D-Trip "Targets" 8 House Seats - I'll Believe It When I See It

State Democrats are buzzing about this weekend's Carla Marinucci article entitled "California Dems target 8 GOP districts", which claims that Republican voter registration is dropping fast, providing a major opportunity to pick up Congressional seats in 2010.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted 35 districts across the country represented by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives - including eight in California - that were won by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, said Jennifer Crider, the committee spokeswoman.

The Democrats plan increased appeals to voters in those areas and will make aggressive efforts to recruit Democratic candidates to run against the Republican incumbents, she said [...]

The vulnerable California districts with Republican representatives that were won by Obama are those of Reps. Dan Lungren of Gold River (Sacramento County), Mary Bono-Mack of Palm Springs, David Dreier of San Dimas (Los Angeles County), Elton Gallegly of Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), Brian Bilbray of Solana Beach (San Diego County), John Campbell of Newport Beach (Orange County), Ken Calvert of Riverside and Howard "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), the committee says.

It would be nice if I thought any of this would work. First of all, the registration changes didn't just spring up in December 2008. These trends have been occurring for some time, and were all present during the last election. Despite this, we had a candidate in CA-25 (McKeon) who spent less than $10,000 or her entire campaign. The candidate in CA-24 (Gallegly) won her primary because of her ballot designation and without spending any significant money. In the races where we managed to compete, our candidates significantly underperformed the top of the ticket, and in most cases underperformed Barbara Boxer's performance in 2004, when a less dominant John Kerry was at the top of the ticket.

I don't think there are that many other people who have followed California congressional races closer than I have, and I have to say that we simply suck at elections in these kinds of races out here in California. The state party is dysfunctional at best and downright criminal at worst. Put it this way: we had the same chance to win all these seats in 2008. Nate Silver, making a separate point, provides a list of the 30 districts where Obama won between 50 and 52 percent of the vote. As you'll see, we did extremely well in those seats, except for in California.

Barack Obama won 51 percent of the vote in NY-20 on November 4th. How did congressional candidates perform in other districts where he received between, say, 50 and 52 percent of the vote? Again, we see essentially an even split; Republicans won 16 of 30 such districts and Democrats won 14:

Won by Republicans (16): CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-44, CA-45, CA-50, FL-10, FL-18, MI-4, MN-3, NE-2, NJ-7, NY-23, VA-4, WI-1, WI-6

Won by Democrats (14): FL-22, KS-3, MI-1, MI-7, MN-1, NC-2, NJ-3, NY-1, NY-19, NY-20*, NY-24, TX-23, VA-2, WA-3

Winning percentage in these seats in states other than CA: 58.3%
Winning percentage in CA: 0.0%

By the way, the other two districts not mentioned above that are now being "targeted"? CA-03 (Lungren) was 49-49 Obama, and CA-48 (Campbell) was also 49-49 Obama. Heck, even CA-46 was only 50-48 McCain. Obama got 46% in CA-19 (Radanovich), where there was no Democratic candidate, and 47% in CA-40 (Royce).

Some would argue that, properly resourced, these seats would suddenly become very winnable. I give you CA-50, where Nick Leibham consistently beat Brian Bilbray in fundraising and maxed out at the 45% ceiling on Democrats in that district.

CA-44 is somewhat winnable because Bill Hedrick came close in '08 and is running again. We lost our best candidate in CA-03, Bill Durston, and everywhere else, I'm just extremely dubious, because the state party has systematically psyched itself out of winning these seats (thanks to the Faustian bargain of incumbency-protected gerrymandering designed by... imminent state party chair John Burton), and the commitment at the national level has been known to wane. We've left dozens of winnable elections on the table the past two cycles, dramatically underperforming the nation. A little DCCC money won't change that.

Giving Away The Tax Argument

During the Presidential race the Obama campaign kept putting out "tax calculators" and emphasizing their tax cut plans for 95% of Americans. Now the DCCC, the Democratic campaign arm in the House, is specifically targeting House Republicans for opposing the stimulus package, foregrounding that they voted against "the largest tax cut in American history". Here's a sample robocall they are putting into these districts:

Hello, I’m calling on behalf of House Democrats with an important message about the economy.

Did you know Congressman Thad McCotter voted against President Obama’s economic recovery plan, endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? McCotter’s empty rhetoric can’t hide that he voted to raise the AMT tax on 22 million middle class Americans and against the largest tax cut in history.

Call McCotter at 734-632-0314 to ask why he voted to raise taxes on middle class families.

Check out www.recoveryforamerica.org to learn more.

Paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 202-741-1350, not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

It's great that they're engaging in some off-cycle organizing and campaigning. But the message is stupid, short-sighted and reinforcing to conservative frames. First of all, 65% of the stimulus consisted of spending and investment, much of which is wildly popular, and also the only way it will work, through fiscal spending filling in the gaps for decreased private investment and consumer spending and creating more jobs and more demand. Tax cuts aren't only a minor part of the bill, they have less stimulative value. If this works, it won't be because of tax cuts, it will be in spite of them. And, as Brian Beutler notes:

We'll all be better off if as many Americans as possible swap out their tax cut mania for a sense that government can, in fact, meliorate the country's biggest problems. I, personally, would like to keep the number of people who think tax cuts saved the economy to a minimum. The fewer the better--both for progressives and progressivism.

The government's eventually going to have to raise taxes to pay for all this, after all. Democrats will almost certainly be the ones to do this and there's no reason they should be sabotaging public support for those increases years in advance.

The media already highlights the tax side of the equation over spending, dramatically portraying tax increases while relegating spending cuts to paragraph 27. It feeds the tax revolt and distorts the debate. And it's completely irresponsible. And the DCCC is simply enabling this.

Taxes are the price we pay for a functioning society, and America is worth paying for. Joe Biden tried to run with this message once during the campaign and got his head cut off, so now Democrats are turning back. They are trying to take tax cuts "off the table" with rhetoric that accepts the right's frame. When both parties are running on who will cut your taxes the most, it cheapens the value of federal investment in providing for the future, and the ability for government to prove its value as a guarantor of those most basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as well as promoting the general welfare.

If we're embarking on a new effort to convince the public that government can work, you don't start by bragging about starving it of resources. You can't win a fight with Republicans about cutting taxes. It's a race to the bottom and the losers are the least of society.

California Campaign News!

Aren't you excited that, with nearly two years until the next election, here I am offering campaign news?

Except there are two significant developments today in California of which you should be aware.

First, Jerry Brown is throwing his hat in the ring to be California's governor for a second time. He hasn't formally announced, but this interview signals that he will.

It was 1974 when Jerry Brown ran for governor as a dashing 36-year-old reformer, the embodiment of change in Watergate's aftermath.

"I was the new spirit," Brown recalled. "That was my slogan."

No one would mistake Brown for a new spirit today. At 70, he occupies a prime spot among the elders of California politics. His career has spanned four decades, with three failed tries for the White House along his way up, down and back up the elective ranks.

Now, after two years as state attorney general, this Democrat who first ran for office in the era of Janis Joplin and the Beatles is remaking himself yet again. This time, Brown's quest is to recapture the job he won 35 years ago: governor of California.

California doesn't have a good history of Democratic candidates for Governor not named Brown over the last 50 years, so that alone is something. Brown has a lot to recommend him for the job and almost as much to reject him. He would be solid on the environment, energy and infrastructure but an absolute mess on prison policy. Right now, the field includes Gavin Newsom and John Garamendi, with several other possibles. If there's a movement candidate on the horizon, I don't see him or her.

The second development is that the DCCC, the campaign arm for Democrats in the House, has launched radio ads in 28 districts nationwide attacking House Republicans for their obstruction on the stimulus package.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), chaired by Congressman Chris Van Hollen, today announced the DCCC is launching a Putting Families First ad and grassroots campaign in 28 targeted Republican districts. The ads focus on the Republicans out of step priorities by putting bank bail outs and building schools in Iraq before the needs of the Americans in the struggling economy. The Putting Families First ads begin airing on Tuesday morning during drive time and will run for a week.

In addition to the strategic radio ads in 28 Republican districts, the DCCC will also begin a grassroots initiative which includes targeted e-mails to 3 million voters and nearly 100,000 person-to-person telephone calls.

This is pretty early to be making such a move. And what's very notable is the districts in California the D-Trip is hitting.

Representative Dan Lungren (CA-03)
Representative Elton Gallegy (CA-24)
Representative Ken Calvert* (CA-44)
Representative Brian Bilbray (CA-50)

CA-03 is an obvious choice, as it's the most ripe district in the state for a turnover, and Bill Durston has already announced for a third run after his good showing in 2008. It's good to see CA-44 get some action; Bill Hedrick came the second-closest in the state to defeating a Republican, and he's running again. (The asterisk on that race means that they are actually using two separate ads in his district, one on children's heath care and one on the bank bailout, so they're actually targeting Calvert more than the others.) CA-50 is a perennial tease, with the Democrat never besting 46% against Brian Bilbray, but it's just close enough to target.

The inclusion of CA-24 is interesting. We basically had no candidate there this time, as Marta Jorgensen spent pocket change to go against Elton Gallegly. She still managed 42% of the vote, showing that the floor for Democrats is fairly substantial. Gallegly has threatened retirement in the past and this is probably just pressure to get him to leave Congress. Perhaps the D-Trip knows of a good candidate waiting in the wings.

No CA-26, CA-46 or CA-04 on this list, probably because Debbie Cook, Russ Warner and Charlie Brown have made no indication that they're running again.

