CT Blue

There is a lot of optimism these days about a coming Democratic wave in November. Some are even predicting a tsunami:

You can use whatever cliches you want: The winds have changed, the tide has turned, the handwriting is on the wall. But there’s a definite blue wave at work. The Pennsylvania race might be the first House seat that flipped, but Democrats have flipped 39 seats from red to blue in state races since Trump took office. The Cook Political Report keeps changing its ratings, making House races more and more favorable for Democrats. Currently, the score is that only three districts with a Democrat in office are rated as toss-ups, while 27 GOP seats are toss-ups. There are actually more solid Democratic seats (175) than Republican seats (167). The generic congressional ballot polling on midterm elections keeps favoring Democrats, although the percentage point difference grows and shrinks.

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Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight sees a huge enthusiasm gap between voters in the two parties. He claims that a Democratic wave could become a tsunami, mostly because of high voter turnout in traditionally blue areas.

via Daily Kos

Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, but the blogger quoted above, like many who write about Democratic prospects in November, totally ignores the fervor with which National Democrats, particularly the DCCC, is trying to dampen that enthusiasm.

Let’s put aside the fact that the DCCC, along with Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic establishment, have lined up behind the loathsome RINO Dan Lipinski. You can, if so minded, excuse that because he’s an incumbent Democrat. He only thinks like and votes like a Republican, and the Democratic establishment has never had a problem with that. But how do you explain the fact that in district after district the party establishment has been backing right wing candidates against the type of progressives we need to keep that enthusiasm alive? Here’s one small example, but they abound:

The ultimate establishment polling firm Democrats use for unbiased polling is Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. Last week they did a poll of the MI-06 primary to see who the likeliest candidate against Fred Upton will be. So just likely Democratic primary voters. The most progressive in the 6-person race, Paul Clemens led the field– “braced by impressive favorability ratings, a solid regional base and superior name recognition.” Their finding were pretty straight forward:
• Clements is the best known, most popular candidate. At this point in the race, Paul Clements holds at least a 27 point advantage in name recognition compared to every other Democrat running. He also posts an exceptional 4:1 positive-to-negative ratio in favorability.

• Clements holds a lead in the trial heat. Buoyed by a strong regional base in Kalamazoo (26 percent Clements), Paul Clements leads the field with 21 percent of the vote share. Only one other candidate breaks 10 percent: 12 percent Eponine Garrod, 6 percent Matt Longjohn, 5 percent Rich Eichholz, 5 percent George Franklin, 4 percent David Benac. A 48 percent plurality of are undecided.

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I asked a friend at the DCCC who the DCCC is backing in this primary. After the usual bullshit about how they don’t support anyone in primaries, he admitted they have two horses in the race. Both are right-of-center establishment guys, physician Mark Longjohn, who claims they recruited him, and lobbyist George Franklin. Franklin is the bizarre candidate in the race– he also has a bizarre $100,000 “contribution” in his war-chest that doesn’t seem to have come from anywhere. Franklin is a conservative Democrat, a corrupt lobbyist, who has been helping to finance the career of the Republican incumbent, Fred Upton, who they’re all running against. He doesn’t make a persuasive argument that anyone should back him now. Sure the DC Dems like him, but he comes in dead last in local favorability (typical of candidates the DCCC likes).

via Down with Tyranny!

The folks at that blog document the atrocities on a daily basis. The incompetence of the DCCC is beginning to get a bit of mainstream notice, but there’s no indication it will ever change its ways. Assume for the moment that it is unable to get its favored candidates past the electorate in these various races. History tells us that it will then simply abandon the winners.

The only way that we can hope to stop them is by calling them out. That might not be enough, and it’s entirely possible that we’ll see that wave crash up against a dike built by the DCCC.