Written by Marty Franks

Then executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

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It is easy to forget the perilous situation facing Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives in the aftermath of the 1980 election.

 

Ronald Reagan had won a resounding victory, Republicans had successfully targeted a number of Democratic incumbents, including veteran Congressman Jim Corman (D-CA) who served as Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

 

Into that abyss stepped a brash, young Democrat from Fresno, freshly elected to just his second term, Congressman Tony Coelho.  More senior members challenged Coelho for the DCCC Chairmanship, but the confidence he projected to his nervous colleagues, and his promise to modernize and professionalize the DCCC carried the day.

 

As the new Congress convened in 1981, the Reagan White House did a brilliant job of projecting strength and put the word out in D.C. that they were keeping score, and support for Democrats in Congress would be viewed as unfriendly by the powerful new Administration. 

 

And then Ronald Reagan was shot, and the lasting impression of his impressive recovery made him, and his party, seem almost invincible.

 

Tony Coelho went to work.  He projected a combative attitude by publicly targeting Republican members unused to being challenged.  He helped install in Speaker Tip O’Neill’s office an effective communications operation to counter the While House Bully Pulpit.  He called on Republican leaning PACs to remember that Democrats still controlled the House, and that Democrats were also keeping score, and entities that overly favored Republicans risked the wrath of the Democratic Majority.  He professionalized the DCCC that had previously been a moribund and not very successful fundraising operation.  And finally, he invested heavily in direct mail fundraising, an effort that had been neglected by all of the Democratic Party entities.

 

And finally, with the help of Democratic pollsters and campaign consultants, he led an effort to make threats to Social Security, and overall fairness to everyday Americans the central theme of the 1982 campaign.  House Democrats picked up 26 seats.

 

Coelho pushed all of the same efforts in the 1984 cycle, but the major new initiative was the establishment of the Harriman Communications Center, a state-of-the-art media production facility, made possible through the generosity of Pamela and Averill Harriman.

 

House Democrats and challenger candidates now had access to low-cost media production so that more dollars could go to media time rather than expensive media production.  The growing power and professionalism of the DCCC was evident in the 1984 results.

 

Ronald Reagan won a larger and deeper landslide in 1984 than in 1980, but despite historical projections of a much larger GOP gains in the House, Republicans picket up only 16 seats.

 

So far in Coelho’s stewardship of House Democrats’ fortunes, combining 1982 and 1984 results, Democrats were up a net of 10 seats in the first four years of the Reagan/Coelho era.

 

As the 1986 election cycle dawned, House Democrats projected strength.  With help from the DCCC, both incumbents and challengers were better funded and ran more professional campaigns.  State of the Union responses, which had been initiated earlier at Coelho’s urging, were now full-fledged challenges to Presidential orations.  House Democrats were a cohesive opposition to Republican excesses.

 

With that momentum, House Democrats picked up five seats in the 1986 election.

 

So, in the aftermath of the 1980 debacle, in the three House cycles under a very formidable Reagan White House, House Democrats under Coelho’s DCCC Chairmanship actually increased their margin by a net of 15 seats.

 

Almost 40 years later, for helping to turn the tide and begin to make the DCCC a force with which to reckon, current House Democrats owe Tony Coelho an enormous debt.