I read a Thomas Friedman column this week that really required a smackdown. So I supplied one at New York:
How much political capital should Democrats invest in a probably doomed effort to save the political career of Liz Cheney? Earlier this week, Never Trump Republican Linda Chavez penned a column urging Wyoming Democrats to take a dive this November in order to give the incumbent a chance to survive as an independent, assuming (as it safe) that Cheney will be purged in her own party’s primary. And now, in an apparent coincidence, in comes New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggesting a far more radical step by Democrats to align themselves with the small slice of Republicans who follow Cheney’s example in repudiating Donald Trump. He wrote:
“Is that what America needs in 2024 — a ticket of Joe Biden and Liz Cheney? Or Joe Biden and Lisa Murkowski, or Kamala Harris and Mitt Romney, or Stacey Abrams and Liz Cheney, or Amy Klobuchar and Liz Cheney? Or any other such combination.”
Friedman phrases this as a question, but clearly he thinks it’s a good idea given the “existential moment” America would face if Trump is allowed to regain the presidency in 2024. It’s a bit of a loaded question, too, since it postulates that nothing short of a previously unimaginable “sacrifice” by Democrats and Never Trump Republicans alike can stop Trump — and that it would, in fact, succeed in stopping Trump.
I certainly agree that Democrats dumping Kamala Harris to give their vice-presidential nomination to a conservative Republican who opposes legalized abortion and is a militarist by conviction and heredity would be a “sacrifice,” to put it very mildly. It would also be very, very weird. Friedman cites the recent establishment of a mind-bending coalition government in Israel to thwart Bibi Netanyahu as a development comparable to what he is suggesting. But as he acknowledges, Israel has a parliamentary system in which multiparty coalitions are the rule rather than the exception. A presidential system in which parties invariably run separate tickets for the top job is another thing altogether.
The U.S. has had exactly one example of multiparty fusionism in a presidential election. In 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, Republicans nominated Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee — then serving as U.S. military governor of Tennessee — to run with Lincoln on a “Union” ticket. The experiment did not turn out well, beginning with Johnson’s drunken inaugural address in 1865 and continuing with the racist solidarity he exhibited toward ex-Confederates after Lincoln’s assassination, culminating in his impeachment and near removal from office. There are important reasons politicians sort themselves out into major parties, which should be apparent in an era of polarization over issues other than the scofflaw behavior of Donald Trump.
Is the threat of Trump’s return to the White House the equivalent of the U.S. Civil War? Not in itself, I would contend, though that horrific development could lead eventually to grave conditions comparable if not equal to a civil war. The premise that a Biden-Cheney fusion ticket would uniquely doom Trump to failure is even more dubious. There has never been much evidence of a mass following for Never Trump Republicans, and such as it is, it is mostly composed of people who would (and did in 2020) gladly vote for Biden and Harris. The baleful effect that replacing Harris with Cheney on the ticket would have on Democratic turnout could easily offset or exceed the alleged benefits of bipartisan and trans-ideological fusion.
So Democrats should say thanks, but no thanks, to Friedman for the idea of submitting their party to some sort of unwieldy and unnatural coalition of national salvation, so long as there is the slightest possibility of beating Trump the old-fashioned way. Liz Cheney deserves great respect for the courage she has shown in defying Trump at the expense of her own career, and if Biden is reelected with her support, perhaps she deserves an ambassadorship, a minor Cabinet post, or a major sub-Cabinet position. But she has no business being at the top of the line of succession to a Democratic president.
I think Kerry is in a great position to surge ahead based on such things as:
A strong debate performance
An uprising in Iraq going beyond the present upsurge
A North Korean bomb test if he can convincingly make the case that it is due to Bush fumbles.
My dream result is:
*Kerry wins big, bigger than any thought
*The pro Bush polls are exposed and ridiculed
*The good polls are vindicated by being closest
From Zogby’s notes for the survey: “Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion and gender to more accurately reflect the voting population. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.”
As noted by others in previous posts, Zogby and some others are weighting party ID a little bit in their polls, while Time, Newsweek, etc. aren’t. I didn’t see in the notes to this poll what the exact weighting for Dems/Reps/Inds was.
This whole debate over whether to weight party ID or not is starting to get a little play in some of the media – the local NPR station in NY had a segment on it yesterday. Here’s an off-the-cuff observation: one would think that there would be some sort of established standards for an industry that’s been around for many decades. If a pollster is going to weight other factors, why would he/she exclude party ID from (at least to some extent) the same treatment? The arguments that I’ve heard that party ID should be a “floating variable” don’t make much sense if every other major demographic attribute gets weighted. One can sum up these polls with this motto: buyer beware – read the fine print.
In any event, the numbers are starting to settle in the wake of the GOP hatefest. It looks like Bush has established a 2-4 point lead. Kerry still has the issues environment on his side, so I remain optimistic that we’re going to win. BTW, Jeff’s post from yesterday about the demographic changes in the electorate over the past four years was great…I was aware of nearly all of those things, but he put all the pertinent data in a summarized and understandable format.
This contributes little to the discussion of facts, but…let me say what a good pick-me-up your blog is, Ruy. For those of us who care deeply about this election and its repercussions (but haven’t the time to parse the details), I count myself fortunate to be able to visit your site and routinely catch “the rest of the story.” Believe me, I pass it on to all my Donkey friends.