also be joining us. thank you for joining us on this sunday. i hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a great week ahead. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> coming up, "newsmakers" with democratic congressional campaign committee chairman steve israel. he talks about the parties a plan to win more seats in the house of representatives this fall. and later, a house oversight committee hearing with testimony from attorney generic holder on the fast and furious

gun trafficking investigation. >> this week on us in makers d, -- "newsmakers," steve israel. thanks for being here. >> great to be with you. >> two reporters of course helping us with questions. jessica taylor and jonathan allen of "politico." jessica, you have the first question. go ahead. >> congressman israel, thanks for joining us here. you talked about in recent months about the generic ballot, the national democrats "wall street journal" had you up for six points. by our calculations, the 25 seats you need to gain back the house, best case scenario, we have you at about 12 right now. how can you make this work in some of these more competitive districts? ones that maybe haven't gone your way in redistricting? and especially with the president at atop a ballot that won't be -- -- be a help in some of these swing districts? >> the generic is one of the

most certain indicators of success or failure in history. in 2006 when we were in the minority we were up about five points in the generic and we won. in 2010 when we were in the majority the republicans were up about five or six in the generic and they won. so it is a good indicator. right now as you said we're up in every single generic ballot so we're in a better place than anybody would have thought we would be. but we're not there yet. optimism isn't going to win an election. i have a respectful disagreement with your analysis but whether you're right or wrong is almost irrel vapt. this is february. what counts is where with will we be in october and november? we need 25 seats to take the house back. i've never guaranteed that we're going to be at 25, 30, 20. but i guarantee that this is going to be a very, very close election. the raiser is going to be sharpened or dulled by the quality of our recruits.

we've outraised the republicans by $7 million for the first time in history, from a minority party. and by the messaging at the time. so we're not optimistic but we're in a comfortable place right now. >> do you still have concerns or any concerns about president obama being atop the ballot? and can you win back the house if the president loses re-election? >> well, we have actually a counterintuitive battle ground. look, the president i think is going to do very well in this election. the more people see -- have you watched the republican debates? the more people who are watching the republican debates, the more who are going to support the president. but separate apart from that, our battle space is a little bit counterintuitive. we need to do well in states where the president may not be putting a lot of resources. for example, result of redistricting we did very well in illinois. so we've got to do -- we've got to run up illinois. we need to do well in california. because redistricting created a favorable environment for us. texas is another state where we need to do well and florida.

so we're going to run in our own battle space with our own recruits, we're all problem solvers. and our challenge is to make sure that when people show up to vote for the president we're moving them down ballot and also get back the nine million independent voters who are critical to our success, who were with us in 2006, with us in 2008, but weren't with us in 2010. >> i want to ask you about you're a former member of the blue dog coalition. i want to ask you in the wake of heath shuler's retirement from a competitive district in north carolina, one that some folks think he's the only one who can win, some other blue dog retirements and some folks who didn't run again who lost last time from that end of things. folks in the blue dog coalition say privately that they're concerned about going back on the ballot and having ads run against them with nancy pelosi, former speaker of the house, as sort of the villain of the ads, that this was something that was difficult for them last time around and they don't want to share the ballot with her so to speak or share the ad space with her again.

what's your thought on that and has it been difficult for you to get these folks to stay on the ballot? >> i guess i have three responses in alphabetical order and in or the of priority. medicare, medicare, medicare. this election is going to be about who members of congress were for. and this is going to be a contrast. the issue of ads against nancy pelosi irrelevant when you have to stand up in the town meeting and defend to your constituents why you voted to end medicare for seniors in order to fund tax breaks for big oil companies. and i'll take that fight anywhere and everywhere. i will say this, in north carolina, i'm a realist and again we're not going to win this on optimism or false hope, north carolina was a challenge for us in redistricting. but we knew that going in. and we more than compensated for that in places like illinois, california. we think we'll do well in texas with redistricting. if it's at least an assem ambulance of a fair and

competitive process and in florida as well. >> do you think the ads last time against nancy pelosi run almost across the board d in every competitive district were not effective then or they won't be effective this time as a warning -- >> i think that the ads with respect to nancy pelosi is one what lost the 2010 elections. i thought -- i think it was the republican superpacs who came in, beamed into districts at the last minute, lying about democrats, saying that they actually cut medicare when in fact we know that their votes actually lengthened the solvency of medicare. the difference with 2012 is, they lied bus in 2010. we get to tell the truth about them in 2012. they put their voting cards in and voted yes to ending medicare. it's a vote that we will not allow them to escape from. >> so the $500 billion from medicare advantage wasn't a cut to medicare? >> it was a -- we actually strengthened the solvency of medicare. big difference between that on

