Thank you for your strong statement in support of immediate criminal and civil action by DOJ against any officials who either through action or inaction attempt to disenfranchise voters. Such individuals should be held accountable to the maximum extent permitted by law including removal from office permanently, and punished with severe fines and incarceration. I do not know the maximum extent permitted under federal and state law but a clear statement is called for that this will not go unrecognized or unpunished.
If previously incarcerated people can be arrested for voting when they were told that they could, then these partisan elections officials should be indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for 5 years or whatever the term of imprisonment is, for intentionally disenfranchising voters.
A swift indictment of the fake electors. would have put the fear of God into these coup plotting nitwits and put an end to this performative bullshit. Continued delay only emboldens them further. Fulfill your oath to protect the constitution of the USA Mr. Garland!
While I agree with Robert’s call for strong action by DOJ regarding the local elected officials who refuse to do their duty to certify, I continue to hold two questions in mind: A. At what point do we (anyone) step up to lead with a comprehensive approach to this problem rather than swatting at flies (wack a mile)? Is it realistic to think DOJ has the capacity to address all the obstruction we are experiencing? B. How do we get the measures like John Lewis Voting Rights Act and a few others passed before this Congress goes home for the holiday break? We must push for and with a sense of urgency!!
Happy to pay last Saturday’s parking ticket due to the block-long line of voters already formed for 9 AM start time in Athens, Georgia -- 1,200 total votes cast could make the difference ... plus, Sunday!
“The youngest demographic - those aged 18-24 - accounted for some of the largest turnout. More than 18,000 voters in that age range went to the polls, about 10% of all the early votes so far.”
And the best part is, the number of new young voters increases every day, just as the number of old voters decreases 😆
Great so many young citizens are getting into the habit of voting. Generally they stick with it. And they are overwhelming voting Democratic because - they would like a livable planet, affordable college, reproductive healthcare, decent housing, and racial justice. Which party platform aligns with that?
Herschel did not have Georgia residency and filed for homestead tax exemption in Texas (Daily Beast). What is it called when a candidate is moved into a state to run for office?
"What is it called when a candidate is moved into a state to run for office?" Desperation? I could stretch it as far as White R party operatives moving a Black man from one state to another 🤔 But, with respect, it ain't yesterday's news. Aggravation is called for!
A bunch of years ago, a substitute teacher described one of my "challenging" students obstreperous. I looked it up then and have never forgotten. Yes, it's a great word! (But really didn't describe my little 2nd grade munchkin.)
Imagine believing that you have to give MTG or Paul Gosar responsible positions in order to save your hide! Poor "My Kevin". He's danced with the devil for too long not to have been singed. I wish the CA-23 voters saw him as being as despicable as I do.
Thank you as ever Robert. As someone who voted reluctantly for Joe Biden, I concur with your assessment: he is the president we need right now and I am grateful he is in office.
I'm surprised not to read more about a very good reason to hope Georgians vote for Warnock: To get Joe Manchin's boot off the neck of the other Senate Democrats. With Warnock in, Joe Manchin can waffle more and flirt more with the Republicans and not hold the rest of the agenda hostage at all times in support of his oil and gas interests. With Warnock out, Manchin can return to his unseemly bag of tricks as he did for the past 2 years.
@Swbv, I would note that Senate Democrats are most eager for a 51st Senator to render Kyrsten Sinema as irrelevant. Though Joe Manchin, too, has blocked much of Biden’s agenda, contrary to Sinema, the Caucus, largely, is able to work with Manchin and have found his words and deeds overall consistent throughout his tenure. Moreover, no other Democrat could win a statewide election in West Virginia.
@Swbv, In my view, Reverend Senator Warnock is a champion on a host of issues including bi-partisanship. Returning him to his seat for 6 years is all the reward I need for my efforts.
Practically speaking, the principal benefit, presently, of a 51-49 Senate is that Dems now control the committees and can more readily move legislation out of committee to the Senate floor. Nonetheless, having lost control of the House, little, if any, new legislation will reach the President’s desk. Still, between legislation from this past term slated to go into effect and the chaos we can expect from the GOP controlled House, we’ll be well positioned for 24, and note I haven’t even touched on our progress at the state and local levels, not to mention upcoming judicial confirmations.
You're right, certainly. Gym Jordan bloviating from Judicial or Intelligence (Ha!) Committees and Matt Gaetz, MTG, Andy Biggs, and Paul Gosar are pretty safe locks to accomplish nothing for all Americans; but they'll get airtime on FOX and even more despicable cable and radio outlets.
