I see that the editors of the Washington Post have caught up with me. Democrats shouldn’t fund the campaigns of extreme Republicans:
The country needs a broad coalition to defeat candidates who would help former president Donald Trump, or another politician in his mold, again attempt a coup in 2024. Which is why it is not just shameless, but dangerous, that Democrats have spent tens of millions this year promoting Republican extremists.
By boosting the primary campaigns of right-wing zealots running against more moderate Republicans, Democrats seek to set up favorable races for themselves, against less electable candidates, in the general election. The result is that Democrats have helped Trumpian fanatics move one step closer to offices from which they could directly threaten the nation’s democracy.
Tuesday night brought the latest example. State Sen. Darren Bailey (R) won the Illinois GOP gubernatorial nomination after Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and the Democratic Governors Association spent $30 million to help him. The Trump-endorsed Mr. Bailey made his name by opposing covid-19 public health measures, pushing to evict Chicago from Illinois and favoring the banning of abortion in the state.
Even worse was Democrats’ use of this strategy in key presidential swing state Pennsylvania, where state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), a leading 2020 election denier, last month won the GOP gubernatorial nomination. He spent a mere $370,000 on television ads. His Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, spent more than $840,000 on ads designed to help him win the Republican primary.
Note the numbers. Democrats were the primary sources of funding for some Republican candidates. Now they’d better hope like the dickens that President Biden’s declining popularity and inflation don’t drag whole Democratic tickets down and elect the candidates their funding got tapped in the primaries.
Update
It seems like I’m being confronted with picture of Darren Bailey grinning everywhere. The editors of the Wall Street Journal get into the act:
Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, a moderate African-American from Chicago’s suburbs with a compelling biography, would have been the most formidable opponent. That’s why Democrats spent millions of dollars tearing him down. One ad accused him of “profiting by defending some of the most violent and heinous criminals” as a defense lawyer.
Mr. Bailey’s victory probably had less to do with Donald Trump than with his cultural conservative bent that resonates downstate. Former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner supported abortion rights and won election in 2014 by campaigning against Chicago’s public-union machine. But he lost re-election in 2018 after cultural conservatives soured on him.
Mr. Bailey’s best but longshot bet is to avoid talking about divisive social issues like abortion and instead run against Illinois’s public-union mal-governance, which has resulted in some of the nation’s highest property taxes, soaring pension liabilities and an exodus of businesses and residents.
and conclude:
While many Republicans are ready to move on from Mr. Trump, Democrats find it politically useful to keep him around. It’s hard to take seriously their anguish about the condition of democracy when they gamble on helping Trumpian candidates. They’d better hope the GOP tsunami isn’t so large that it sweeps into office the candidates they claim are threats to democracy but whom they helped nominate.
Having no one to blame but themselves will not stop them from blaming Republicans, even if a lot of the voters who voted for these guys’ candidacies were one day crossovers.
