This morning Alex Isenstadt did a provocatively titled article for Politico, The Worst Campaigns of 2014. How hard is it to point to Eric Canter's loss and laugh your ass off now? Or Pat Roberts'? Or Chris McDaniels'? I'm looking for some Beltway pundits who wrote that Cantor was in trouble before Dave Brat popped out of the fascist swamp to beat the Majority Leader back home. More interesting that these obvious banner races, however, is Isenstadt's inclusion of poor (which) Sean Eldridge. It's been clear since last spring, when Isenstadt wrote his classic Chasing Sean Eldridge piece that he had a special animus for the self-entitled, "brazen" little rich kid trying to buy himself a House seat in Upstate New York.There are worse run campaigns than Sean's around the country-- and, of course, Isenstadt refrains from delving into the toxicity of the Sean Eldridge/Steve Israel relationship that makes this race nationally interesting-- but there is Eldridge's shattered and failed campaign right up there with Eric Cantor's and Chris McDaniels'. It's really more gratuitous and mean than newsworthy:
Eldridge’s 2014 campaign may be the most confounding of them all. A venture capitalist married to Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, the 28-year-old Eldridge initially looked well positioned to make a serious play for an upstate New York congressional seat.Instead, it’s been one problem after the next. He’s been widely characterized as a carpetbagger. He split with his campaign manager over the summer. He’s faced endless questions about his qualifications, and he’s had a poor relationship with the news media.For all the speculation that Eldridge would dump big bucks into the race, it hasn’t happened. Through the end of June, he’d raised only a little more than the Republican incumbent, Rep. Chris Gibson. And the money he has raised hasn’t always been put to good use: In one of Eldridge’s first TV ads, he awkwardly referred to himself in the third person.One recent poll showed Eldridge losing by 24 points.
Despite this being a blue district (PVI is D+1) that Obama won both times-- 53-45% in 2008 and 52-46% in 2012-- Eldridge has virtually no shot whatsoever. Having completely blown the advantage PPP found in an early survey of the district (above) -- a 48-42% Democratic advantage-- the $1,340,000 check Eldridge wrote to his campaign and the $962,959 he's already spent, has brought him backwards, not forwards towards the goal of beating the GOP's one actual moderate, backbencher Chris Gibson.Last cycle, Gibson beat Democrat Julian Schreibman 150,245 (53%) to 134,295 (47%), a close call. This cycle, Steve Israel decided to give the nomination to the implausible Eldridge, who didn't live in the district, for one reason: he's rich and he and his husband donate a lot to the DCCC. Israel didn't look for a good candidate, just one with money; typical Israel; typical DCCC. Now Eldridge, who has followed the DCCC's pathetic mystery meat line to a "t," won't come anywhere near Schreibman's 47% performance. Local politicos say it would be a miracle if Eldridge even cracks 40% in November and that he (and the DCCC) have set back the Democrats' ability to take back the district by a cycle or two.Eldridge is a smart kid and he knows what he's fighting for now. He wants to 2016 nomination. With Hillary Clinton on the top of the ticket, NY-19 will be poised for a blue wave. Eldridge wants to be swept into Congress with that wave. But Israel won't be Fed-Exing his staff third-rate bagels and cream cheese next cycle. Israel will be gone from the DCCC. And a rich loser who can't even hit 40% in a blue district isn't going to be too appealing to a new DCCC chairman serious about taking back the House in 2016. No idea why Isenstadt didn't mention any of that in his Politico piece this morning. Oh, right… Politico is never mean to Steve Israel, only his hapless, defenseless recruits.Meanwhile, someone close to the disintegrating Eldridge campaign told us that no one in the campaign talks to anyone in the campaign anymore and that Eldridge is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's out eating bagels and cream cheese with Israel and Wasserman Schultz.
