Why I won't give one penny to the DNC: Part 10,987

Actually this is why I won't give a cent to any of the national Democratic election committees. Exhibit One: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, current idiot in chief, who is apparently responsible for the DNC's almost total disinterest in the Wisconsin recall elections:

“I think, honestly, there aren’t going to be any repercussions,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a broad-ranging interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers.”

“It’s an election that’s based in Wisconsin. It’s an election that I think is important nationally because Scott Walker is an example of how extreme the tea party has been when it comes to the policies that they have pushed the Republicans to adopt,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But I think it’ll be, at the end of the day, a Wisconsin-based election, and like I said, across the rest of the country and including in Wisconsin, President Obama is ahead.”

Charlie Pierce has already written the definitive rebuttal to that idiocy:

Make no mistake. Recalling Scott Walker is a big honking deal. America is full these days of Republican governors who overrreached, and whose political support is trembly at best, whether it's Snyder in Michigan, or Kasich in Ohio, or Bat Boy down in Florida, whose chief-of-staff just resigned in a hail of conflicts of interest — or, as Governor Bat Boy calls it, "Monday." Bringing down Walker would bring more heat on all these guys, to say nothing of energizing labor for the campaigns ahead. Anybody who doesn't recognize the Wisconsin recall as a national event hasn't been paying attention. Certainly, the Republicans recognize it as such; Walker's been in Wisconsin less than Ryan Braun has in the past few months.

This is why Republicans win. The GOP, via various channels, including of course superPAC front groups and the Koch brothers who have a proprietary interest in the state, have been pouring millions into the recall. Republicans have been able to outspend Democrats by something like 20-1 in advertising. All the Democrats asked the DNC for was a paltry 500K to finance the GOTV ground work. As far as I know the DNC still hasn't contributed jack to the effort, because Debbie is not worried about the national implications.

This is a close race. That few hundred thousand would make a difference and a win would energize the Democrats' activist base. But the DNC doesn't really want to empower the activists. They hate it when activists insist the party paltform should reflect traditional Democratic values and fight for socially progressive policy. The only tradition DNC wants to fight for is the old guard's hold on party power.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]