The hyperbolic emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee may not make the pantheon of election lore, but they should at least be included in the footnotes.
The DCCC's literal doom-saying fundraising emails throughout the 2014 campaign were prescient: The Democrats were doomed, perhaps from the start. Although the idea of maintaining Senate control was a winnable goal, the idea of clawing back control of the House from Republicans was a quixotic mission from the get-go. Instead of Democrats gaining ground, Republicans gained the largest congressional majority they've seen since World War II. Still, over the course of hundreds of emails to supporters, the DCCC tilted at windmill after windmill.
This is not to say the emails didn't work. In August alone, the DCCC raised $10.2 million—more than twice the $4.4 million the National Republican Congressional Committee raised that month. Over the election cycle, the DCCC raised a total of $171 million to the NRCC's $131 million.
In one final email to supporters Wednesday night, the DCCC did its own post-mortem analysis on Tuesday's results. "First off, you know we're not afraid to be blunt. So we'll just come out and say it: last night was rough," the email read. "We registered more voters, and made more phone calls, and knocked on more doors than ever before. But we were still left with heartbreaking losses."
All that cash could not surmount the terrible turnout among Democrats on Tuesday, or the fact that many House districts were practically gift-wrapped for Republicans in otherwise competitive states like Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio.
But before we move past the long campaign, let's meander down Memory Lane and doff our caps to the poor press assistants who had to ghostwrite Nancy Pelosi's emails for a year.
Emails such as these, for example:
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Or these:
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Or these:
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And now, the emoji highlights reel:
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And finally, this subject line, which pretty much sums up the DCCC's entire communications strategy for the past year:
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We'll miss you, DCCC emails. T R A G I C A L L Y.