Term Limits

Thursday the city council passed Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to change term limits to allow all of them to run for a third term. This has been put to referendum twice and the people of New York City twice affirmed their desire to limit elected officials to two terms. Reading city council member's responses shed some light on a few people who are or were on the short list to be sent to Congress on behalf of the voters of this district;

Mike McMahon voted against over turning term limits.

Bill DeBlasio, the 2006 brief candidate for the Democratic nomination also voted no. In his statements he said;

George Orwell would have loved the arguments made by the Mayor and Speaker. He calls this "stealing like a thief in the night the shape of our democracy."

Domenic Recchia, the 2008 would be Democratic candidate, who ran for this seat, piled up money then dropped out voted in favor of over turning term limits;

Recchia just praised the Council for getting work going on redevelopment of Coney Island. "But if I can't be on Council, how will I know that the work will get done?"

Ingnizo and Oddo the two Republican council members from Staten Island voted no.

Recchia's congressional money still lingering

Domenic Recchia, the one time candidate for this office dropped out of the race with around $270,000 cash. Since this is a federal campaign he can not transfer this money to any city races so he has to either refund it or donate it to other federal campaigns. At the end of the third quarter his non-existent campaign still has $160,000 in its coffers. Last quarter he made the following contributions;

Alan Meisel $1,000
Delia Schack $1,700

Best I can tell is that they are Brooklyn district leaders. Didn't realize that was allowable but the confusion lies in why he has yet to give any of this money to Congressional races that need the help. There is no contribution to McMahon, Massa, Maffei, or Kryzan. This deserves some more attention.

Recchia's residual expenses

While Domenic Recchia, like Fossella, may be out of the race he still have FEC reports to file as long as his campaign committee has money. The guy certainly is sitting on a lot of it and can't move it over to his new race of interest Borough President. Curious how he transitioned so fast from wanting to be in Congress to wanting to be BP, but that is not for this post.

Recchia is reporting $2,280 in contributions from March to June and $96,128 in disbursements. That is quite a sizable number in terms of expenses considering his net contributions indicate he probably was looking to get out of the race much earlier than he let on. Of those expenses not all were direct campaign costs, several were contributions to other political candidates;

March 3
$1,000 Judith McMahon, wife of Mike McMahon, running for Judge

March 24
$1,000 to Rep. Jerry Nadler, NY-08

March 26
$500 Assemblyman Vito Lopez, chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party

June 1
$1,000 Kings County Democratic Club (Brooklyn)

June 12
$4,600 Mike McMahon

As a reminder Recchia dropped his bid for the Congressional seat on June 3. Of the contributions none really stand out in any form. McMahon was backing Recchia prior to running himself, so a contribution to his wife's judicial race is not surprising. Nor is a contribution to Vito Lopez who would have sway in either an endorsement for the Congressional race or the Borough President race we have to imagine he was already pondering. A little frustrating is the need to contribute $1,000 to Rep. Nadler's non existent race only to have him give it back in a donation. Considering we have three very close races in upstate NY there are very many more logical candidates to give money to, rather than this ridiculous quid pro quo arrangement. Recchia had already given Nadler $2,000 back in December. And finally it is great to see Recchia has maxed out to McMahon, although he appears to have maxed out both his primary and general election contributions in a primary election contribution. We might see half of that coming back and being recut to McMahon.

Left over updates

The cash on hand totals and the maplight widget (on the right) which tracks total contributions have both been updated to reflect the latest FEC filings.

Robert Straniere and Jamshad Wyne appear to have not yet filed with the FEC. Once they do I will add them as well.

Domenic Recchia has contributed $2,300 from his Recchia for Congress committee to McMahon.

Domenic Recchia finally drops out

from his "campaign";

As Democrats, we have an incredible opportunity before us, to turn a red seat blue and bring true change and real leadership to the residents in Staten Island and Brooklyn. That will not happen if we are not united as a party.

Therefore, I am withdrawing my bid for the 13th Congressional district, and will support our party's nominee, Mike McMahon.

Thank you to all of the people who believed in me, worked for me and fought for me over the last year - especially those who encouraged me to stay in the race despite the altered political landscape.

Most of all, I would like to thank the voters of the congressional district, who welcomed me with open arms and believed in my message.

