Vivek Ramaswamy is too young to remember George Wallace. I remember him well, which is why Ramaswamy’s snarky effort to compare Gavin Newsom to him drove me to a refutation at New York:
The last time tech bro turned politician Vivek Ramaswamy waded into American political history, he was touting Richard Nixon as the inspiration for his own foreign-policy thinking, so to speak. Unfortunately, he betrayed a pretty thorough misunderstanding of what Nixon actually did in office, not to mention somehow missing the Tricky One’s own role model, the liberal internationalist Woodrow Wilson.
Now the freshly minted candidate for governor of Ohio is at it again with an analogy aimed at Gavin Newsom that nicely illustrates the adage from This Is Spinal Tap that “there’s a fine line between clever and stupid.” He made this comparison on social media and on Fox News:
“I actually like Gavin Newsom as a person, but he won’t like this: there’s another Democrat Governor from U.S. history that he’s starting to resemble – George Wallace, the governor of Alabama who famously resisted the U.S. government’s efforts at desegregation. In 1963, JFK had to deputize the Alabama National Guard to get the job done, just like President Trump is doing now: – George Wallace fought against federal desegregation; Gavin Newsom now fights against federal deportations. – George Wallace wanted segregated cities; Gavin Newsom now wants for sanctuary cities. – George Wallace blocked school doors; Gavin Newsom blocks ICE vans. It’s the same playbook all over again: dodge the feds, rally the radicals, & do it in front of the cameras to pander to their base to carve out a lane for their presidential goals. And mark my words: Gavin Newsom’s presidential ambitions will end the same way George Wallace’s did – in the dustbins of history.”
Putting aside for a moment Ramaswamy’s dumb little quip about Newsom and George Wallace representing the same “Democrat governor playbook” (it would take all day simply to list the wild differences between these two men and the states and state parties they governed), his facile comparison of their stances toward the exercise of presidential power doesn’t bear any scrutiny at all. When George Wallace “stood in the schoolhouse door” to block the enrollment of two Black students at the University of Alabama, he was defying a nine-year-old Supreme Court decision, an untold number of subsequent lower-court decisions, and ultimately the 14th Amendment, on which Brown v. Board of Education was based. He wasn’t opposing the means by which the federal government sought to impose desegregation, but desegregation itself, and had deployed his own law-enforcement assets not only to obstruct desegregation orders, but to oppress and violently assault peaceful civil-rights protesters. That’s why President John F. Kennedy was forced to either federalize the National Guard to integrate the University of Alabama or abandon desegregation efforts altogether.
By contrast, Newsom isn’t standing in any doors or “blocking ICE vans.” The deportation raids he has criticized (not stopped or in any way inhibited) are the product of a wildly improvised and deliberately provocative initiative by an administration that’s been in office for only a few months, not the sort of massive legal and moral edifice that gradually wore down Jim Crow. And speaking of morality, how about the chutzpah of Ramaswamy in comparing Trump’s mass-deportation plans to the civil-rights movement? Even if you favor Trump’s policies, they represent by even the friendliest accounting a distasteful plan of action to redress excessively lax immigration enforcement in the past, not some vindication of bedrock American principles. No one is going to build monuments to Tom Homan and Kristi Noem for busting up families and sending immigrants who were protected by law five minutes ago off to foreign prisons.
As he made clear in his speech last night, Newsom objects to Trump’s federalization of Guard units and planned deployment of Marines on grounds that they are unnecessary abrogations of state and local authority transparently designed to expand presidential authority as an end in itself. George Wallace made defiance of the federal government under either party’s leadership his trademark. John F. Kennedy wasn’t spitting insults at him as Trump is at Newsom; he and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, negotiated constantly behind the scenes to avoid the ultimate confrontation with Wallace. There’s been nothing like that from Trump, who has all but declared war on California and then sent in the troops to run Los Angeles.
Beyond all the specifics, you can’t help but wonder why the very name “George Wallace” doesn’t curdle in Ramaswamy’s mouth. If there is any 21st-century politician who has emulated the ideology, the tactics, the rallies, the media-baiting, the casual racism, and the sheer cruelty of George Wallace, it’s not Gavin Newsom but Donald Trump. I understand Vivek Ramaswamy isn’t old enough to remember Wallace and his proto-MAGA message and appeal, but I am, and there’s not much question that if the Fighting Little Judge of 1963 was reincarnated and placed on this Earth today, he’d be wearing a red hat and cheering Trump’s assaults on what he described as the “anarchists … the liberals and left wingers, the he who looks like a she” and the professors and newspapers that “looked down their nose at the average man on the street.”