the medicare advantage plan and a vote that the congressional budget office says will cost seniors an additional $6,000 and ends the guaranteed medicare benefit. big difference between the two and we're going to make sure the american people understand that difference and by the way they do already which is why we are doing so well in the generics, we're ahead with independent voters and the seniors are coming back to us based on that ryan budget which ends medicare, not just to end medicare but to fund tax cuts and tax breaks to big oil companies. >> congressman, still for these competitive seats, are you expecting more retirements? >> it's almost impossible to predict who's going to retire. i will say this, that in california, for example, the republicans have had a slough of retirements as a result of the new landscape. and look what's happening in florida. even as we speak you have republicans who are running away from their own districts, you need a scorecard and a number two pencil to figure out what republicans are running where. they are literally moving out

of their districts to try and run in what they think are more favorable districts. so there's no question it's fluid. but it's all been factored into our strategic plan. we need 25 seats to take the house, we know where they are and it's going to be close. >> so, congressman, then if you've made up an illinois what you lost in north carolina for redistricting, does that mean some democratic incombanlts like larry kissel, mike mcintyre, they expect less snun >> i wouldn't say that at all. we're going to use all the tools in our tool box to bring back democrats who are going to vote to protect medicare and rebuild the middle class. now, larry kissel, for example, in north carolina, mike mcintyre, they never had easy districts. they're used to the challenges. they know they have to work hard, go back home and talk about what they're doing to rebuild the middle class. contrast that to some republicans in illinois who find themselves in more competitive districts, who you never had to work that hard, never had a real campaign. when you look at it on a

granular basis, our candidate in more competitive districts are actually in much better shape, they are battle-tested, field-ready. >> so you're promising just as much money to them as you are to the illinois democrats? >> we're going to make decisions based on a 50-state playing field. and decide where resources are going to go based on strategic objectives and realtime, real information on the ground in those districts. >> in illinois one key difference i see is that there's several endangereded republicans there, yes, and that is a state that you all have very good pickup opportunities in. they're all running again. in north carolina you had brad miller who was drawn into another district but could have run in a very difficult 13th district. shuler's retiring, mcintyre is still talking about running for governor. you have so many there that are looking at other options and this is a state that's going to be critical in the general election as a whole for obama and where you're holding the d.n.c. convention as well. >> yeah. and so i've been very

realistic. early on we said that north carolina was going to be a challenge. we recognized that north carolina was going to be a challenge because republicans own the whole deal in north carolina on redistricting and we knew that they were going to produce maps that were going to be challenge which is why it was so important for us to make sure that we had fair and competitive processes, that gave us a pretty good wind at our backs in illinois, in california, in dks and florida. the bottom line is this, early on the republicans -- about a year ago they went to the highest mountain they could find with the biggest bull horn and said they were going to wipe us off the map with redistricting. they were claiming pickups of 15 to 20 seats. now even republicans are saying it's going to be a wash. factoring in north carolina, factoring in other areas that are more challenging environments, factoring all that in, it's still going to be a wash, the house is still in play, it's going to be razor close. >> the florida map seems to be reaching a compromise down there. we're almost starting to see

court challenges, especially under the new fair districts law. are there specific places that you see of concern and this is a state where you need to pick up three, four seats to even approach that 25? >> a couple of things. first of all, it's not my concern. it's allen west's concern. he moved out of his own district or is talking about leaving his own district to run in another district. congressman rooney is moving. these people are running away from their own districts but they can't hide from their own voting records. secondly, look, we need to do well in florida but florida is a really fascinating case as you well know because you watch this more closely than almost anybody i know. florida has over 600,000 registered democrats than republicans and a congressional delegation of six democrats and 19 republicans. how did that happen? it happened because the republicans overshot the runway. they so saturateded florida with republican seats it is not sustainable. the only way republicans can really protect republicans and add republicans in florida,