Robert, your opening comments hit the bullseye. The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy and all our freedoms. The actions of those officials in Arizona and Pennsylvania could lead to the disenfranchisement of voters in their own counties. Not to be dramatic, but it comes awfully close to treason. The DOJ should act quickly and decisively to assure that all votes are counted.
While I enjoy reading editions such as this that gloat on the fecklessness of the GOP in navigating the narrow space between abject fealty to Trump and the prospect of losing voters, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that the Dems need to step up their messaging on kitchen table issues. Our candidates could have done better in the midterms had they acknowledged the impact of inflation, high gas prices and crime on many Americans. The NYT, among other outlets have analyzed this and concluded as much. Cheerleading makes me feel good but—once Warnock has won—let’s balance it with constructive ideas for making the 2024 results even better
Hi, Paul. I think you are selling Democrats short. They "overperformed" in midterms based on historical averages by a dozen seats or more. That suggests that Democratic messaging worked, not that it didn't work.
Do you have any particular candidate(s) in mind when you criticize Democratic messaging? I didn't follow every House race, or even most of them, but I would be surprised if Democrats didn't address inflation, gas prices, and crime--they should have, because they had something positive to say on all three topics about the accomplishments of the Biden administration.
And when you say Democrats should have acknowledged the impact of inflation, high gas prices, and crime, what is the follow on statement? Acknowledging the impact of those items on Americans isn't much of a platform to run on.
Finally, it is ironic that the Times is criticizing Democrats for poor messaging when the Times was responsible for consistently negative reporting about Democrats out of proportion to reality, which then created the messaging challenge that the Times analyzed in its post mortem. I wonder if the Times acknowledged its role in creating a mis-impression about the accomplishments of the Biden administration and the perceptions about inflation?
One criticism I think can rightly be made of the Democrats' messaging is their not pushing back harder on the Republicans' pinning rising crime on the Dems. Gun violence is the most feared aspect of crime and Republicans' failure to support the screening out of criminal gun buyers with universal background checks -- and their failure to support an assault weapon ban and other gun safety measures -- accounts for much of the rise in US crime! I'd have liked to see "Republicans are soft on crime!" messaging. And we should have highlighted the higher inflation rates experienced by other countries and argued that a global issue shouldn't be laid at the doorstep of the American president.
First of all, thank you for all you do. I love your newsletter. When will I get a renewal notice?
My observation was based in part on the email below from NYT. And upon re-reading it, it does seem more than a little like Monday-morning quarterbacking.
A separate item (which I cannot find) claimed that overall more midterm votes were cast for Republicans than for Democrats, and that it was the distribution of votes that made the election so close. I know, I know, Dems have been victims of this same phenomenon (if true).
I’m simply concerned that the Dems (who have an echo chamber every bit as robust as the GOP’s) will start engaging in happy talk about their inevitable success in 2024 and blow it again, as in 2016.
One defence within our control is turnout—and you’ve done a terrific job of boosting that.
Keep up the great work! P
_____________
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FOR SUBSCRIBERS NOVEMBER 18, 2022
19onpolitics-frisch-1-1f61-articleLarge.jpg
In a conservative-leaning district in Colorado, Adam Frisch, a Democrat, nearly defeated Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican. William Woody for The New York Times
The Democrats’ might-have-beens
Author Headshot
By Blake Hounshell
Editor, On Politics
All of the Democratic cheers about the party’s surprisingly strong midterm showing have drowned out a running argument on the left that never ends: Whose political philosophy had it right, centrists or progressives?
As usual, it’s the might-have-been races that are provoking the most discussion. Did Democrats lose a potentially winnable House race in Oregon because the left picked off a Blue Dog incumbent, Representative Kurt Schrader? Or was it because the Democratic establishment stopped investing in Jamie McLeod-Skinner, the progressive challenger who beat him in the primary?
Centrists have their own what-ifs.
They point to how Democrats flipped a Republican seat in the Cincinnati suburbs, made a credible showing against a 10-term Republican incumbent in the California desert and came within a whisker of unseating Representative Lauren Boebert, a darling of the Trump base, in rural Colorado. With another $1 million, could Representative Tom Malinowski, a moderate Democrat in New Jersey, have escaped defeat?
Schrader reckons that had he won his primary, he would have been re-elected by eight percentage points. He blames Oregon state lawmakers for drawing new boundaries that included parts of McLeod-Skinner’s state legislative district.
