Truthout has an excellent article detailing the struggles faced by progressive and grassroots Democrats in key US House primaries last year: CA-11, FL-13, FL-16, and IL-06. At the time, Republicans held all four seats, but considering the 2006 political environment all four would quickly become competitive for the Democratic nominee. The central argument of the piece is that in "lean Republican" districts, Rahm Emanuel favored conservative and wealthy candidates in Democratic primaries, and assisted them against progressive, grassroots candidates in violation of the DCCC's policy of neutrality. This assistance did not come in the form of direct support, but instead was largely in the form of better connecting preferred candidates to an elite group of fundraisers and media types. For example, in FL-13, Jan Schneider, the 2004 Democratic nominee, was not included in fundraising materials the DCCC published on the district:
Schneider claims that Emanuel broke this policy during the 2006 primary race. "Emanuel caused the Schneider campaign to be removed from the DCCC website and circulated solicitations for contributions to Democratic candidates indicating that there was no [Democratic] primary in the Florida 13th," according to a memorandum Schneider prepared.
Schneider blames the DCCC for misleading Senator John Kerry (D- Massachusetts) into thinking that Jennings was running in the primary without any competition from within the party. Kerry gave a $1,000 donation to the Jennings campaign, which was publicized by Jennings as an endorsement. When Schneider confronted Kerry about this donation, Kerry apologized and said that he donated based on assertions by Emanuel that the race was "a targeted race with no primary," and that he never meant to interfere with an intra-party contest, according to Schneider. Congresswoman Shelly Berkley (D- Nevada) says that the DCCC sent her a letter asking her to contribute to races where there was no primary. The letter listed the Florida 13th as a race with only one Democrat pursuing the party's nomination.
This was a pattern that I saw repeated in other DCCC fundraising materials, including documents that did not list Christine Cegelis as a Democratic candidate for the primary in IL-06. Apparently, the problem was widespread for the Cegelis campaign:
Tim Bagwell, a grassroots activist and Cegelis campaigner, said that Duckworth was "hot-wired" into the national media and fund-raising circuit by the DCCC. George Stephanopoulos, who served in the Clinton administration with Emanuel, interviewed Duckworth on his Sunday morning ABC News program, elevating her to national prominence.
According to Spidel, the Cegelis campaign was prevented from accessing Democratic fund-raising and Political Action Committee lists held by the DCCC. Cegelis said that many of the potential donors she contacted had been instructed by the DCCC not to give her campaign money. She felt that she was locked out.
The key point here is that it is not necessarily the DCCC that directly makes decisions on who becomes the Democratic nominee in key US House districts, but rather a small group of fundraisers and media types that can propel one candidate to the nomination by providing them with superior monetary, media, and advocacy organization resources. By providing one candidate with greater access to this network of PACs, wealthy individual donors, elected officials, established media pundits, and advocacy organization leaders, that candidate is essentially crowned the nominee by an elite group of decision makers who collectively have a tremendous amount of influence over the process. This elite network can effectively determine the outcome of primaries before votes are cast, and key Democratic figures like Emanuel can provide candidates with favorable access to that network.
The reason I bring this up is that over the past month, in at least two circumstances the progressive blogosphere, grassroots and netroots has demonstrated that it can actually function in the same manner as this established group of elite decision makers. In WA-08, through a large, nationwide blogosphere fundraiser, the blogosphere effectively chose Darcy Burner as the Democratic nominee for the district. Although it was accomplished through thousands of small donations and earned, straight talking independent media instead of through a top-down group of elite donors and advocacy organizations, the result was the same: Darcy Burner was able to leverage her support from this network into an early end to the primary campaign. In June and July, much the same took place in NY-29, where for a while Eric Massa was facing a competitive primary David Nabchar. However, Massa also won the primary before it began by locking down the support of the local blogosphere and netroots, every local Democratic committee, and a sizable amount of small donor, grassroots fundraising. Again, a network of grassroots progressives effectively played the same decision-making role to force an early end to a primary that PACs, wealthy donors, established media types, elected officials, and advocacy organization leaders have played in many other Democratic primaries. The grassroots network of small donors, blogs, and local precinct captains leveraged such an enormous amount of support for Eric Massa that there was no way for other, more elite networks to overcome it.
The template for progressive grassroots serving as the decision makers in Democratic US House primaries was established in mid-2004, when the blogosphere leveraged $50,000 in small, online donations over two days for Ginny Schrader to make certain that she stayed on the ballot in PA-08. In that circumstance, the Republican incumbent, Jim Greenwood, had dropped out, making the slightly lean-blue district a ripe target. Many national Democrats had wanted to replace Schrader on the ballot, first demonstrated through their silence on Schrader after Greenwood's announcement, and later demonstrated through a famous shouting match at the DNC convention when a DCCC higher up yelled at Markos and Jerome for raising money for Schrader. The tension in that argument was over
This is an important step forward for the progressive blogosphere and netroots, one which we should look to replicate several more times this cycle. In so doing, an important question and will be whether we can become decision makers on behalf of progressive and grassroots candidates who have not previously won a Democratic nomination in the districts we target. Schrader, Burner and Massa had all won Democratic primaries before the blogosphere stepped in to help out. However, the elite Democratic decision making group described in the Truthout article was able to help Tammy Dcukworth and Christine Jennings defeat previous Democratic nominees. That difference demonstrates the comparatively greater power and effectiveness of the elite decision making group relative to the grassroots network of small donors, local precinct captains, and blogs. To demonstrate we can really compete with the elites will requires leveraging support for US House candidates who do not already have such a long-term, visible presence in the political scene in a given district. While it is fantastic that we have been able to become decision makers at all, only being able to leverage support for candidates who had previously won Democratic primaries would make our capacity very limited relative to the elite network, which can leverage support in almost any Republican-held district where there is a competitive Democratic primary. In order to rally compete with the establishment, and change Democratic culture nationwide, we need a broader reach. I don't necessarily know how that is done, and there are obvious reasons why a national small donor network is far more likely to donate to previous Democratic nominees than newer faces (the emotional and personal attachment required to effectively active a grassroots national network requires long-term familiarity with a candidate), but it is a step we must consider. We can see the results of the elite network on established Democratic culture when we fail on things like Iraq and FISA despite a congressional majority. Changing that culture requires a grassroots, people-powered network that can compete nationwide, and not just in districts with established, visible grassroots favorites.
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