For a while there, the independent ticket of ex-Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan seemed to be taking crucial votes away from Democrat Joe Biden, at least as indicated by comparing three-way and five-way (with Cornel West and Jill Stein) polls to head-to-head matchups of the incumbent and Donald Trump. Now, even as Biden has all but erased his polling deficit against Trump, he’s getting some more good news in surveys that include other candidates.
Two recent major national polls show Biden running better in a five-way than a two-way race. According to NBC News, Biden moves from two points down to two points up when the non-major-party candidates are included. In the latest Marist poll, Biden leads Trump by three points head-to-head and by five points in a five-way race. Since left-bent candidates West and Stein are pulling 5 percent in the former poll and 4 percent in the latter (presumably taking very few votes from Trump), you have to figure Kennedy is beginning to cut into the MAGA vote to an extent that should get Team Trump’s attention. And it has, NBC News reports:
“Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’s confident that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will pull more votes away from President Joe Biden than from him — a net win for the Republican’s candidacy.
“’He is Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine,’Trump wrote on Truth Social late last month. ‘I love that he is running!’
“Behind closed doors, however, Trump is less sure. A Republican who was in the room with Trump this year as he reviewed polling said Trump was unsure how Kennedy would affect the race, asking the other people on hand whether or not Kennedy was actually good for his candidacy.”
Politico notes that Kennedy is drawing higher favorability numbers from Republican voters than from Democratic ones, which could indicate a higher ceiling for RFJ Jr. among Trump defectors. And it’s generally assumed from his past performances that there is a lower ceiling on Trump’s support than on Biden’s; he needs to be able to win with significantly less than a majority of the popular vote, as one Republican told Politico:
“’If the Trump campaign doesn’t see this as a concern, then they’re delusional,’ Republican consultant Alice Stewart said. ‘They should be looking at this from the standpoint that they can’t afford to lose any voters — and certainly not to a third-party candidate that shares some of [Trump’s] policy ideas.’”
One likely reason that Kennedy could be appealing to Republicans is the residual effect from the positive attention he received from conservative media when he was running against Biden in the Democratic primaries; his identification with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories also resonates more positively on the right side of the political spectrum than the left. So it’s in the interest of Team Trump to begin telling the former president’s sympathizers that RFK Jr. is actually a lefty, and that started happening recently, as the New York Times reported: “Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pointed in particular to Mr. Kennedy’s views on climate change and the environment, writing on his social media site that Mr. Kennedy was more ‘radical Left’ than Mr. Biden.”
The idea, of course, is not only to discourage potential Trump voters from drifting toward the independent candidate, but to encourage potential Biden voters to consider a Kennedy vote.
If Kennedy continues to draw votes from both Biden and Trump, each of their campaigns will need to make a strategic decision about how to deal with him: Do you ignore him and count on the usual fade in support afflicting non-major-party presidential candidates as Election Day nears, or do you attack him as too far left (if you’re Trump) or too far right (if you’re Biden) and try to make him a handicap to your major-party opponent? The more aggressive approach has become common among Democrats seeking to intervene in Republican primaries (or in the recent case of the California Senate race, a nonpartisan top-two primary) by loudly attacking candidates they’d prefer to face in the general election, encouraging Republicans to flock to the supposed menace to progressivism. This kind of tactic — if deployed with some serious dollars — could have an effect on Kennedy’s base of support.
Certainly Trump seems to be considering it. With his usual practice of saying the quiet part out loud, Trump opined: “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden, because he’s frankly more in line with Democrats.”
Trying to minimize losses to Kennedy and maximize opposite-party votes for Kennedy could become a routine practice down the stretch. Where and by whom this strategy is pursued will depend in part on where RFK Jr. is ultimately on the ballot. Right now he has nailed down ballot access in just two states, Utah and Michigan. CBS News reports the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket is close to securing a spot on the November ballot in a number of other states:
“Kennedy’s campaign says it has completed signature gathering in seven other states in addition to Utah and Michigan — Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nebraska and Iowa.
“The super PAC supporting Kennedy, American Values 2024, says it has collected enough signatures in Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina.”
Coping with Kennedy could become a game of three-dimensional chess between the Biden and Trump campaigns. But if it begins to look like RFK Jr. has become an existential threat to Democrats or to Republicans, you can bet they’ll go medieval on him without even a moment’s hesitation.