“They guaranteed a socialist in the primary and a Republican in the general,” Schrader said. (McLeod-Skinner had the backing of progressive groups like Indivisible and the Working Families Party, but does not identify as a socialist.)
Reflecting on the results nationwide, “it kind of feels like Democrats are celebrating in the locker room because we lost by four,” said Liam Kerr, a co-founder of Welcome PAC, a nascent group that aims to become the Justice Democrats of the political center.
To Kerr, one of the most telling statistics of these midterms lies buried in the campaign finance reports of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the nominal leader of the “Squad” of progressive lawmakers. This year, Ocasio-Cortez spent more money fulfilling orders for merchandise — $1.6 million — than Democratic candidates did on their entire races in many districts he argues they could have won.
“That’s more money spent selling ‘Tax the Rich’ and ‘Abolish ICE’ sweatshirts and stickers than 12 Democrats running in flippable Republican-held districts (where Trump received between 50-54 percent of the vote in 2020) have raised this entire cycle — combined,” Kerr wrote in a recent analysis.
As of Friday afternoon, Boebert was leading by just 554 votes, with more than 327,000 counted to date, but her opponent had conceded despite the prospect of an automatic recount. And Representative Ken Calvert, a Republican who has held some version of his Inland Empire seat in California since 1993, won his race against Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, by just three percentage points, or 7,150 votes.
Boebert’s Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, was a political unknown before he entered his party’s primary. When I spoke with Senator Chris Coons of Delaware last week, he recounted meeting Frisch at an event this year in Colorado and wondering: “Who is this guy? How come I never heard of him?”
Neither of the major Democratic groups thought Frisch had a prayer. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent just $330 on ads on his behalf; House Majority PAC, a group close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, chipped in $1,563. Boebert’s campaign outspent Frisch’s on television by about half a million dollars.
By contrast, Democratic small donors shoveled $15 million into a doomed effort to oust Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose northern Georgia district was a 37-point blowout in favor of Trump during the 2020 presidential election. Marcus Flowers, the Democratic candidate in that race, lost to Greene by slightly less: nearly 32 points.
And it wasn’t just the online left that allocated resources in seemingly irrational ways. Money that could have been moved to competitive races got bottled up with safe Democratic incumbents like Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who amassed a $13 million hoard on his way to winning by almost double digits. And when Michael Bloomberg chipped in an extra $10 million to House Majority PAC a few weeks before Election Day, a good chunk of it went to Gottheimer.
The fiercest debates among Democrats have been in cerulean-blue New York, where Republicans flipped four House seats, including that of Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, who ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year.
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But she has pointed out that the Democratic establishment spent millions in an unsuccessful effort to save Maloney, who has blamed her for the party’s losses in New York. Could that money have been better deployed elsewhere?
“Many moderate dems + leaders made it very clear that our help was not welcome nor wanted,” she wrote in a recent Twitter thread, blasting Maloney. “Despite our many, many offers. Yet found ways to try to help from afar. So for them to blame us for respecting their approach in their districts is laughable. Take some ownership.”
The flippable few
House Democrats can point to only a handful of successes in genuinely red districts this year. And even those often come with asterisks.
There’s Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who just survived re-election in a district Trump won by 5.5 percentage points in 2020, but he had the help of a ranked-choice voting system. Representative Marcy Kaptur easily won re-election in northwestern Ohio, but her far-right opponent, J.R. Majewski, was the subject of reports by The A.P. that he had lied about his military record.
One of Democrats’ most impressive victories this year was Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez’s defeat of Joe Kent in Washington State, but he was an election denier who had cozied up to white supremacists to win his primary.
19Onpolitics-peltola-1-7f83-articleLarge.jpg
Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat, is ahead in her race in Alaska, but she had several advantages that Democrats elsewhere did not. Ash Adams for The New York Times
Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is ahead in the race for Alaska’s lone House seat, had all three asterisks: a pro-Trump opponent seen as unlikable and extreme in Sarah Palin, a slight incumbency advantage after winning a special election in August and a ranked-choice-style election system that was designed to favor moderates.
The way Kerr thinks about it, grass-roots Democrats need to forget about no-hopers like Flowers, while party leaders need to do a better job of identifying candidates like Frisch who can run in red districts and win. Kerr calls them “platypuses” — rare political creatures that are hard to find and even harder to describe.
One ingredient these “platypus” campaigns had in spades: They all distanced themselves from the national Democratic Party brand.
