FACT CHECK: DCCC Recruiting and the Facts

This morning, DCCC Chairman Steve Israel appeared with NRCC Chairman Greg Walden on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown.

While he was on, he tried his best to spin the DCCC’s disastrous recruiting reputation this cycle, yet it ran severely afoul of the facts.

Here’s what he said when asked whether Democrats are hesitant to run in 2014 and would rather try their hand 2016 with a possible Clinton candidacy on the ballot.

He tried to correct himself, but it’s still not true. He wasn’t talking about just one recruit, but several. Here’s the exact quote from the BuzzFeed story:

“‘This is an interesting phenomenon right now,’ Israel told BuzzFeed in an interview Friday. ‘We have some recruits who say, ‘You know, I don’t know if I want to do it in ‘14, but if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016, I’m in.’”

While the screen said “House Democrats Struggle With Recruiting In 2014,” Israel actually said Democrats are “way ahead.”

Let’s, once again, document the many, many recruiting failures so far this cycle.

Just last Friday, a prized Democrat recruit spurned the DCCC in IN-02. In fact, it’s gotten so bad, Democrats were forced to resurrect the candidacy of Staci Appel in IA-03. She initially dropped out, but eventually got back in the race when Democrats couldn’t find anyone else.

A few months ago, we documented the struggles of the DCCC with a post titled, “9 Democratic Recruiting Disasters.” Whether it was Michael Rubio or a slew of Democrats in a primary in California, their repeated failures in Iowa, or the candidacies of Sona Mehring and Jim Graves in Minnesota—which may have been shorter than a Kim Kardashian marriage—they just haven’t been able to convince Democrats to run.

It’s not surprising.

With ObamaCare failing badly, Obama’s approval rating mired in the mid-forties, and their leaders in Congress pushing for an unbalanced budget, it’s hard to blame them.