Response from the DCCC
Here’s the DCCC response to our earlier post on a possible primary in NY-29:
We met with both prospective candidates who each laid out their case for running against Rubber Stamp Randy. We listened and told both of them that we planned to aggressively support the Democratic nominee — and that we would not take sides in a primary. It’s up to voters in New York’s 29th district to decide who the Democratic nominee will be.
Related posts:
And in the meantime, we have to spend precious resources on a primary, that we can ill afford, instead of spending them to defeat perm-boy. Just beautiful DCCC. It’s like they don’t even want to win this seat. I say, “throw em under the bus”.
So, if this is an accurate representation of what happened, and it is essentially what Rodd McCleod told me in our conversation, then David Nachbar distorted, big-time, what was said. Actually, what McCleod also told me was that both candidates came to the DCCC and said to get the other one out of the race. Nachbar’s representation that he offered to step down is more than a distortion. It’s a lie.
Enough about Nachbar. He’s a snake. The pressure point on our turf has to be Joe Morelli. Why is Joe staying out of this? Sure, he has mouthed all the right things, but he has not failed to try to quash primaries in the past - in the interest of “party unity”. There have to be people locally who are behind Nachbar and who are talking to Joe. Aside from Louise, the big money in Rochester (the Democratic big money) do not like Eric. Are they talking to Joe, and is he listening to them. It’s time for lots of people to sit down and meet with Joe.
P.S. I’m still furious with the DCCC. They could do something about this if they wanted to.
Well the question now is who is lying… The DCCC or David Nachbar
Joe was all too happy to dispense with a primary when it came to Family Court Judge-Sid Farber, all the way with Joe. Interesting how he has no interest in quashing this one.
Exactly - my thoughts exactly -
With all due respect to Mr. English, this answer shows either a disturbing lack of awareness of the details or an intentional slight of Massa. With the primary so late (September 2008) and the DCCC admittedly staying out of the race until then, they are severely handicapping the fundraising abilities of the best candidate, and more than likely the one who will be the nominee, Eric Massa. It’s much much harder to raise money when you have a primary opponent.
In effect, by not discouraging Nachbar from running, which we all know the DCCC (among others) does with lots of candidates, the DCCC is admitting that it isn’t interested in helping Eric Massa until it’s too late to do any good with fundraising. They should discourage Nachbar and then help Massa with fundraising. They failed to do the latter in the 2006 race, and just for the record, that may well have been the difference in us winning or not winning the NY-29 seat.
So, faced with one of the top 15 closest races we lost in 2006, and a returning candidate, the DCCC is doing nothing to help that candidate. I and just about everyone I talk to in and out of DC think there is something the DCCC isn’t telling us about why they refuse to discourage Nachbar and help Massa. This non-answer leaves us wondering what that is.
I should add that Massa did well without their help in the fundraising department but was inundated at the last minute by outside money that the DCCC could have matched, but didn’t. If they had either helped him earlier with fundraising or come through in the end the flood of false ads at the end could have been countered with ad spending and/or robo-calls and we likely would have won the seat.
Yeah, but that was a county election and he’s the county chair.
I don’t see Congress as Morrelle’s turf. I don’t see this as his responsibility.
If you want to blame someone local, blame Louise. She could have stopped this a long time ago.
I’m almost sure Nachbar distorted things. The DCCC could do more, don’t get me wrong, but I doubt they told him to run.
Mike, I think the answer to why the DCCC is getting in the way of our taking the 29th is simple. They couldn’t care less about our winning the race. They think its a losing proposition and they’d rather not lose the election with their money. Nachbar can self finance, so he’s a cheap placeholder until Spitzer and the Dems can redistrict in 2010.
Well,
According to Nachbar - if the DCCC told him to drop as a loyal Democrat he would drop.
My sources (not in the DCCC) say the DCCC don’t think this race is very winnable. I don’t think it is in their top 15.
If Kuhl retires, that would certainly all change.
Yes I hear that sometimes too. And other things. But I know Eric was one of the top15 races that Dems lost by less than 3%. One thing I think that is different about NY 29 when compared to the nation as a whole is that the Southern Tier did not follow the national pattern in 2006. I think the Republican stronghold there is slowly melting away because of Iraq. Although the Southern Tier didn’t follow the national trend in November 2006 I think Iraq will be like a lead weight for Kuhl in 2008.
My take is that upstate politics has its own flavor and people in DC don’t get that.
It’s not so complicated: upstate voters are not Bush conservatives, even when they’re Republicans. In many cases the reason people are Republicans is that downstate voters are Democrats. So they’ll cross party lines in federal elections.
All this stuff makes them hard to predict, which, I think, is why they get ignored.
In response to Exile and ladkiddo’s comments above:
Obviously, its not Joe’s responsibility to decide whether or not the DCCC decides to push one of the two candidates, however; I certainly think Joe has a right to represent the preferences of the towns in Monroe County, and put the MCDC stamp of approval in the form of an endorsement for Massa. My understanding is that all of the other county committees in Massa’s district have done so. Am I right?
