DCCC monitoring Shulman, but won't commit to funding him

The Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) seems confident that Democrats will pick up two House seats in New Jersey this year, but stopped short of promising financial help to Dennis Shulman, a blind rabbi/psychologist who is challenging Rep. Scott Garrett in the 5th district.

"The closer we got to Election Day the more opportunities developed. Sometimes as you get closer some fall off the list. The last time we went through this in 2006, the closer we got to voting day the more competitive," said Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-Md.) in a conference call with reporters today.

The DCCC's third priority in New Jersey is Shulman, who has raised a lot of money for a challenger in a long-shot district, and whose unique personal story has recently drawn national media attention from publications like Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker.

"The short answer is that we're very impressed with what they've done and we see that campaign on an upward trajectory," he said.

So far, the DCCC has only pledged significant resources to the campaigns of John Adler and Linda Stender, the Democratic nominees for two open seats currently held by Republicans. There has been no commitment of financial resources to Shulman, who received a $5,000 in donation from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md). He has been moved into their "emerging races" category, however, and will be considered to participate in the "Red to Blue" fundraising program that Stender and Adler take part in.

Late last month, the DCCC did run some anti-Garrett radio ads using a Bush impersonator.   

Stender, a four-term Assemblywoman from Union County, was largely ignored by the DCCC until the early fall, when Democrats started to believe incumbent Mike Ferguson (R-Warren) was in trouble. Stender came within one percentage point of winning.

Van Hollen wouldn't say whether the DCCC made a mistake in ignoring Stender last year, but did stress that they started paying attention to her campaign early this year. Recently, the group announced that they've set aside $1.8 million for radio buys for Stender in the 7th District and $1.7 million for Adler in the 3rd.

"It's always hard to do the Monday morning quarterbacking, so what we've done this year is just focus on this cycle and we've identified this race very early as one we thought we could win, which is why we began to run our radio ads in these districts even before the incumbent decided to retire."

Van Hollen also responded to frequent Republican attacks on Stender over her donations from Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who's facing tough questions about four apartments he rents from a developer with stabilized rates. He said that the attacks are meant to distract from economic issues in the district, and noted that Stender has $1.2 million to Republican Leonard Lance's $80,000 on hand.

"I don't think that kind of tactic is going to work," he said. "I think it will simply highlight the fact that he has been unable to attract much financial support."

National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Julie Shutley said that, while the Republicans may be out-funded this time around, they have to contend with a Congress that's not exactly popular with the public.

"I think that the two Republican candidates in the two districts are working hard and running good, competitive campaigns," she said. "The Democrats are running with a very heavy load on their backs from their low approval ratings and they left town today without doing one thing to lower energy prices. I think that will have a drag effect for some of these Democrats running for congressional seats."

Lance Campaign Manager Amanda Woloshen pointed out, as she has before, that Stender had the luxury of not having to run a primary campaign, and that Lance, a State Senator from Hunterdon County, had raised much more than he has on hand.

"Leonard Lance has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in this campaign, none of it from politicians who are under investigation by the House Ethics Committee," she said. "Linda Stender turned a blind eye to corruption in Union, Trenton and now she's doing it in Washington. That's the last thing we need in Congress."

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