Frisch called himself “a businessman and a fiscal conservative” who supported “the Second Amendment, securing the border and less government regulation.” Greg Landsman, a Democrat who defeated Steve Chabot, a Republican, in a close race in Ohio, played up his support for the police. Representative Elissa Slotkin, who won a tough re-election race in a swing district in Michigan, ran an ad featuring Douglas Lute, a retired general who served in George W. Bush’s National Security Council.
“We left a ton of Adam Frisches off the board,” Kerr said. “Democrats could have played in another dozen districts.”
Schrader, who views both parties as moving to their respective fringes, said, “I don’t see Republicans or Democrats interested in learning anything” from this election, and he speculated that third parties might eventually gain steam if the trend continued.
But if there is any lesson to be learned from 2022, Schrader said, it’s “be the big tent.”
Thanks for your reply and the article. You put your finger on something we need to discuss after Georgia: the higher GOP turnout in 2022. That is a worrisome fact. I don’t understand it.
I don't care about world markets - a sudden collapse in China would be a good thing for humanity, and putting world markets over that fact is just not something I am able to agree with. Unfortunately it probably won't happen, and the governments and opinion leaders of the world will continue to give the Communist scum who daily destroy China the continuing pass they have for the past 73 years.. I have Chinese friends who have been silenced by the totalitarians. At least Hollywood has finally gotten the message that doing the bidding of the Chinese Communists does their bottom line about as much good as it does their moral standing.
Hi, TC. I am not defending China's dictatorial regime, but the US imports about half a trillion dollars of goods from China each year-- about 40% of all US imports. And China is the third largest importer of US goods, more than the UK and Germany combined. A sudden collapse of civil order in China would have a devastating impact on the US economy and the world financial markets. Billions of people would suffer economically, some significantly.
China's communist regime will ultimately collapse; the question is whether the world's second biggest economy must also collapse as part of that failure. I hope not. We should try to limit the number of once-in-a-lifetime economic shocks we experience in this decade.
I didn't think you were - but there are people who use that reasoning in order to support the Chinese government while not appearing to do so. I remember dealing with them in any number of executive offices at Hollywood studios as they sold their souls for a big opening weekend in Shanghai, while the son of the Shanghai party boss was pirating their movies (that actually happened to my most-commercial movie). According to recent news, Chinese imports are falling as their economy tanks because of the shutdowns.
Some style and spelling pointers: when referring to the former President, say it this way:
"Stormy Daniels's lover, who cheated on his three wives, cheats on his taxes, cheats charities, and steals top secret documents, ..." and then follow it with whatever you want to report about hism as in
"Stormy Daniels's lover, who cheated on his three wives, cheats on his taxes, cheats charities, and steals top secret documents, used his MAG-A-Loco retirement home to host an intimate. dinner with two avowed anti-semites, one of whom is well-known spokesperson for Christian white supremacists. He knew who his guests were because they had to be screened in advance by the Secret Service before they were allowed to be seated.
The GOP is responsible for bringing us Trump and Trumpism. They can't win elections by campaigning on their real agenda - structuring the economy so that its benefits continue to flow overwhelmingly to big business and the wealthy at the rest of our expense. So the GOP resorts to right-wing populism to win over enough white working and middle class people to their side to win elections. But when they do win elections they go back to serving their corporate paymasters and implement policies that screw working people. This has been their strategy since Reagan and it has worked well. However, Trump has been THE most extreme yet successful practitioner of this strategy. I think because over the past 40 years, economic inequality has grown to such extreme levels in our society, the elites have to rely on more extreme political measures to mask the problem and maintain the status quo. Thus, the appeal of Trumpism.
Thank you for your strong statement in support of immediate criminal and civil action by DOJ against any officials who either through action or inaction attempt to disenfranchise voters. Such individuals should be held accountable to the maximum extent permitted by law including removal from office permanently, and punished with severe fines and incarceration. I do not know the maximum extent permitted under federal and state law but a clear statement is called for that this will not go unrecognized or unpunished.
If previously incarcerated people can be arrested for voting when they were told that they could, then these partisan elections officials should be indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for 5 years or whatever the term of imprisonment is, for intentionally disenfranchising voters.
A swift indictment of the fake electors. would have put the fear of God into these coup plotting nitwits and put an end to this performative bullshit. Continued delay only emboldens them further. Fulfill your oath to protect the constitution of the USA Mr. Garland!
While I agree with Robert’s call for strong action by DOJ regarding the local elected officials who refuse to do their duty to certify, I continue to hold two questions in mind: A. At what point do we (anyone) step up to lead with a comprehensive approach to this problem rather than swatting at flies (wack a mile)? Is it realistic to think DOJ has the capacity to address all the obstruction we are experiencing? B. How do we get the measures like John Lewis Voting Rights Act and a few others passed before this Congress goes home for the holiday break? We must push for and with a sense of urgency!!
if Dems fail to push hard in the next month I will be very disappointed. Not surprised .
