In rare move, national Democrats come out against primary candidate Laura Moser in bid for Culberson

[TexasTowelie]

by Abby Livingston, Texas Tribune


In rare move, national Democrats come out against primary candidate Laura Moser in bid for Culberson's seat

The campaign arm of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives set its sights on a surprising target Thursday: Democratic congressional hopeful Laura Moser.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted negative research on Moser, a Houston journalist vying among six other Democrats in the March 6 primary to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. John Culberson. Democrats locally and nationally have worried that Moser is too liberal to carry a race that has emerged in recent months as one of the most competitive races in the country.

The DCCC posting, which features the kind of research that is often reserved for Republicans, notes that Moser only recently moved back to her hometown of Houston and that much of her campaign fundraising money has gone to her husband's political consulting firm. It also calls her a "Washington insider."

But DCCC spokeswoman Meredith Kelly went even further in a statement to The Texas Tribune.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/02/22/rare-move-national-democrats-come-out-against-laura-moser-primary-cand/

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. WTF?

[Exotica]

2. Congressional Democrats Go Scorched Earth Against A Progressive Candidate

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dccc-laura-moser-democrat-texas_us_5a8f87a8e4b03b55731a6d6a

A Democratic candidate running for Congress has attracted the opposite of an endorsement from her own party: A full-throated denouncement declaring her unfit for office.

Laura Moser, a U.S. House candidate from Texas’ 7th Congressional District, is one of seven Democrats running to unseat incumbent Rep. John Culberson (R). Her campaign has already garnered significant support, raising nearly $150,000 this year. But on Thursday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee came out swinging against Moser’s bid, posting links that resemble opposition research meant to undermine her campaign, which some have called too liberal for what’s expected to be a contentious election.

“Voters in Houston have organized for over a year to hold Representative Culberson accountable and win this Clinton district,” Meredith Kelly, communications director for the DCCC, said in a statement provided to HuffPost. “Unfortunately, Laura Moser’s outright disgust for life in Texas disqualifies her as a general election candidate, and would rob voters of their opportunity to flip Texas’ 7th in November.”

Kelly then linked to a quote from a November 2014 article in which Moser said she’d rather have her “teeth pulled without anesthesia” than live in the town of Paris, Texas, where her grandparents once resided. The DCCC, did not, however, provide context to the quote or note that Paris doesn’t fall in the congressional district that Moser would represent if elected.

snip



I hope we can avoid this kind of infighting, it only helps Republicans.

[douglas9]

3. National Democrats Launch a Bizarre Attack on a Leading Resistance Candidate

One of the open questions heading into the 2018 election was the extent to which groups like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would interfere in competitive Democratic primaries. The DCCC, the official campaign arm of the House Democrats, was coming off a disappointing showing in the 2016 elections, and Donald Trump’s victory had heightened the skepticism of progressive activists toward the party’s legacy institutions. Moreover, Democrats were on the cusp of a historic candidate surge. Did the embattled DCCC really want to wade into the middle of that?

Evidently, the answer is yes. On Thursday, the organization launched a low-grade nuclear attack on Laura Moser, one of four Democrats vying for the nomination to take on nine-term Republican Rep. John Culberson in Texas’ seventh congressional district. The seventh swung harder to Democrats in 2016 than any other district in the country, and it’s an important part of the party’s plans of retaking the House. The primary is a little more than a week away, and although the top two candidates still have to compete in a May runoff, the DCCC didn’t want to take any chances that Moser would be one of them.

In a statement on the DCCC website, the organization stated its case against Moser thusly: “Democratic voters need to hear that Laura Moser is not going to change Washington. She is a Washington insider, who begrudgingly moved to Houston to run for Congress.” The crux of its criticism is that Moser recently relocated to the district from Washington, DC; that her husband is on the payroll of the fundraising firm she uses, Revolution Messaging; and that she once wrote something really mean about living in a rural Texas town.

It’s an unusual attack for a few reasons. Moser, who grew up in Houston before moving away, has caught fire in the race largely because of her pedigree as a first-time activist—after the 2016 elections, she launched an organizing tool, Daily Action, to make it easier for activists to bug their members of Congress. She was featured on the cover of Time. It’s a little strange to start off the year of the first-time woman candidate by stating that a leading Resistance activist is “not going to change Washington,” just as it’s unusual to see a freelance writer—Moser has written for Slate and penned a series of young adult novels—described unironically as a “Washington insider” by virtue of having once lived in the same city as the DCCC.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/national-democrats-launch-a-bizarre-attack-on-a-leading-resistance-candidate/

[TexasTowelie]

4. More:

At Houston campaign events, Moser says national Democratic opposition is helping her congressional bid

https://www.democraticunderground.com/107838235