Young Guns

On Monday, John Heilemann told the Morning Joe crew "When you have a moment that becomes the fodder for universal late night comedy-- the kind of thing that everybody, even the most apolitical Americans understand-- that's a devastating moment... Even Trump, I think, has finally started to hear from enough Republicans-- 'Dude, you are killin' us. You are killing yourself politically and not only are you killing yourself but you are killing us. We could lose the Senate; we could lose the White House; we could lose it all'...

Remember the good old days when the NRCC made Mafia thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm a member of their Young Guns program? Grimm managed to beat a Democratic incumbent, Blue Dog GOP-lite backbencher Michael McMahon 65,024 (49.5%) to 60,773 (46.2%). But Grimm is a big time career criminal and Congress didn't slow him down one bit and he eventually wound up in prison. So now he's a felon-- and a candidate for Congress again.

SONY Records— they were still called CBS at the time— had just bought my independent label, 415 Records and I was over in England hanging out with the Clash, Generation X, the Boomtown Rats and Wire and scouting for bands I could sign to 415 now that we would have CBS’ marketing muscle behind us. I met a young unknown singer from a small indie label, Innervision, George Michael and he played me a tape of a kind of protest song called Wham Rap. It was a little slick for 415 but… 415 could change. One thing I knew instantaneously— it was a hit.

Former Republican congressman/MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough was a guest on Al Sharpton's show this morning, talking about how the House needs a strong new Speaker and he pointed out that Boehner wasn't one and that McCarthy wouldn't have been one. He came up with the one person already proven: Nancy Pelosi. He didn't mention, at least not while I was watching, Paul Ryan. Paul Krugman got a bead on Ryan early on and has been warning American voters about his dangerous extremism for many years.

Texans Mac Thornberry (Amarillo), Mike Conaway (Midland/Odessa) and Kevin Brady (the north Houston 'burbs of Montgomery County) don't have to worry about Democrats; their districts barely have any. In 2012, Thornberry didn't have a Democratic opponent while Conaway beat his with 79% and Brady beat his with 77%. These are red hellholes that national Democrats don't even think about. All three have PVIs hovering around R+30.

No doubt, if you read DWT with any regularity, you've noticed that we keep an eye on the DCCC. We rarely have much to say about the NRCC, not because they're any better than the DCCC or less corrupt or incompetent, but,… who cares what they do? Unlike the DCCC, the worse the NRCC are, the better for normal Americans. Yesterday, though, they announced there 36 top districts for 2014 challengers, the "The On The Radar" list.