an alternative that will make voter’s life better.
While the media’s focus on Trump’s bigotry last week was understandable and appropriate, as midterm elections approach, liberals should keep in mind historian C. Vann Woodward’s observation, invoked by the Fields sisters in a recent interview, that the question of white supremacy is secondary to the question of “which whites should be supreme.” If the party loses sight of the ways in which Trump has failed most whites in addition to communities marginalized by their identities, it is inclined to miss an opportunity to cleave back those voters who once provided a winning margin to Barack Obama’s 2012 and 2008 campaigns.
If Democrats cannot show vulnerable Americans how it will make their material lives better, and create a real contrast with Republicans, we should not expect victory. Mid-terms are all about exciting your base to turn up. A bunch of blue-dogs who oppose policies supported by the majority fo Democrats ($15 minimum wage, Medicare-For-All and debt-free public college) are not going to excite the Democratic base.
BTW, if you want to donate to the progressive candidates mentioned in the Intercept article, you can do so here.
Better yet, if you’re in a district with an active primary, get involved! Find the candidate who most appeals to you and help them win the primary and the general!
— @subirgrewal