It’s not unusual to see confusion about the roles that various Democratic Party campaign committees play, though it seems to have peaked recently following Democrat James Thompson’s unexpectedly close loss in the special House election in Kansas’ dark-red 4th Congressional District, based around Wichita. What I’m talking about, more than anything, is cries of “WHY DIDN’T THE DNC DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS RACE?!?”
That’s kind of like coming across the scene of a bus accident, and asking “WHY ISN’T THE COAST GUARD COMING TO THE RESCUE?!?” There are certainly valid reasons to critique the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the ways it does business, but the committee’s non-involvement in a House race isn’t one of them. It isn’t their jurisdiction—that’s simply something they don’t, by definition, do.
If you’re interested in having your comments about dysfunction by Democratic organizations taken seriously, it helps to at least have some knowledge of where to correctly point your finger. With that in mind, let’s take a few minutes to review the alphabet soup of organizations in Washington that raise money for, and spend money on, Democratic candidates.
The DNC (Democratic National Committee) is the presidential committee. It raises money, primarily, for the presidential race every four years. It oversees the primary/caucus process, setting rules and coordinating debates (though, of course, the state parties have large—probably too large, given the amounts of chaos that often results—amounts of leeway in terms of when they do things and what kind of format they use).
It organizes and pays for the Democratic National Convention, which in itself is a remarkably large expense. It pays for advertisements and field organization for the Democratic presidential nominee, once the convention is over. The DNC is run by a chair that, if there’s a Democrat in the White House, is picked by the president, and, if not (as we just saw), is elected by DNC members, who are picked by their state parties.