redistricting, is if they redistrict into bermuda and the caiman islands. they will try but we do have fair districts in florida and we're hopeful that -- and imagine we're going to court and hopeful that at the end of the process we'll have a good map. finally on that, even the republican maps that have come out in florida, because of the math, even the republican maps that have come out in florida give us seats. they have to because there are so many more democrats than republicans. so either way you cut it -- >> but still not as many as you would like and hope there. >> if every seat was a democratic seat -- >> well. >> we've also factored that in. there's never going to be a perfect environment. my job and the dccc's job is to create the best environment we can and to exploit poor and inadequate environments for republicans. >> congressman, you talked to democratic donors. i'm curious about the gap, i know you don't raise or you

don't have coordination with superpacs but i'm curious. what's your insight into why democratic superpacs for the house, for the senate and for the presidency have trailed so far behind their republican counterparts? >> this is what keeps me up at night. this is one of the -- we have checked the box on everything, all of our five major strategic objectives that we set out with. the one that we still have to focus on is the fact that karl rove and the koch brothers are going to come in like they did in twep with unlimited amounts of secret money and try and knock us off our feet. we did not lose to the republicans in 2010. we lost to carm rove and the koch brothers. the dcccc outspent the nrcc by $20 million but we got outspent by $30 million with these outside groups. they've got an infrastructure, they've got a donor network and they don't have to disclose who's contributing. we had an inadequate response to those superpacs in 2010.

now we have allies that are standing up and developing a response in 2012. will they go dollar for dollar with the republicans? no. but there will be a robust response that we lacked in 2010 and it will make it more competitive. >> so there's more money ready to be given to these democratic -- >> i had hope so. i'm not allowed to solicit but our allies know that one of the things that went wrong in 2010 was a lack of a robust response to karl rove and the republican's superpac regime. >> senate democrats are saying, we need to hold our majority there. how do you tell a democratic donor or what do you tell them to get them to give to your committee? >> i was with vice president biden just a couple of days ago talking about the importance of us working together. and he said it best. he said, why would we want to have another term and have to fight every day against people who want to end medicare, who

won't give a tax break to the middle class, who continue to protect special interests? and so the president, look, the president understands and i've talked to him about this frequently, he understands that he needs a partner. he has not had a partner. every time he's negotiated on things like the debt ceiling where he thought he had a deal, the deal came apart because the tea party has taken over the republican caucus. he needs somebody to negotiate with and he needs somebody who shares his values on rebuilding the middle class. and fighting special interests. and house democratic majority will give him that and our donors, jonathan, they are charged up. again, $7 million -- we raised $7 million more than the republicans in the -- last year. that's never happened before. our grassroots, over half a million grassroots donors. got a letter from a woman a few weeks ago, i love talking about this letter, hand written letter, dear mr. israel, i've signed up to contribute $3 a month from my credit cards to

the dccc. number two, i'm on s.s.i. and it's not easy for me to afford this but i think the democrats are going to protect my social security and number three, quit sending me so many emails. it's enough already. our grassroots are just really charged up. >> on this issue of resources, though, this new red to blue program that you've got going, 57 races that you're targeting. are you spreading yourself thin? >> no. the republicans have that problem now. they have the problem that we had in 2010. they've got about -- in 2010 we had between 80 and 100 races that we had to resource, protect or watch. we right now are frontline incumbents, we'll estimated it will be between 15 and 20. the republicans are going to have 60 to 80 races that they've got to protect and they're losing the resource race to us right now. so they've got that problem. in fact, the republicans announced their most vulnerable incumbent list just a few days ago.

their initial list has 30 incumbents that they themselves say are in trouble. we need 25 to take the house back. so we start off on a very good place. we'll have a narrow bandwidth for our income benlts, a much narrower playing field for our candidate it's and our candidates are just extraordinary. one of the most diverse recruiting classes we've had and problem solvers. they're not about left or right, they're about solve problems. we have jose hernandez in california, a nasa astronaut, the son of migrant workers. the first african-american female police chief in orlando where they brought crime down 40%. a two-star general in virginia. these are all problem solvers and there's an unquenchble thirst in this country for people who will solve problems. >> sort of lost in all the presidential news this week, did you win a special election in oregon's first district by 14 points but this was a race that you spent over $1 million in. looking ahead, we did learn also that there will be another special election because representative giffords did have to step aside.