I have not made any decisions about my political future and have no further comment at this time.

To say his was a frustrating campaign to try to follow and support would be an understatement. I am still trying to understand what he was hoping to do but have to imagine he expected to have the field cleared for him and lost interest when it was not. I hold no ill-will towards him and his future but like DeBlasio in 2006 I think his flirtation with the race only caused problems. The question now is how he works towards helping the Democratic nominee win this seat. That will be quite telling towards how much he actually cared about the district.

Domenic Recchia about to step aside

I was sent this statement from a Recchia for Congress email address, although I can not confirm this was sent on Recchia's behalf yet;

"Congressman Fossella's statement is one more step in the right direction toward the change needed in both the 13th congressional district, and the nation. I'm currently in talks with other Democrats to come up with a solution that will serve the best interest of the party, which is turning this seat from red to blue."

This statement come in shortly after the NY Times published these comments;

“Domenic is out of the race,” said Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic Party leader who is a major part of the decision making on what candidate the party will endorse. “He is no longer a candidate for personal and family reasons.”

Mr. Recchia, however, said that he has not made any decision to drop out of the race. “My situation is this: There are other Democrats from Staten Island who are interested in running,” Mr. Recchia said. “We’re trying to work things out. To have a primary with elected officials running against each other is not in the best interest of the party.”

There are several outstanding questions;
* What is Recchia going to do with his $325,000? He can only spend it on a federal election or donate it to other candidates, and not use it for a potential Borough President race

* Who is Recchia waiting on to declare for him to officially end his unofficial candidacy?

* If Recchia believes party unity and avoiding a primary is so important why did he "run" after Harrison had declared?

Fossella's arrest leads to fund raising for Recchia too

via Liz Benjamin;

Meanwhile, Councilman Domenic Recchia, who has yet to formally declare his candidacy for Fossella's seat but has been raising money for a likely run, didn't want to comment on his likely opponent's troubles, but did tell DN City Hall Bureau Chief Kirsten Danis that he has seen an uptick in fundraising since the Staten Island congressman's arrest last week.

"In the last few days, it’s picked up,” said Recchia, who declined to say if he believed the surge was related to Fossella’s DWI bust. “I’m just doing a good job. People are listening and hearing our message.”

Tom Wrobleski, Concern Troll

via Wikipedia;

The concern troll posts in web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group.

Tom starts off telling us that presidential candidate Sen. Obama has not raised as much money in Staten Island as Sens. Clinton or McCain. Thus;

Which could mean trouble for borough Democratic candidates -- especially those who are aiming to run against GOP Rep. Vito Fossella -- if Obama wins the party nomination.

The fundraising totals from Staten Island are;
Clinton - $111,348
McCain - $48,820
Obama - $33,762

more Tom;

In other words, congressional hopefuls Steve Harrison and Domenic Recchia had better hope that Hillary finds some way to win the Democratic nomination.

So Harrison and Recchia are in trouble if Obama is the nominee according to Tom because McCain has raised more money on the island and thus has more support. Thus the concern trolling. Tom wants us to believe he is just stating some facts and raising concerns for the public to think about but he stops well short of presenting his case in an unbiased fashion. Why does Tom not continue that line of thought to say Fossella and McCain are in trouble if Sen. Clinton is the nominee seeing how she clearly blew McCain away in fund raising on the island?

Instead Tom pulls out his infamous "source" whom he never attempts to show has any knowledge or credibility and hopes you don't question him. This source goes on to lay out the argument that Republicans are just going to win Staten Island even if Sen. Clinton is the nominee, it is how the island works we are told. Aside from that continued lack of credibility this line of reporting has, should it be true what is the purpose then of this article? Why is his slant that Obama will hurt Harrison and Recchia instead of simply writing an article that Staten Island votes for Republicans. It seems the biggest thing stopping that is that it wouldn't be news worthy.

Recchia has 131% more money than Fossella

Swing State Project put together a list comparing incumbents to their challengers in terms of available cash on hand. Domenic Recchia is #5 with 131% the cash on hand that Vito Fossella currently holds.