Happy to pay last Saturday’s parking ticket due to the block-long line of voters already formed for 9 AM start time in Athens, Georgia -- 1,200 total votes cast could make the difference ... plus, Sunday!
“The youngest demographic - those aged 18-24 - accounted for some of the largest turnout. More than 18,000 voters in that age range went to the polls, about 10% of all the early votes so far.”
And the best part is, the number of new young voters increases every day, just as the number of old voters decreases 😆
Think about if you were their age and looked to the future if you would want that future to be controlled by today’s Republicans
OMG! NO! I don't want the future controlled by Republicans, and I am 69!
Great so many young citizens are getting into the habit of voting. Generally they stick with it. And they are overwhelming voting Democratic because - they would like a livable planet, affordable college, reproductive healthcare, decent housing, and racial justice. Which party platform aligns with that?
Herschel did not have Georgia residency and filed for homestead tax exemption in Texas (Daily Beast). What is it called when a candidate is moved into a state to run for office?
Federal law does not require Senate candidates to reside in the state they plan to represent until they are elected. But under Georgia law, aspiring candidates must meet certain residency requirements before they can run for office; those conditions include the location of any homestead tax exemption. https://www.georgiademocrat.org/what-georgians-are-seeing-herschel-walker-taking-texas-resident-tax-break-while-running-in-georgia/
PS: My husband would say “oh Karen, that was yesterday’s news”- IDK about that, I’m aggravated as hell!
"What is it called when a candidate is moved into a state to run for office?" Desperation? I could stretch it as far as White R party operatives moving a Black man from one state to another 🤔 But, with respect, it ain't yesterday's news. Aggravation is called for!
It's called "carpet-bagging!"
I suppose you could call it “carpet-bagging”, actually that is pretty apt!
I heard someone call it something along the lines of ‘sending in an imposter’…
'Contumacious' is a wonderful word to describe many authority provoking elements in GOP world. Garland has a busy job.
I learned a new word, 🤗 and, indeed, a very apt one.
There is also another excellent word, "obstreperous," meaning stubbornly defiant. I love polysyllabic words!
Great!!
A bunch of years ago, a substitute teacher described one of my "challenging" students obstreperous. I looked it up then and have never forgotten. Yes, it's a great word! (But really didn't describe my little 2nd grade munchkin.)
I had to look it up! LOL!
Imagine believing that you have to give MTG or Paul Gosar responsible positions in order to save your hide! Poor "My Kevin". He's danced with the devil for too long not to have been singed. I wish the CA-23 voters saw him as being as despicable as I do.
I highly recommend the following article by Steven Sheffy in the Las Vegas Sun about the weaponization of antisemitism in the Republican Party: https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2022/nov/27/kevin-mccarthy-and-the-weaponization-of-antisemiti/?fbclid=IwAR01Ag6K2vE25sbk9NzV5RLZWUZd86ttbnL5zu1STHuTyr2H5XEryNqRQJE
Thank you for that link. Very informative article...unfortunately.
Thank you. I reposted it on my LinkedIn.
Total madness! Start the indictments, please, Mr. Garland!
Thank you as ever Robert. As someone who voted reluctantly for Joe Biden, I concur with your assessment: he is the president we need right now and I am grateful he is in office.
I'm surprised not to read more about a very good reason to hope Georgians vote for Warnock: To get Joe Manchin's boot off the neck of the other Senate Democrats. With Warnock in, Joe Manchin can waffle more and flirt more with the Republicans and not hold the rest of the agenda hostage at all times in support of his oil and gas interests. With Warnock out, Manchin can return to his unseemly bag of tricks as he did for the past 2 years.
@Swbv, I would note that Senate Democrats are most eager for a 51st Senator to render Kyrsten Sinema as irrelevant. Though Joe Manchin, too, has blocked much of Biden’s agenda, contrary to Sinema, the Caucus, largely, is able to work with Manchin and have found his words and deeds overall consistent throughout his tenure. Moreover, no other Democrat could win a statewide election in West Virginia.
OK....good point. So, with both Manchin and Sinema in the senate, it would be really good to have Warnock.
@Swbv, In my view, Reverend Senator Warnock is a champion on a host of issues including bi-partisanship. Returning him to his seat for 6 years is all the reward I need for my efforts.
