Look, we are mostly grown-ups here. We know how this works. We know what the DCCC and the DSCC and the DNC are about.
So please, spare us the sanctimony.
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. — www.dailykos.com/...
Bull. Shit.
I want the party orgs to stay the fuck out of the primaries.
I don’t want them putting a finger on the scale for anybody.
Please stop explaining to me what my true motivations are, and how I interpret news.
While we’re at it, spare us the cherry-picked straw-men.
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. — www.dailykos.com/...
The race in question (CO-6) is one of the most promising pick-ups for Democrats in the country. Clinton won the district by 9 points, Obama won it by 5 points in 2012. That is why the primary attracted multiple good candidates.
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. — www.dailykos.com/...
If the candidate you recruited is at risk of losing a Democratic primary to a straight up bigot who stands on the street corner holding up anti-gay signs, well then maybe you should get out of the recruiting candidates business, because you aren’t very good at it.
Democratic primary voters, are however, pretty good at picking candidates for their districts/states. Which is why Fred Phelps never came close to winning a primary.
I’ve got a more relevant example:
While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is now actively backing Lipinski’s bid, the incumbent had told various news outlets in recent weeks that the support was being withheld. The perceived delay in sending resources prompted an outcry from some Blue Dogs, who’ve voiced concerns that the liberal-leaning caucus was giving its centrist members the cold shoulder. — thehill.com/...
Yes Lipinski was an incumbent and you could argue the DCCC owed him something. Yet, the primary result was close enough (2.4%) that the DCCC may have made the difference in Lipinski’s primary win.
Here’s what that means in practice for 2019 and 2020. If Democrats win the House with a narrow margin and Lipinski wins the general election, Lipinski will be among the most powerful votes in the House.
Let’s celebrate the wisdom and far-sightedness of the DCCC!
It’s worth noting that Marie Newman’s candidacy in IL-3 was “historic”. She would have been the first woman to represent IL-3 in Congress. But I guess “history” only counts in certain circumstances.
I digress, let’s get back to the Colorado race.
[Levi Tillemann] focused his campaign on clean elections, combatting climate change, “Medicare for All,” free community college, and confronting economic inequality and monopoly power. Another candidate for the nomination, Jason Crow, a corporate lawyer at the powerhouse Colorado firm Holland & Hart and an Army veteran, meanwhile, appeared to have the backing of the Democratic establishment, though it wasn’t explicit. In November, it became clearer, as Crow was named by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to the party’s “Red to Blue” list, which the committee specifies is not an endorsement but does carry symbolic weight. — theintercept.com/...
Guess what, there’s another race where the DCCC made a ham-handed attempt to deep-six the opponent of their favored candidate. And strangely enough, the candidate favored there by the DCCC, was also a corporate lawyer, whose firm had fought a union-busting case that earned her the opposition of the unions. And (shocker) in CO-6, the DCCC’s favored candidate is also involved in some interesting legal work:
Crow’s work representing corporations accused of misconduct may become a liability in the campaign. Legal filings list Crow’s name on lawsuits defending payday lender Western Sky Financial and fracking firm Slawson Exploration. — theintercept.com/...
The DCCC’s secret sauce for 2018 is… wait for it... payday lenders and fracking!
Break out the confetti, our turnout problems have been solved!
Yet, among all the bad arguments made to Tillemann, this is the one that takes the absolute cake:
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. — www.dailykos.com/...
So, here’s an interesting thing. Back in October, Tillemann was raising as much or more than Crow. Then the DCCC steps in, provides fundraising support, and all of a sudden, hey presto, Crow has more money in the bank.
Even if we admit the dubious claim that fundraising is directly correlated with election wins, this is pretty rich. The DCCC favors a candidate and directs donors towards the candidate. Then turns around and says to the other candidate, the “reality” is you haven’t raised as much money.
Please. Spare us the sanctimony about such “realities”.
Tillemann isn’t the only candidate in this race who’s upset at the DCCC:
“It was the D-trip. I was given extensive promises in March of last year that they would not do anything to favor one candidate over another, that they had learned from the mistakes made during the Bernie-Hillary fallout, and that they would do everything the same for all of the candidates,” says [David] Aarestad. “But, they made polling data available to Crow that they did not make available to me. They made other resources available to Crow that they did not make available to me, such as email lists for fundraising purposes.”
These are not “mistakes”.
They are characterized as mistakes when it is convenient for the DCCC to do so.
Which is why we shouldn’t take statements like this at face value:
DCCC does make big mistakes, and is making them. But this is a distraction. — www.dailykos.com/...
Let me fix this statement.
The DCCC consistently supports center-right candidates.
When these candidates fail to mobilize the base and voters, the DCCC tries to pass it off as a “mistake”.
The DCCC is a distraction in primaries, it should stay out of them.
And in case you’re angry at the DCCC, don’t be. We are winning. They know it. We know it.
And here’s the crazy thing, the DCCC’s favored candidates know it too.
That’s why Jason Crow’s health-care blurb starts with the progressive mantra popularized by Bernie “Health Care is a Right, Not a Privilege”.
So don’t boo. Volunteer. Here are some candidates you can volunteer or give to, including Levi Tillemann. Really, you should volunteer if you can, it counts for much more than dollars.
— @subirgrewal