DCCC

What a waste of time this morning! I called a couple of dozen campaign managers all over the country, almost entirely campaign managers for candidates who had already won their primaries. And I had an identical simple question for each one: "Have you talked to your DCCC Regional Vice Chair?" Except for the ones in California, I got the same answer from every campaign manager. "Who's that?" or "What's that?" No one knew.

Dana Balter beat the DCCC-- now she's on track to beating John KatkoI've been saying it for years-- Cook is a good resource, the day after the election. Their ratings are a joke... way behind reality on the ground. If they say a race is a toss up, it usually means it's in the bag for the challenger. If they claim a race is leaning Republican, it means, it's a toss up. Cook has rated NY-24 (Syracuse), "likely Republican." That's insane.

Early in the cycle, the DCCC identified NE-02, basically the Omama Metro, including all of Douglas County and some rural areas in Sarpy County, as "must win" district. Obama won it in 2008, Romney won it in 2012 and Hillary beat Trump 48.2% to 46.0% in 2016. It's a very swingy district with a miscalculated R+4 PVI (should be R+2).

After college, I spent a couple years on the "Hippie Trail," the overland route from London to New Delhi and Kathmandu. There were places, primarily in western Turkey and eastern Iran where the idea of "road" was theoretical. But overall, a few hundred of us made it through every year from the late '50s into the mid '70s.

My congressman, New Dem Adam Schiff, didn't join the new Medicare-For-All Caucus. I bet his constituents would freak out if they know. In fact, though I'm not a betting man, I'd bet a lot on that assertion. Some of the most progressive Democrats in the country live in Schiff's district-- West Hollywood, the Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hollywood, East Hollywood, Silverlake, Glendale, and Burbank.

How about better congressional leadership?In the new issue of the Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi takes issue with Frank Bruni's NY Times column-- another sour centrist reaction to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's dsiplacement of centrist standard bearer (and avatar of personal and systemic corruption), Joe Crowley.

Normally, I don't buy into "lesser-of-two-evils" politics. If Democrats nominate a corrupt reactionary Blue Dog, I'm at least as incensed as I am over a Republican. That's not going to change either. And, I'm still saying that "normally" no longer applies, not with Trump and his Congress-ful of enablers and rubber stamps.

Everyone at Blue America thought that the longest long shot we were taking this cycle was backing Alexandria Ocasio. "That's impossible," people told us. "If you couldn't take a nobody like Dan Lipinsky down, how you going to take down Joe Crowley?!?!" Well, to start, we didn't take down Joe Crowley. Alexandria did. The voters in the southwest Bronx and north Queens saw the contrast between the two candidates and made the easy choice.

This is hard for me. I've been running my mouth over the past several years that I'm done with the "lesser of two evils politics" the Democrats (and, I guess, the Republicans) thrive on. The Democrats persuade base voters to back their putrid candidates by threatening us all with how bad the Republican is in comparison.

The Democratic establishment will soon be appealing to progressives to come together and fight Trump with determined unity. I tend to agree. I hate lesser of two evils choices and tend not to take the bait...