Today, in a story at the Intercept, republished elsewhere, Lee Fang, notes the working of elected officials and members of DCCC involvement in primaries, in this case, specifically Colorado. We’ve seen this story before, repeatedly. Each and every time, we also run into issues where people are confused as to the Democratic hierarchy. I often point them to this incredible rundown by David Jarman in DKE.
In order to discuss the issue at hand, though, I wanted to write a short diary today about the misconceptions of the roles of party leadership on any front, and what the rank and file of the party really want.
So, is this story the scandal that The Intercept makes it out to be? Should DCCC be taking out and flogged? Are we doing the right thing? Let’s take a look.
The DCCC and State Organizations should NEVER tell a candidate to leave the race!
I hear and see this argument frequently, not just at Daily Kos, but also in state meetings all over the country: “what right does XYZ ED have to say that I or anyone shouldn’t run for office!”. Before we get going down this road, I want to say that the party, in general, should work to stay neutral in most instances. A good primary benefits the voters, raise awareness, but also because taking sides can backfire. That having been said, DCCC, State Organizations, County leaders and others also have a responsibility to be honest with candidates and let them know the lay of a race. When candidates enter crowded primaries, or when they first run for office, the party has a responsibility to say: “This is what it will generally take to win in fundraising/time worked/voters contacted/money spent”. We also try to explain to candidates difficulties they may face.
Why do this? Because too often in the past candidates were recruited into races — state and federal — with the idea that because they were a Democrat, the party would pay for their campaign and send donors straight to them — because that is how it works, right?. Those candidates end up feeling burned, frustrated, and let down, in large part because no one had the discussion with them about what a campaign even looks like.
It is irresponsible to just shrug at candidates and say “I don’t know! Go for it!”. Recently, a candidate contacted me, running a primary campaign at a popular Democratic federal elected. I pointed out: “This is going to be an uphill race, and there are going to be a lot of people who will personally dislike you for trying to primary a Democratic elected.” While states like California work jungle primaries, many states it will be a one on one in the party, and you will likely get crushed. They are free to run — and no one has the power to stop them, but if you do not explain to them the odds and the difficulties, are you really helping that candidate?
There are also instances where candidates need to hear the advice, whether they follow it or not: you are not going to win a primary OR this could be personally damaging to you to run right now (some cases) OR there are other offices you should run for instead. In some cases, a candidate running for one race may be a better fit in another one. The party should be free to advise them of that without worrying about someone bashing people for giving candid advice.
The DCCC is terrible, picks terrible candidates, etc.
The second main claim we hear in stories, like those in the Intercept, is that DCCC is terrible, picks terrible candidates, makes terrible decisions, and so on. They will point back to recruited candidates who lost. They will argue that DCCC has always had a record of a heavy boot and managed to muck up races.
While I won’t disagree that DCCC has had some moments that are certainly doozies — and there are things I am truly bothered by DCCC, the fact is the DCCC doesn’t choose the candidate, no matter how many stories tell you otherwise. DCCC puts limited resources into tons of districts around the country, and if you want a nomination enough, then the people to appeal to are the voters in your districts. Win your primary, and DCCC will generally come around to you in the general. Beat their candidate? You become the Democratic nominee.
The argument placed in these gives DCCC near superpowers to control primary voter outcomes. This just isn’t reality. In Illinois, DCCC, protecting an incumbent, got behind Dan Lipinski, while sites like Daily Kos supported Marie Newman. If DCCC sticks with the wrong candidate, do not buy into the fact the candidate is ‘doomed’. Just run a campaign and win. It is not impossible.
DCCC does make big mistakes, and is making them. But this is a distraction.
The DCCC is going to make big mistakes. It will do so every cycle. So does RCCC. They recruit candidates, both of them, and they are going to have some hits and misses. It happens. There are going to be big mistakes made, and some lucky rolls of the dice that break our way that shouldn’t. In good years, all sins are forgiven, in bad years, all sins are magnified.
The problem is, we focus too often on issues like this one, because they are sensational and they will inflame or, in some cases, move to depress our voters by making it seem as though DCCC is the only organization making mistakes.
We sometimes pass these mistakes on to other party entities, as though there is a group dying every day to make mistakes — look, even when I am very frustrated with DCCC (example: their current field planning), I don’t think for an instant that individuals there are trying to do anything but win. Period. Too much of our dialog seemingly implies sinister motives. Anti-progressive. Anti-X, pro-Y, or any other factor you can think of that doesn’t involve winning. And, again, remember other entities (DNC, your state org, your county org, DLCC, etc.) have absolutely no — zip, zero — control over DCCC.
How should the party deal with candidates?
The party has a responsibility in many ways to recruit candidates; many races sit dormant with no candidate at all if the party doesn’t try to recruit. Now, once candidates are recruited, do we abandon them if someone else hops into the race?
This is a question I posed to Tom Perez and Ben Lujan at recent party functions, where we discussed Republican same day switching; noting that if I knew the policy of the party was that we couldn’t stay with candidates we recruited if they had a primary, Republicans would simply screw us by placing terrible candidates on our ballots. To that end, I pointed to this guy:
Anti-gay bigot Fred Phelps who.. you guessed it, ran as a Democrat for Governor. But even if you don’t have a someone as loony as Phelps, could underfunded, unprepared candidates be thrown into a race or encouraged to jump in only to sit and pillory candidates who had been recruited? It would certainly be a strategy worth implementing if we had it as a firm policy.
The truth is, people read articles like those at The Intercept and they aren’t mad the party meddled, they are mad the party didn’t meddle in favor of their preferred candidate; if they had meddled in favor of their preferred candidate, then they would be fine.
In order to build a solid party for the future, these are the obligations the party leadership has:
- Find, recruit, and develop solid candidates for the future
- Support those candidates
- Have honest conversations with all candidates entering races, whether we have a candidate or not, as to what will be expected of them, their realistic goals in their district.
- Try to win.
The Intercept story is interesting; and maybe we should be work to recruit and get more great candidates. The motto at Daily Kos has been ‘more and better’ Democratic elected. DCCC will make mistakes. They can be called on it. State parties can make mistakes.
But I’ve never, not anywhere in the country, met anyone working in the party structure who ever said to me: “I want to make sure we lose that race, so we’re going to sabotage candidate A” that isn’t what happens.
Activists need to work to recruit, train, support, and develop better candidates at all levels, in all districts.
It is possible to be very critical of DCCC’s practices, methods, planning, operations, guidelines, approaches — I am all of those things. We can do that without seemingly concocting the idea that informing a candidate with $90k cash on hand that he is unlikely to win against a candidate with $900k cash on hand is an evil plot against a Democratic candidate. Tillemann could win — and I do not know either of these candidates; but if someone didn’t tell him at this point “this is going to be really uphill and you are going to face difficulties” then the party would also be party to malpractice by failing to tell him the truth.