Practically speaking, the principal benefit, presently, of a 51-49 Senate is that Dems now control the committees and can more readily move legislation out of committee to the Senate floor. Nonetheless, having lost control of the House, little, if any, new legislation will reach the President’s desk. Still, between legislation from this past term slated to go into effect and the chaos we can expect from the GOP controlled House, we’ll be well positioned for 24, and note I haven’t even touched on our progress at the state and local levels, not to mention upcoming judicial confirmations.
You're right, certainly. Gym Jordan bloviating from Judicial or Intelligence (Ha!) Committees and Matt Gaetz, MTG, Andy Biggs, and Paul Gosar are pretty safe locks to accomplish nothing for all Americans; but they'll get airtime on FOX and even more despicable cable and radio outlets.
Sorry, but that’s inside baseball.
Watching on TV the long lines of folks waiting to vote in GA, my husband quipped to me, "They must have gotten your postcards."
Robert, your opening comments hit the bullseye. The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy and all our freedoms. The actions of those officials in Arizona and Pennsylvania could lead to the disenfranchisement of voters in their own counties. Not to be dramatic, but it comes awfully close to treason. The DOJ should act quickly and decisively to assure that all votes are counted.
I don't think it's "dramatic" at all! They are hindering the functioning of the governmental process and impeding people's right to vote.
While I enjoy reading editions such as this that gloat on the fecklessness of the GOP in navigating the narrow space between abject fealty to Trump and the prospect of losing voters, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that the Dems need to step up their messaging on kitchen table issues. Our candidates could have done better in the midterms had they acknowledged the impact of inflation, high gas prices and crime on many Americans. The NYT, among other outlets have analyzed this and concluded as much. Cheerleading makes me feel good but—once Warnock has won—let’s balance it with constructive ideas for making the 2024 results even better
Hi, Paul. I think you are selling Democrats short. They "overperformed" in midterms based on historical averages by a dozen seats or more. That suggests that Democratic messaging worked, not that it didn't work.
Do you have any particular candidate(s) in mind when you criticize Democratic messaging? I didn't follow every House race, or even most of them, but I would be surprised if Democrats didn't address inflation, gas prices, and crime--they should have, because they had something positive to say on all three topics about the accomplishments of the Biden administration.
And when you say Democrats should have acknowledged the impact of inflation, high gas prices, and crime, what is the follow on statement? Acknowledging the impact of those items on Americans isn't much of a platform to run on.
Finally, it is ironic that the Times is criticizing Democrats for poor messaging when the Times was responsible for consistently negative reporting about Democrats out of proportion to reality, which then created the messaging challenge that the Times analyzed in its post mortem. I wonder if the Times acknowledged its role in creating a mis-impression about the accomplishments of the Biden administration and the perceptions about inflation?
One criticism I think can rightly be made of the Democrats' messaging is their not pushing back harder on the Republicans' pinning rising crime on the Dems. Gun violence is the most feared aspect of crime and Republicans' failure to support the screening out of criminal gun buyers with universal background checks -- and their failure to support an assault weapon ban and other gun safety measures -- accounts for much of the rise in US crime! I'd have liked to see "Republicans are soft on crime!" messaging. And we should have highlighted the higher inflation rates experienced by other countries and argued that a global issue shouldn't be laid at the doorstep of the American president.
Agree agree agree!!!
Hi Robert,
First of all, thank you for all you do. I love your newsletter. When will I get a renewal notice?
My observation was based in part on the email below from NYT. And upon re-reading it, it does seem more than a little like Monday-morning quarterbacking.
A separate item (which I cannot find) claimed that overall more midterm votes were cast for Republicans than for Democrats, and that it was the distribution of votes that made the election so close. I know, I know, Dems have been victims of this same phenomenon (if true).
I’m simply concerned that the Dems (who have an echo chamber every bit as robust as the GOP’s) will start engaging in happy talk about their inevitable success in 2024 and blow it again, as in 2016.
One defence within our control is turnout—and you’ve done a terrific job of boosting that.
Keep up the great work! P
_____________
Paul Heron 416-294-1846
All Newsletters Read Online
New York Times logo
On Politics
FOR SUBSCRIBERS NOVEMBER 18, 2022
19onpolitics-frisch-1-1f61-articleLarge.jpg
In a conservative-leaning district in Colorado, Adam Frisch, a Democrat, nearly defeated Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican. William Woody for The New York Times
The Democrats’ might-have-beens
Author Headshot
By Blake Hounshell
Editor, On Politics
All of the Democratic cheers about the party’s surprisingly strong midterm showing have drowned out a running argument on the left that never ends: Whose political philosophy had it right, centrists or progressives?
