The DCCC encouraged Nachbar to run — WITH VIDEO
I have a question: What do you do when the DCCC reaches out — from inside the beltway, — to decide for you who the candidate for your Congressional seat will be, or worse, to pilfer precious resources into a losing battle?
I know primaries are a necessary cost of Democracy. How else does Joe Lieberman toss himself out of the Democratic Party? How else does Rochester Mayor Duffy (or ex Mayor Bob Johnson) unify fractured local Democratic party?
But why are these people trying to force a primary in the NY29th?
Rodd Mcleod - DCCC North East Political Director
Jon Vogel - DCCC National Political Director (pictured right)
Chris Van Hollen - Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign (pictured left)
Why would the DCCC encourage a primary opponent against a candidate who came from nowhere to lose by a 3000 odd votes in a heavily Republican district?
We know that beating an incumbent is difficult. Ask Louise Slaughter. She ran 3 times before winning a seat in the House. Certainly the DCCC knows this. I mean they didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. They have been doing this for a while.
So let’s go to the video tape. Here we have David Nachbar on tape telling the Democratic Town Committee of Brighton New York that the DCCC is encouraging him to run.
[ev type="youtube" data="tuVOT8EoANM"][/ev]
We’ve discussed managing campaigns from Washington. We have looked at bases of support, we’ve analyzed the pull in the district. Why are we spreading our resources too thin?
How has the DCCC done so far (I guess I mean last cycle) and can we stand by and do nothing? Support the known quantity in the form of Eric Massa and add to the majority.
It would be nice to get a straight answer from the DCCC about this. We’re glad they’ve taken an interest in NY-29 and they’re doing a good job with their press releases. But they owe us the truth about their influence in the primary here. The phone number I have for them is:
(202) 863-1500
This is the smoking gun as far as I’m concerned. I had no idea that we had this on tape. I am ready to go to war with the DCCC. The dirty rotten _______!!!
I’m thinking about how to do this. It has to be a collective action. I long ago stopped giving the DCCC money - sent back their requests with nasty notes about losing NY29 because they wouldn’t give Massa money. We need to take them down. They cannot pull their evil little strings and put in Congress the people they want - ever again!
What the hell is the matter with the DCCC? They are supposed to be neutral as they’ve been saying right along. I want to know exactly why they are supporting the candidate who has no support from the public!
This is an outrage and I’d encourage everyone to pass on donating to the DCCC in favor of donating to Massa until they get their priorities straight!
Fight back- pull your money from D-trip; send that money to Massa; send emails, letters, calls to D-trip - CONSTANTLY - become a giant annoyance to D-trip until they can explain.
Nachbar could be exaggerating slightly. He exaggerated Morrelle’s support for him in emails that I’ve seen as well.
Until Morelle comes out and endorses Massa, how do we know Nachbar’s emails are exaggerations? I don’t trust MCDC any more than I trust DCCC.
Nachbar sent emails to town committees suggesting that Joe wanted them to stay out of it. But since Joe himself never communicated this to the town committees, I have to conclude that this isn’t true.
Morrelle took no action on Nachbar’s behalf with town committees. That’s a fact. I’ve heard this first or second-hand from nearly all the town committees.
Or, he could not be.
So the options here are Nachbar is misrepresenting the facts to further his own agenda - Not the type of person I want in Congress
or
He is telling the truth about the DCCC - Which is the premise of the post and the basis of the question
Why is the DCCC endorsing a primary?
I emailed the DCCC about this. I’m sure he had some kind of a meeting with them and that what he’s saying is essentially true. But I’d like to hear the DCCC side of the story as well. I’m trying to get that via email right now.
And don’t get me wrong: the DCCC appears to have erred here. But I’d be interested to know what they really told Nachbar.
[...] the DCCC response to our earlier post on the Nachbar-Massa primary: We met with both prospective candidates who each laid out their case [...]
I just had a 20 minute conversation with Rodd McCleod, DCCC Northeast Political Director. He said that Massa and Nachbar both were told the same thing - DCCC is not taking sides, they will give technical support to both (Eric has taken advantage of it, Nachbar has not). They are both seen as strong, viable candidates (What that means to McCleod is that they both have money). According to my notes, they encouraged both candidates.
McCleod also said that he had talked to about 30 people in the last month about this and wanted to know where we we getting the information that Nachbar has the support of the DCCC. I directed him to this site. I hope he participates in this conversation and corrects any errors I may have made in representing our conversation.
Mgh: we have been reporting that the DCCC would remain neutral. Fighting29th has been more suspicious of them.
I meant the video wherein Nachbar says the DCCC encouraged him to run. I told McCloud the Nachbar video was on the site.
Exile. I don’t know exactly what your comment means.
We simply posted a video where David Nachbar implies he has support from the DCCC. He further says in the video that (paraphrasing here …)
As a loyal Democrat he would drop if the DCCC said so.
Ah to be a fly on the wall of that conversation.
Oh, I see. What I meant was that some other blogs have been saying they thought all along the DCCC would back Nachbar and we’ve refrained from saying that (because my DC sources told me they weren’t).
Yep - Thanks.
I don’t buy for a second that the DCCC isn’t backing Nachbar. Last time they backed him because they thought it was a 18point Republican race and they wanted a self funder to take a self inflicted silver bullet to prevent funding from going into a race they thought was unwinnable.
This time they want the same millionaire to take another self inflicted wound for the team because they want to use their money to protect the majority, not win new seats.
Different reasons, same result, and now THEIR candidate is telling us where they stand
How long has Nachbar been a Democrat? Did he support the Massa campaign last time? I think the answers are “not very long” and “no”.
I have to look this up but for sure back in time to run in 2006 he was not a registered Democrat. So sometime in 2005/2006 he changed registration to Democrat.
He donated $250 dollars in 2006 to Massa. You can see his donations here.
Of interest is a 5K donation to the DCCC and a 2K donation to Louise Slaughter. 2K to Louise who, well, wasn’t exactly in a fight for her seat.
But heck Massa got $250 dollars. Big freakin deal.
5K to the DCCC - well - we know that the DCCC didn’t really fully support Massa in 2006. That is well documented. Sounds like nothing changed.
NY29, Primaries and Statesmanship…
…
for what it is worth, I have threw this story up on Digg
[...] Grassroots. As you know we have been pretty tough on the DCCC and Chris Van Hollen. One of those ignore the net/grassroots at your peril - things because we see [...]
[...] District, Eric Massa, as per Rochester Turning: Attention Grassroots. As you know we have been pretty tough on the DCCC and Chris Van Hollen. One of those ignore the net/grassroots at your peril - things because we see [...]
[...] between lying, exaggerating, misrerpresenting, stretchingm or fill in the similar adjective here. Have a look at David Nachbar - Democratic candidate in the NY29th currently held by Randy Kuhl (R-rubberstamp). Nachbar says he [...]