Pelosi, DCCC Move to Block Espy
Roll Call Staff
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With Mississippi state Rep. Chuck Espy (D) inching closer to launching a primary campaign against Rep. Bennie Thompson next year, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sought recently to avert what looks likely to be an all-out brawl in the Delta district.
But Pelosi’s actions, which came at the urging of Thompson, appear to be doing little to dissuade the state legislator from making the race and have outraged his allies.
Thompson’s concerns about facing Espy, the nephew of former Rep. Mike Espy (D-Miss.), were laid out in a one-page internal memo drafted for Pelosi on the eve of a meeting last month between the Leader and the Congressman.
The memo — a copy of which was obtained by Roll Call — also detailed how the Democratic leader could help to undercut Espy’s nascent campaign and suggested that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had already acted to serve warning to the political consultants working for Espy.
Among the actions suggested in the memo was a request that Pelosi reach out to former Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.) to enlist his help in dissuading Mike Espy from supporting his nephew. Coelho was considered Espy’s mentor in Washington and the two remain close friends.
“Ask him to push Mike to stop this race,” the memo states. The author of the memo, a Pelosi staffer whose name was redacted in the copy obtained by Roll Call, however, expressed reservations about the Democratic Leader doing anything overt to suggest that Thompson is frightened about his prospects.
Coelho, reached Monday, confirmed that he had received a call from Pelosi regarding the 2nd district primary but declined further comment.
In an interview Friday, Mike Espy said Pelosi’s effort had essentially boomeranged and given him more incentive, not less, to work to elect his nephew.
“I’ve seen the memo. I’ve read the memo and I’m disappointed in the memo,” Espy said. “I did get a call from Tony Coelho, who was disturbed from the call he got from Nancy Pelosi and I think that call to him had the opposite effect. I think it’s just going to encourage us to reach out to the Washington establishment and good friends like Tony Coelho.”
While it is not out of the ordinary for the DCCC and Democratic leaders to discourage primary challenges to incumbents, many would consider tactics such as enlisting the help of former Members and threatening to blackball Democratic consultants extraordinary lengths.
Pelosi spokeswoman Jennifer Crider did not dispute the memo’s authenticity and said only: “The Democratic Caucus does support its incumbents.”
The memo also details efforts by the DCCC to punish Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Strother-Duffy-Strother for its work on Espy’s behalf.
The firm has been working for Espy since roughly the beginning of this year and has done work directly for the DCCC in previous election cycles, as well as for numerous individual Democratic candidates.
According to the memo, Thompson has met with DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Executive Director John Lapp and apprised them of his concerns about the race.
“Following this meeting Lapp called Jim Duffy and told him the DCCC would not provide any contracts to a firm seeking to unseat an incumbent,” the memo states. “Duffy indicated this was fine. The political desks at the DCCC have been told that candidates in other states should not hire this firm.”
Duffy confirmed Tuesday that he had been contacted by Lapp about his work on Espy’s race.
“When he called me and told me that’s how the cow ate the cabbage,” Duffy recalled, he told Lapp to “do what you got to do.”
Lanier Avant, Thompson’s top aide, acknowledged that his boss had reached out to Pelosi for help in his re-election campaign but characterized that effort as nothing out of the ordinary, citing Pelosi visit to Thompson’s district in February 2004.
He said Thompson plans to treat next year’s race no differently than past re-election contests.
“We take every opponent absolutely seriously,” he said. “And whoever we face in the September primary next year will be no exception.”
Asked whether it was normal practice to ask the Leader to enlist the help of a former Member in intervening in the primary, Avant responded: “We find it helpful to send a signal early and often. And so that’s been what we’ve done.”
Thompson, who had $283,000 in the bank as of March 31, has won his last two general elections with 58 percent (2004) and 55 percent (2002) against the same underfunded Republican opponent. The memo to Pelosi notes his “lower than expected support” in those races as another reason he will need assistance in 2006.
In an interview Monday, Chuck Espy cautioned that his candidacy is not yet official, but didn’t waste an opportunity to bemoan what he described as the current lack of “strong” and “balanced” Democratic leadership in the 2nd district.
Espy, who said that he had been told about the memo and its details, is in the process of registering a campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission and filing other candidate forms with the Internal Revenue Service.
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