Let’s not jinx this, but I have tried to tell you that the Phillies are a team of destiny – and, again, that the Astros are the new Yankees.
And from the City of Brotherly Love – whose denizens infamously booed Santa and throw batteries at the heads of opposing players – a new tactic.
Starvation!!
****
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Based on reporting with sources across the board, public and private polling, years of accumulated spideysense, and a race-by-race analysis:
There is no longer a debate about whether there will be a sizeable Red wave.
There will be.
Sometimes a Debbie Wasserman Schultz riff is just a riff, but sometimes it is a metaphor:
The new Wall Street Journal national poll is filled with bad news for the Blue Team:
Voters are giving Republicans a late boost in support just ahead of the midterm elections, as pessimism about the economy and the direction of the country jump to their highest levels of the year, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds.
The survey, conducted about two weeks before Election Day, suggests that abortion rights are less important in voting decisions than voters indicated in the summer, after the Supreme Court in June ended the federal constitutional right to abortion. Republicans have regained momentum since then and now hold a slight edge over Democrats, 46% to 44%, when voters are asked which party they would support in their congressional district if the election were held today.
And Joe Biden’s own campaign pollster, who co-runs the WSJ survey, says this in the story:
Mr. [John] Anzalone said the most concerning matter for Democrats is that independent voters don’t trust the party to handle rising prices. Whichever party is in power, he said, finds that independent voters “break against the party when you have economic diagnostics like we’re seeing. End of story, done.” He added, “Voters trust the Republicans on that, right now. That’s tough sledding for us.”
Even Dominant Media Blue cheerleaders are worried, as in this from the Washington Post’s Mr. Bump:
A review of the past six election cycles shows little reason for Democratic optimism. Generic ballot polling, estimates of which seats are at risk and Biden’s own approval suggest that the GOP is poised to retake both houses of Congress.
Talk about your doom and your gloom….
But there are two subsidiary questions that give Democrats some hope:
1. Are we talking “significant wave” or “giant tsunami”? (In other words, are we talking “thumping” or “major shellacking”?)
2. As we all know, there are almost always miracle survivors after major weather events, and there are indications that Democrats could see enough such miracles to have both post-election talking points and the capacity to live to fight another day.
However, what is different now compared to 24 hours ago is that Democrats are feeling less good about the Senate (even as the House situation deteriorates even more).
On the former, public and private polling data make it clear that Republicans could hold all their current seats and pick up as many as five Senate seats currently held by the Democrats.
On the latter, the Cook ratings, last-minute spending and consultant jitters suggest that the number of net House seats the Republicans will gain will almost certainly be closer to 40 than to the 0 that Democrats were claiming to forecast not too long ago – and it could even be 40 (or more).
Your garden variety Republican Gang of 500 member will now tell you that their side will end up with at least 51 Senate seats (but more likely more), a net gain of at least 25 House seats, and a bigger bushel of the marquee contested gubernatorial contests.
Here’s why the Democrats haven’t given up.
First of all, they haven’t given up.
Even though their own polling numbers across the board are pretty dire, Democrats are surprising themselves with the lack of public infighting and finger pointing. Even the story leading the New York Times website Wednesday morning, about some Democrats second-guessing the 2022 strategy, is decidely thin gruel for the genre. Sure, there’s the obligatory Ed Rendell and Elissa Slotkin quotes, but they are pretty tempered and not of the sky-has-fallen variety.
In fact, there remains a quiet, cool determination, from the White House to the party committees to the individual campaigns to coordinate professionally in making the smartest possible last-minute spending, messaging, surrogate travel, and oppo dump decisions. There are some rough spots and frayed nerves, to be sure, but the orchestra is still playing, still at least trying to use the same sheet music.
There is a belief that enough races are close enough that, with a little luck at the end, a significant number of contests can be salvaged, that enough souls can survive the storm. Maybe not enough to preserve the majorities or every key governors’ residence, but enough to have something to say positive after Tuesday and to keep the last two years of the Biden-Harris term from being a nullity.
There is major, customized Democratic triage going on to try to save individual candidates, but the general formula goes like this:
Barack Obama mojo + superior ground game/turnout + Social Security/Medicare card + super negative last-minute paid media + a Trump/democracy/abortion rights burst + exploitable endgame errors by weak Republican candidates + oppo/negativity deployed on social media (including targeted messages to Black/Hispanic/young/old voters) + a surprise Michelle Obama cameo (at least in some robo calls) + judges post-election siding with Democrats on ballot counting as MAGA overplays its conspiratorial hand =
Hochul survives; Walz survives; Whitmer survives; Evers survives; Shapiro wins big and DeSantis wins small; maybe Kari Lake somehow loses; the Senate stays 50-50 (or goes 51-49 R but an unexpected development in 2023 brings it back to 50-50); House losses are held below 16 (or below 26).
This is not the base case right now, but nor is it impossible.
Democrats doing better than currently expected is not supported by the data, but politics remains more about flesh and blood and humanity than it is about data, the Nates’ efforts to the contrary notwithstanding.
