Jennifer Garrison

Last week DCCC staffers were eager to push out a story by Shira Center and Emily Cahn in Roll Call, House Democrats Pull Pages From The Rahm Playbook.

Sometimes I get confused between the national committees-- the DCCC, DSCC, DNC, RNC, NRSC and NRCC-- and the Beltway pundits that service them, particularly Cook and Rothenberg. Rothenberg's column for Roll Call Monday was a riot. I especially laugh when he and Cook defer to the DCCC and call their ridiculous side-show races "top tier" which fools no one (except, apparently Nancy Pelosi) as the money is flittered away on absurd candidates in absurd races.

The DCCC's Steve Israel doesn't give base voters a reason to turn out; he gives them reason to stay home on election dayWednesday, Markos wrote an exceptionally well-thought-out post on Kos, Democrats' Biggest Challenge Is Getting Their Base Voters To Vote.

The other day a Democrat who I respect and admire had a staffer call me and ask if Blue America would be up for doing a fundraiser for him. He had certainly earned it by his unrelenting work on behalf of working families. My first instinct was to go, "Of course, how much does he need?" But then I thought about it for a second and said, "I know no Republican is running against him; does he have a primary?" He didn't.

Fred Upton, Steve Israel-- corrupt cronies in CongressThe DCCC announcement this week of another batch of candidates has been called their "worst recruitment effort in history." No one should be surprised that most of Steve Israel's picks for their Jump Start program could be barely described as "the lesser of two evils" in comparison to their opponents.

For Democrats, this is the problem, not the solution-- Israel and GarrisonIn his Sunday column, The Wonk Gap, Paul Krugman highlighted "the G.O.P.’s near-complete lack of expertise on anything substantive.

I've noticed a disturbing pattern since "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel took over the DCCC. He consistently leaves bluer districts on the table and goes after impossibly red ones if he has a Blue Dog or New Dem running in the redder district. He would rather expend treasure on re-stocking the House Democratic caucus with reactionaries and corporate whores like himself than see a progressive win a seat.

Jennifer Garrison-- Steve Israel's kind of DemocratEarly in June we warned that DCCC Chair Steve Israel-- be sure to watch Bravo's Princesses: Long Island which is about his district to understand Israel's mentality-- was trying to recruit Ohio's Sarah Palin, Jennifer Garrison, to run against Bill Johnson.

Steve and Jennifer-- a match made in hellClearly, the DCCC should be going after powerful Republican policy makers in vulnerable seats like Paul Ryan (where Obama scored 47%), John Mica (where Obama scored 47%), Ileana Ros Lehtinen (where Obama scored 53%), Peter King (where Obama scored 52%), Fred Upton (where Obama scored 49%), Mike Rogers (where Obama scored 48%), Buck McKeon (where Obama scored 48%), John Kline (where Obama scored 49%), and