As usual, it’s the might-have-been races that are provoking the most discussion. Did Democrats lose a potentially winnable House race in Oregon because the left picked off a Blue Dog incumbent, Representative Kurt Schrader? Or was it because the Democratic establishment stopped investing in Jamie McLeod-Skinner, the progressive challenger who beat him in the primary?
Centrists have their own what-ifs.
They point to how Democrats flipped a Republican seat in the Cincinnati suburbs, made a credible showing against a 10-term Republican incumbent in the California desert and came within a whisker of unseating Representative Lauren Boebert, a darling of the Trump base, in rural Colorado. With another $1 million, could Representative Tom Malinowski, a moderate Democrat in New Jersey, have escaped defeat?
Schrader reckons that had he won his primary, he would have been re-elected by eight percentage points. He blames Oregon state lawmakers for drawing new boundaries that included parts of McLeod-Skinner’s state legislative district.
“They guaranteed a socialist in the primary and a Republican in the general,” Schrader said. (McLeod-Skinner had the backing of progressive groups like Indivisible and the Working Families Party, but does not identify as a socialist.)
Reflecting on the results nationwide, “it kind of feels like Democrats are celebrating in the locker room because we lost by four,” said Liam Kerr, a co-founder of Welcome PAC, a nascent group that aims to become the Justice Democrats of the political center.
To Kerr, one of the most telling statistics of these midterms lies buried in the campaign finance reports of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the nominal leader of the “Squad” of progressive lawmakers. This year, Ocasio-Cortez spent more money fulfilling orders for merchandise — $1.6 million — than Democratic candidates did on their entire races in many districts he argues they could have won.
“That’s more money spent selling ‘Tax the Rich’ and ‘Abolish ICE’ sweatshirts and stickers than 12 Democrats running in flippable Republican-held districts (where Trump received between 50-54 percent of the vote in 2020) have raised this entire cycle — combined,” Kerr wrote in a recent analysis.
As of Friday afternoon, Boebert was leading by just 554 votes, with more than 327,000 counted to date, but her opponent had conceded despite the prospect of an automatic recount. And Representative Ken Calvert, a Republican who has held some version of his Inland Empire seat in California since 1993, won his race against Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, by just three percentage points, or 7,150 votes.
Boebert’s Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, was a political unknown before he entered his party’s primary. When I spoke with Senator Chris Coons of Delaware last week, he recounted meeting Frisch at an event this year in Colorado and wondering: “Who is this guy? How come I never heard of him?”
Neither of the major Democratic groups thought Frisch had a prayer. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent just $330 on ads on his behalf; House Majority PAC, a group close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, chipped in $1,563. Boebert’s campaign outspent Frisch’s on television by about half a million dollars.
By contrast, Democratic small donors shoveled $15 million into a doomed effort to oust Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose northern Georgia district was a 37-point blowout in favor of Trump during the 2020 presidential election. Marcus Flowers, the Democratic candidate in that race, lost to Greene by slightly less: nearly 32 points.
And it wasn’t just the online left that allocated resources in seemingly irrational ways. Money that could have been moved to competitive races got bottled up with safe Democratic incumbents like Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who amassed a $13 million hoard on his way to winning by almost double digits. And when Michael Bloomberg chipped in an extra $10 million to House Majority PAC a few weeks before Election Day, a good chunk of it went to Gottheimer.
The fiercest debates among Democrats have been in cerulean-blue New York, where Republicans flipped four House seats, including that of Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, who ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year.
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But she has pointed out that the Democratic establishment spent millions in an unsuccessful effort to save Maloney, who has blamed her for the party’s losses in New York. Could that money have been better deployed elsewhere?
“Many moderate dems + leaders made it very clear that our help was not welcome nor wanted,” she wrote in a recent Twitter thread, blasting Maloney. “Despite our many, many offers. Yet found ways to try to help from afar. So for them to blame us for respecting their approach in their districts is laughable. Take some ownership.”
The flippable few
House Democrats can point to only a handful of successes in genuinely red districts this year. And even those often come with asterisks.
There’s Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who just survived re-election in a district Trump won by 5.5 percentage points in 2020, but he had the help of a ranked-choice voting system. Representative Marcy Kaptur easily won re-election in northwestern Ohio, but her far-right opponent, J.R. Majewski, was the subject of reports by The A.P. that he had lied about his military record.
