Texas has been ignored by the DCCC for too long. I fear 2018 isn't going to change much either, despite rumblings of some early interest. Is the new DCCC regional Vice Chair even paying attention-- or just running for governor of Colorado?
Today was the March for Science. It's kind of embarrassing we even need a march like that. But as Bill McKibben wrote in the NY Times this week, The Planet Can't Stand This Presidency. "Trump’s environmental onslaught," he wrote, "will have immediate, dangerous effects... [T]here’s an extra dimension to the environmental damage. What Mr. Trump is trying to do to the planet’s climate will play out over geologic time as well. In fact, it’s time itself that he’s stealing from us.
Every cycle I write this damn story. Maybe when Pelosi isn't Democratic Leader appointing her horrible losing DCCC chairs anymore, I'll be able to finally retire it-- maybe. For as far back as I can remember the self-loathing Democrats at the DCCC give potential congressional candidates extra points for serveral things-- being wealthy first and foremost, but being an "ex"-Republican a close second. In 2006.
My best friend Roland teaches science to elementary school kids in Compton, California. When he saw this headline Wednesday night he shook his head and asked me if I thought people around the world were going to see it too. Tim Cama's report for The Hill was mind-boggling; what century was he writing about!
I was a 2016 Democratic Party candidate for Congress. I ran against thirty-year Republican incumbent, Lamar Smith who is the climate change-denying chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Even though I am an independent voter (by that I mean I have voted for Greens, Republicans, Libertarians and Democrats) Bernie Sanders drew me into filing to run as a Democrat. I figured if he could do it, so could I.
Lamar and Darrell, 2 top targets for 2018Hillary's electoral strategy may not have done well in working class areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan-- where she lost the election-- but it had a great deal of appeal in upper-income, moderate, white suburbs that always go Republican, like in Orange County, California, which she won, although didn't need and didn't bring her a single extra electoral college vote.
Let me start by saying it's not a conspiracy. It's just that all the Beltway types live in the same bubble. So when, for example, Cook does their House ratings, they don't look further than the districts the DCCC and NRCC have identified as battlegrounds. Media follows along happily and a kind of a prophecy starts becoming self-fulfilling.
The DCCC never goes after powerful GOP chairmen and the DCCC never looks outside the box towards districts to expand the electoral map, unless, that is, its to promote a shill from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (a New Dem or Blue Dog). But early in the cycle Blue America saw a shot for dedicated Berniecrat, Tom Wakely running against Lamar Smith in TX-21.
