Have the Dems learned nothing from their mistakes? Steve Israel, conservative D, to lead 2012 DCCC

[BurtWorm]

Is this a wise move? I don't like it. It seems to be more about raising money (which Dems had no problem with when they were in the majority) and recruiting "moderates." Why, Nancy? Why?


http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/steve-israel-to-lead-democrats-comeback-efforts/

...

Returning Democrats to the majority — and securing the money to do it — will be no small task in a presidential election year amid a still-sputtering economy. And, with the moderate Blue Dog Coalition decimated, Mr. Israel’s main job will be trying to recruit middle-of-the-road Democrats like himself.

He has built a reputation for being a prolific fund-raiser, pulling in nearly $2.5 million for his 2010 re-election campaign even though his seat is considered safe.

The nomination — he still has to be formally approved by the full House caucus — puts Mr. Israel in the exclusive group of party leaders. He has served as the committee’s recruitment chairman since 2008 and also sits on the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Israel worked his way into the Pelosi inner circle after supporting Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland instead of Ms. Pelosi in the battle for minority whip in 2001 and voting with Republicans on some issues, like the Bush tax cuts. He was elected to Congress in 2000 after serving on his town board in Huntington, N.Y., for nearly a decade.

[msongs]

1. lol the sellout... oooops... bipartisanship bandwagon rolls on nt

[Renew Deal]

40. So does cluelessness

He has a 95% ADA rating.

http://www.adaction.org/media/votingrecords/2009.pdf

And a 0% ACU rating

http://www.conservative.org/ratings/ratingsarchive/2009/2009%20Combined%20Ratings.html#NY

[walldude]

45. Funny, I heard the same great stuff about Tim Kaine.

How great he was going to be and I should just quit my clueless whining... :rofl: :rofl: Worked out real well he did...

[Renew Deal]

47. No you didn't

Because he wasn't a legislator.

Also, did I claim he would be great? I just pointed out that calling him a conservative is intentionally dishonest or ignorant.

[liskddksil]

2. So we fund our own candidates to beat his recruits in the primaries.

[bluestateguy]

6. Keep this in mind

Rahm Emanuel as a backbecnher congressman had a solidly liberal voting record, and it was he who went out and recruited all of those Blue Dogs in 06 and 08, and WITH Nancy Pelosi's blessing too.

[Recursion]

31. Not to mention Howard Dean

He went out of his way to find Democrats that could win in conservative districts. He even named a certain strategy we seem to love here after that idea. But the Democrats who can win in conservative districts are... wait for it... conservative Democrats.

[bluestateguy]

3. Other than being a strong suppoter of the state of Israel, I fail to see where he is a conservative

Seems like an unfair critique to me.

[liskddksil]

4. He's a member of the New Democrat Coalition

which does not inspire confidence in his progressive credentials.

[BurtWorm]

5. "He votes with Republicans on some issues?"

Does that mean anything?

[Francois_Dillinger]

7. You must have missed this in the article quoted above

And, with the moderate Blue Dog Coalition decimated, Mr. Israel’s main job will be trying to recruit middle-of-the-road Democrats like himself.

Insert Jim Hightower joke about dead armadillos here.

[BurtWorm]

8. Welcome to DU

:toast:

Nice post!

[mod mom]

23. "Generally speaking, he was a very, very Bush friendly Democrat,"

"Generally speaking, he was a very, very Bush friendly Democrat," says Howie Klein -- a progressive activist and long-time critic of the DCCC. "He started a thing a little informal caucus of Democrats and Republicans. Supposedly the middle. Right wing Democrats paired with mainstream Republicans."

and this:

Among other things, he's a former Blue Dog who voted for the Iraq war and the 2001 Bush tax cuts.