can you talk about that special election. it's very much of a top-up district and even more so than we've seen ones that flipped both ways in new york. how much are you anticipating you're going to have to spend there? what are you all doing on the ground there and everything, too? and also given what's happened there in the past year, if this -- if the tenor of this campaign turns negative from either side, do you think there could be a backlash there? >> you know, that district is -- presents a fascinating case study. very unique. because the district in which the special will occur is not the district in which the general will occur. they've done redistricting in arizona. and so the district that will be in place for the general is a much better democratic district than the current district that will be in place for the special. and i talked to congresswoman giffords and i talked to mark kelly, i've talked to the folks in arizona. they're looking at a variety of candidates, we're confident that the right candidate will

emerge for the special. >> are you expecting her to endorse? >> that's going to be her decision. right now we want to make sure that the candidate that emerges reflects the kind of work ethic and the kind of priorities and values that she represented that district with. and we hope that there will be a decision imminently. >> is she helping you recruit? >> yeah. congressman giffords and mark and the people around her who are so experienced in that district have been talking to a variety of folks. >> can you talk about who some of those folks are and who it is that they'd like to see run for that seat? >> no. not yet. i'm going to leave that to them. there are a variety of people who are interested and i'm sure the right one will -- >> were you surprised that mark kelly decide not to run? that ron barber who was shot in the incident decided not to run? >> look, mark's primary concern is gabby and i did talk to him and i did ask him if he would

consider running and he said, the only thing i will consider is i'm her primary caregiver and my obligation is to take care of her. there's no arguing with that, there's no compelling argument to be made there. that's there enough, fine enough, let's move on. but i will tell you that mark has been very involved in helping to guide us through the landscape there and make sure that we have the right candidate ultimately. >> we only have time for one or two more questions. >> can you see a scenario where this is a more competitive district than the redistricting. could you see a scenario where you do lose the senate special and have a better chance to take it back then in the general? >> you're absolutely right. it is so fluid and so unique that every time i look at it i do see a different scenario. what's important now is that we make sure we could he aless around a candidate -- coalesce around a candidate for the special.

that's the task at hand we will address the general once we have the right candidate who's running in the special and i'm very confident that -- working with folks in arizona in that district, we will have a good candidate for the special. >> i was going to ask of speaker specials. do you have enough specials or a race that maybe the prognosticators have not put on the board or have at the edge of the board that you think you've got a candidate who will -- >> a special? if there's another special -- >> no. an upset special. i'm not telling you to project resignations. in november, is there a district where you think the democratic candidate is so good that they're going to overcome six, eight, 10-point political gap? >> this is feeling and various people tell me that 2012 is starting to feel like 2006. where you had races that they didn't think they'd put on the boards that ended up on the boards. we need 25 seats, the conventional wisdom as you know, if you want to win 25 you have to have 50 in play. we have 75 in play right now and not a whole 75 are going to

win but i'm telling you that there will be some surprises. there will be some candidates running, but we didn't think -- that we didn't think were going to prevail who will prevail. >> your home state of new york has yet to really approach redistricting. what are you hearing there that's going on and this is also a state where you lost several seats last time and need to make it up? >> that will have to be the last question. >> in a nut shell we have three incumbent priorities in new york. congressman bishop, congresswoman hochul, congressman owens. we need to make sure they come back. and then i believe that congresswoman hayworth, congressman gibson, congressman grimm and certainly congresswoman berkle -- buerkle will find themselves in very competitive environments and there will be others that we didn't anticipate now that get on the boards later. >> congressman steve israel hegged up the dccc. thank you very much for your time. >> thanks. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> and we're back with our reporter round table. with an overall assessment of whether or not democrats take back the house in 2012. do they do it? >> it's certainly an uphill battle for them. the math that congressman israel's talking about right now where he's got 75 on the board is a lot bigger than most folks who do it as an independent vocation would look at and he talked about winning possibly 25 or 30 seats but he's got to do that as a net. and there are democratic seats that are vulnerable, particularly as a result of redistricting. right now it's not there. whether that changes over the next nine months or not is another issue because a lot of times it takes a while. if you'd ask people in 2010 in february, they would have said that democrats were going to lose seats but not lose the house. i think by the same token now could you look at republicans and say they're likely to lose some seats but not lose the house. that could obviously change. >> jessica taylor, you talked about this, but in your

analysis, you've dug down into this, he's saying it could be close to 25, it could be razor thin, but your analysis shows between five to 12. 12 at the most. how does that differ -- >> that's even somewhat -- 12 could be a generous assumptions. democrats, a great night for them would be 12 to 20. that puts them closer in 2014, even some democratic strategists taked to, that's when they could close the gap. largely despending on what happens in the presidential race. there's places where they are going to lose seats like north carolina and georgia and depending upon how some of these court cases shape up in texas and florida and we don't really know the outcome yet in new york. those are sort of undefined places where i think that they haven't gone as many breaks in that case with redistricting as they needed to but republicans have succeeded in some of these seats and having them do that. are democrats better off than one year ago? definitely.

