TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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May 17: Senate Democrats Need to Play Error-Free Ball
Figured it was time for another look at the difficult Senate landscape, and did so at New York:
There are still a few Democratic Senate primaries to go, but most are in non-competitive states or in contests where the likely Democratic winner is all but certain. So Angela Alsobrooks’s decisive win in Maryland over Congressman David Trone on May 14 pretty much set in place the Democratic candidate team that will face the daunting task of maintaining control of the Senate in November.
Alsobrooks is bidding to become the third or fourth Black woman ever to serve in the Senate (depending on whether Delaware congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester wins her Senate race as well). Alsobrooks, who is county executive in Prince George’s County, showed her political chops by dispatching the self-financed Trone, beating him soundly in both the D.C. suburbs and in the Baltimore area. The latest poll of Maryland, from The Hill/Emerson, gives Alsobrooks a ten-point lead over her Republican opponent, former governor Larry Hogan. But this is a seat Democrats totally took for granted until Hogan’s surprise announcement in February that he was running for it. And some national Democrats not-so-secretly hoped Trone would beat Alsobrooks so that his vast wealth would take care of Maryland without potentially draining resources needed in other contests. Instead, some money best spent elsewhere may be necessary to croak Hogan’s candidacy, particularly since the Alsobrooks-Trone primary got a bit nasty and left some scars that need healing.
Anxieties over Maryland illustrate the extent to which Democrats cannot afford any mistakes in fighting to maintain control of the Senate. They currently hold a one-seat majority but are defending 23 of the 34 seats at stake in November, including three in states carried twice by Donald Trump. One of those, West Virginia’s, is almost certain to flip to Republican governor Jim Justice (also nominated on May 14) after Joe Manchin’s decision to retire. If Trump wins in November and his yet-to-be-named VP takes away Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote, Democrats could win every competitive Senate race and still lose control. As it is, they need to battle to save red-state incumbents Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana while sweeping tough battleground-state races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; or hope that Biden is reelected, giving them a mulligan in one close Senate race. It’s a tall order.
Yes, Democrats currently, and almost incredibly, have modest polling leads in all of the above-mentioned Senate contests. But in some cases (particularly Pennsylvania with Bob Casey Jr. and Wisconsin with Tammy Baldwin), they have well-known incumbents facing little-known Republican challengers with very deep pockets who will inevitably cut into their leads. In an intensely polarized atmosphere with a very close presidential race, Senate Democrats cannot count on much ticket-splitting in their favor. Yes, the Democratic Party will put up spirited challenges against well-financed Republican incumbents in Texas (where Colin Allred is challenging Ted Cruz) and Florida (where Muscarel-Powell is taking on Rick Scott), but the pickings are slim. One stumble anywhere and Chuck Schumer is minority leader, which would be a real problem for a reelected Joe Biden and a big advantage for a President Trump.
So you can expect national Democrats to watch every penny that goes into Senate races in order to avoid wastage, and individual Democratic Senate candidates to keep a healthy distance from the national party, which could have a subtly corrosive effect on coordinated campaigns and straight-ticket discipline. It will be a white-knuckle experience for all concerned.
I’ve seen some better and more insightful communications advice from Andrew Levison before also. I mean the statement he’s got at the think is fine if a politician is literally held hostage and forced to say something about this song. By my gut political comms instinctive for anybody who isn’t in the business of feeding the right-wing BS machine is: never voluntarily discuss or bring up the song at all!
One of the more endearing things about Biden is when he tells reporters their questions are stupid. If an audience member finds that response offensive rather than endearing, they were a lost cause anyway. I found it endearing about Rumsfeld too, that he would call out reporters on dumb questions – even though Rumseld made a lot of bad decisions.
And if pinned down to talk about the lyrics, just refuse to play the game or understand the subtext.
Call these two: Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store… – the crimes and misdemeanors they are
This one: Cuss out a cop, spit in his face. — you shouldn’t do that do them. –and our Officers should respect all our citizens too
And this one: Stomp on the flag – call it constitutionally protected speech, but not a way to make friends or make your cause a political winner –
Agreed. Of course the debate is a trap. I am sure media figures and twitter users have editorialized about it. Have any Democratic elected officials or Party officials or Campaign operatives commented on it? If so, it is mistake. But that someone, somewhere in the country will complain about the songs lyrics and subtext in America is inevitable. It is also inevitable right-wing media will pounce on that fact, and identify any critic with any opposing Democratic candidate with the false equation of a left, progressive, or liberal, or Democrat person said something, those 4 words all mean the same thing, every Democratic candidate automatically believes in the same things anybody classified as left, progressive, or liberal ever said anywhere. That’s just life in a free country. Any communications strategy needs to work around that reality.