Conservative Revolutionary American Party III: Race Update: State of Play

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

I can assure you -- Democrats are fighting with everything we have to win on Election Day. On Wednesday alone, we paid for $12 million worth of ads across the country, including massive buys challenging Republicans in three Indiana races, another three in Ohio, and five more in Pennsylvania. We have expanded the playing field to nearly 50 districts! And we are implementing custom field plans in 40 districts with hundreds of volunteers knocking on doors to get out the vote every single day.

Republicans in these states and dozens of districts from Florida to California won't know what hit them. We have been able to do all of this because of the passion and commitment of hundreds of thousands of people in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) community and Democrats across the country -- thank you.

The election is still far from over -- the next 18 days will show what we're made of. Americans are disgusted with the Republican-led Congress, giving it an abysmal 16% approval rating in a recent NBC poll. In the same survey, Democrats polled 15 points ahead of the Republicans. As a supporter who has helped put us in this unprecedented position, I wanted to share this memo below. My team at the DCCC sent this to the media, pundits, and to other political operatives across the country to show just how aggressively Democrats are capitalizing on our momentum.

Republicans have never been up against a Democratic juggernaut like they are this year. But we have also never seen the Republicans backed into a corner, and I know we have yet to see the worst that they have to offer. Just think about what they're capable of on a normal day, and imagine what they will do for these last 18 days faced with the possibility of losing their grip on power. Consider:

Karl Rove, on Tuesday: "Between now and the election, we will spend $100 million in targeted House and Senate races in the next 21 days."

The Washington Post, on Tuesday: "Republican incumbents in highly competitive races in the House have a substantial cash advantage going into the final weeks before the midterm elections."

Bob Perry, the founder of the "Swift-boaters" who hurled lies at John Kerry, is pouring an additional $8 million into House races through dirty groups run by associates of Tom DeLay, making him the #1 Republican donor for the year.

I'm writing you today to let you know the state of play, to keep you in the loop, and to prepare you for what's coming. But before getting to our memo, I'd be neglecting my duty to the dozens of Democratic candidates fighting for a Democratic majority if I didn't ask you for additional support today. For our outstanding candidates' sakes, and for our country's sake, please help us by contributing the additional last minute resources we need for this battle today.

Help our candidates and our country in these last 18 days by making a contribution today.

TO: Interested Parties
FR: DCCC Communications
RE: DCCC Aggressive in Taking Advantage of Current Political Environment
DA: 10/18/06

Democrats Aggressively Expanding the Playing Field. "Democrats said private polls have convinced top party officials that they could pick up 40 or more seats -- nearly double their internal projections from a week ago -- if they spend enough money on television advertising for long-shot races...Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) has privately signed off on targeting a new group of GOP incumbents who were once considered safe for reelection, starting with Rep. Gil Gutknecht in rural Minnesota, officials said...The DCCC is likely to go deep into debt, perhaps topping the $11 million deficit it racked up in 2004. The committee can borrow as much as a bank is willing to lend. The other option is to take money out of Republican districts that the party is confident it is almost certain to win." [Washington Post, 10/18/06]

Public and Private Polling Shows Democrats Leading in Dozens of Districts: Polls since October 6, 2006 show the Democratic candidate leading in the following 30 districts: AZ-01, AZ-08, CO-07, CT-04, CT-05, FL-13, FL-16, FL-22, IA-01, IA-02, IL-06, IN-02, IN-08, IN-09, MN-06, NM-01, NY-24, NY-26, NC-08, NC-11, OH-02, OH-15, OH-18, PA-06, PA-07, PA-08, PA-10, TX-17, VT-AL, WI-08.

GOP Pulls Out of Districts in Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. Last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee pulled funds out of races in Ohio's 6th and 13th districts as well as South Carolina's 5th district, Texas' 17th district and West Virginia's 1st district. All of these districts were places where national Republicans touted their chances early on. [AP, 10/12/06, 10/17/06]

Congress still gets low marks, while most Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction. A new Gallup Poll finds only 23% of Americans saying they approve of the way Congress is handling its job. Additionally, just 30% say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country at the present time... Congressional job approval ratings have been below 30% since October 2005. Prior to that, ratings of Congress had not been this low since 1994. [Gallup, 10/17/06]

As goes Ohio, so goes the nation? According to a new CBS/NYT poll, the bellwether state of Ohio appears to have become hostile terrain for Republicans this year, with voters there overwhelmingly saying Democrats are more likely to help create jobs and concluding by a wide margin that Republicans in the state are more prone to political corruption than are Democrats. [NYT, 10/18/06]

It's time to win and take America in a new direction.

Sincerely,

Rahm Emanuel
Chairman, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

P.S. The last weeks of the campaign are when voters make their decisions about who they will choose on Election Day. Jonathan Turley, a noted constitutional scholar and professor at George Washington University, was quoted this week: "The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment." Help us show the Republicans that democracy is alive and well, that it will not be buried under mountains of special-interest money and failed leadership.

Help our candidates and our country in these last 18 days by making a contribution today.