Vito Fossella trails Recchia in cash on hand

Tom is reporting first quarter FEC numbers that show Vito Fossella now far behind Recchia in available cash. Based on his numbers here is how the first quarter results look compared to where we were back at the end of December 2007 (last quarter numbers in parenthesis);

Q1
Fossella (R): $148,641 ($304,453)
Harrison (D): $43,878 ($69,230)
Recchia (D): $129,690 ($220,770)

COH
Fossella: $248,496 ($250,501)
Harrison: $91,131 ($83,116)
Recchia: $325,175 ($206,451)

This is huge if correct. Not only is Recchia ahead by $75,000 it appears that Vito Fossella not only already spent all the money he raised from January to March but in fact has less money now than he did at the end of December. He is going backwards in terms of fundraising. While Fossella will have raised $850,000 to date, he has spent $600,000 of that and isn't even campaigning yet. A question I will be curious to see an answer to is whether or not Fossella was able to finally get completely out of the massive debt he incurred in order to beat Harrison on 2006.

see: Fossella in Financial Trouble and Denial, part III

DFNYC opening endorsement voting

Tonight was the candidate forum hosted by DFNYC, Stonewall Democratic Club, Three Parks Independent Democratic Club, Village Reform Democratic Club and Truth 13. The featured guests were to be Steve Harrison and Domenic Recchia. As of late this afternoon only Harrison had confirmed his attendance.

Tonight is also the opening of the endorsement voting for DFNYC in this race. Unlike many of the political clubs in the city voting members of DFNYC have attendance requirements to become a voting member, so this is not something that can easily be stacked. Harrison seems to be well received so far by members of the organization who have held events and fundraisers for him. Most of this support comes from his participation and progressive and grassroot outreach that is coming on strong this election. I have a hard time seeing how he does not easily win this endorsement and add it to his list. Here was my analysis of a DFNYC endorsement following Harrison's PDA endorsement;

PDA could bring invaluable volunteers into this race and if I had the option of having the volunteer advantage or the fund raising advantage I would gladly take the volunteers. You can buy ads and literature all you want, but if you don't have a ground game distributing those, talking to voters and getting them to the polls they are useless. If Democracy for America (DFA) follows suit and gets involved in this race on Harrison's behalf, which would not surprise me given DFNYC's involvement, I would think Harrison would quickly have the advantage in this race. I would also give him a sizable and experienced volunteer advantage. DFNYC enthusiastically campaigned for Barbaro in 2004 so they do have some history with this district and wanting to take out Fossella.

Check out dfnyc.org for voting information. Also this is another reason to join their mailing list if you have not done so alredy. You can signup at that link as well.

DFNYC candidate forum April 15

via DFNYC email;

Join Democracy for NYC, Stonewall Democratic Club, Three Parks Independent Democratic Club and Village Reform Democratic Club for a candidate forum in the Democratic primary in the 13th Congressional District:

When: April 15, 2008, 6:30pm

Where: Lafayette Grill and Bar, 54 Franklin Street [Google Map]

Candidates:
Steven Harrison (invited, confirmed), Councilmember Dominic Recchia (invited, not yet confirmed)

Subway: Take the N,R,Q,6, C and A trains to Canal Street or the 1 train to Franklin Street.

The 13th District is currently represented by Republican Vito Fossella. As New York City’s only Republican member of Congress, Fossella has been a rubber-stamp for the Bush-Cheney White House.

The District covers Staten Island and part of southwest Brooklyn. This forum is being held in Manhattan to make it possible for many people to attend. Please contact us if you know of any candidate forums in the 13th CD, as we would be happy to help promote: info@dfnyc.org.

Congestion Pricing Round-up

* Via Tom;

Brooklyn City Councilman Domenic Recchia, who wants to be your U.S. congressman, voted in favor of congestion pricing yesterday.

His opponent in the Democratic congressional primary here, Steve Harrison, is against the proposal.

* via Sally in the Advance;

Although congestion pricing is a city and state issue, it is getting mixed into the heated Democratic primary for the race to succeed Rep. Vito Fossella.

snip

During his speech, Recchia echoed the mayor's mantra that charging drivers $8 for entering Manhattan south of 60th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays, a fee from which existing tolls would be deducted, would raise funds for mass transit projects in the five boroughs.

Harrison, who opposes congestion pricing, argued that it attempts to serve opposing interests: If people are in fact deterred by the toll and take mass transit, it may not raise sufficient funds. If drivers stay in their cars and pour extra funds into the public transportation system, the city's air will not benefit, he said.

