Tag: DCCC

Representative Chris Van Hollen, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has appointed two out of the DCCC’s three vice chairs. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida is the DCCC Vice Chair for incumbent retention. Bruce Braley of Iowa will be responsible for “offensive efforts including recruitment, money, and training.”

The third vice chair, yet to be named, “will seek to increase House member participation in DCCC efforts,” which presumably means getting more safe Democratic incumbents to pay their DCCC dues.

That’s going to be a big job, since the DCCC ended the 2008 campaign some $21 million in debt.

The debt has reportedly been reduced to $13 million, with the help of a $3.5 million transfer from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. But that is still a large debt, especially since Democrats have a lot of one-term and two-term representatives to defend in 2010, which will probably be a less favorable political environment for the party.

According to Politico,

Democrats are gearing up for a tougher, more defensive cycle. While Democrats want to take advantage of Obama’s bank account, party officials are anxious about getting out of the red and are telling members and donors to pay up – quickly.

Democratic leaders put the squeeze on last month, asking each member in a memo for $35,000 before Christmas. The memo also listed, by name, those who had paid their committee dues and those who hadn’t.

Shortly before the election, Chris Bowers spearheaded an effort to put grassroots pressure on safe Democratic incumbents who had not paid their DCCC dues. We all have a lot on our plate this year, and Bowers is recovering from a broken arm, but the netroots need to assist the DCCC vice chair for member participation once that person has been named. We should not wait until a few weeks before the 2010 election to start pressuring incumbents who are delinquent on DCCC dues. The sooner the DCCC retires its debt, the easier it will be to recruit strong challengers and build a healthy bank balance for the next campaign.

If you are willing to help with this effort in any way (such as compiling a spreadsheet showing who has not paid and how to contact those representatives), please post a comment in this thread.

Bruce Braley was elected to Congress in 2006 with the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program. In 2008 he helped manage the DCCC’s Red to Blue efforts. For the next election cycle, he’s been promoted again.

From a release Braley’s office sent out on Tuesday:

The DCCC today named the second of its three Vice Chairs – Congressman Bruce Braley (D-IA) will serve as Vice Chair for candidate services, responsible for the DCCC’s offensive efforts including recruitment, money, and training.  

DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen said, “The DCCC will stay aggressive this cycle and continue to challenge Republicans who are out of step with their districts.  As a former chair and former member of the Red to Blue program, Bruce Braley knows first hand what it takes to be a successful candidate; his battle tested leadership will be a real asset to our candidates facing tough elections.”

Congressman Bruce Braley brings his experience as chair of the DCCC’s successful and effective 2008 Red to Blue Program and as a former member of the Red to Blue Program.

Vice Chair Bruce Braley said, “I’m looking forward to continuing my work at the DCCC in this new leadership role.  It’s critical for us to continue assisting our candidates with the money, messaging and mobilization they will need to get elected in the 2010 election cycle.  I will work hard to help our candidates win their races.”

Congressman Bruce Braley will serve as Vice Chair for candidate services.  The DCCC’s candidate services include recruiting, money, and training.  A Vice Chair focusing on Member participation will be named at a later date.

Last month, Van Hollen named Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida the DCCC Vice Chair for incumbent retention. Given her refusal to endorse three Democratic challengers to Republican incumbents in south Florida, it was appropriate for Van Hollen to remove her from a leadership role in the Red to Blue program.

The third vice chair “will seek to increase House member participation in DCCC efforts,” which presumably means getting more safe Democratic incumbents to pay their DCCC dues.

So Braley’s niche will be finding and capitalizing on opportunities to pick up Republican-held seats. 2010 is likely to be a more challenging environment for Democratic candidates than the past two cycles, but it’s good to know the DCCC is planning to remain on offense as well. We have a chance to achieve a political realignment, given the Democratic advantages with certain demographic groups in recent elections. Building on our success in 2006 and 2008 will require the DCCC to do more than protect our own vulnerable incumbents.

Good luck to Representative Braley in his new role. He’ll be quite busy the next couple of years, with a seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and a Populist Caucus to lead.

From the Washington Post:

After bringing at least two dozen new Democrats to the House in Tuesday’s elections, Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) has agreed to try to duplicate that achievement in 2010 as chair of the caucus’s campaign arm. He also will take on an added role, coordinating policy decisions between the House and President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) will formally announce Van Hollen’s expanded portfolio today, according to informed party sources.

