Ah yes, I’ve been waiting for this all year. Finally, as the Abramoff-Scanlon-Norquist-Reed Casino Shakedown Scandal gains momentum, some are beginning to wonder if a close acquaintence of all these gents named Karl Rove might have had some idea what was going on. Last week my colleague The Moose cited a Texas Observer article by Rove-watcher Lou Dubose reminding readers of lots of little favors the Bush White House performed for Abramoff and Norquist and their clients (both men, of course, especially Norquist, were early and avid backers of W. for president in 2000). And everybody knows Ralph Reed has been a big-time Bush-Rove favorite who helped create the Christian-K Street coalition which saved W.’s bacon against John McCain in 2000, and who was allowed to test-drive the GOP’s state-of-the-art Get Out the Vote strategy as Republican Party chairman in Georgia in 2002.But I come at this issue from a slightly different perspective. When it first became apparent that the Texas scam of Reed taking Abramoff-generated Indian Casino money to run anti-gambling initiatives had been replicated in Alabama, I thought: Hmmmm. Texas and Alabama. Alabama and Texas. Don’t we know somebody famous who made these two states his personal political stomping grounds in the 1990s? Some guy named Rove?Rove’s dominance of Texas politics in the 1990s is a well-known story. But as Josh Green explained in his Atlantic profile of Rove last year, Alabama was nearly as large a preoccupation for the Boy Genius. As part of his patented effort to bond the business community and cultural conservatives (and their money) to the GOP through abrasive judicial campaigns, Rove was deeply involved in an effort to take over the Alabama Supreme Court from 1994 to 1998 (indeed, his one loss was to a judicial candidate named Roy Moore, a defeat which, according to Green, deepened Rove’s respect for the political power of the Christian Right).Now, none of this proves in the least that Rove had any involvement in the Casino Shakedown, even though it sure seems Rovian in its three-cushion-shot dynamics of raising special-interest money to succor conservative constituency groups and damage Democrats. But the idea that anything as big as this scam, involving several Rove/Bush intimates and three very visible statewide public campaigns, went down in those two particular states without ol’ Karl having a clue about it is as incredible as the idea that Ralph Reed got millions of casino dollars without suspecting the source of the money. Somewhere, the bloodhounds are gathering and getting the scent of dirty dollars. It will be interesting to follow their trail.
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TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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September 20: Tim Scott Wants to Fire Strikers Like Reagan Did
Reading through the ambiguous to vaguely positive remarks made by Republican pols about the historic auto workers strike, one of them jumped off the page, and I wrote about it at New York:
One of the great anomalies of recent political history has been the disconnect between the Republican Party’s ancient legacy as the champion of corporate America and its current electoral base, which relies heavily on support from white working-class voters. The growing contradiction was first made a major topic of debate in the 2008 manifesto Grand New Party, in which youngish conservative intellectuals Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam argued that their party offered little in the way of material inducements (or even supportive rhetoric) to its emerging electoral base. Though Douthat and Salam were by no means fans of Donald Trump, the mogul’s stunningly successful 2016 campaign did follow their basic prescription of pursuing the economic and cultural instincts of white working-class voters at the expense of doctrinaire free-market and limited-government orthodoxy.
So it’s not surprising that Trump and an assortment of other Republicans have expressed varying degrees of sympathy for the unionized autoworkers who just launched a historic industry-wide strike for better wages and working conditions. But there was a conspicuous, even anachronistic exception among nationally prominent GOP politicians: South Carolina senator and presidential candidate Tim Scott. As NBC News reported:
“It’s the latest of several critical comments Scott has made about the autoworkers, even as other GOP presidential candidates steer clear of criticizing them amid a strike at three plants so far …
“’I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike. He said, you strike, you’re fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that we can use that once again, absolutely.’”
Scott’s frank embrace of old-school union bashing wouldn’t have drawn much notice 40 or 50 years ago. And to be clear, other Republicans aren’t fans of the labor movement: For the most part, MAGA Republicans appeal to the working class via a mix of cultural conservatism, economic and foreign-policy nationalism, nativism, and producerism (i.e., pitting private-sector employers and employees against the financial sector, educational elites, and those dependent on public employment or assistance). One particularly rich lode of ostensibly pro-worker rhetoric has been to treat environmental activism as inimical to the economic growth and specific job opportunities wage earners need.
So unsurprisingly, Republican politicians who want to show some sympathy for the autoworkers have mostly focused on the alleged threat of climate-change regulations generally and electric vehicles specifically to the well-being of UAW members, as Politico reported:
“’This green agenda that is using taxpayer dollars to drive our automotive economy into electric vehicles is understandably causing great anxiety among UAW members,’ [Mike Pence] said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Other Republicans followed suit, with a National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson calling out Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin — Democrats’ favored candidate for the state’s open Senate seat — for her Thursday vote allowing state-level limits or bans on gas-powered cars as choosing her ‘party over Michigan.'”
More strikingly, Trump, the 2024 presidential front-runner, is planning to hold an event with Michigan workers at the very moment his GOP rivals are holding their second debate next week, notes the Washington Post:
“While other Republican candidates participate in the Sept. 27 event in California, Trump instead plans to speak to more than 500 autoworkers, plumbers, electricians and pipe-fitters, the adviser said. The group is likely to include workers from the United Auto Workers union that is striking against the Big Three automakers in the country’s Rust Belt. The Trump adviser added that it is unclear whether the former president will visit the strike line.
“Trump’s campaign also created a radio ad, to run on sports- and rock-themed stations in Detroit and Toledo, meant to present him as being on the side of striking autoworkers, the adviser said.”
There’s no evidence Trump has any understanding of, much less sympathy with, the strikers’ actual demands. But in contrast to Scott’s remarks endorsing the dismissal of striking workers, it shows that at least some Republicans are willing (rhetorically, at least) to bite the hand that feeds in the pursuit of votes.
Meanwhile, the mainstream-media types who often treat Scott as some sort of sunny, optimistic, even bipartisan breath of fresh air should pay some attention to his attitude toward workers exercising long-established labor rights he apparently would love to discard. Yes, as a self-styled champion of using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private- and homeschooling at the expense of “government schools,” Scott is constantly attacking teachers unions, just like many Republicans who draw a sharp distinction between public-sector unions (BAD!) and private-sector unions (grudgingly acceptable). But autoworkers are firmly in the private sector. Maybe it’s a South Carolina thing: Scott’s presidential rival and past political ally Nikki Haley (another media favorite with an unmerited reputation as a moderate) famously told corporate investors to stay out of her state if they intended to tolerate unions in their workplaces. For that matter, the South Carolina Republican Party was for years pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of violently anti-union textile barons. Some old habits die hard.
One of the useful by-products of the current wave of labor activism in this country is that Republicans may be forced to extend their alleged sympathy for workers into support for policies that actually help them and don’t simply reflect cheap reactionary demagoguery aimed at foreigners, immigrants, and people of color. But Scott has flunked the most basic test threshold compatibility with the rights and interests of the working class.