CA-04: Debate And D-Trip Drops An Ad

The 4th District had a debate as well last night, the fifth and final of the campaign, and it was spirited.

Every scathing remark and harsh charge that's gone back and forth in the congressional race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown got one more airing Tuesday night.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the South Nevada County Chamber of Commerce south of Grass Valley, McClintock was painted as a do-nothing career politician and Brown as a tax-loving big-government advocate.

And there was also some talk about issues, mixed in with the shots, though sometimes each answer was equal parts both.

It was the usual nonsense: McClintock wants to drill here and drill now. McClintock wants no taxes and no government. McClintock wants to privatize Social Security (yes, even now). McClintock thinks Keebler elves can build the roads and bridges and a thimble-full of oil can power a Lexus. He's a magical thinker. But I have to say that this was my favorite part, and not just because McClintock doesn't know the meaning of the word "liquidity."

McClintock also roundly criticized the recently passed Wall Street bailout package, saying the better route was to put liquidity into the market.

Brown countered that he supported the plan because something needed to be done, then made reference to recent Federal Election Commission reports that showed McClintock's campaign in debt.

"You can't even run your own campaign on a balanced budget, so I don't trust you to run our nation's budget," Brown said.

Brown also hit McClintock over spending the past two years in Sacramento without getting one piece of legislation passed.

Brown took aim at McClintock's record as a state legislator, making reference to a recent Sacramento Bee story that reported McClintock had a perfect record of getting no legislation passed in the last two years.

"This is about actual results, and not talking about what you want to do unless you propose something else you can get passed," Brown said.

The debate is not going to have a major viewing audience. But the airwaves will, and the DCCC has just dropped a long-awaited ad in the district. It's good.



That's quite a lot for 30 seconds, but they pretty much cover California's Alan Keyes and make him out to be the punchline that he is.

The question is whether or not McClintock has 10 cents to respond to this.

Tweety Tricked Me!

If you get into an intellectual war of words with Chris Matthews, and you lose, that's a disqualifying event for public life. Michelle Bachmann is just such a loser.

Chris Matthews laid a trap, and I walked into it. […]

Chris Matthews was using the term over and over, and I should not have used it. […]

This was Chris Matthews. I made a big mistake by going on the show. I never should have. […]

I just didn’t recognize — I never watched the Chris Matthews show before. I should have before I went on. I didn’t recognize that he would lay a trap the way that he did.

He laid this trap by allowing you to say what you were saying instead of cutting you off. And by taping it.

The D-Trip has an ad on the air in the district now, hitting her CONTINUED love of deregulation and the Wall Street cash she's taken for her campaign. I'm a little befuddled why they're not hitting the McCarthyism, but maybe the free media is doing that job for them. The idea that "hyper-regulation" caused the crisis is nutty, too. I hear that the NRCC might not save her from this one.

Bye bye Bachmann.

UPDATE: And now, in friendlier media outlets, she's just rearranging the words.

BACHMANN: All I did on Chris Matthews is I questioned Chris Matthews and said, “look, if John McCain had friends like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger, you’d be all over him Chris, but you’ve laid off of Barack Obama.” And so, he was using the word “Anti-American” and I told Chris, what I question are Barack Obama’s views. Because Barack Obama’s views are against America. They won’t be good for our country.

It's all so simple. All she did is say that Obama's views are against America. Now if that makes him anti-American, well, you must be one a' them liberal elitez.

CA-03: Durston Finally Taken Seriously In Washington

I have been watching the race in CA-03 for well over a year now. I've told my contacts in DC about Bill Durston and tried to get local progressives interested. The math was undeniable - if there was any seat primed to break through, it was this one. The demographic shifts mirrored CA-11, and Dan Lungren was arguably a less powerful incumbent than Richard Pombo, with less resources to draw from. Durston's first race against Lungren, in 2006, yielded the exact same result as McNerney's effort in 2004 (around 60-40), and since then the registration gap has tightened significantly (it's under 3 points and by election day it'll be closer to even).

After a long year of banging this drum, finally, Bill Durston is earning some respect. Today he appears on the DCCC's Red To Blue Emerging Races page. This isn't quite enough to put Durston over the top, but it is a recognition that the seat is competitive.

You ought to support Dr. Durston at the Emerging Races page or the Calitics ActBlue page. He's a better Democrat who will fight to responsibly end the occupation of Iraq and provide quality affordable health care for all. He has a great team of grassroots supporters up there and I hope this makes them realize that their efforts are being recognized and rewarded.

...this comes at a time when the Lungren campaign is actually touting polls with small sample sizes showing the incumbent under 50%. This one is going to be close if Durston can get his message out in the final three weeks.

