What’s with the DCCC's bump of a red district rookie?

If you take a historical look at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s upgrade of the First district’s Frank Kratovil to their Red-to-Blue program two weeks ago, you may find yourself asking, ‘Why?’

Because outside of a self-funder or war hero, rookie candidates in red districts don’t get this kind of national attention.

The DCCC lists fundraising prowess as one of their measures of a candidate, but last quarter’s reports showed Kratovil hadn’t done anything fantastic. Now, he may have started raking in the big bucks (a reportedly $80,000 haul at last week’s fundraiser for one), but it remains to be seen if he will have out-raised Republican Andy Harris this quarter.

So why’d he get in the program?

Harris’ camp jokes (and believes) that “Uncle Steny” was doing Frank a favor in this capacity. They tie Kratovil to the Prince George’s County machine since he was president of the Young Democrats there a decade ago and for his childhood ties to Hoyer, who has a long friendship with his father. Still, a lot of well-connected people run for Congress and do not find themselves receiving the kind of serious support lining up behind him now.

The other option, far less amusing to Harris partisans, is that Democrats view this race as the real deal. Kratovil came up with an April poll that showed the race to be closer between a Democrat and a Republican than it has been since Wayne Gilchrest flipped it in 1990.

And don’t forget DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen, who is on the path to lock up a promotion to the U.S. Senate when a seat opens up and could use some operatives with Eastern Shore experience.

But there’s more to the Van Hollen connection than just his personal political aspirations.

His DCCC has been unusually aggressive. Van Hollen has been trying to further advance the majority by sharpening their opposition research teams, pushing credible GOP challengers out before they can get their footing and setting high fundraising hurdles for his “Frontline” candidates to clear.

It has been the experience of many promising Democratic congressional candidates to find that they have to make an initial solid showing before they can expect help from their party. This was especially true in the 2006 cycle and has led to a lot of 2008 re-runs in swing or lean-Republican districts.

Is the eager backing of Kratovil and other rookie candidates in deeply red districts another play of Van Hollen’s offense? Could be.

And that should be alarming to Harris. It once seemed that the greatest challenge of his campaign came in February in his showdown against Gilchrest with a viable third Republican primary opponent. That may still be true, and we’ll probably verify that in early October.

Because if Kratovil has more cash on hand in the quarterly filing reports and there’s a surge in Democratic voter registration, this could be a very interesting initial run for him.