* Sally again from later in that article;

Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) did not return calls for comment on congestion pricing, and has not taken a public position on the issue, which requires votes on the city and state levels but is being bolstered by a promise of federal funds.

Of course Fossella did not return calls nor will he state his position on congestion pricing. Vito Fossella who won't even comment or suggest any policy for Iraq. He doesn't really see his job as a congressman as one of policy creation and legislation as much as he thinks it is about ski trips.

note: let me know if you see anymore articles on congestion pricing and any of the candidates.

Domenic Recchia issues statement on 5 years of war in Iraq

Recchia for Congress press release;

DOMENIC RECCHIA STATEMENT ON 5 YEARS OF WAR IN IRAQ

Recchia: “The time to end this war has come. We need to make the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war the last anniversary of the Iraq war.”

Councilman Domenic Recchia, Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 13th Congressional District, released the following statement regarding the five year anniversary of war with Iraq:

“Five years ago today, President Bush misled the American public and invaded Iraq without an exit strategy. Vito Fossella’s rubberstamp of President Bush’s failed Iraq war policies has cost our country over a trillion dollars and worse, thousands of lives. It is clear that we need a new direction in Iraq and we need leaders who are going to stand up and fight to end this war. Congressman Fossella has voted to give President Bush a blank check for this misguided war time and time again. I will support a responsible redeployment our troops, force the Iraqi government to take responsibility for the security of their own country, and rebuild our military.

Five years later our country is no safer. Nearly 4,000 American soldiers have been killed and tens of thousands wounded. We have not captured Osama bin Laden 2,381 days after the horrific attacks on our city, and we have spent more than a trillion dollars while our domestic priorities have been put aside.

It is time for the Iraqi government and Iraqi soldiers to stand up and fight for their own country – for too long, American soldiers have been tasked with the impossible mission of refereeing a civil war in Iraq. In these times of economic uncertainty, Americans are feeling the crunch from Main Street to Wall Street. Our resources must be focused on investing here at home—in our schools, in our health care system, in our transit system, in new technology and alternative sources of energy, in creating and keeping jobs here at home.

The time to end this war has come. We need to make the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war the last anniversary of the Iraq war.”

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Taxpayers here in NY-13 have already spent $1.8 billion for the Iraq War to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

* 329,254 People with Health Care OR
* 3,342,657 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR
* 34,459 Public Safety Officers OR
* 27,191 Music and Arts Teachers OR
* 291,353 Scholarships for University Students OR
* 94 New Elementary Schools OR
* 10,149 Affordable Housing Units OR
* 623,904 Children with Health Care OR
* 203,419 Head Start Places for Children OR
* 20,679 Elementary School Teachers OR
* 26,833 Port Container Inspectors

Random Notes

It is too late to start writing something new;

* A commenter says Domenic Recchia did not show up to the Brooklyn Democrats for Change forum on Monday. Can anyone confirm this? update: as one of the commenters in this post notes Domenic Recchia was unable to attend due to a family related matter. Harrison choose not to speak out of respect for Recchia not being able to attend.

* Dan Rivoli has a new piece out in City Hall news on Recchia. I will try to dive into this tomorrow.

* Steve Harrison calls for Spitzer to step down;

"I am very, very disappointed by the betrayal of Eliot Spitzer," said Steve Harrison, a Democratic candidate from Bay Ridge seeking to unseat Congressman Vito Fossella. "He has admitted to what he did. This was a man who was a champion of honesty. I call upon Eliot Spitzer to step down right now."

Why does media coverage of this race have to suck?

I have been mulling over this post for quite some time now. I had to step away from it for a while because I quickly becoming non-objective in my approach which is something you will see I am having issues with. Before I jump into the depths here I think a good question to ponder is how would the media coverage of this Congressional race and others in the city differ if all the seats were swing districts and competitive year after year?

There have been a few articles recently (a month ago at this point) talking about fundraising levels and the implications of those numbers on DCCC involvement in this race. I am going to focus on two articles by Tom Wrobleski of the Staten Island Advance. In the most recent article on this topic Tom interviews Jay O'Donovan, 1988 candidate for this seat.