More tk tomorrow.
****
*
* The Washington Post says Biden-Harris ’24 is in high advanced planning mode, even though the incumbent has not made a final decision about running. The most interesting elements in the story are the worries that the typical Biden indecision could cause a big problem:
[S]ome Democratic strategists have grown concerned that a potential announcement by Trump shortly after the midterms — followed by months of delay before Biden’s announcement — could put the party at a serious disadvantage. Biden is not expected to formally declare his plans until early next year, though Biden advisers say no timetable has been set. Biden’s team concluded in 2020 that Trump hurt his chances by starting his reelection effort shortly after taking office.
“We are going to have two or three months with essentially one hand tied behind our back, because even if we are running at full speed we still will not have a candidate,” said one Democratic presidential strategist, who like more than a dozen other strategists interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment on politically sensitive issues….
“In 2020, Joe Biden was probably the only person who could beat Donald Trump. In 2024 he might be the only person who can lose to him,” said another Democratic strategist with presidential campaign experience. “Because the American people may just decide he is just not up to the job.”
PS: The story says the HQ will likely be in the Acela Corridor.
* The Associated Press has the mirror image story about Trump and his 2024 deliberations (the HQ will be in FL):
“I’m like 95% he’s going to run,” said Reince Priebus, Trump’s former White House chief of staff. “The real question,” he added, “is are other big challengers going to run? If President Trump runs, he will be very difficult for any Republican to defeat….”
Trump, according to people close to him, is eager to be back in the political game. While he has been talking up a bid since before he left the White House, aides and allies are now eyeing the two-week stretch after the Nov. 8 midterms as a possible window for an announcement, though they caution that he hasn’t made a decision and that — as always when it comes to Trump — things could change, particularly if the election results are delayed due to recounts or a possible runoff election in Georgia.
Indeed, even as discussions are underway about potential venues and dates for a formal announcement, Trump continues to tease the possibility of declaring his intentions at one of the rallies he’s planned for the election’s homestretch….
* NB, from that Wall Street Journal national poll:
The Journal poll found that a hypothetical 2024 rematch between Messrs. Biden and Trump is tied, with each man drawing 46%. In August, Mr. Biden was ahead by 6 percentage points.
* The Washington Post on the Capitol Police’s Pelosi security camera video.
* The Ron DeSantis version of “Morning in America” – “It’s the afternoon in Florida”
* JC Watts backs a Democrat:
* OMFG:
****
At an undisclosed Chicago restaurant, after a chance meeting, the following conversation between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did not take place. In this scenario, the twin sons of the same father (GHWB) decided to dine together after they realized they were in the Windy City on Monday night for different reasons – 42 was there to do some last-minute fundraising for his party, while 43 was giving a paid speech to the National Association of Widget Manufacturers.
A partial transcript of their private super supper banter, recorded by an aide to one of the men, is presented here. This fake transcript has been edited for length, clarity, and comedy.
*
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON (in progress): What I’m telling you is, there is a fight, a desperate one beyond all measure, for the heart and soul of the country. But bringing this fight clearly into view of the American people seems beyond the desires or skills of the pundits and their media channels, except for EJ Dionne and Ron Brownstein. It is not at all a fight over progressive versus conservative ideology. It is actually a three-party fight: Republicans, Democrats, and Fascists.
GEORGE WALKER BUSH: I agree! A small group of revolutionaries with that asshole Donald Trump as the people’s anointed group leader are actively working on a genuine insurrectionist coup, in which the goal is to install a fascist government in the United States. The leaders of this movement are following the general model laid down by Mussolini in Italy, copied by Hitler in Germany.
WJC: I agree, but calling these people Nazis, one particular virulent form of fascism, is a misnomer. They are run of the mill fascists, in that they do not believe in the virtues of a government elected by popular vote. As Mussolini and Hitler did, they understand the need to use the machinery of democracy to gain power, but once gained, they will have no intention of allowing the democracy to continue.
It is not clear exactly how they would rule. Those folks couldn’t organize a one-car parade. Passion for hot topics of the moment or their old, rote standbys -- Pro Life, Anti-Crime, Small Government, Freedom from Government Intrusion – those are slogans useful to gain power. Once in power, power alone would be their North Star.
GWB: You know that the so-called leaders in both of our parties fully understand this. Both are skeptical Trump and his small group can pull it off. But both have been forced to take sides in the existential battle. The Democrats have been, with the exception of the January 6 committee, rather feebly calling Trump and his Republican supporters out for this. Finding too little traction here to unify their messages, you Democrats have been forced to undertake conventional campaigning on all the Democrat cliches. As usual, they have done this poorly. That’s why your side is losing.
WJC: Here’s the deal: my folks suffer congenital flaws.
Too many of us cannot but help seeing themselves as the party of preening moral virtue, expecting to win favor by an intrusive multidimensional preaching, a constant and full-throated screech, on how each of us should fairly and with perfect equanimity treat our fellow woman, no matter her color, religion, or sexual orientation. This drives many of us anti-Trump people nuts. Further, my team harbors a distinctively preachy form of socialistic thinking on all matters economic. There ain’t a Bob Rubin type anywhere near Joe Biden’s Oval Office. And finally, reflected in my party’s actual policies now is a softness on crime and insecure borders, both stemming not so much from belief, but from needful and needy sympathies to attract the votes of all demographics not white.
