The Washington Monthly has a profile of Steny Hoyer - backstory for those of us who are politics latecomers, including one or standout points.

For instance, in the special election in 1981 in which Hoyer first came into the House,

Hoyer received strong support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), whose new chairman, Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), became intensely involved in the race--fostering a valuable long-term alliance between the two.

Coelho was the founder of the K Street Project, and cash-raiser extraordinaire for the House Dems in the 80s.

(Not, if understand matters aright, that, with Hoyer, Coelho could exactly be accused of corrupting a Jefferson Smith!)

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Earlier this week Chris Cillizza, writing in The Washington Post, reported on a new 527 organization called Majority Action, which is targeting Republicans Jim Walsh and Deborah Pryce and plans on targeting other potentially weak Republicans between now and election day.

[Joe] Andrew and Don Fowler -- both former Democratic National Committee chairmen -- anchor the group's leadership circle, which includes a panoply of former lawmakers, including past Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairmen Tony Coelho (Calif.) and Martin Frost (Tex.).

Majority Action is aiming to raise between $8 million and $10 million, though as of June 30 they had brought in only a little more than $200,000. Yet as a 527 organization, Majority Action will be able to raise unlimited soft money contributions, so their fundraising target is not by any means unbelievable.

It's good to see former Democratic lawmakers with track records of success getting back into the mix, though questions remain about the groups tactics. Cillizza cites a portion of the text of one of the ads, but the group does not appear to have a website or its ads available online for evaluation. What's more, while Coelho, for instance, had great success during the 1980s and House Democrats were able to break precedent by picking up seats in 1998 while Frost was DCCC chair, the political landscape 10 and 20 years was significantly different that it is today, and I don't take for granted that the tactics that worked then will work now (or that any of these powerbrokers have completely adapted to today's political world).

Just throwing a ton of money into races isn't going to win back the House for the Democrats. In 2004, 527s spent big on behalf of John Kerry, and we all know how that turned out. That said, if Frost, Coelho, et. al. are able to take the lessons they learned decades ago and combine them with the technological advances of this century (setting up a website one can find on Google would be a good start), they could help make a difference in enough close races to help put the Democrats over the top.

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