Like most California political junkies, I’m already looking forward to a vibrant 2024 Senate race. I wrote up the latest development at New York:
In the conservative imagination, California is sort of an evil empire of leftism. It’s where white people have been relegated to a minority for decades; where tree-hugging hippies still frolic; where Hollywood and Big Tech work 24/7 to undermine sturdy American-folk virtues; where rampaging unions and arrogant bureaucrats make it too expensive for regular people to live.
But in truth California’s dominant Democratic Party has as many mild-mannered moderates as it does fiery progressives. One of them, Dianne Feinstein, has held a Senate seat for over 30 years. As the 89-year-old political icon moves toward an almost certain retirement in 2024 (though she now says she won’t announce her intention until next year), another ideological moderate has just announced a bid to succeed her. Los Angeles congressman Adam Schiff, though, has an asset most centrist Democrats (those not named Clinton or Biden, anyway) can’t claim: the rabid hatred of Donald Trump–loving Republicans, giving him the sort of partisan street cred even the most rigorous progressives might envy.
It’s why Schiff begins his 2024 Senate race with something of a strategic advantage. The first-announced candidate in the contest, Congresswoman Katie Porter (also from greater L.A.), is a progressive favorite and more or less Elizabeth Warren’s protégé as a vocal enemy of corporate malfeasance. Another of Schiff’s House colleagues, Oakland-based Barbara Lee, has told people she plans a Senate run as well; Lee is a lefty icon dating back to her lonely vote against the initial War on Terror authorization following September 11. And waiting in the wings is still another member of California’s House delegation, Silicon Valley–based Ro Khanna, who is closely associated with Bernie Sanders and his two presidential campaigns.
Obviously, in a Senate race featuring multiple progressives, the national-security-minded Schiff (who voted for the Iraq war authorization and the Patriot Act early in his House career) might have a distinct “lane,” particularly if he draws an endorsement from Feinstein. (Schiff is already suggesting his campaign has her “blessing.”) But he may poach some progressive votes as well by emphasizing the enemies he’s made. Indeed, his campaign’s first video is mostly a cavalcade of conservatives (especially Donald J. Trump) attacking him.
It’s probably not a coincidence that Schiff is announcing his Senate bid immediately following his expulsion from the House Intelligence Committee by Speaker Kevin McCarthy for his alleged misconduct in investigating Russia’s links with Trump and his campaign (and in making the case for Trump’s impeachment). Schiff was also a steady prosecutorial presence on the January 6 committee that McCarthy and most Republicans boycotted).
Complicating the contest immeasurably is California’s Top Two primary election system. Schiff and his Democratic rivals will not be battling for a party primary win but for a spot in the 2024 general election, given to the top two primary finishers regardless of party affiliation. The Golden State’s Republican Party is so weak that it might not be able to find a candidate able to make the top two in a Senate primary; two Democrats competed in two recent competitive Senate general elections in California (in 2016, when Kamala Harris defeated Loretta Sanchez, and in 2018, when Feinstein trounced Kevin DeLeon). If that’s the case, though, it’s unclear which Democrat might have the edge in attracting Republicans. Porter’s campaign is circulating a poll showing she’d beat Schiff in a hypothetical general election because Republicans really hate Schiff despite his more moderate voting record.
For all the uncertainties about the 2024 Senate field, it is clear that the two announced Democratic candidates will wage a close battle in one arena: campaign dollars. Both Schiff and Porter are legendary fundraisers, though Porter had to dip deeply into her stash of resources to fend off a tougher-than-expected Republican challenge last November. Big remaining questions are whether Lee can finance a viable race in this insanely expensive state with its many media markets, and whether Khanna, with his national Sanders connections and local Silicon Valley donor base, enters the contest. There are racial, gender, and geographical variables too: Until Harris became vice-president, California had long been represented by two Democratic woman from the Bay Area. With Los Angeles–based Alex Padilla now occupying Harris’s old seat, 2024 could produce a big power shift to the south and two male senators.
In any event, nobody is waiting around for Feinstein to make her retirement official before angling for her seat, which means a Senate race that won’t affect the partisan balance of the chamber at all (barring some wild Republican upset) will soak up a lot of attention and money for a long time. At this early point, Schiff’s positioning as the moderate that Republicans fear and despise looks sure to keep him in the spotlight.