California Campaign Update

A mini-report:

• CA-04: I love this video from the Charlie Brown campaign. They traveled 412 miles down to Thousand Oaks to talk to constituents of California's Alan Keyes, State Senator and professional office-chaser Tom McClintock. It's really funny and drives the point home that McClintock is a do-nothing at best and a dangerous radical at worst:



And get this, McClintock is now running on the state budget, the Republican version of which has a 19% approval rating. That's like putting Nixon, Bush and Cheney in your campaign ad.

• CA-26, CA-45: Not one but two! Both Russ Warner AND Julie Bornstein have been added to the DCCC "Races To Watch" list. This is a prelude to being listed as Red To Blue candidates. If the D-Trip comes through with some money, maybe threatened incumbents like Dreier will have to stop mouthing off about other GOP races and start paying attention to their own.

• CA-46: When John Fund tries to target a Dem challenger, you know something's going wrong. Fund is sounding the alarm on Debbie Cook, as Dana Rohrabacher tries to greenwash himself with a scheme to build solar-power plants on federal land without environmental impact studies. Fund says that Cook called this "an extreme position," but he chopped the quote:

Democratic challenger and Mayor of Huntington Beach Debbie Cook agrees that the process of approving solar power plants is sluggish and needs to be sped up, but not at the expense of the environment.

"This is just another extreme position by Dana Rohrabacher. What we need to do is come up with a balanced approach that streamlines these projects, because they're critically important to our energy future, but at the same time recognizes the impacts to the environment," Cook said.

Rohrabacher's doing the equivalent of saying he'll grow jobs by hiring 10,000 federally funded serial killers, and then wondering why everyone's worried about the mass death ("You wanted jobs, didn't you?"). There's a sensible way to free up the bottlenecks and a rash one. Rohrabacher chose door #2.

• CA-42: The internal poll results released by Ed Chau are intriguing (showing him up 44-38 after a mix of positive and negative information released on the candidates), but I don't think candidates who have minimal bank accounts should do polls stating the numbers after a mix of information if they don't have the money to get that information out. But if Gary Miller truly has a 28% re-elect number as the poll states, he could be in trouble.

California Campaign Update

I simply have not had the time to do a full update of all the Congressional and legislative campaigns. And sadly, it doesn't look like that time will be forthcoming soon. So I think I'll do mini-updates where possible.

• CA-46: Debbie Cook has been endorsed by DFA (Democracy for America). Jim Dean, the Chair of DFA, said in a statement, "Debbie Cook has been a grassroots champion for over 20 years and has a proven record of success in the private sector and as a public servant ... Debbie Cook is running because she's a committed advocate and activist who fights for her constituents and delivers results."

In the past, DFA has been able to move some resources into districts, so we'll see if they're going that route in this race. DFA has also recently endorsed Bill Hedrick (CA-44).

• CA-26: Russ Warner's campaign is announcing via email that the DCCC named his race as "one to watch." That doesn't mean they'll get any money, but it puts them in the queue if the race tightens. Unfortunately, the DCCC has kind of a deliberate style, where they hoard their money for the races they know are toss-ups, and then wait until the very last minute for these emerging races, sometimes beyond the point at which that money can be effective. I understand the strategy but it wouldn't be smart from Warner's perspective to bank on any help from Washington in his race against David Dreier. He needs his own resources as well as money from California lawmaker's PACs.

Which reminds me, California Democrats, it's time to use it or lose it. We have a number of races where the challenger can win if they have enough resources, and in the seats where an incumbent has token or no opposition and a huge war chest, that money should not be sitting in an account somewhere. Help our own candidates! Expect more pressure on this very soon.

• CA-03: It's kind of fun watching Dan Lungren try to humina-humina his way out of supporting Prop. 8. He really has no idea what he's talking about. It would be bad enough if a citizen of the state had this atrocious an understanding of basic civics, but this guy is not only a US Representative but a former state Attorney General!

• AD-80: The GOP tried to get Manuel Perez' occupational status as an "educator" thrown off the ballot, but they failed. Now he has received the endorsement of the highest-ranking law enforcement official in Imperial County, D.A. Gilbert Otero. Considering that his opponent, Gary Jeandron, is the former police chief of Palm Springs, I'd consider this endorsement to be significant.

D-Trip, Schumer Play Hardball

The DCCC is pretty agressively hitting back on House Republicans' "Drill Only" pose, in particular using the fact that John Boehner was out golfing while his colleagues were whipping it up playing model Congress on the House floor.

The Washington Post reported this morning that Minority Leader John Boehner has spent the first week of the congressional recess doing a series of golf outings while a small band of House Republicans remain in Washington to call for "drill only" legislation that does nothing to bring immediate relief to Americans paying high gas prices.

Big Oil tax breaks and subsidies supported by Republicans ... $14 Billion
Political contributions made to Republicans by Big Oil this cycle ... $13.5 Million
Profit earned by the top five Big Oil Companies last quarter ... $44 Billion
Cost of John Boehner's green fees while a small band of House Republicans' express faux outrage about gas prices * ... $240
The Grand Oil Party's hypocrisy about the cost of gas ... Priceless

("Drill only" is a great way to flip the frame. That's what it should always be called.)

