A retiring moderate Democrat unloads on the party- POLITICO

SCOOP: DEMS TO HAUL BIG OIL TO THE HILL AMID GAS SURGE — As prices at the pump soar, House Democrats are readying a strategy to try to redirect the nation’s ire away from President JOE BIDEN and toward oil companies. This morning, House Natural Resources Chair RAÚL GRIJALVA (D-Ariz.) will call for the CEOs of EOG Resources, Devon Energy Corporation and Occidental Petroleum to testify April 5 at 1 p.m., according to a draft release shared with Playbook.

— The Democratic play: The panel plans to grill these three fossil fuel executives on recent suggestions that the Biden administration’s energy policies are at fault for rising prices. They’ll highlight these companies’ approved-but-unused existing drilling permits, as well as recent calls where executives have boasted about record profits.

THE EXIT INTERVIEW: STEPHANIE MURPHY — In October 2016, in what remains one of my favorite campaign stories of all time, I flew down to Orlando to cover a little-known Democrat trying to oust a powerful GOP House chair and 25-year incumbent no one thought could lose.

Murphy hadn’t wanted to run for office. She stepped into the race just days before the filing deadline after the DCCC couldn’t find a candidate — then she totally ignored their advice.

When the DCCC told her to focus her message on the dangers of another unruly candidate on the ballot that year, DONALD TRUMP, she balked. Instead, she ran entirely on pocketbook issues, talked about her personal story as a Vietnamese refugee-turned-national security specialist, and won. The DCCC would later adopt that same model with recruitment and strategy, going on to flip the House in 2018.

Fast forward a half-decade: Murphy has cemented herself as a force in Congress. She led the centrist Blue Dogs back to relevance, secured a post on the powerful Ways and Means panel and bucked Speaker NANCY PELOSI time and time again, forcing Democratic leaders to pay attention to moderates’ demands.

But despite her rising-star status, Murphy, at age 43, is calling it quits.

Why? I talked it through with her for today’s episode of “Playbook Deep Dive.”

What she said should be a giant, flashing “warning” sign for Democrats heading into the 2022 elections.

A few key takeaways:

— Murphy said that Democrats have ditched their big-tent mantra since taking over Washington, and that it’s imperiling their majority. “My first term … there was a lot more tolerance for, ‘Do what you need to do to hold your seat, and come back because we’re trying to build towards [a] majority,’” Murphy said. “With us being in the majority, that tolerance eroded a bit. It’s unfortunate, because I think in order for us as Democrats to hold the majority, you have to be able to win in seats like mine and in redder seats. That means you have to cut your members a little bit of leeway to vote their district. This march towards party unity is going to be detrimental to our ability to lead.”

For Murphy, it started like this: Some on the left accused her of being “anti-immigrant” for backing the GOP-authored “Kate’s Law,” a proposal to increase penalties on people who are convicted of crimes, are deported and reenter the U.S. illegally. “I believe in immigration and comprehensive immigration reform and the ability for people to immigrate to the United States in a legal way,” said Murphy. “But I also believe in law and order, and ensuring that we hold people who commit crimes accountable.”

But it got worse when it came to trying to pass Biden’s agenda, and what Murphy called an effort by leadership to “beat moderates into submission.” “I can’t tell you the number of times I said, ‘You can’t keep promising rainbows and unicorns when your political reality is such narrow margins in the House and a dead-even Senate,’” said Murphy. “They took the difference between rainbows and unicorns and political reality — which is anger and disappointment — and turned that anger and disappointment against their own members.”

— Murphy suspects that Dem leaders were encouraging outside-group attacks on vulnerable members like herself for wanting to separate the Build Back Better agenda from the infrastructure bill. “[A] lot of these outside groups that purport to represent a specific interest are just an extension of leadership,” Murphy said. “Instead of purely focusing on their issue area, they bleed into just advocating for whatever Democratic leadership wants.”

She fumed that the entire idea of allies going after Democrats ahead of a tough election year was mind-boggling. “I told those groups, ‘For every dollar that you spend against me, it’s going to take 10 to repair that.’ … Why, as Democrats, we would take money that we need to reserve for the on-year to help win and grow the majority — why we would spend that money against our own members is really baffling.”

— Murphy said the DCCC is out of touch with reality, and needs major reform.

On the DCCC being out of touch: “I am surprised at how short the memory is. It’s as short as being celebrated for having flipped a seat and then excoriated for taking votes that help you keep that seat. I’m not talking about myself. I think about people like ABBY SPANBERGER [(D-Va.)], like some of these other members where in ’18, they were celebrities for helping us win the majority. And as soon as they went about taking the votes that would help them keep and represent the seat that they had won, they drew the ire of the Democrats.”

On the DCCC and Chair SEAN PATRICK MALONEY (D-N.Y.) trying to corral vulnerable frontliners in line on BBB, including with threats to withhold money or public pressure: Murphy said she was “stunned” by the heavy-handed tactics from an entity that’s supposed to have their backs, and said that other frontliners asked her to “take one for the team” and push back on leadership on their behalf. “Some of these members who would come to me would say … ‘I can’t afford to tick off the DCCC and have them put my money at risk,’ or, ‘I can’t afford to have my base attacking me. I can’t afford to have the millions of dollars of ads that I’m watching run in your district run against me.’ … It’s unfortunate that that’s where we have gotten.”

On the DCCC needing reform: Murphy said the previously described behavior is indicative of a major problem with the way the DCCC is set up. “I believe that the DCCC exists for one reason and one reason alone, and that is incumbent protection and expanding the majority,” Murphy said. “I don’t believe that the person who runs the DCCC should be a member who’s elected, because inevitably that member … has further aspirations in the Democratic leadership. And in order to ascend in Democratic leadership, you have to secure the progressive vote. And securing the progressive vote makes it difficult for you to also then protect moderates and create space for them to do what they need to do to win and hold seats. … I think that’s just … a structure that is misaligned to what should be the sole purpose of the DCCC, incumbent retention and expanding the majority.”

TGIF. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”mailto:[email protected]”,”_id”:”0000017f-9c8b-de65-a57f-bdcbd1960002″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”0000017f-9c8b-de65-a57f-bdcbd1960003″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}”Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”mailto:[email protected]”,”_id”:”0000017f-9c8b-de65-a57f-bdcbd1960004″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”0000017f-9c8b-de65-a57f-bdcbd1960005″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}”Eugene Daniels, Ryan…