The DNC and the Walker Recall

This community’s most prominent Gush-Borite and Roman Polanski apologist asserts in comments that the DNC is so flush with cash that its alleged failure to support the Barrett campaign must mean that it doesn’t actually want the recall to succeed:

The DNC only has $195 million in their coffers. Best to keep their gunpowder dry and save it for a sure thing. Because sure things need all the help they can get.

If this is true, I would have to agree that the DNC’s conduct has been outrageous; a relatively small percentage of the DNC’s massive trove of cash could make a real difference, and there was no real need to do any kind of cost-benefit analysis.

The problem, of course, is that this “$195 million” figure is completely made up. (Or — I’m not sure if this is more charitable or not — jeer9 saw some figures about total annual fundraising and doesn’t realize that the DNC also spends money.) The DNC’s actual cash on hand is more like $25 million. Given this, waiting to make sure the recall is viable and then injecting $1.4 million when they determined that it was — along with a consistent commitment of boots on the ground — doesn’t seem outrageous to me. I’m certainly open to arguments that the DNC didn’t act quickly enough, especially if it can be shown that Barrett was getting substantially less advertising on the air; I don’t know enough to evaluate the DNC’s strategy there. But I do know that the idea that the DNC is swimming in so much cash that cost-benefit analysis can be thrown out the window is absurd.

…as commenters point out, the idea that the DNC has been ignoring the race until this week also seems to be wrong.