They're apparently headed out to Capitol Hill today in golfing outfits (also known as "Republican casual").

Another guy hitting back hard in unexpected ways is Chuck Schumer.

"I thought the Britney Spears commercial was powerful," Schumer said, referring to McCain's television ad casting Obama as a vapid "celebrity."

"They're trying to say, 'He's not one of us,'" Schumer said.

"I would answer back hard. What do you mean he's not one of us? It's John McCain who wears $500 shoes, has six houses and comes from one of the richest families in his state," Schumer said. "It's Barack Obama who climbed up the hard way, and that's why he wants middle-class tax cuts and better schools for our kids."

Makes me feel relieved about the D-Trip and the D-Stick, not necessarily about the Obama campaign that Schumer has to go over their heads to contrast with them in public. Of course, the campaign committees are attack dog organizations, sort of different from a Presidential candidate campaign. This comes down to why it was so stupid to drain the swamp of 527s and control message solely from the top. Obama would have benefited greatly from some attack dog ads right about now.

Freedom's Whoops

Yesterday I mentioned that Freedom's Watch was dumping ads into the LA-06 race to try and save a Republican seat. Turns out that they broke election law by coordinating the ads with the NRCC.

Democratic Party officials said they will file a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission alleging that a conservative political group has illegally coordinated its advertising with a Republican Party campaign committee in advance of a May 3 special election in Louisiana.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the fundraising and campaign arm for House Democrats, alleges that the script for a television ad purchased by Freedom's Watch, an independent conservative political committee, can be traced to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The NRCC stopped running ads in the race yesterday. Freedom's Watch picked up the same day and the ad was on the same topic. And the Word document on which the ad was written has metadata tracing it to the NRCC. But Freedom's Watch says it's all a Three's Company-like misunderstanding:

Patrick McCarthy, the media consultant who wrote the (Don) Cazayoux ad for Freedom's Watch, said an innocent mistake caused the document to appear as if it came from the NRCC. McCarthy, who did consulting work for the NRCC for six years, said he pulled up an old ad template from his NRCC days and wrote the Louisiana ad script over it, then saved the file and sent it to the TV stations.

"It's absurd on the face of it. They're grasping at straws if they're saying recycling an old Word document is illegal," said McCarthy, who now works at Designated Market Media.

"See, I was in the other room and I heard Jack and Janet saying 'Push it in, pull it out,' and I thought they were having sex and not fixing the plumbing!"

Please, does anybody think that the cash-poor NRCC isn't begging for outside groups to get involved in these special elections and feeding them just the sort of information they should use?

The problem for Freedom's Watch and all the rest is that they don't have unlimited bank accounts, and there are going to be simply too many races to cover in November. As for now, we can only laugh.

Prospects in the House

The other day I wrote about possibilities for Democratic gains in the US Senate. Today it's time to look at the House. Obviously it'd be a stretch to plot out all 435 races as opposed to the more manageable 35 in the Senate. But there are some trends that look extremely encouraging for Democrats.

The first place to look is at the fact that over 30 House Republicans have retired this cycle, which is over 15% of their entire delegation. This is not the stuff of coincidences; it's borne out of a belief by these Republicans that they have no shot at regaining the majority and would rather not stick around in the minority. Thus, many of the seats that the Republicans are "targeting" this year happen to be open seats abandoned by Republicans. As a case in point, brownsox takes a look at the 10 latest members of the NRCC's "Regain Our Majority Program."

ROMP 2008 has recently released the third instalment in its list of candidates favored for assistance, the first update to their list in calendar year 2008. I found it rather instructive as to GOP priorities, and I've posted it below:

Rep. Michelle Bachmann, MN-06
Rep. Vito Fossella, NY-13
Rep. Sam Graves, MO-06
Rep. Ric Keller, FL-08
Anne Northup, KY-03
Erik Paulsen, MN-03
Rep. Bill Sali, ID-01
Rep. Jean Schmidt, OH-02
Rep. Tim Walberg, MI-07
Darren White, NM-01

Notice that this ROMP program, ostensibly focused on regaining the Republican majority, seems disproportionately tilted towards protecting incumbent Republican Reps. In fact, out of these 10 districts where the elephants hope to ROMP, exactly one is currently held by a Democrat, John Yarmuth of Kentucky's 3rd District.

I find this to be a novel and fascinating method of Regaining Their Majority; by not targeting Democratic-held seats. I wish them the best of luck with this; I'm sure it's going to work out just splendidly. Keep avoiding the Dem-held seats, and they oughta have that ol' majority back in no time flat.