One of Democrats’ most impressive victories this year was Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez’s defeat of Joe Kent in Washington State, but he was an election denier who had cozied up to white supremacists to win his primary.
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Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat, is ahead in her race in Alaska, but she had several advantages that Democrats elsewhere did not. Ash Adams for The New York Times
Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is ahead in the race for Alaska’s lone House seat, had all three asterisks: a pro-Trump opponent seen as unlikable and extreme in Sarah Palin, a slight incumbency advantage after winning a special election in August and a ranked-choice-style election system that was designed to favor moderates.
The way Kerr thinks about it, grass-roots Democrats need to forget about no-hopers like Flowers, while party leaders need to do a better job of identifying candidates like Frisch who can run in red districts and win. Kerr calls them “platypuses” — rare political creatures that are hard to find and even harder to describe.
One ingredient these “platypus” campaigns had in spades: They all distanced themselves from the national Democratic Party brand.
Frisch called himself “a businessman and a fiscal conservative” who supported “the Second Amendment, securing the border and less government regulation.” Greg Landsman, a Democrat who defeated Steve Chabot, a Republican, in a close race in Ohio, played up his support for the police. Representative Elissa Slotkin, who won a tough re-election race in a swing district in Michigan, ran an ad featuring Douglas Lute, a retired general who served in George W. Bush’s National Security Council.
“We left a ton of Adam Frisches off the board,” Kerr said. “Democrats could have played in another dozen districts.”
Schrader, who views both parties as moving to their respective fringes, said, “I don’t see Republicans or Democrats interested in learning anything” from this election, and he speculated that third parties might eventually gain steam if the trend continued.
But if there is any lesson to be learned from 2022, Schrader said, it’s “be the big tent.”
Thanks for your reply and the article. You put your finger on something we need to discuss after Georgia: the higher GOP turnout in 2022. That is a worrisome fact. I don’t understand it.
I don't care about world markets - a sudden collapse in China would be a good thing for humanity, and putting world markets over that fact is just not something I am able to agree with. Unfortunately it probably won't happen, and the governments and opinion leaders of the world will continue to give the Communist scum who daily destroy China the continuing pass they have for the past 73 years.. I have Chinese friends who have been silenced by the totalitarians. At least Hollywood has finally gotten the message that doing the bidding of the Chinese Communists does their bottom line about as much good as it does their moral standing.
Hi, TC. I am not defending China's dictatorial regime, but the US imports about half a trillion dollars of goods from China each year-- about 40% of all US imports. And China is the third largest importer of US goods, more than the UK and Germany combined. A sudden collapse of civil order in China would have a devastating impact on the US economy and the world financial markets. Billions of people would suffer economically, some significantly.
China's communist regime will ultimately collapse; the question is whether the world's second biggest economy must also collapse as part of that failure. I hope not. We should try to limit the number of once-in-a-lifetime economic shocks we experience in this decade.
I didn't think you were - but there are people who use that reasoning in order to support the Chinese government while not appearing to do so. I remember dealing with them in any number of executive offices at Hollywood studios as they sold their souls for a big opening weekend in Shanghai, while the son of the Shanghai party boss was pirating their movies (that actually happened to my most-commercial movie). According to recent news, Chinese imports are falling as their economy tanks because of the shutdowns.
Some style and spelling pointers: when referring to the former President, say it this way:
"Stormy Daniels's lover, who cheated on his three wives, cheats on his taxes, cheats charities, and steals top secret documents, ..." and then follow it with whatever you want to report about hism as in
"Stormy Daniels's lover, who cheated on his three wives, cheats on his taxes, cheats charities, and steals top secret documents, used his MAG-A-Loco retirement home to host an intimate. dinner with two avowed anti-semites, one of whom is well-known spokesperson for Christian white supremacists. He knew who his guests were because they had to be screened in advance by the Secret Service before they were allowed to be seated.
I am going to steal your idea! Perfect!
The GOP is responsible for bringing us Trump and Trumpism. They can't win elections by campaigning on their real agenda - structuring the economy so that its benefits continue to flow overwhelmingly to big business and the wealthy at the rest of our expense. So the GOP resorts to right-wing populism to win over enough white working and middle class people to their side to win elections. But when they do win elections they go back to serving their corporate paymasters and implement policies that screw working people. This has been their strategy since Reagan and it has worked well. However, Trump has been THE most extreme yet successful practitioner of this strategy. I think because over the past 40 years, economic inequality has grown to such extreme levels in our society, the elites have to rely on more extreme political measures to mask the problem and maintain the status quo. Thus, the appeal of Trumpism.