Here is something that would help our cause:
PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS
If you like to call yourself a liberal, please don’t. It does not help the Democratic party by using that term publicly.
“Liberal” is a terribly self-defeating word. It has negative connotations from the 1960’s-70’s when it was associated with liberal spending on welfare programs, culminating in the 80’s with Reagan’s assertion that black “Welfare Queens are driving Cadillac’s.”
Liberals created welfare and over time it has been associated with being too free with spending the government’s money. Most Americans do agree that we should be conservative in managing our own personal finances as well as the government’s use of our tax money.
It is more difficult to convince an undecided independent voter by using the term “liberal” than by replacing that term with one that carries a lot less negative baggage, “Progressive.”
Progressive is a much better term because its meaning is associated with the only constant law in the universe, which is “change.” Progressive or change-minded means we should not keep repeating the policies of the past over and over, as “Regressives” (Republicans) are wont to do. To achieve a better society, we need to have policies which “progress” along with the advancement of the constantly changing times. When progressive policies don’t keep up with the changing times, Republican “regressive” actions result, and we stay stuck in the past.
Now let me make it perfectly clear that I am not apologizing for being a liberal.
I am a proud liberal and it is o.k. to use that term among us.
But when we are talking to people, who’s politics we do not know,
I strongly recommend we use the term Progressive.
The truth is that there really
is no difference in the meaning of the two terms.
But, “Progressive,” will get us more votes.
Lyndon Johnson’s quipped, “Democrats look ahead through the windshield while Republicans continue to gaze in the rearview mirror.” “True, true, true”, as Harry Truman was fond of saying.
So, I would ask that all Democrats (candidates and activists) stop using the word “liberal” and in its place, always use the term “progressive.” And to drive the point home, we need to stop referring to Republicans as Conservatives and call them REGRESSIVES. Because they truly “are always looking in the rear-view mirror.”
This is not just a matter of semantics. It is a matter of dead serious political consequence. It is an important sociological fact which affects voting behavior consciously or unconsciously. And semantics aside, isn’t it true that only voting behavior matters!
It might take a while before the word “regressive” is absorbed into our lexicon. But if we all keep using it, it will.
WORDS MATTER.
WORDS ARE POWERFUL,
MORE POWERFUL THAN THE SWORD.
Wendell H. Williams
Former Democratic Nominee
U.S. Congress (CA10)
Does anyone believe a product is new or improved just because the ad agency printed “New! Improved!” on the wrapper? The term “liberal” became pejorative because liberal policies failed on issues like crime, education, inflation, taxation, illegal immigration and energy. If we offer the voters the same policies under a new label, the term “progressive” will soon be as pejorative as “liberal” has become.
No Democrat in a competitive race calls himself or herself a “liberal” or a “progressive.” They know, if they have any sense, that the only political labels that matter for winning or losing elections are “Republicans” and “Democrats.” The relatively low-information voters and swing voters who decide competitive elections have little or no clear conception of the meaning of “liberal,” “progressive,” “left-wing” “right-wing,” “fascist” or “semi-fascist.” They just know they’ll have a choice between “Republicans” and “Democrats.”
That fact calls for GENERIC anti-Republican attack ads and messaging as the focus of Democratic campaigning. Ads that damage the Republican BRAND as a whole. Here in Pennsylvania we’re seeing a constant barrage of John Fetterman campaign ads attacking Dr. Oz for his personal weaknesses — his mansions, his super-rich lifestyle, his not being a Pennsylvanian. All legitimate attacks. But they don’t help other Democrats running in competitive Pennsylvania races, including state legislative candidates whose names swing voters will never recognize.
A barrage of generic anti-Republican attack ads that damage the Republican brand and use the term “Republican” to define those who will deny women and girls the ability to make decisions about abortion and their personal lives and who will empower and protect the super-rich would help Democrats up and down the ticket.
The simple message “Republicans say it’s not your body, it’s theirs. Vote them out” defines the choice for midterm voters, especially women, suburbanites and young people, as well as any pro-Democratic message could. And it uses the term that matters most — “Republicans.”
We might see that type of ad from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund or similar groups this fall. But we’re not seeing them here so far. And we need to.
So basically, it will come down to turnout. If white college grads turn out in higher numbers, the way they usually do, and non college whites turn in lower rates, the way they usually do, then it’s a major advantage for the Democrats.