Kerry is putting it away tonight.
Kerry is competent again, and Bush is uneven and has made some big mistakes. He really blew it on immigration, religion, and Social Security.
Looks like Kerry is now up in LV’s too in the WP poll, and gained a bit in LV’s in the ABC poll (the two polls use the same data, but interpret it differently based on their own formulas).
Lets hope Kerry can put it away tonight.
Alan,
This does not seem like a likely answer. The Republicans are certainly engaging in dirty tactics but it seems implausible they would tell Gallup what they are up to and the number of Dem votes they are trashing.
I have not seen a good answer to the question of why Gallup (and other polling orgs) are skewing their results so strongly to the Rs either in LV/RV or in party identification. So, anyone? Alan’s thought is maybe just too disgusting for me to want to believe. Also, the sheer amount of the skew is too large to be accounted for by dirty tricks in some swing states. Is Gallup hoping to scare Dems into fight harder? Do they want a close race to improve news ratings (my fave since news orgs buy the Gallup results)? Is Gallup hoping to get more Repubs into office by creating making them appear stronger than they really are?
I am surprised to see Alan Abromowitz stating that GOP turnout has exceded Democratic turnout in recent Presidential elections. I thought that Democratic voters had exceeded Republican voters by about 3 points in recent presidential races.
coldeye and gabby,
Marshall has followed up with this link to a report from Oregon, confirming what coldeye wrote:
http://www2.kval.com/x30530.xml?ParentPageID=x2649&ContentID=x47627&Layout=kval.xsl&AdGroupID=x30530
The head of the canvassing group used to be executive director of the Arizona state Republican party. Reports are that the GOP funded his group, though the Oregon state GOP denies that he worked for them. There’s a report that the same organization (Voters Outreach of America) is also active in West Virginia.
From a link posted on TPM:
Bush concedes PA?
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001039.html
Those of us here in Pennsylvania may not have George W. Bush to kick around anymore — at least not in person. The New York Daily News — which
is traveling with the President in Arizona today — says that no Pennsylvania TV markets were in Bush’s top-ten spending list last month, and an aide has told the newspaper that no visits from W. to the Keystone State are in the works anytime soon.
Don’t be so quick to dismiss Gallup’s methodology on LV. After all, they probably know what the Republicans voter suppression strategies are. In term of voter turnout, this analysis is likely correct. However, many of the democaratic voters who turn out may end up not being able to vote, and many of those who do vote may not see their vote counted.
Gallup is probably relying on Republican inside information in coming up with its LV numbers.
News flash — the Chicago Tribune released separate polls today for the midwest battleground states (IA, MN, WI, OH). They show Kerry ahead of Bush by 2pts in OH and MN, and 4 pts in WI! He is behind by 2 pts in IA. Plus, there were 5-8% undecided in each state — that basically translates to an extra 2-4 points on Kerry’s side of the margin. Plus, these results are for LVs — can’t find RV results, but those are very likely even better, since Kerry has been stronger among RVs than LVs all season.
Only one set of polls, but still VERY encouraging — are the Cheeseheads finally coming home?!
Midwest Meg, I think Ruy has said the last week or so is the time when the LV is most useful, but only as the race actually closes.
Tony, that news is truly distressing. They’ve always engaged in dirty tricks, but this time the army of Bush brownshirts is a reflection of the men at the top. This time they flaunt the law in a cavalier fashion which reveals their true nature as anything but American.
Tony,
We’ve seen the same tactics here in Portland, OR. Groups collecting registrations and throwing out the Democrats.
Ruy-
Thanks for the RV data. I tried looking for RV info online yesterday and could only get LV.
Various-
This will be somewhat off topic, but speaks to some of the challenges we’ll face on election day.
I just got this from Josh Marshall’s http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com site. Apparently the GOP has paid some people to go get registration cards from potential voters, and then they tear up those who register Democratic. There’s some evidence of this from Las Vegas. This strikes me as the sort of dirty trick that could get very intense attention very quickly.
Marshall got the report from this site:
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe
Here’s a quote from the article:
“We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me,” said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.
Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.
In Ruy’s opinion, at what point in the campaign are LVs the more reliable polling group than RVs? Two weeks from election day? A week before?
Or does conventional wisdom not exactly apply in this election, which looks like it will draw a huge number of first-time or occasional voters?
Does anyone know whether the polls pick up or distinguish how many people voted early? I remember reading articles about several states where people could vote as early as the beginning of September. If that vote was heavy, when Bush had his huge bounce, it could matter. Is there any data?
Who actually performs this poll? Is it Zogby, who I respect? Interesting article on Zogby in new New Yorker.