With Axelrod, there's more to it...it's a dig at Hilary...no love lost there.

They are the biggest Dem PAC. If they sit out the midterms, they are short-sighted jackasses!

I would say that no matter who was running.
Everybody fusses about people not voting in midterms. Great example.

We have to get it done this year, or 2016 won't mean squat.

But I would expand it beyond former SOS Clinton.

Whichever Democrats and liberals who believe that we don't have to focus on the midterms clearly don't know jack spit about politics. It's the Congress that lets a President's agenda go forth. It is individual states that have the power to set their own weird policies (hello, voter ID laws). This type of attitude in 2010 is the biggest cause for why Obama hasn't been able to accomplish as much as we all had hoped, and why much of the progressive movement has been set back.

They will be the biggest asset to Hillary or any other Dem Presidential candidate.

One reason I never give to the DNC or "Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee" is that their support of candidates is limited to DNC loyalists - both past and future, and that typically excludes progressive Dems. Congress persons who bucked special interests/big corporate donors to Dem. congressional leaders or presidents are frozen out by the DNC. And Wannabe Dem. congressional candidates are provided campaign funds with major quid pro quo commitments, such as on future key votes or support in future elections. So come 2014, by which time the Clinton campaign will be in full swing, it can funnel money to key candidates in exchange for promised support in the 2016 Dem. primary.

I always donate directly to progressive Dem. Candidates. No strings attached to MY donations - it's based on their past performance.

First, DNC gives -NOTHING- to candidates, whether "DNC loyalists" (what exactly does that even mean) or not. They spend their money on big picture messaging (care to point out a single DNC ad you disagree with?) and State Party organization.

Second, DCCC doesn't play favorites with "DNC loyalists" either. I know this because I'm one of their prime funders and frequently get invited to briefings about which candidates they're supporting. Because DCCC doesn't have unlimited funds however, they target their money to where it will be effective. That means the candidate has to have a prayer of winning, and has to show an ability to organize and raise their own money to be competitive, Does that mean they won't be funding a feel-good challenge against Boehner or Cantor that won't have a hope of filling the seat? Yes it does, and deservedly so.

(nb-you don't mention DSCC, but I can tell you they supported Elizabeth Warren in 2012...another "DNC loyalist"?)

Ugh! In '12 we had a targeted race in MI's 1st district. My gawd did they handle it wrong. It reminded me (painfully) of the ineffective top-down, no local control/authority methods of Kerry '04. Here's our campaign matrix and there will be no variance!1!

You would think after two rounds of Team Obama's effective methods the Dem caucuses would have learned at least SOMETHING! It appears not. Very sad.

Julie

using your real world experience to speak to DU common knowledge? It completely kills the "they won't let us" excuse.

I don't mean dipping in to the DNC general fund at will and handing the money to whichever candidate it pleases. I mean fundraises, or helps a candidate fundraise, for that specific candidate.

Besides, NOBODY asked ME if I wanted to support Hillary! I'll say it anyway... I DON'T!

Do we now ANOINT our Democratic Nominees as opposed to actually getting a chance to vote first??

Really sickens me!

...because you're apparently too lazy to get a Presidential candidate you like to run, the way Hillary's supporters are encouraging her. You'll just wait until Primary season and then complain that you don't have a choice, right?

But ONE thing I do know is this. Way, way back in time, best guess was when I was around 11 years old, my father introduced me to the "world" of politics and activism. I won't go into all that I've learned these many years, but I don't think I've EVER been called "lazy" by ANYONE who knows me well.

What I have been called is too obsessed, too wrapped up, too emotional and the list goes on. And there are people I know who've asked me IF I ever take a break from the topic of politics. I will have to say I'm amazed and distressed by the overwhelming APATHY of too many people today, and find it rather scary.

I don't live in LaLa Land, so I have to accept the reality that the people I would like to support have very little chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. And their chances are even less likely when we are already talking "as if" Hillary WILL be the nominee.

So given my many, many years of volunteering to protesting and marching, I can't recall a time when this far out of an election that so many seem to have accepted the fact that one person WILL be the nominee. I've given myself the right to have my opinion, I've worked hard for it!

AAHHH, sticks & stones!

...and I respect your engagement in "protesting and marching" But that's not how we elect people here. Candidates decide to run. They decide that either because they want to, or because other people convince them to.

You're welcome to disapprove of Hillary Clinton, her history and her policies. But don't complain that others choose to support her, and to do so early. Nobody on the pro-Hillary side is DISCOURAGING others from running. Nobody on the pro-Hillary side is saying "I'll never vote for" Biden, O'Malley, Schweitzer, Warren, etc.

However you feel about Hillary Clinton, you have to accept that she has a lot of popular support (witness the 17 M people who voted for her last time). Many of those people would be happy to have her run again. A fair number of those people are supporting efforts to convince her to run. Meanwhile, the people who DON'T want her to run are...posting on blog sites complaining about the people who are encouraging her to run, but aren't making a similar effort to find an acceptably progressive candidate.

I support Hillary and I've encouraged her to run. I've ALSO met personally with Brian Schweitzer to talk about his running if Hillary doesn't. I didn't blog about it; I didn't sit and wait for someone else to do the work; I got directly engaged in the political process. Come 2015, I may or may not like the candidates available, but at least I'll know I made a direct effort.

