Subject: DCCC MEMO: Sustaining Our Majority
TO: Interested Parties
FR: Chris Van Hollen
RE: Sustaining Our Majority
DA: January 23, 2007

Looking ahead to 2008, Democrats will remain on the offense. At the same time, as a result of our success last November we have many more members in districts that lean Republican in Presidential elections. We are determined to defend these districts by putting together aggressive fundraising plans, setting vigorous volunteer recruitment and house party goals and staffing up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee early in the cycle.

We have put together a strong Frontline Team, led by Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The DCCC has already begun meeting with Frontline members to begin laying the internal campaign groundwork for the 2008 election cycle.

A. Staying on the Offense
As discussed in last week's memo, we are aggressively on offense and working to put a large number of Republican seats in play. We are in the process of targeting districts where Republicans won by less than 5%, seats won by Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, districts occupied by ethically challenged incumbents and Republican seats likely to open. By challenging incumbent Republicans we can win additional seats and force them to expend resources defending their incumbents that would otherwise be directed at our most vulnerable members.

B. Setting Aggressive Frontline Goals
Fundraising
Since funding is a key factor in deterring tough Republican challengers, we have put together an aggressive fundraising program for members in tough districts. We have created aggressive goals for our Frontline members with targets ranging from 650k to 1 million cash-on-hand by June 30th.

Volunteer Recruitment and Outreach
In order to build the best local grassroots networks, Frontline members will put together outreach and volunteer programs in their home districts. Frontline members will be required to build and execute a rigorous 100 house party plan or a comparable grassroots substitute with the goal of identifying 1000 volunteers.

Online Networking
The support of net-roots organizations was key to Democrats success in 2006. Frontline members will be required to build an aggressive online operation with the goal of acquiring 30,000 e-mail addresses by November 2008.

C. Battle Tested Incumbents
Democrats have a strong record of defending tough incumbent seats. Taking out the impact of 2002 redistricting, Democrats have lost only six incumbents since 1996. Of these losses we have regained three (WI-08, CT-02 and KY-03). The DCCC will have a mentor program in place with battle-tested members like Jim Matheson (UT-02) and Dennis Moore (KS-02) working with incumbents from tough districts.

The new class is also packed with battle-tested new members like Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20), Harry Mitchell (AZ-05), Patrick Murphy (PA-08), and Heath Shuler (NC-11) who won tough elections and head into 2008 with a more solid grasp of the political landscape of their districts and a strong understanding of what it takes to win.

The added benefit of incumbency is that it offers an expanded forum for new members to fundraise and deliver to their districts.

D. Delivering on Our Promise to Voters
As the saying goes, "good policy is good politics". The House Democratic leadership has put forth an aggressive legislative agenda right out of the gate, including important initiatives like increasing the minimum wage, passing real ethics reform legislation and allowing for price negotiation on costly prescription drugs. Delivering on what we promised in Speaker Pelosi's "100 Hour Plan" will show the American people our ability to be an effective governing majority, and change the way business is done in Washington.

E. 2006 Democrats vs. 1994 Republicans
Recent polling shows that the confidence of the public is still firmly behind the new Democratic Congress and the party agenda that was the focus of the new members' campaigns.

According to recent Democracy Corps polling, the Republican Party is in disarray and in much worse shape than the Democrats were in 1994. As polling from December 12-17, 2006 shows, 46% of voters have a negative feeling towards the GOP, while only 36% feel positive. Feeling towards the Democrats is 45% warm vs. 33% cool. To put this into perspective, the public is 8 points cooler towards Republicans today than they were towards the Democrats in the aftermath of the 1994 election debacle.

Just as importantly, only 25% of the public believes that the country is headed in the right direction, while 34% believed that we were headed in the right direction in 1994. Democrats are committed to remaining the party of change and reform rather than the status quo.