Ben Ray Lujan for DCCC

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has chosen New Mexico Congressman Ben Ray Lujan to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the very important "chief campaigner" position that recruits congressional candidates and raises money for the 2016 races.

Not Jim Himes.

For which we're grateful.

Lujan is Hispanic. His father was Ben Lujan, who once served as speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives, and his cousin is Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, another member of New Mexico's congressional delegation.

Who knows if he's the right person for this job, but he's young, he comes from a political family, and he seems to represent a grassroots rather than a Wall Street approach to the direction the party needs to take.

Nearer, Our Wall Street, To Thee

Our own dyspepsia with the Obama administration grew after January 2009 the closer to Wall Street the president cozied up. The damping down of economic populism throughout the Democratic Party, from the top down, is at least partly to blame for the following recent developments: the electoral losses in 2010 and 2014, the blossoming of the Tea Party, and the Occupy Wall Street (and everywhere else) movement. Some of us believe that the loss of our populist edge is largely to blame for those displays of discontent.

Do you hear the loud smacking of lips coming from the canyons of Wall Street at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton candidacy? Yes, it's drowning out progressive and populist groans at the thought of even more sell-outs to the bankers and the other "lords of the universe."

That's why the Elizabeth Warren talk isn't going away. She looks very much like the best potential candidate, with plenty of economic smarts and a toughness of spirit. Hillary is stale bread compared to Elizabeth.

Jim Himes

Now comes news that the leading contender to become chief Democratic campaign operative, candidate recruiter, and fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is a former Goldman Sachs vice president and hedge fund suckup, Jim Himes of Greenwich, Conn. Nancy Pelosi gets to make the appointment.

Robert Kuttner asks, rhetorically, "So the last thing Democrats need going forward is an even closer affinity with Wall Street, right?"

Goddamn it all to hell if this comes to pass. The love of money is the root of all evil. I learned that in Sunday School. If the Democratic Party wants to become fully irrelevant, or merely the semi-official handmaiden to the billionaires (which is essentially what it's been for the last six years), then by all means, Nancy, signal your abandonment of the people by the appointment of Jim Himes as head of the DCCC.