Steve Israel Stepping Down As DCCC Chair After Midterm Sweep

In this May 1, 2014, photo, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., gestures during an interview with the Associated Press in Washington. House Democrats’ campaign arm... In this May 1, 2014, photo, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., gestures during an interview with the Associated Press in Washington. House Democrats’ campaign arm said Friday it raised $7.3 million in May despite long odds of toppling Republicans from their majority. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) MORE LESS
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Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) says he won’t continue on in his role as the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, following the GOP’s sweep of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections.

Israel told Newsday on Wednesday that he turned down House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) request for him to return as DCCC chairman during the next election. But he did say that he expressed interest in filling another leadership position.

“I’ve been really clear with leader Pelosi that I would like to continue to have a seat at the leadership table, because it makes me more effective,” he told the newspaper. “I’ll stay in Congress for as long as I believe I’m effective, but I’m not going to occupy a seat in Congress for the sake of having a seat in Congress.”

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  1. Avatar for pine pine says:

    I can definently dig that,Congressman Isreal,

  2. Good. Maybe he will start responding to constituent email…

  3. Avatar for ryokyo ryokyo says:

    Positively the WORST campaign so far this century, up to and including 1988’s Democratic Presidential train wreck. It didn’t start with the DCCC, but they made a bad campaign from the top down (and Yes, I mean the White House) even worse. If playing “musical chairs” someplace at the top or near it could have helped anything at all, it would have already been done. This is window dressing, put on after the vandals have thrown a brick thru the plate glass window.
    As for real “hope and change” forget about who the chair warmer is.
    Why?
    Because exactly one second after the last polling place was counted, reported, closed and locked on Tuesday, the 2016 Presidential campaign kicked into high gear. The DCCC and all the "levers of power "now belong to the 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate. And you don’t need eight years of political science to know whom Democrats suppose that will be.
    The DCCC muffed it, up and down the line.in 2014.
    What they will do, and who will do it in 2016, at this point matters not a wit. The Democrats as a Party have much more to worry about in trying to preserve themselves as a viable Party, never mind slicing up the money sandwiches floating around a town full of lame politicians, and the lame ducks they have made.

  4. I think he should return to the back bench where he belongs. That was one really, really bad election.

  5. Harry Reid has got to go as Minority Leader in the Senate too. He was the one who controlled how those Senate races were run, and he was the one who decided they should keep their heads low, and act like they were not Dems basically. I keep hearing that leadership moans about the President not inviting them over for drinks. Screw that. This is not high school. Reid sucks at getting the message of the Dems out.

    The Republican brand rates lower in approval than they ever have, and yet they won, and they won because for 6 years Reid has allowed the right to create the narrative, and is horrendous at having basically any narrative at all for the Dems. This crap that they have to have the same people in power year after year needs to stop, and they need some fresh blood at the top. The only plus I see in any of this, is that now the Cons are going to show all of the idiots who thought things would be better with them in power, that they are going to do nothing but make things worse. This is why we need someone who can get the effing message out.

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