i think the democratic congressional campaign committee has done -- they've erased their $19 million in debt left over. it's israel's job to make this pitch to donors and make it a rosier picture for his caucus and that in some ways also tamped down retirements, people wanting to stay if they think that they have a chance at still being in the majority. right now, you know, we're still 10 months out and everything, i think it's difficult to sort of see that. but, again, this time in 2010 we didn't really see that happening, too. the generic ballot is something that is taken as a whole. >> can you explain that? >> that's a nationwide indicator and one thing i think that sort of skews that a little bit right now is i think people are sort of seeing a frustration with what's also going on in the presidential race. i think that could have a factor on that. they're seeing all of the republicans warring back and forth and i think that in turn that could make democrats seem like a little bit of a rosier picture in that case. so i think that could have some indication on that sort of

snapshot in time. and we're not voting for the house representatives as a country as a whole. these are fought on individual battlefields and individual districts and i think when you're looking at it as that sort of 435-piece puzzle, it's still not there for democrats yet. >> give our viewers the states to watch that are important. >> california is one the democrats, i think they had an independent redistricting commission that they need to pick up as many as five seats there and they have some good candidates and they have opportunities to do that as well. but some of the major states, illinois, they're going to have to do good on, but as i mentioned, too, before, democrats, one of their worst states is going to be north carolina, they're seeing their members retiring there. republicans in illinois that are also having uphill fights, they're staying and fighting. democrats even had one retirement there, jerry costello, and that turned into that noo a tossup seat as we rate it and it could be a strong possibility of losing that seat. >> are we expecting more retirements or is it almost getting too late to retire? >> there will be more

retirementless. there's certainly people on the board right now who look like they're going to retire, who have all but said they're going to retire. david dreier from california doesn't really have a district to run in. republican. he's been here since 1981. came in the reagan sweep in 1980. he raised $10,000, $20,000, something like that in the last quarter. it seems clear to everybody that he's not going to run for re-election. he has not said that yet but i think everybody in washington expects that to happen. i think there will probably be at least a couple of others. >> on your question, jonathan, to steve israel about superpacs and the amount of money going toward republican superpacs versus democratic superpacs. he said it keeps him up at night. what do you make of that? >> it should keep him up at night, there's a lot of money flowing into these races from outside that republicans really are dominating right now. that money chase. maybe the democrats will find a way to keep up but it sounds like at every level they're having difficulty with that and

we saw that last time around, we saw outside groups, the crossroads groups come in and spend a lot in congressional races. so this is something that democrats should be concerned about until they get on par and again their donors aren't doing that. he didn't talk too much about why it is that their donors aren't ponying up. i expect some that have has to do with the amount that democrats have -- the amount of energy they've spent decrying the use of superpacs publicly. then they go to their donors and ask them to donate to them and it makes it more difficult to make that sale. >> jessica taylor, when i asked him about this red to blue program, 57 targets that they have on their list, he -- help us read through the lines here. what was he saying when he said, i have income benlts with a narrow bandwidth and then i've got my candidates with a more open field. was he talking about -- is that code for money? >> democrats have done a great job in recruiting.

they have several strong candidates but that was the first thing they had to do to put in place and israel and recruiting chairwoman schwartz have done -- they do have a good slate of candidates. that's what they had to do after losing so many seats. that was sort of the first piece of the puzzle. if you don't have a person there that is capable of running a competent campaign you have no hope of putting the house back in play. in some of these districts that they do have on the red to blue program, even some of these are openly held democratic seats that they're going to have to defend because of the retirements. are they going to flip some of these? certainly. but i still -- it's a great program that has had success for them back in 2006 when they were doing this and everything, too. so i think it will take a little bit more time for, as these candidates are getting staffed up, as we start primaries to see if these are in competitive primaries against another democrat. >> in the last election, 2010, one of the things republicans did very successfully was