I’m pleased. While I didn’t completely agree with all of the spending decisions this fall out of the DCCC’s independent expenditure arm this fall, of the responsibilities that CVH did have direct influence over — namely, fundraising and candidate recruitment — he did quite well. And considering that two of the alternatives for this gig are Debbie Wasserman Schultz (someone who dragged her heels on supporting Democratic challengers in South Florida) and Artur Davis (someone who violently kneecapped a fellow Alabama Dem in a hotly-contested race), another term with Van Hollen is a relief.

The easiest thing for CVH to do would be to go out on a high note, having netted 24 seats this year (including the special election wins and counting VA-05 as a pickup). 2010 will undoubtedly feature a good deal of defense, so having a strong chair capable of recruiting good challengers for viable targets and open seats is crucial.

(Hat-tip: MyDD)

Roll Call:

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is reconsidering his decision to turn down a second term as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee under renewed pressure from a persuasive Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), sources confirmed Friday.

If Van Hollen opts to stay on at the campaign arm, he would step away from a possible leadership battle with another Pelosi ally, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), for the chairmanship of the Democratic Caucus.

Van Hollen earlier this week made clear he had no interest in another turn leading the DCCC. “I’m exploring all my options,” he told reporters Wednesday at a news conference to review the roughly 20-seat gain he engineered on Tuesday for the party. “One option I’m not exploring is continuing as chairman of the DCCC.”

But sources say Pelosi is leaning hard on Van Hollen to take on another two-year stint. The move would ease the way for Larson, currently the Caucus vice chairman, to advance a rung on the leadership ladder.

If Van Hollen decides not to take the gig, two of the likeliest alternatives would be Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Artur Davis. I’ll take CVH over those two any day of the week.

This isn’t a surprise:

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Wednesday that he will not seek another term as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chairman.

Van Hollen presided over substantial gains Tuesday, with Democrats looking to add more than 20 seats. They have gained 19 already, with six races outstanding.

At a news conference with reporters, Van Hollen suggested he wants to continue in leadership, but not in his current position.

“I’m exploring all my options,” he said in response to questions about his future. “But one option I’m not exploring is continuing on for another term at the DCCC.”

There’s also a lot of chatter about Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel accepting the job as Obama’s Chief of Staff, but First Read says that he has yet to accept the gig.

A roundup of all the independent expenditures filed by the DCCC and the NRCC from October 27th through November 2nd — essentially the last real week of expenditures:

As you can see, the DCCC outspent the NRCC by a greater than 2-to-1 margin int he final week of the campaign, and by a greater than 3-to-1 margin over the entire campaign. Would I have preferred to see some of this money spread out more? Of course. But it’ll only take us a few more hours to pinpoint the races that got away from us.

The following independent expenditures were filed by the DCCC and the NRCC in the last 48 hours:

Now, uh, I suspect that this post will be met with “scattered boos” once again, but keep in mind that the DCCC isn’t done yet — they will most likely be filing more reports tomorrow evening. (For instance, they have new ads up in WV-02 and VA-02.) Maybe we’ll see a surprise or two — or maybe not.

From the Politico:

Hoping to maximize congressional gains,  the DNC is taking out a $10 million line of credit to split equally between the House and Senate campaign committees, according to a top Democrat familiar with the move.

The decision to go into the red for the DCCC and DSCC comes as party operatives see more races coming into play, especially in the House. The goal: To take advantage of what is shaping up to be a Democratic wave by picking up as many seats as possible, giving the party a massive governing majority and making it more difficult for the GOP to recapture power in future cycles.

So where will this money be felt? We didn’t see any major expenditures filed yesterday with the FEC by the D-trip, but I expect tonight will be a lot busier.

Rick Goddard is a retired general running as a Republican against Democrat Jim Marshall in GA-08.  Bill Gillespie is a retired Lt. Col. running as a Democrat against Republican Jack Kingston in GA-01. The Republican party is pouring cash into the GA-08 race, and Marshall is having to fight for political survival. In GA-01 the national Democratic party has done nothing, zip, nada. If you realize Jack Kingston is chief propagandist for the Rpublican party, you might think kicking Kingston out would be as important as keeping Marshall in.