-snip

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/blue-dogged-meet-the-incoming-chair-of-the-dccc.php?ref=fpa

[mod mom]

25. and this from MJ Rosenberg: "Steve Israel is the real deal for AIPAC"

I have talked to him about the Middle East. He will play the same role Chris Van Hollen did (only Israel believes it). He will be a critical voice feeding Obama the myth that any action Bibi doesnt like would be death to the party. Like Van Hollen, Lowey, Rahm, etc, he is in a long line of DCCC chiefs who see the AIPAC crowd as the first place to go to raise money for the Dems. Unlike Van Hollen who faked being a true believer, Steve Israel is the real deal for AIPAC,

under comments at this link:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/blue-dogged-meet-the-incoming-chair-of-the-dccc.php?ref=fpa

[BurtWorm]

27. I repeat with stronger emphasis: What the FUCK do the Dems think they're doing?

:wtf:

[Recursion]

30. Hoping to win back the conservative districts we lost

You don't seriously think it's progressive candidates that will win in them, do you?

[BurtWorm]

33. Why do they assume they'll win those with conservatives?

Why do they concede that point? Always. Maybe they should stop thinking of this as a battle against mere Republicans and think of it as a war against right-wingers.

[Recursion]

35. Because the districts are... wait for it... CONSERVATIVE

Is it really that hard to understand?

[BurtWorm]

37. Are they EXTREME RIGHT? Do the people want to elect EXTREMISTS?

If the Republicans are permitted to define extremism as mere conservatism, Republicans will win in what you call conservative districts. Democrats, I think, should be spending time and money defining Republicanism as extremism. It's not just a word game, I'm proposing. It's a corrective to real Republican extremism that is needed--that is actually long, long overdue.

[Tippy]

9. Oh No! big mistake Nancy..he will stab you in the back first chance he gets....

Stay away from the Blue Dogs because the voters are going to do so....

[Trey9007]

11. IM fairly new to DU....

and theres something I dont understand about some of comments I see made here. How do progressive Dems expect to win the majority without Bluedogs? Is it possible for Dems to have a majority without them? I'm not trying to start a pissing match, but I just dont understand how Dems can be expected to regain the majority, without winning in conservative districts.

[Tippy]

12. Most of these BD's were Democrats before they fell off the wagon

We are going to run more real Democrats preferably Progressives.....And yes it can be done we ae already working on 1012.

[Trey9007]

14. So, are you saying........

that Progressives can win conservative districts?

[Tippy]

15. Yes I think we can...at one time we're were a Blue State

I think we have a very good chance of turning the tide....Our message must change and we must get our Democrats to the polls...nothing is totaly impossible.

[kctim]

18. You're not starting

a pissing match, just pissing into the wind.

Despite the FACT that so called "Blue Dogs" lost to Republicans to the right of them, progressives mistakenly believe us dumb ol moderates will happily vote for a progressive candidate to the left of the Blue Dogs.
We voted to the right of the Blue Dogs because we REALLY wanted someone to the left of the Blue Dogs.

No, it doesn't make any sense at all. Unless you falsely believe that you know people better than they know themselves.

[BurtWorm]

19. There are no doubt some districts in the country that are lost to all hope.

Districts that repeatedly send imbeciles like Louis Gohmert, Steve King, Dan Burton and Mike Pence to represent them in Congress. If a conservative wants to call himself or herself a Democrat and run against those idiots and that conservative wins, that's fine. I don't think it's going to happen, but that conservative would at least deserve some thanks for sending an idiot back home. But the DCCC shouldn't have a blue dog running the show. After the way they performed in this election, losing half their seats?

[Recursion]

32. A lot of this board literally thinks that people in conservative districts like liberals

And that what they don't like about our party is that we aren't liberal enough and aren't "fighting" for our positions sufficiently hard.

Mind-boggling? Yes. But it's a very strong feeling among many here.

[Recursion]

49. He's not a blue dog

He's just not.

Blue dogs and the DLC are two different things.

Why does DU insist, over and over again, on conflating them?

Here's the blue dog coalition's membership list:

http://www.house.gov/melancon/BlueDogs/Member%20Page.html

The only DLC Democrat on that list is Jane Harman.

[Cleita]

10. No, we the real Dems, haven't learned that our Party

has been co-opted by DLC corporate conservatives. We need to form our own coalitions and fund raising organizations outside of them to take our Party back to its roots of being for the working class, the middle class and minorities. We still are the majority that is now being ruled by the minority.