I noticed something similiar in this Wall Street Journal article hyping 17 Iraq war vets running as Republicans. Only the large majority of them are running in Republican open seats, or challenging incumbents in primaries! This is not the path to winning a majority.

By contrast, Democrats are targeting those Republican open seats as well as races where they came up just short in 2006, like Larry Kissell in NC-08 and Darcy Burner in WA-08. The DCCC has listed 59 seats they're taking a look at this cycle, and there are probably several others in addition to that. Add to this that the D-Trip has a huge financial advantage, and they'll be able to spread the field in a big way. Overall, the prospects are pretty bright for gaining additional seats. In fact, some of that might happen right away, in special elections in LA-06 and MS-01. That's right, in Republican-leaning seats in Louisiana and Mississippi, Democrats are dead even in polling. If we take either of them, it could be a big year.

Nice Party You've Got Here, Be A Shame If Something Happened To It

I'm not sure what the Clinton campaign seeks to gain by sending an extortion letter to Nancy Pelosi and the DCCC.

As Democrats, we have been heartened by the overwhelming response that our fellow Democrats have shown for our party's candidates during this primary season. Each caucus and each primary has seen a record turnout of voters. But this dynamic primary season is not at an end. Several states and millions of Democratic voters have not yet had a chance to cast their votes.

We respect those voters and believe that they, like the voters in the states that have already participated, have a right to be heard. None of us should make declarative statements that diminish the importance of their voices and their votes. We are writing to say we believe your remarks on ABC News This Week on March 16th did just that.

During your appearance, you suggested super-delegates have an obligation to support the candidate who leads in the pledged delegate count as of June 3rd , whether that lead be by 500 delegates or 2. This is an untenable position that runs counter to the party's intent in establishing super-delegates in 1984 as well as your own comments recorded in The Hill ten days earlier:

"I believe super-delegates have to use their own judgment and there will be many equities that they have to weigh when they make the decision. Their own belief and who they think will be the best president, who they think can win, how their own region voted, and their own responsibility.'"

Super-delegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party's strongest nominee. Both campaigns agree that at the end of the primary contests neither will have enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. In that situation, super-delegates must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party's strongest nominee in the general election.

We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August. We appreciate your activities in support of the Democratic Party and your leadership role in the Party and hope you will be responsive to some of your major enthusiastic supporters.

That's just sad. The big-money boys did this to Howard Dean too, when his 50-state strategy didn't meet with their satisfaction. And he went ahead and implemented it and put us far ahead of Republicans on the ground all over the country. GOP incumbents are dropping like flies because they see the reality of going up against serious political muscle in an election with some headwinds. We have a decent pickup shot in Alabama, for crying out loud. And those Republican incumbents don't want to pay the bills for their own campaign committees because they see it as wasted money. (What's nutty is that even Joe Lieberman gave $100K to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in December - he knows where his bread is buttered - that's money designed to bribe the leadership into keeping him in the party).

Dean defied these big-money morons and beat them all. So they can threaten and intimidate Nancy Pelosi and the D-Trip all they want, and say they're going to take their wallets and go home. They don't own the party anymore and it must be killing them.

The idea that Pelosi should say "How high" when these fat cats tell her to jump, and that she should claim that ALL delegates, not just superdelegates, should exercise independent judgment no matter what the will of the people expressed, is just nuts.

Jerome Armstrong said today that this Gallup poll, which suggests that 28% of all Clinton supporters would vote for McCain if she loses, means that Obama supporters should "stop to think a bit about not alienating the Clinton voters that they'd need to win over McCain." You'd think the reciprocal would be true as well.

(By the way, those Gallup numbers are in the heat of a primary campaign, and can reasonably be seen as the highest possible point for them. Also, the numbers are FACTORED INTO current head-to-head matchups against McCain. In other words, McCain is getting as many crossover Democrat voters as he can possibly hope to get in November, and he's still generally tied with Obama and Clinton. Meaning that he's doomed.)

D-Trip Commits To 3 CA House Campaigns

This is big news. Roll Call's articles require subscription, but I'll link to DKos diarist (and friend of Calitics) RandySF's description. Basically Chris Van Hollen is announcing that the DCCC, the campaign arm for House Democrats, will be targeting 40 seats to start in the 2008 election, 31 of them held by Republican incumbents and 9 of them open seats. The amazing thing is that 3 of those seats are here in California. On the top 40 list for the D-Trip are:

CA-04 (John Doolittle)
CA-26 (David Dreier)
CA-50 (Brian Bilbray)

What this means is that the DCCC will support financially challengers to those seats, and encourage Democratic donors to do the same. Now, the D-Trip has a mixed record in getting involved in Congressional races. In 2006 some of the seats they contested most strongly were lost at the expense of some strong progressive challengers who were beat by a mere handful of votes, and could have used the money. But looking at the list, I perceive a shift from Rahm Emanuel's style to Chris Van Hollen. I think Van Hollen is rewarding strong candidates who have a chance to win. Netroots-endorsed candidates like Linda Stender, Darcy Burner, Gary Trauner, Dan Maffei, Eric Massa and Larry Kissell are on the list. So I am hopeful that this is not the case of a push to get a bunch of Bush Dogs into office.

