DCCC

New York Democrats are counting on Hillary to turn out the voters in 2016. NY-21-- the North Country-- has an even PVI, although Obama beat McCain 52-47% and then beat Romney 52-46%. When Obama appointed John McHugh, the incumbent Republican, Secretary of the Army in 2009, the Republicans nominated a well-known moderate Assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava; the Democrats nominated a barely known Republican-lite New Dem, Bill Owens; and the Conservative Party nominated a teabagger, Doug Hoffman.

Norcross, Christie, Van DrewThe new Quinnipiac Poll of likely Iowa caucus goers shows New Jersey Governor Chris Christie falling behind in the dust with just 3% support.

The Esquire Network just finished running the 4-hour documentary on American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken's congressional run against Republican Renee Ellmers in a very gerrymandered North Carolina district. The documentary was cut up into episodes and shown as a series. It wasn't very good... but I kept watching anyway. There's a piece of one of the last episodes above.

A new Cook rating of House seats portends another DCCC failure coming up in 2016 despite the best possible climate for Democratic candidates for House seats. Cook calls 211 seats "solid Republican" while only 169 seats are solidly Democratic. Caveat, Cook is a generally poor source for accurate, timely information.

The DCCC has one skill-- losing congressional racesLast February we explained that the "new" Luján-run DCCC threw in the towel on the Staten Island congressional race even faster than the DCCC usually gives up. NY-11 is Michael Grimm's old seat, which has a growing Democratic edge. In 2008 Obama lost to McCain, 51-48%, but four years later Obama beat Romney 52-47%, a pretty significant swing.

The root of the House Democrats' problemCalifornia freshman Democrat Mark DeSaulnier is the only Member of the House left with a ProgressivePunch crucial vote score of 100. He's never backed any of Boehner's right-wing agenda.

As usual-- and as expected-- the DCCC is re-recruiting all kinds of loser candidates to run in 2016 with promises that it will be a good year for Democrats. First and foremost Denny Heck's right-of-center Recruitment Committee is looking for New Dems and Blue Dogs, the worst garbage the Democratic Party has to offer.

Steve Israel sock puppet, Ben Ray Luján, announced the names of the first 14 incumbents who will be eligible for massive amounts reelection money through the DCCC's Frontline program. 13 of them are from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and almost all are either Blue Dogs and/or New Dems. They all vote with Republicans against core Democratic principles and values and have a rough time getting voters to bother coming to the polls.

Illinois has more than its share of conservative Democrats in Congress with a tendency to back Republican legislative priorities and to show more sympathy for the desires of Big Business campaign donors than for ordinary working families. According to ProgressivePunch, the 4 Illinois Democrats with the most right-wing voting records-- from bad to worse-- are

Monica Vernon-- not a progressive, barely even a Democrat but... richEx-Republican Monica Vernon officially announced that she's running for the IA-01 congressional seat-- the northeast corner of the state (Dubuque, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown). It's a D+5 district that Obama won in 2008 with 58% and in 2012 with 56%.