Sign "O" the Times

There is just no good way for the Democrats to spin this one:

Facing an uphill battle to retake control of the House from Republicans, about one third of Democratic House members are refusing to pay any dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Another 109 members have made only partial payments…

The Democrats have tried everything to get deadbeat members to pay up, including denying the scofflaws a premium convention package that would get them a nice room at a choice hotel, and full access to all convention activities. But GOP pockets run deep this year and most members believe that they are going to need every dollar they can get to prevail in their own races.

That’s from our own Rick Moran at the PJ Tatler, riffing on a Politico piece. Taking a second look at it just now, I think Rick has provided the Democrat spin for them: “We’re focused on taking back the House!” Close your eyes and you can picture Nancy Pelosi saying that to George Stephanopoulos with a straight face, as he nods in solemn understanding.

But let’s take a harder look at the numbers, shall we?

There are currently 191 Democrat members of the House — a long way down from the Halcyon days of just two years ago, when they held 257 seats. So if “about one-third” of D members have refused to pay any dues to the DCC, that’s about 60 or so of them. And if 109 have made only partial payments, then probably no more than ten House Democrats have bothered to pay their full dues to the DCCC.

It’s a fair bet that among those ten or so Democrats, some of them hold leadership positions — such as Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. They almost certainly would have paid their dues in full, in order to set a good example for the rest of the yapping deadbeat back benchers.

Take them out of the equation, and you have single digit Democrats with enough faith in their party to pay what they “owe” to regain Democrat control of Congress.

I told you last week the House was never in play this year. Of course, that’s so obvious, damn near every Democrat knows it already.