Midterm Strategy: Ditch the Corporate Consultants for a GOP Performance Review

We’re 30 days out. Democrats look like they’re looking at a blue wave that could shift control of Congress from Republican to Democrat, maybe even the Senate. I want to talk about strategy a little bit because I’m seeing a lot of ads on TV that boil down to, “we gotta stop insider stock trading.” And you’re seeing that from both sides…even the guys that are doing it are bragging about voting for legislation that would stop it.

But Democrats are giving us the same old ads about how mom and dad taught me to work hard and I’ll work hard for you. I was a good prosecutor or state legislator or governor or businessman.

This is the same old corporate consultant bullshit that Democrats have been using to lose since 2016, and it’s time to change it up a little bit. Trump’s been president twice. The GOP has controlled all three branches of government for two years. And they still blame Biden for high gasoline prices.

It’s not Biden’s fault. They’ve had a chance to fix it. They haven’t fixed it.

So it’s time to do two things as a strategy for the midterms for Democrats in these last thirty days.

First, make this election a performance review. The GOP asked for control of Congress and the Senate and the presidency two years ago, and Americans gave it to them. They promised to make life more affordable and keep us out of war.

They did neither, and this begs the old Reagan question: Is your life better now than it was when we gave it to them?

The American people gave them control. We gave them power. What’d they use it for? Tax cuts for billionaires. They didn’t use it to bring your grocery prices down. They didn’t use it to bring your gasoline prices down. They didn’t use it to bring your housing prices down. And in fact, they got us into a war they promised not to get us into that raised all those prices.

Make Republicans talk about their performance just like you would at a job. If you’re a manager at a job, someone’s not performing, you talk to them and you fire them if they don’t straighten up and fly right.

The second thing we need to do is point out that the hundreds of millions of dollars corporations and billionaires and special interests are spending to try to win these seats demonstrates that they like the status quo. They want the status quo.

Seven dollar diesel is good for them because they’re selling diesel. It’s not good for you because you have to buy it to fill your truck up.

The same old corporate consultant stuff doesn’t work. These TV ads don’t change anybody’s minds. They just don’t. They may be good for pointing out to people who don’t pay much attention that there is an election, but they’re not changing anyone’s minds. No one is voting for Shannon Taylor because she said “Mom and dad taught me that hard work would bring success, but that doesn’t happen if we don’t stop the corruption” in a TV ad.

She’s right about that, but it’s not changing anyone’s mind. Instead, Shannon Taylor and other democrats need to be online saying it again and again: they promised to fix it and they just broke it even more.

Hammer home the fact that we gave the Republicans control of all three branches of government two years ago, and they’ve done nothing but create chaos and make things more expensive for everyone. It’s time to hold their feet to the fire because they didn’t do the job we hired them to do.

Point out that the corporations like the status quo just fine because they have power, they have no regulation, they have their tax cuts, and if they keep the same people in power, they’ll just get less regulation and more tax cuts.

And your housing will go up, your fuel costs will go up, your grocery bill will go up. Your interest rates on your credit card will go up because that’s all good for them. It’s all good for the corporations that are dropping millions in these elections blaming immigrants and trans people for the problems they caused.

You can’t blame Joe Biden for $7 diesel. The trans person is not causing $7 diesel fuel. Women who want reproductive health care are not causing $7 diesel fuel.

Republicans have had two years to fix it and they’ve only made it worse.  It’s time to hold their feet to the fire.

Circular Firing Squad, Voter Suppression Edition

Here’s a good rundown of the internal Republican Party of Virginia argument over how to nominate statewide candidates. Writing at the Bull Elephant, Doc Troxel lays it out clearly. The State Central Committee finally settled on what they call an “unassembled convention” with what amounts to 37 mini-conventions at Party-run polling locations across the Commonwealth. You can also read Lynn Mitchell’s more succinct account at Bearing Drift.

I can’t improve on Troxell’s explanation – he was in these meetings – so I won’t try. My crack at a TL;dr is that because this system limits the number of votes from each local Unit (even if it does not limit the number of delegates from each local Unit) it creates incentives for candidates to capture local unit delegations, as they would in a more…conventional…convention. Sorry.

As I read it, the minority faction fought for a primary because they believe their preferred candidate, Amanda Chase, can win the nomination with a 35% plurality in a large field. They’re less confident in her ability to win a majority at a convention with rank-choice voting. Of course, they frame the problem as “establishment RINOs” controlling the convention results to make sure Chase has no chance, but it’s not clear how including the broader GOP electorate across Virginia helps the most extremist potential nominee.

In any event, I followed the saga as it unfolded and I think it’s important to note that through the entire debate the core question focused on how to best keep opponents from voting. We see no willingness among any of these factions to form a coalition in support of a set of common goals based on commonly accepted social agreements. At every turn each one sought to expand access to their members and deny it to others.

When someone tells you who they are believe them – and the GOP is telling us that conservatives see a no path to power in building coalitions. Easier to simply shut opponents out of the electoral process altogether, and Republicans across the country have moved to do this to Democrats.

In Virginia they turn this weapon on each other.

Circular Firing Squad?

Screen shot from Facebook video of the February 23 Virginia Republican Party State Central Committee meeting.

The inner workings and various factions that make up Virginia’s Republican Party fascinate me, and I’ve been attending Tea Party meetings and following the debate between these factions pretty much since I moved to Hanover County in 2008. The short non-academic version is that a very active and motivated base has worked to take over the Virginia GOP for more than a decade. This base very much wants to enforce a kind of ideological purity that focuses far more on cultural issues than policy.

This intra-Party insurgency initially manifested itself in the capture of local Virginia GOP units by Tea Party activists after Barack Obama won the Presidency. Ideologically, this group is to the right of what I call “Chamber of Commerce” Republicans (defined as conservatives who want small government but want it to actually work). Think of this as the “conservatives lose elections because they’re not conservative enough” crowd.

They successfully won the 7th District Congressional nomination for Dave Brat over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014 because the very conservative Cantor was not conservative enough to suit them – these activists ousted a very powerful Congressman for ideological reasons. Brat went on to win the seat and served two terms before Abigail Spanberger won the seat in 2018. She held it in 2020, but narrowly.

Continue reading →

What to Watch For: Corey Stewart and Virginia Republicans

Photo from Monthly Review Online

Last week, Corey Stewart won the Republican nomination to run against Senator Tim Kaine for US Senate this November.  This means that the de facto leader of the Virginia Republican Party is a white supremacist from Minnesota. We know he’s a white supremacist because he thinks monuments to men who committed treason against the United States in defense of slavery belong in the public square.  The guy made his bones harassing people of color and trying to cleanse Prince William County of immigrants.

Corey Stewart likes to pal around with people like Paul Nehlen and Jason Kessler.  Nehlen is an anti-Semite who jokes on Twitter about killing political opponents.  Kessler organized the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville last August.  A rally attendee and Kessler supporter killed Heather Heyerwith his car.  Two Virginia State Troopers, Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen, 48, of Midlothian, Virginia, and Trooper-Pilot Berke M. M. Bates, 40, of Quinton, Virginia, died when their observation helicopter crashed on their way to assist authorities on the ground.  Kessler plans a sequel, by the way.  Wonder if Stewart will attend. Continue reading →