What this also shows is the faith in California to have some competitive targets in 2008. The partisan gerrymander is supposed to negate any attempt at flipping seats out here, but times have changed. John Doolittle is so ethically compromised that his idea of good news these days is believing his case will be delayed by a year while they fight a subpoena in the courts. David Dreier is completely out of touch with his district, and Brian Bilbray doesn't even live there. So we will see some opportunities in California in 2008. And this is great news for Charlie Brown, Russ Warner and Nick Leibham, as they have been validated as national players. I hope that they remain true to their beliefs and run these races their way, however, and not the way the national consultants tell them.

Not to toot my own horn, but these have consistently been the top three pickup opportunities in my Congressional roundups. :)

Dean Raking in Big-Donor Dollars

This very heartening story is perfect for a Friday, and I dare say it's a vindication of what we on this site have been doing and saying for a long time. There's of course a long way to go, but when the money men start listening and taking notice, it's a major win.

This is interesting: Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, who was greeted with intense skepticism by the party's big-money donors at the outset of his tenure, appears on track to bring in far more cash this quarter from those top fundraisers than many expected.

The DNC is on track to haul in roughly $14 million this quarter, approximately $3.8 million of which comes from major donors, who are defined as donors who gave more than $5,000 as an individual or from a PAC, the DNC says. That's a significant jump from the first quarter of 2003 -- the last comparable year -- when the DNC raised only $2.23 million from major donors, according to the DNC's numbers.

Let's take a trip down memory lane...

I don't think a day went by in early 2005 when we didn't hear about how Howard Dean taking over the DNC would lead to its ruin, and in particular that the big-money donors would leave the party in droves. This was a representative sample, and unsurprisingly it came from Robert Novak, to whom DLC types were no doubt running in droves to try and run down Dean:

Dean's chairmanship, thought extremely unlikely when he first indicated his availability three months ago, is itself testimony to his party's aimlessness.

Just as no power broker selected the former Vermont governor as DNC chairman, none is charting a strategy for regaining power. The mindless course leading to Dean's election by acclamation reflects a party adrift, its senior leaders mired in unreality.

Then there were repeated claims that Dean was hurting fundraising, based on first-quarter results after an election year, which isn't exactly charitable. Here's another one from Novak. And here. And here.

Not all of that was actually true, mind you. But the growing perception was that the big-money donors were angry, angry! that unhinged crazy man Howard Dean was running the DNC show. And certainly, it's been well-documented that the D-Trip wasn't exactly happy with the 50-state strategy that Dean implemented.

Whatever, Dean was always able to use the small-money revolution to get the funding he needed to grow the party. But this money coming in now is from the same big donors that were supposedly cool to him.

Top Democratic donor Robert Zimmerman describes the jump in money from the big contributors as "very significant."

"The major donors initially were skeptical of Dean and his 50-state strategy," Zimmerman says. "Dean had to prove the merits and logic of his strategies. But the success of his 50-state strategy certainly has impressed the establishment donor community. Unlike in 2004, when there was an overreliance on 527s that undermined the idea of a strong party structure, the support Dean is receiving from major donors shows a growing recognition among them that a strong DNC is an essential tool for victory in 2008."

Running operations in 2008 through the national party rather than a bunch of loosely connected 527s is going to be much improved for GOTV. And having the field teams in place since 2005 in all 50 states is the main reason why. Add to this the fact that the DCCC under Chris Van Hollen is supportive of Dean's efforts, and you have a much more united party that is using the models of the progressive movement to bring about victory.

Obviously, winning turns a lot of enemies into friends, and turns finger-pointing into handshaking. But let's step back and consider the significance. Howard Dean's victory as DNC Chair was one of the netroots' first major triumphs. We were told that we sabotaged the party. We were told that we just cost the Democrats elections for the next decade. We were told that the big money would dry up. We were told that we needed to steer the party to the middle and resist the angry left tendencies of the former Governor from Vermont.

I believe the password is, vindication.

And do consider giving a little cash to the DNC before tomorrow's deadline, so we can continue to vindicate Howard Dean's strategy of building Democratic infrastructure everywhere.

CA-42: A Non-Denial Denial, Video and the D-Trip Gears Up

The drama surrounding corrupt Republican Gary Miller in CA-42 is growing and growing. On Friday Miller dismissed but did not deny that he was under FBI investigation for shielding the profits of several land deals by claiming they were sold under threat of eminent domain.

