As much as I admire Maria Cantwell, all New York Democrats, not just those in the 13th Congressional district should give to Steve Harrison's campaign against Republican rubber stamp Vito Fossella and not even think about donating to an out of state incumbent, unless you have maxed out and given $2100 to Harrison, which few if anyone has done based on the campaign's lack of money raised.

The 13th district is a winnable seat for the Democrats if properly funded. Its a shame that the DCCC is still angry after Harrison rightfully chased de Blassio out of a possible primary (There's no way de Blassio could have won the primary or beat Fossella, although he would have raised more money)and has shown the 13th district Democratic candidate no respect. Nancy Pelosi was practically having an orgasm over de Blassio and Rahm Emanuel blew off Harrison during his recent podcast with Ben Smith.

If the Democrats lose the house by one seat and Harrison comes close, both Pelosi and Emanuel should be stripped of their party leadership roles.

Here's why Harrison can win if the DCCC didn't have its head up its butt.

1. Fossella is scandal ridden, with his campaign finance violations be covered by The Staten Island Advance, NY Daily News, New York Times, NY1 (NYC 24 hour cable news station)MSNBC's the Most and CNN.com

2. The Staten Island Republican party is broken into 2 factions; Fossella and his supporters and the Molinari/Molinaro wing (although borough president James Molinaro is technically a not a Republican, but a conservative). Although Guy Molinari is a former Fossella mentor and Vito replaced his daughter in this Congressional seat, the two now hate each other's guts. The two factions run rival candidates in primaries such as Marchi's vacant state Senate seat and Molinari was rumored to have been the Daily News's Deep Throat for his travel related scandal.

The animosity between the two camps has risen to the point where members of the rival faction publicly stated that they wouldn't support Fossella this November in the Staten Island Advance letters to the editor section.

3. Fossella took a private poll and refuses to release its results. If the results weren't much closer than expected he'd release the poll.

4. Fossella won by 33,000 votes in 2004, a presidential election year. District voter turn out is typically 40 percent greater in presidential election years. This means expected turnout in non-presidential 2006 should be 40 percent lower. All things being equal (and my next point will explain why they're not)Fossella's margin is reduced 40 percent to 20,000, not a large amount in a district with 500,000 adults 18+ (granted only about 70 percent were registered as of 2005).

5. Public dissatisfaction with Bush and Iraq has helped Democratic candidates nationwide, so the trend is Democratic.