Jay O'Donovan;

"If you raise $500,000, they might think about giving you money."

anonymous DC political source;

She said that there's no "golden" fund-raising threshold that the national Democrats look for before getting involved, but said they instead consider a candidate's overall fund-raising and ground strength, among other factors.

Jay O'Donovan;

"To get them interested, you have to be very well-connected, with money in the bank. That's all the DCCC wants to see. They not concerned with issues. They're concerned with polling and fund-raising."

I pull these quotes all from the same article to illustrate a couple of points. First look at how inconsistent those comments are. So the DCCC wants candidates to raise $500,000 or there is no threshold. The DCCC only cares about fund-raising or ground strength and other factors. These two sources seem to contradict each other yet there is no mention of this. Never is the question posed why the discrepancy is comments. So one of my first questions then is what is the direction of this piece and intent. Does Tom want to show this is a money race by interviewing a candidate who ran for this seat 20 years ago? Or is Tom showing that money is important but that the DCCC has changed its views and now judges a race on several factors? I don't know those comments were just left out there to stand on their own for what ever reasons.

A second point of contention I have with this and similar articles is this anonymous DC political source. We have no indication that this source is credible or that they have any knowledge on this matter other than Mr. Wrobleski including them in this article. Is this source a staffer for Rep. Fossella? Are they a consultant or entity on the payroll for Fossella, Harrison or Recchia's campaign? A yes to any of these would put doubt on their comments but we have no way of knowing the answer. This isn't the first time anonymous sources have made their way into his articles, see my previous post Candidate speculation: Cusick. It is understandable that sources can not always be named for various reasons but there rarely is a reason why their knowledge can not be justified by explaining where or whom they work for. Unless you see this you should instantly be asking questions about the validity of these individuals as experts and never take them too seriously.

If we go back a few days prior to the above piece to Tom's piece Funding the House he tries to take a shot at Harrison and Recchia's fund raising by pointing out they are not one of the top ten challengers in terms of fund raising totals;

Sort of puts the $326,000 or so combined raised by Democratic congressional hopefuls Domenic Recchia and Steve Harrison in perspective, huh? When national Democrats and Republicans talk about raising "big money early" for a congressional race, these are the kinds of numbers that will get their attention.

The kinds of money raised that gets attention in his comment is referring to ten challengers that had at a minimum of $800,000 in contributions (going up to 1.24 million). This again is a problematic statement and potentially now a third threshold of fundraising but we seemed to debunk this above. Certainly having nearly a million dollars for a campaign will do wonders, but it did not do much for a candidate like Jack Davis in NY-26 in terms of getting DCCC support in 2006. Further Tom never attempts to mention that all ten of these challengers have thus far out raised Vito Fossella. Sort of puts Fossella's fundraising in perspective huh? Mentioning that would potentially ruin the point of his article so it is understandable why it was overlooked.

The CQPolitics article continues beyond the total contributions comparison to look at cash on hand which is probably a better metric. One can raise a lot of money, but if they spend it before the election gets underway then those figures are almost meaningless. Take a look at Rep. Doolittle (CA) and Rep. Young (AK) who have drastically cut into their cash on hand in costly legal expenses. Again Vito Fossella would not match up to the challengers on this top ten list in terms of cash on hand. Vito Fossella's $250,000 cash on hand is a little more than half of that of the number ten candidate on that list, Dean Andal with $471,000. This is actually an area where Fossella and his challengers are much closer with Domenic Recchia at $206,000 cash on hand. Again there is no mention of this in the article.

If we are talking about what entices the DCCC to take a look at getting involved in a race why overlook cash on hand? The financial cost to the DCCC would just be $50,000 to $150,000 to put the Democratic challengers ahead of Fossella in terms of cash on hand that they could use to compete. If Fossella was better at fund raising the cost for the DCCC to even out spend would be three or four times higher.

All in all this is starting to become very concerning to me. There is a perceived bias against the Democratic challengers with this theme of fundraising continuing to be pushed with selective comments and metrics. Throughout there is no attempt to compare Vito Fossella to the same standards of fundraising prowess that Steve Harrison and Domenic Recchia are being held to. Maybe my expectations are too high, but this is a Congressional race so can expectations ever be too high?

This should not be read as sole criticism of Tom, it just so happens he actually covers the race on occasion and had two questionable pieces in a short time frame that raised a few red flags. Keep reading on but I recommend you question what you are being told because our media appears to have limited standards expected in their coverage and all too often report that way.