Miller said repeatedly that he has always followed legal and ethical guidelines in his real estate deals. He accused both a partisan media and local Democratic officials of impugning his character without regard to fact.

"My reputation is being destroyed," said Miller, 58. "If there is some benefit to me in being a congressman in any of these transactions, please show it to me."

OK, that would be the fact that you sold 165 acres of property in Monrovia and never paid taxes on it. And apparently, there's video of you asking the Monrovia City Council in 2000 to buy the land, when you claimed that the City Council forced you to sell it.

That good enough for ya?

Miller's lawyers have also been busy trying to intimidate local governments:

On Thursday, Miller's attorneys served the city of Monrovia with a letter requesting staff "retract or correct any misstatements made to the media or any governmental agencies" with regard to his 2002 sale of 165 acres of hillside land to the city for nearly $11.8 million.

The letter goes on to say that "if misstatements by the city, its officials or staff members persist, then the consequences could result in damages for which the city could be held acountable."

In other words, "I'm a congressman and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

The Monrovia planning commissioner had this to say.

Glen Owens, a Monrovia planning commissioner, said Tuesday an FBI agent questioned him about the chain of events that led up to Miller's land sale to the city.

Owens served on a advisory committee with Miller in the 1990s that was formed to come up with a plan for hillside development. He said he believes Miller did not intend to build on his property at the time of the sale.

"He soon realized that he could probably make more money by selling the land than by developing it," said Owens.

He added, "Gary just knows how to work the system and he is not afraid to push the envelope and that is what he's done. But I don't think he has broken any laws. He's just used bad judgment."

OK, so it's bad judgment to improperly file a form that saves you from paying taxes on a $10 million sale? No, it's bad judgment to claim that a city government was trying to force you to sell the land when it was in fact the opposite way around.

(Incidentally, Gary Miller was selected by his peers to be the top Republican on the subcommittee tasked with investigating banks. Just thought I'd bring that to your attention.)

And there's even some quid pro quo in this deal:

Miller used the proceeds from the Monrovia sale to buy property in Fontana from Lewis Operating Corp., a development company he had done business with before and that had contributed significantly to Miller's congressional campaigns.

In 2006, Lewis gave $8,500 to Miller, who ran for re-election unopposed. In 2004, the company gave him $10,000, making it the third largest contributor to his campaign.

The unintentional irony award goes to the last two paragraphs of the story:

Miller said he ran for Congress in 1998 because he did not like "what government did to the private sector," particularly with the way it regulates development. Miller, who previously served in the state Assembly and on the Diamond Bar City Council, is a successful real estate developer and businessman.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Miller is the 12th wealthiest member of the House, with a net worth of between $12 million and $51.7 million.

With that kind of resources, clearly Miller is not going down without a fight. And it appears that the local GOP will stick with him unless and until he is indicted. But the DCCC, the campaign committee for the House, has Miller on their radar screen:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- looking to cement the Dems' majority in the House -- is eyeing a bunch of GOP-held House districts where the incumbents look ready to retire or run for other offices, today's Roll Call reports. The Dems' expectation is that retirements -- or dissatisfaction with being in the minority -- could cause a wave of GOP defections that will leave behind districts that could then be ripe for a Dem pickup, the paper says.

Among the more than two dozen GOPers Dems are watching:

* Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.), who "reportedly is under FBI investigation, which has Democrats dreaming about his Inland Empire-based 42nd district, even though it gave Bush 62 percent of the vote in 2004."

Howie Klein reports that the D-Trip is not like it was when Rahm Emanuel was running the show:

The DCCC under Van Hollen is already looking much more Democratic and much more aggressive. Where Emanuel used discredited Inside-the-Beltway hack consultants to focus on a tiny number of races-- many of which turned out to be astronomically expensive races that Republicans won-- the new DCCC is casting a broader-- and smarter-- net. According to today's Roll Call Van Hollen is looking closely at over 2 dozen Republican-held seats that might be open seats by November '08-- open either due to retirements or indictments. "Given the GOP’s new minority status in the House, Democratic strategists think some veteran Republicans will head into retirement while some younger Members will opt to run for other offices. Democrats also believe that ethics scrapes could force a handful of GOP incumbents from office." [...]

UPDATE: Today was Brandon Hall's first day at the DCCC as Western Regional Director. This guy is smart and a real fighter. I called to congratulate him and all he wanted to do was talk about taking on Ken Calvert and Jerry Lewis, Dave Dreier, Buck McKeon, John Doolittle, Elton Galleghy and Gary Miller. What a dynamo! If Van Hollen hires a whole staff of people like Brandon Hall the DCCC will wind up as useful and productive as the grassroots has always dreamed it would be!

Gary Miller WASN'T CHALLENGED at all last year, but now it's been made very clear that he's a target, not just of the FBI but of the DCCC. This is very good news, and Southern California Democrats will have a variety of work to do in their own backyard in this cycle.