What If The DCCC Had A Special Category Of Targets Based On Who Does The Most Harm?

A certainty: you will never beat Cantor, Boehner & Ryan unless you try

The DCCC targets districts it thinks it can win based on a few factors. They look at Republican-held districts, for example, where Obama won or did well. The seven Republican-held congressional districts Obama did best in-- with margins of 5 points or more-- were:

• CA-31 (Gary Miller) Obama beat Romney 57-41%
• CA-21 (David Valadao) Obama beat Romney 55-44%
• NJ-02 (Frank LoBiondo) Obama beat Romney 54-46%
• FL-27 (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) Obama beat Romney 53-47%
• NY-19 (Chris Gibson) Obama beat Romney 52-46%
• CO-06 (Mike Coffman) Obama beat Romney 52-47%
• NJ-03 (Jon Runyan) Obama beat Romney 52-48%

With the exception of CO-06, where the DCCC did a decent job, they fumbled-- or threw-- all the other races, either by recruiting candidates who were too conservative to inspire Democratic voters or by not competing against Republicans who are friends with either Israel (LoBiondo) or Wasserman Schultz (Ros-Lehtinen). The only races where they spent serious money was in CO-06 and NY-19 against Coffman and Gibson.

I mentioned the above because, by their targeting and recruitment strategies, this is the best they can do-- and they failed miserably for one reason or another. As we saw yesterday, they spent ZERO against Michele Bachmann and her opponent, Jim Graves, came within just a few votes/dollars of beating her. Had the DCCC stepped up last year, Bachmann would be giving electric shock therapy to gay children at her conversion therapy center in Stillwater with her closeted "husband," Marcus. The district doesn't fit any of the DCCC criteria for targeting. The PVI is a daunting R+10 and Romney beat Obama 56-41%. Yet, even outspent 6-1 and with no DCCC help, Graves came much closer to winning than many of the "scientifically" targeted DCCC candidates they spent millions on. There's something to be said about targeting evil.

Bachmann is an icon of Tea Party extremism and she's loathed by people across the country, many of whom don't even know the name of their own congressmember. There are people like Bachmann who go beyond the mathematical calculations that the DCCC piously claims to follow-- although they don't follow them anyway. LoBiondo, Dave Camp and Fred Upton, for example, are all mathematically vulnerable but all were members of Steve Israel's idiot little fraternity, the Center Aisle Caucus, and, as such, he is pledged to not oppose their reelection efforts. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a corrupt hack owned by the Florida sugar barons, the Fanjul brothers, routinely threatens to eviscerate any Democrat challenging her sister Fanjulista, Ileana. So much for their pious claims! So why not devote some resources to defeating the worst and most universally hated Republicans?

Not only does Israel not do that, he actually protects senior Republicans like Boehner and Cantor and their closest henchmen, the ones who set the toxic GOP policy agenda, and, instead, actively works to defeat, humiliate and destroy Democrats who try to run against them. I can't tell you the number of times I've spoken with donors who promised to contribute to efforts to take out loathsome Republicans like Boehner, Paul Ryan and Buck McKeon, who have told me that Israel or one of his cronies has told them not to dare contribute... or else. I know it's hard to believe; I couldn't believe it at first either, until it started happening over and over again.

Next year Israel will fail to win back the House again and, hopefully, the DCCC will wind up with a better leader for 2016. Something they might consider is a special category for exceptionally bad Republicans. I mean, look at the Republican incumbents the DCCC targeted in their top priority Red to Blue program last year. No one even cares about most of these careerist backbenchers: Brian Bilbray (CA), Mary Bono Mack (CA), Jeff Denham (R-CA), Dan Lungren (D-CA), Scott Tipton (CO), Steve Southerland (FL), Daniel Webster (FL), Vern Buchanan (FL), Robert Dold (IL), Judy Biggert (IL), Bobby Schilling (IL), Larry Bucshon (IN), Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Dan Benishek (MI), Chip Cravaack (MN), Nan Hayworth (NY), Jim Gerlach (PA), Patrick Meehan (PA), Scott Rigell (VA), Reid Ribble (WI)... I mean, it's good they beat some of these guys, of course, but not many people give a damn. No one ever heard of them.

On the other hand, kudos to them for getting serious about anti-American psychopaths Steve King (IA), Allen West (FL), and Joe Walsh (IL) and for defeating serial criminal David Rivera (FL). But they spent no resources and no energy in even trying to take on Boehner, Cantor, any of their chairmen-- like Ryan, McKeon, Issa, Upton, Mica, Camp, Ros-Lehtinen, Goodlatte, etc-- not to mention Democratic grassroots bugaboos and bigots like Virginia Foxx, Paul Broun, Peter King, Louie Gohmert, Joe Pitts, Kevin McCarthy... Had the DCCC jumped in, they might have beaten Ryan, McKeon, Peter King, Fred Upton. They probably could have recruited Dolores Huerta to run against #3 ranking House Republican Kevin McCarthy and sent him into well-deserved retirement. But they were too busy concentrating on electing or trying to elect a bunch of worthless New Dems and Blue Dogs to replace easily forgettable and inconsequential Republican nothings.

So far, Blue America is targeting two exceptionally bad Republicans, John Boehner (OH) and John Mica (FL). If you'd like to help the progressives running against them, respectively Andy Hounshell and Nick Ruiz... please help yourself.

Paid for by the Blue America PAC-- no contributions from the DCCC, of course