I’m not sure that “most people” are that extreme. For sure, those that are appear pretty scary and I don’t think any amount of persuasion is going to change them. However the people in the mountain states or the Midwest that voted Republican in the last two elections (or longer-really since 1994) are beginning to redirect their dissatisfaction with the status quo. Eight years of Bush didn’t help them much.
The question is will they be pulled further to the right by McCain/Palin or will they return to the more moderate stance they have historically had. Someone has to connect with them like the Governor of Montana did.
The problem is, don’t you think, that compared with most voters, she is not that extreme? Since her speech, Obama’s lead has been destroyed…with ONE speech! and she will give hundreds more in the next 60 days.
We need less extreme people voting, but folks, it’s time to face facts..most people like the right wing extremism of the nominees.
I agree that it needs to be driven home that Palin’s views are extreme and are particularly extreme on issues that are important to women. Here is something that could be polished up and drive the point home.
“Didn’t Sarah Palin and her family look great at the RNC, especially so as she delivered her speech on Wednesday? But she really didn’t say much about issues, in particular issues that are important to women. One has to look toward John McCain to see what his ticket really thinks about issues essential to women. When asked what he thought about pro-choice, his response was that he “favored a constitutional amendment” making abortions illegal in the United States. One has to assume that he wouldn’t have picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, if she didn’t feel the same way. Look at what John McCain has said. That’s what you can expect if McCain/Palin are elected.”
Pushing back on mockery
This mockery worked very well against Kerry-Edwards in 2004, who never used it effectively against Bush and Cheney. Reagan used it against Carter successfully too.
I think the Dems have to hit back – not necessarily Obama or his campaign, but ads need to do some of this, and surrogates too. It is hard and dicey to push back with mockery, because of McCain’s vet/POW status, and because it could be seen as sexism against Palin.
On Gov. Palin
(1) Don’t mention Palin’s name without the adjective “extremist”. She is farther right than George Bush and Dick Cheney. She’s a Dick Cheney masquerading in lipstick and heels. She may be a better shot with a gun, but her policies are more off the mark. ‘Extremist’ captures her accurately and avoids patronizing her. Look at her positions on abortion, humans having no affect on global warming, & stem-cell research.
(2) At best, Palin is the biggest flipflopper in the race. At worst she has misrepresented herself. Examples: Bridge to nowhere, Chomping at the trough of congressional pork, troopergate.
(3) Oh, and the sum total of Palin’s international experience before she applied for a passport in 2006 is she’d been to Canada. (She subsequently visited US troops in three countries, Iraq, Kuwait and Germany). That’s worse than George Bush, and look where he got us on foreign policy.
On Sen. McCain
(4) Can we mock McCain and Palin both as blind agents of big oil? They don’t need to deal with lobbyists – they are the lobbyists for big oil! The new McCain-Palin ticket is like the Exxon-Mobil merger. Americans will be paying for the hundreds of millions that will go into the pockets of oil companies and their executives – just like Cheney and Bush. Are we going to let this country, and its decisions about foreign policy, have 4 more years of being driven by the handservants of oil companies? That’s worked great for the public/
(5) ‘Country First’?!?!? What about rich people’s pockets first?! That’s what this last 8 years have brought. We have numbers on this!!! McCain and his Bush economic policies (not to mention countless homes) promise the continuation of this.
(6) How abot mocking McCain for ‘not getting’ that his economic policies are the same as Bush’s? Does he not get the very phrase he used to describe his education policy (‘civil rights issue of our time’ – Bush in 2002; ‘civil rights issue of this century’ – McCain on Sept 4) was used by GW Bush early in his presidency? Have his advisers not pointed this out?
(7) Republicans have been poor stewards of the lives of American troops. Where is the outrage over the most important cost to America of this bungled war in Iraq? It is McCain and his party who pushed it. Surely we can name three or five servicemen/women who died due to the failure to fund adequate armor for Humvees? Yes we know and remember the victims of 9/11. But Afghanistan is where we should have pressed our military power, not the distraction in Iraq.
You can’t lose what you never had, and McCain never really had complete control of the Republican Party. His recognition of this political fact is evident in his acquiescence to the Christianist veto of his preferred running mates — Ridge and Lieberman — and his acceptance of the religious right’s candidate.