Harrison and Recchia at Candidate Forum, Monday

Brooklyn Democrats for Change candidate forum on Monday March 10.
Knights of Columbus-Thomas Dogan Council
8122 5th ave [Google Map]
Meeting starts at 7:30 PM.
Candidates speak at 8:30 PM.

update: Kevin the President of Brooklyn Democrats for Change informed me that they have a new website. Thanks!

Activists vs. Institutional candidates, partIII

I have written previously about how this race is shaping up to be one of the activist candidate versus the institutional candidate.

Domenic Recchia through limited media coverage has become the institutional candidate through his backing by Rep. Jerry Nadler, Councilman Mike McMahon and State Senator Diane Savino. On the contrary a potentially interesting juxtaposition is Harrison's support which seemingly for now is the activists and what is shaping up to be the political club membership.

You could update that quote now to say Harrison has the support of not just the political club membership but the club endorsements as well. In Tom's latest piece about what may become the endorsement race Harrison comments the he is bracketing the Democratic Party from the activist left, with PDA and SIDA to the party centrists with the Democratic Organization of Richmond County. Here is Recchia's response;

"He had everybody's support last time and he got 43 percent of the vote," Recchia said, referring to Harrison's failed bid against Fossella in 2006. "This time, he's not going to have everybody's support. In the end, the Democratic Party is going to be standing united behind Domenic Recchia."

Let me be clear that I want to see Fossella out of Congress, whether he is forced to resign, retires or his constituents fire him. That is my objective. In doing so I try very hard to keep from engaging in party politics of the Democratic primary and refuse to spread any nonesense. I don't believe attacking each other in order to win the nomination is a strategy that can defeat Fossella this November.

With Recchia's statement he has now clearly defined the lines of this primary. He is the institutional candidate. His comments show he believes he is entitled to be our nominee. There is absolutely nothing to gain by putting down Harrison or his achievements of 2006. We fail when we are blinded into believing our opponent is the Democrats on the other side of the primary instead of Fossella.

I wonder if Recchia had won any of these past endorsements if the story would be any different. Had he won the club endorsements would we not have heard that the party is backing Recchia and Harrison needs to drop out? But in not winning them he downplays and tries to marginalize their influence. We can see this story playing out nationally in the presidential primaries. One candidate is winning over what otherwise would be considered "red" parts of the country on their message and the challenger is downplaying their importance, since they are states the Democrat most likely will not carry in November. That story is not gaining much support across the party and in particular is alienating portions of the party who are energetic about November. This simply is not acceptable here or there.

Right now it is safe to say Harrison has become the activist favored candidate and Recchia has solidified his role as the institutional candidate. The only part of the story that matters though is that this is a fight against Fossella and not against ourselves.

Hello? Domenic, you there?

Anybody know if Domenic Recchia has a campaign website up? I certainly can not find one.

domenicrecchia.com and recchia2008.com have been purchased, but the whois look-up comes back to domains by proxy with GoDaddy essentially meaning the owner is not publicly known.

flashback 2006; Hello? Steve, you there?. The Harrison campaign quickly got in touch and pointed out their newly launched site.

Meanwhile on the other side of the race Steve Harrison has launched a more in depth website and redesign. If you haven't seen it yet take a look.

Vito Fossella's seat "on the front line"

via Elizabeth;

Rep. Steve Israel, a Suffolk County Democrat who is in charge of recruiting candidates for the DCCC in the Northeast, said there are nine Congressional races of note in New York this fall - an embarassment of riches for a state that used to be, as he put it, "a kind of political backwater in national elections."

For now, (until the next Census, that is), New York has 29 Congressional seats, 23 of which are held by Democrats. Israel said the party is trying to "fill in the blanks" with six of those seats.

The Fossella v. Harrison/Recchia race is one of the six NY races Rep. Israel and the DCCC are focusing on. Maybe of most note in the article was this;

Israel stressed that the DCCC will not get involved with candidates until after the September primary, which means Democrats are going to have to slug it out to get the nomination - and the fundraising assistance that comes along with it.

Domenic Recchia is perceived to be the candidate of choice of the DCCC and so any involvement by the DCCC would seemingly be to the benefit of Recchia.