Barring dramatic new leadership, there is nothing, given the dynamics of my party, we can do about any of this before Tuesday. And I’m not sure that old Joe has a plan for it after Tuesday. More and more I think that not only is Mike Donilon no Doug Sosnik, I’m not even sure he is a Jim Messina. Tom was always the smarter brother.
GWB: I’ve got zero idea who you are talking about. Are you going to finish that black bean pie? Just kidding!
WJC: On the other hand, I think Republican leadership, in the main, does not wish to see a fascist government installed in the United States. In this threat, your side sees Trump as an enemy as much as I do. However, Trump, with his fascist appeal, has captured your party fully and completely. Wake up every one! The Republican base voter absolutely wishes, for completely valid reasons in their minds, to see a fascist government installed. They are so completely fed up with Democratic piety and the little it has done for them, fascism, as long as it is their fascism, is much to be preferred to more of the Democrats. They make no bones about this. The Arkansan in me has full understanding and sympathy for their feelings, no matter that their own interests are far to the better served by the government we currently have. Thus, while understanding and sympathizing with them, we must oppose them. That is still the project for the foreseeable future.
GWB: The complexities brought on by your last point, sympathy but opposition, must be understood and acknowledged beyond all of the other crap that has been written and continues to be written about our current situation. The government of the United States cannot be allowed to fail and become Fascist to meet the perceived needs of 30% of its population. Seventy percent to thirty percent is enough to keep the Republic and deal with the consequences of our different world views.
Republican party leaders are finessing this conundrum as best they have been able. To do this, they have had little choice but to sell themselves, and then the rest of the country, as the party of a soft, gentle, and justifiable form of historic nationalism, whose task it is to protect the nation from the Democratic “modern view” on the nature of society. We have long successfully fashioned “family values” and other “conservative” viewpoints around the visceral antipathy so many in the electorate have to the modernity of “LBGQT” and the politics seen always as favoring “people of color” over “people like me.” Look at me, unleashing my inner Mike Gerson. Good man, by the way.
WJC: But now, forced to be in cahoots with the Fascists, Republicans have had to go beyond their litany of faux policies. They have had to become full throated election deniers, to amplify and leverage the antipathy to modernism to the hilt. Y’all are just a bunch of Kari Lakes and Kari Lake wannabees. Your team is now therefore just a truly vicious opposition party, abandoning issues such as fiscal irresponsibility, border security, and crime, as reflecting any true ideology. These issues are now used cynically only to find leverage beyond election denial with which to oppose the Democrats’ addiction to multiculturism and socialism.
GWB: In having to hitch their wagon to Trump, my guys cannot help but play into his hand. McConnell totally understand the danger of this of course. McCarthy perhaps too, though he is so blinded by ambition that that is not entirely clear. I think both force themselves to assume, as did the leadership in Germany in the late 20’s and early 30’s, that Trump, like Hitler, can be handled, and the worst will not come to pass. But, in Germany the worst did come to pass, as a forceful and focused Fascist group, however small, can overwhelm a conflicted and confused democracy. I don’t think that will happen, but who friggin’ knows?
WJC: It can and might happen here. It shouldn’t. The odds seem against it, as the courts have performed quite well. We are still a great country. But it feels now that it is a very close call as to the outcome. As a nation, we are taking the experiment of Trump’s way too much to heart.
GWB: This is particularly troubling because of the facts of the US as compared to German in the 30’s.
WJC: The US is a vibrant and amazingly successful market driven democracy, with a quite good economy even at this moment. We are doing a lot more than taking in each other’s wash or appearing on each other’s podcasts – although there does seem to be a lot of that. We continue to successfully incorporate immigrants continuously from around the world. It is as a nation no more soft white nationalist than it is remotely socialist in the European sense. It is a wonderfully balanced country, being pulled emotionally by a rabid new electronic media sensibility through a filtering process favoring the worst and most vile forms of communications. I’d never say it publicly, but Rachel Maddow is every bit as insidious as Sean Hannity. This has made a ridiculous caricature of both parties, and solidified horribly the inherently dysfunctional nature of the country’s politics.
I reserve some of my strongest criticism for my fellow Democrats.
The hysterical attention given to the lowest 15% of our people, and their difficulties, compared to the more mundane difficulties of the middle class, by Democratic politicians, particularly on the left, is almost as cynical and horrible for the country as the ridiculousness of Trump and his followers. Progressives have done this only to find a place for themselves, and in doing so have turned the Democratic Party of Truman into something unrecognizable to the most important political constituency of all, the broad middle class of America (of all colors and sexual orientations) that, for God’s sake, must be given their due to forestall the desire on the part of all too many for Trump to re-emerge.
WJC and GWB (in unison): Now, that’s what’s really going on.
****