[Tippy]

13. Here in TN we have our work cut out for us

But we are re-organizing, I made a mistake I thought a Blue dog was better than a Republican but now I have my head on straight.

[Tippy]

16. That is it exactly.....

[Individualist]

24. Hear, hear!

[Greyhound]

17. Why do you assume this charade was a mistake? n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. They've "learned" to play along with the real bosses like good puppies.

[inna]

21. horrible idea

[Recursion]

34. Why?

He can raise money well, and he's the kind of candidate that's attractive to the districts we just lost.

[damntexdem]

22. Yes, Dems always learn from their mistakes.

Unfortunately, they often, as at present, only learn to make more mistakes.

[fascisthunter]

26. it's NOT a mistake..... it's by design

[Recursion]

38. Yes, it's an attempt to win back conservatives and moderates to the party

It's the design we need to have if we want to get back in the majority in the House.

[Still a Democrat]

28. The ACU scored him a zero in 2008 and 2009

Where's the evidence he's so conservative?

[Recursion]

29. What alleged "lesson" are you claiming this goes against?

He's good at raising money and a good administrator. That makes him sound like a good head of the DCCC.

[BzaDem]

36. No matter how much you put your head in the sand, the only way to get back the majority is to elect

moderate Democrats in districts that would never vote for a liberal. There simply aren't enough liberal districts. The AVERAGE congressional district has a PVI of R+3.

[Erose999]

41. Maybe those districts never elect "Liberals" because they never get liberals on the ballot.

Look at Grayson, he turned a conservative district into a Dem district (for a while, anyway). And he ran a close campaign despite being outspent by the opposition (both his opponent and the corporate ads) by a factor of at least 10. Could Blanche Lincoln or whoever have ran a race that close without party support? I highly doubt it.

[Recursion]

43. We've tried this before. It's why there is a DLC

The DLC was formed because a lot of Democrats were sick of the left wing of the party forcing candidates who were too liberal to win elections nationally or in conservative districts. This isn't remotely the first time we've had this argument.

[BzaDem]

48. There have been liberal Presidents on the ballot (Mondale/McGovern/etc). It's not like these

districts voted for them.

Why is it so hard to understand that there are many districts (a majority in fact) that are full of people that think you are wrong about most issues?

[Trey9007]

50. IMO, Grayson is a rare exception...

Progressives have a much better chance winning the Senate, than they do the house. Progressives can win big cities and suburbs, which is enough to win a state-wide election. However, it is more difficult for progressives to win district by district. PA is a good example. Progressives can win in Pittsburg and Philly, but progressives will not do well in the rural districts between those two metropolitan areas.

IMO, the reason most House Dems lost in conservative districts this go around, was the unfair, yet successful, demonizing of Pelosi/Reid, by the GOP. In the minds of many voters, a vote for the Blue Dog, or Grayson, equated to support for Pelosi.

Progressives should continue to run in conservative districts. But when/if Progressives don't make it out of those primaries, they may need to realize that a Dem majority with Blue Dogs means something different than a Dem majority without them.

[Renew Deal]

39. Israel has a 95% ADA rating and a 0% ACU rating

I guess voting the correct way 95% of the time isn't enough for you?

http://www.adaction.org/media/votingrecords/2009.pdf

http://www.conservative.org/ratings/ratingsarchive/2009/2009%20Combined%20Ratings.html#NY

[brooklynite]

42. Is it your opinion that we're better off picking progressive candidates who can't win?

...because that's not how we won back the House in 2006/2008.

[Recursion]

44. Ah, but that would be "fighting" and "spine", according to DU

And, as far as I can make it out, that would magically make all these conservatives and moderates start supporting us.

[beforeyoureyes]

46. The democrats are just the good cop to the republican bad cop, it is ALL corporate controlled

After everything we have witnessed, why are people STILL surprised that the democrats serve their corporate masters and plot political strategy for the sole sake of maintaining their own power?

The writing has been on the wall for ages.