congressional recruitment

DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos and her mentor, Rahm EmanuelOf the 43 seats Democrats flipped blue, 8 of them had populations that were less than 60% white:

In 2020, Trump will force voters to pick a torch againIs it too soon to start thinking about the 2020 congressional cycle? Not for the Blue America team. We’re even starting to hope who our two first candidates will be to flip red seats blue. One district’s on Long Island-- yeah, we’re looking’ at you, Peter King-- and the other is deep in the heart of Tejas.Now is the beginning of recruitment time for us.

Even though congressional party leaders are blocking it from becoming part of the official Democratic agenda and even though both the DCCC and the DSCC screened candidates to find ones who didn't back it, 84.5% of Americans (and 70.1% of all Americans) support Medicare-For-All. Friday in Illinois, President Obama explicitly expressed-- for the first time, at least in public-- his support for Medicare-for-All.Democrats and independents are about to turn out in droves to defeat Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress. The media is calling this a "blue wave." But that's utter bullshit.

Kamala Harris-- just like Obama... but without any substanceSaturday afternoon we noted the new book coming out by Phillip Anderson, The Case Against Andrew Cuomo, with a post entitled Anybody But Cuomo? Well Almost Anybody.

Yesterday I got a letter from a DWT reader asking me if I had ever "summarized the typical interaction between the DCCC and Democratic congressional candidates? I know," he wrote, "you have written about these interactions often. I think it would be helpful for candidates to have a realistic view of the DCCC and what they should expect over the course of their candidacy." That's a good idea.

Republican-lite Dave Min and his mentorDo you know how many candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination to run in Orange County against Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters, who doesn't even live in her own district? Even if you think you know, you don't, since there are 2 or 3 more (including Brian Forde and Rachel Payne) than the already 5 declared candidates, getting ready to jump in.

The only primaries these 4 should be involved with is defending themselvesForget that you may have an inkling that here at DWT we feel Pelosi's incompetent and corrupt DCCC has become a source for both evil and failure over the last decade, rather than a worthwhile and constructive party organ.

Still, a better candidate than the lottery winner A couple months back, a Democratic Party operative called me and told me he couldn't wait to introduce me to the "dream candidate" the DCCC had recruited to run in Orange County against Dana Rohrabacher. Hans Keirstead is a super rich-- a DCCC requirement-- stem cell scientist who looks GREAT... at least on paper.

As you know, both the DCCC and the NRCC-- if anything, the DCCC is even worse than the Republicans on this-- look for rich candidates who don't have to worry about the financial repercussions of not working for 12-18 months during an election cycle.

One way for Democrats to start winning elections and rebuilding their tattered brand would be to pay very close attention to all the advice they get from Mark Penn-- and then do the exact opposite.