Georgia news media are finally catching on to five military veterans are running for Congress as Democrats this year. This is old news to bloggers (dailykos, like getting the newspaper six months in advance!). Here’s somebody finally connecting the dots:

In Georgia, at least four of the 2008 “Band of Brothers” (Bobby Saxon, Bill Gillespie, Bill Jones, and Doug Heckman) are running uphill battles against Republican incumbents (Broun, Kingston, Price and Linder, respectively).  If any one of them (especially Saxon) received the type of national party support that the GOP is giving to veteran Rick Goddard to oust Democratic Party Congressman Jim Marshall, these districts could become competitive.

Add to this the five to one ratio of retired military officers running as Democrats rather than Republicans, and think about what that means about political sentiment among the military and military families and towns with military bases, of which there are four major ones in GA-01. Add to that the massive Obama GOTV, especially in GA-01. Bill Gillespie polled more votes in his primary than Kingston did in his. Bill has twice debated Kingston and fought him to a draw. Gillespie is on the air with his TV ads, and Bill Gillespie can beat Jack Kingston.

There’s still time, DCCC, swingstate project, openleft, dailykos! If RCCC can do it for Rick Goddard, you can do it for Bill Gillespie.

In the list of last week’s DCCC independent expenditures posted by James this weekend, the comments section contains, well, let’s just say “scattered boos” concerning the money the DCCC is spending on incumbent defense instead of long-shot pickups. To give that discussion a little more form and focus, I thought I’d put together a table listing the races that are on SSP’s competitive house ratings chart but aren’t getting DCCC independent expenditures… and order them according to their position on SSP’s Bang for the Buck index, which is an approximate measure of how expensive it is to advertise on broadcast media in that district (smaller numbers are cheaper).

Got a race on there that you like that isn’t getting DCCC IE support? There’s still a week left, so contact the DCCC and ask… or better yet, give directly to the candidate and hope they can sneak a last minute media buy in.

Turning to SSP’s House Ratings, every race where we’re on offense that’s rated Likely D or Lean D is getting DCCC expenditures. Of the tossups, only 2 out of 23 are not receiving DCCC expenditures, and in neither case is that a problem: LA-04, where the primary runoff hasn’t even happened yet and all the action is going to happen after Nov. 4, and FL-08, where Alan Grayson seems intent on self-funding and doing things his way.

Of the 12 races currently rated Lean R, only 1 is not receiving DCCC expenditures: NV-02. This one is kind a puzzle, as Jill Derby has been hanging around within the single digits, and Nevada, especially Washoe County, has been seeing a Democratic surge. This may be one of those cases where both candidate and DCCC agree that a DCCC-branded campaign wouldn’t really fit the district’s still-sagebrushy nature.

When you drop down to Likely R, though, only 4 of the 19 races are receiving DCCC expenditures: SC-01, VA-05, WV-02, and WY-AL. (And bear in mind that some of these four races may get upgraded to Lean R soon… not that we specifically base our upgrades on DCCC decisions; after all, we see many of the same polls that the DCCC does.) The rest of the Likely Rs should be considered the true long-shots, but remember that in 2006 we did score a couple victories out of that pool (Loebsack and Shea-Porter).

Here are the non-DCCC-funded races, in order of expense:

District	Markets	Score
LA-07	Lafayette (220) Lake Charles (94)	314
IA-04	Des Moines (414) Rochester MN (143) Cedar Rapids (negligible) Sioux City (negligible)	557
LA-04	Shreveport (382) Alexandria (93) Lake Charles (94)	569
LA-01	New Orleans (672)	672 *
NV-02	Las Vegas (651) Reno (255) Salt Lake City (811 *)	906
CA-50	San Diego (1,026)	1,026
AL-03	Birmingham (717) Montgomery (245) Columbus GA (205) Atlanta (negligible)	1,167
FL-08	Orlando (1,346)	1,346
OH-07	Columbus OH (891) Dayton (514)	1,405
FL-18	Miami (1,523)	1,523
NC-10	Charlotte (1,020) Greenville SC (815)	1,835
TX-07	Houston (1,939)	1,939
FL-13	Tampa (1,710) Ft. Myers (462)	2,172
VA-10	Washington DC (2,253)	2,253
TX-10	Houston (1,939) Austin (589)	2,528
PA-15	Philadelphia (2,926)	2,926
CA-46	Los Angeles (5,536)	5,536
NJ-05	New York (7,380)	7,380

(* = LA-01 was not researched as part of the original Bang for the Buck index. I’m not sure, but it may also extend into the Baton Rouge market.)