I have to point out that once again blaming Louise is fruitless, futile, beyond the point and for lack of a better phrase ignorant.
First off, why?
Second — don’t care for your tone.
Exile: I think we have had this discussion many times before and always come out on the opposite sides:
Yes, it is a fact that Louise supported Nachbar last cycle, but it is no fact that she has supported him this time around. All sources that i have ever heard from say otherwise.
In terms of fruitless, let me say this; we spent oodles of time on this blog discussing infrastructure and wanting to ensure that our “precious resources” are being used to their fullest, yet we seem to cast fruitless blame towards Louise for Nachbar? How is that not egging for a fight that we don’t need? I personally I have heard from people say that Louise needs to fall in line or she’s going to face a primary challenger. How does does that utilize our resources?
Look, I have issues with virtually every politician in this area, but I find this aspect of the arugment to be fruitless. However, please don’t take it as a personal slight.
Two points:
(1) We can say what we will about MCDC and the DCCC, but the only person we can prove to have supported Nachbar was Slaughter. And I think she can do something to get him out of the race. Maybe she already is and we just haven’t heard about it.
(2) What you say about utilizing resources: that’s the whole point here. Nachbar’s candidacy is a drain on resources. And frankly, it shouldn’t be up to us part-time bloggers to decide how to stop this waste, it should be people like the DCCC, MCDC, and our local political leaders…like Slaughter.
Yes, I agree: Joe could get more involved here.
I think the same thing that everyone does: that Joe wants Nachbar for something else (maybe a run for State Senate) and doesn’t want to piss him off too much.
I’m not saying that’s a good reason, just that it does seem to be his angle. And it makes sense to me.
Re: Two Points:
(1) Agreed. We can prove that Slaughter DID support Slaughter, but we can’t prove that she does! I don’t have any real love for MCDC or the DCCC, but I think that it is pretty clear that at least one interested party has supported Nachbar. Is that because of his ideals? Probably not. Is it because of his money? Possibly. Is it because he simply isn’t Eric Massa? Quite possibly. I think that in and of itself is where virtually all of us here become irate, we support Eric, but the DCCC seems to want to undermine our support.
That being said, for the most part I don’t think that the DCCC is made up of morons and frankly it would take a moron to really believe that any dem has a fighting chance against
NachbarMassa. Following that strain of thought I have to believe that Nachbar is going balls to the wall for this because he wants to. If he’s been told by any consultant that he has any kind of chance of winning this primary then he has been taken to town more than I was when Sony Vaccor told me that I had a legit chance of going straight to the NBA from High School.(2) I don’t really and fullydisagree, but I think that Slaughter is irrelevant here and that more falls on Morrelle and MCDC as a whole. And yes, I do think that as voices of the people here and outlets of the people that this is the palce to debate where and how the resources should be spent. Furthermore, I also think that this falls into the local committee system where most vounteers come from and where, frankly, I have not been totally pleased witht he way that things work. Again, my main point here is that I beleive the blame is misdirected and it concerns me that we are not spending our efforts wisely at all times.
Please note that it is late and that rather than saying Nachbar in paragraph two, sentance one it should read Massa. I’m sure that there are numerous other edits going missed right now as well and please take them for what they are. My apologies.
I don’t have a problem looking at everyone involved — MCDC, DCCC, and Louise.
But I don’t see how it is ignorant to say that Louise at some level created this situation.
My point being that it is as futile to believe that Louise could get this guy to stop running as it is to believe that the DCCC is going to be able to get Massa to stop running. That is why I find it ignorant to perpetually blame Louise for not stopping Nachbar, and this is not the first time that this idea has been tossed around. In fact, since day one of the Nachbar campaign this idea has been tossed around on this blog and many others that it is Louise’s fault. I think at some point we need to look elsewhere.
I think sometimes we all get a little bit too caught up in what we as individuals can do as well as what our politicians can do.
It is Louise’s fault. I don’t think anyone, including her, would deny that.
That doesn’t mean she can do anything about it now (though I think she can), but you can’t deny that she supported him last time and that it’s likely he wouldn’t be running now had she not done so.
It would be great if we could all join hands and sing a song, and I’m not against that, but that doesn’t mean we should deny the truth.
I’ve never ever once even insinuated that she did not support him last time. To be clear, I know that she supported him last time. I am fully aware that they had discussions prior to his announcement last time and that she stood behind him last time. However, that was last time!!!! She has done no such thing this time!
If you want to blame her last time then fine, blame her for last time, but its totally insane to go on the atack against her this time! Frankly I don’t see how it gets us anywhere; anywhere where you would like to see the party go, anywhere that I would like to see the party go, or I’m pretty sure anyone who reads this blogs on any kind of regular basis would like to see the party go.
Historians and Political Scientists alike like to use counterfactuals as a sort of academic exercise, one of the more fmous ones being that had Cleopatro’s nose been smaller then perhaps Marc Antony would not have ben attracted to her, which would not have led to the downfall of the Roman Empire, which would not have led to, etc. etc. I find this exercise of blaming Louise for the candidate that she supported last cycle running this cycle to be as pointless as that example.
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