2016 congressional races

Saturday, as millions of women and their allies, not just in the U.S., but around the world, marched against Trump, one DC wag asked "where was all that energy during the election?" My response-- "at Bernie Sanders rallies-- drew hysterical anger from thin-skinned Clinton die-hards.

Fran Person and Mick MulvaneyLate Friday, Trump announced that he's nominating South Carolina's far right, libertarian-leaning Mick Mulvaney Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

I never met middle of the road New Mexico congressman and DCCC chairman Ben Ray Luján and, although we've been making a commotion here about Pelosi firing him, I bear him no personal animus. What I don't like is that the Democrats had a reasonable chance to take back a lot of seats in the House, which is Luján's job.

Last month the voters elected 25 Democratic and 25 Republican freshmen. Presumably in a few hours, after Louisiana's two House run-offs, there will be 25 Democrats and 27 Republicans. You think I'm being pessimistic? I'm not.

Good help may be hard to find-- but for Pelosi, it's impossible to findLet's look at some congressional districts where there was enough ticket splitting to elect a member of Congress from one party and a president from the other.

Loser and extremist loon, Scott Garrett (R-NJ)Aside from being the home of the Bada Bing strip club from The Sopranos, NJ-05 sits on the entire northern border of New Jersey with New York, from the Hudson River in the east to just outside of Port Jervis in the west, and the entire northwestern border with Pennsylvania from Milford through the Delaware Water Gap and beyond my old home in Stroudsburg. It's an affluent R+4 district in blue New Jersey.

Professional losersThe DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC, illegally coordinating their efforts, funded 30 candidates (just 30) with sums between $7,238,618 for Steve Santarsiero (PA-08), who lost with 45.5%, and $1,069,507 for Anna Throne Holst (NY-01) who lost with 41%. Of the 30 candidates they funded, 8 won, 21 lost and one, Doug Applegate, is still too close to call. Here's the whole list:

Just above we have the election results for two blue Miami-Dade congressional districts, FL-26 and FL-27. The Republican House incumbents, respectively Carlos Curbelo, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, won both.In 2012, Obama won Miami-Dade 540,776 (62%) to 332,602 (38%). This year, Hillary did even better than Obama did-- 623,006 (63.7%) to 333,666 (34.1%).

Wall Street Joe Crowley-- the establishment Dems want to elevate him nowDemocrats aren't going to win back the House in 2018 by spending all their energy whining about Trump's over-the-cliff appointees-- no matter how bizarre Steve Bannon is-- and the growing influence of other far right fringe players, like Ted Cruz adviser, psychotic Islam

Monday, Susan Page, sitting in for Diane Rehm on her radio show, interviewed several people about what the next steps are for the defeated Democratic Party.