Since before the 20102 election, I was hearing pundits/strategists on TV pushing Hillary, along with the MSNBC bunch and, of course, EMILY's list. Declaring over 4 years in advance that no one would even challenge her if she declared. After the election, on one occasion, the push for Hillary was even at the expense of Obama.

As far as scolding a poster for not getting someone to run for President, surely you realize that is unfair.

...it's a unique confluence of factors: the prospect of a first woman President, the availability of a candidate of significant political stature, and the likelihood of another Republican train wreck.

And no, my comment ISN'T unfair. Want to know how I got to have meeting with Brian Schweitzer? I SENT HIM AN EMAIL outlining why I thought he should run, what I thought I could do to help and when I'd be available to meet. Outside of a long-standing figure like Hillary Clinton, you'd be surprised how open most politicians will be to a serious offer of assistance at the early stages of a campaign.

We comment a lot about our friends on the right living in a self-reinforcing information bubble. Well, I think a surprising number of people do the same here: blogging with people who agree with them, filling out online polls and petitions, and becoming self-satisfied with their "political involvement". Winning at politics requires real-world exposure. Winning at ELECTORAL politics requires engaging in griity political activity we don't always like (like fundraising) but is indispensible to make progress.

I have never seen so many Democrats with high visibility publicly fall in line behind one candidate over 4 years in advance, right around the same time, too, and push that candidate hard on TV every chance that they get. Especially when, only four years before, the word was she had too much baggage to win the general.

If Brian Schweitzer's email is public info and you had no previous connections with him, that is impressive. However, you said that you were a major funder for the DNC. Perhaps that helped.

Also, if some posters here got a meeting with Brian Schweitzer, they could not get the airfare to attend the meeting. Some of them couldn't put together an appropriate outfit for such a meeting or buy him lunch.

...plenty of activists without deep pockets managed to find their way there. And I'm pretty sure I was wearing civvies.

You know that.

Also, you don't know the age or health of the poster you chastised.Sounded as though he or she had been in the trenches a long time.

But, I am thinking that your connections with the DNC and your major funding were pivotal. If I were BS getting an email about a meeting at the Convention, I'd probably make an inquiry or two before I responded in the affirmative.

Filling out online petitions and polls does nothing. Worse than nothing.

The thing is, is that you are a major fundraiser and have already made connections with people quite awhile ago.

My little group has no money or connections. If somebody big sees your name on an email they get - it will get read. Me - not so much.

I would like Schweitzer to primary Clinton.

Have you even tried?

Haven't heard anything back yet.

We will keep trying. I may enlist the help of a couple of local officials that I put campaign brochures into mailboxes for.

Thanks for your efforts all that time.

your comments in support of my position. I agree that I'm not high enough on the food chain to attend the kinds of events that the other poster has been able to. Nonetheless, I do consider myself a foot soldier who has always encouraged my family, friends, neighbors and even strangers that true Democracy can only exist when we all pitch in. Sometimes I'm one of the last few standing when so many gave up. Doesn't make me a martyr though.

To me the right to vote may be the only thing a person can bring to the table. Some of us can do more, but some of us can't do as much as we would like to. Daily life and circumstances influence what each is able to contribute to the process. I am of the Boomer generation and strange as it may seem, Hillary's birthday is almost the same day as mine. I believe I may be 2 years older. My family has never been anything other than middle class, and my husband was a Union worker which probably makes me more liberal than some. My comment about not being one of her supporters was not intended as an attack on anyone, it was intended to convey MY feelings. I'm simply not comfortable that IMO, many feel she's the person who will be the nominee regardless of what happens.

At any rate, just want to thank you and let you know that your point about personal circumstances is one I can relate to.

2016 will come. But 2014 is here.

GOTV 2014 and Beyond!

Hillary is a diversion from the real job this year.

It would provide cover for a President H. Clinton to move right.

the House. IF Hillary wins 2016, do we really want another four years of the gridlock we have now? Will the Republicans "work with" her (or any Democratic president) any more than they've "tried to work with" President Obama?

and any seats we win now will make it easier to overtake in 2016. So even keeping the Senate and increasing the number in the house is a victory.

the only important election is the next one. (or very similar words) IIRC, he was saying it in terms of one person's climb up the ladder. for example, when Obama was running for the Senate, that was the only important election, not whether he planned to run for the White House one day. However, it applies even more to the party as a whole.

Even for Hillary or any other Presidential candidate, if Obama and Democrats look ineffective and weak between now and 2016, some people are not going to stand on line to vote for a Democratic President.

No question resource triage would put the focus for donors needs to Congress. In fact, even for 2016 that is the best reason for a Clinton nomination, donors would have far more than typical latitude to focus on Congress and local races providing rare opportunity for broad impact.

You want a Hillary argument for folks like me that don't cotton to her, that's maybe the clown jewel, the ability to make some hay under the radar.

Of course the rot in the bureaucracy would continue to pile up and the corporate capture would march on in near Republican like fashion and probably the appointment of outright Republicans and mushy ass social "moderates" that love corporations somewhat less than radical regressives so I'm not much on that but I think it is a solid argument in current context. The legislature writes the laws but the executive puts them into action and dictates the make up of the judiciary, it is all part of the whole.

Be more solid if we were loading up on "malcontents" that won't put up with no mess instead of whoever is willing to put a "D" next to their names with no comprehensive agenda or principles but it is something everyone has to put into their calculation of the big picture.

I am working on the Wendy Davis campaign

Don't delay the inevitable™ !

Remember, it's inevitable™.