In the Daily Mail Morgan Phillips quotes James Carville as hammering home a couple of points I have been making for some time. While Democrats are running primarily on abortion, that’s not a strategy that’s likely to work. Here’s the telling quote:
Democratic strategist and Clinton advisor James Carville is warning his party against laser-focus on abortion in the run-up to the November midterm elections.
‘A lot of these consultants think if all we do is run abortion spots that will win for us. I don’t think so,’ the famed strategist told the Associated Press. ‘It’s a good issue. But if you just sit there and they’re pummeling you on crime and pummeling you on the cost of living, you’ve got to be more aggressive than just yelling abortion every other word.’
IMO Democratic strategists are gravely overestimating the number of voters whom the issue will get to the polls. We’re not the only ones who think so. So does Bernie Sanders:
In my view, while the abortion issue must remain on the front burner, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy and allow Republican lies and distortions to go unanswered.
What I’m seeing here in Illinois is 20 Democratic political spots in which abortion is the focus to each spot in which something else is the focus. That’s true regardless of the office for which the candidate is running: legislators, states attorneys, judges, anything.
Hearkening back to a point I made earlier, I wonder if they realize that strategy increases their vulnerability to events. If inflation gets significantly worse, if crime gets worse, if the price of gas goes back up, they will look woefully out of touch.
A slightly different take: they have nothing else.
If you don’t have the law or the facts on your side……..
Certainly not the case in PA, but the major R candidates have so many other problems it was too easy to go after them.
Steve
One of the hazards of running on candidate quality is that it means your own candidates need to be of higher quality. “Our lousy candidates are better than their lousy candidates!” isn’t a very compelling argument.
Neither side really has much of the way in policy or issues to run on right now judged by the ads. They are all personal attacks or trying to tie the candidate to the leaders of the other party, Trump or Pelosi. (It is interesting that the Republicans are more likely to use Pelosi as the bogeyman rather than Biden.) Inflation is only occasionally mentioned. Social Security and Medicare occasionally. Foreign policy almost never. Jobs rarely. Covid never.
Steve
A side observation.
I checked the flyers for the Republican candidates in my area and what their top bullet points are.
1. Senate candidate — inflation / economy, education, crime
2. House candidate — inflation, crime
3. State house candidate — incumbency, moderate voting record
I will say it would the wrong decision for Democrats to change their messaging now. Its 4 weeks until election day; debates are mostly done, early voting has already started. The campaign focus should be on “get the vote out”.
As is typical where I live I don’t even KNOW who the Republican candidate is for many offices and the only way to find out is to google it. In many cases there ARE no Republican candidates.
It used to be I could contact the Republican ward committeeman (who lived a block and a half from me) and ask him. Now I don’t know who the Republican ward committeeman is or even if one exists.
I think CO is correct that the Dems not change their messaging now, as it’s simply too late.
Nonetheless, the Dems don’t seem to understand the major concerns of the nation. Rather, they continue to forge ahead with their own ideological agenda consisting of abortion, neutering gender differences, systemic racism claims, educational transformation keyed to social justice issues, medical institutions collectively enforcing strict mandates and denying patients their own choices of treatment, and demonizing anyone who doesn’t concur or follow their partisan narrative or policies. More and more people see this type of proposed governance as authoritarian, as the Dems ironically threaten democracy will be lost if they are not re-elected to power. In fact a midterm messaging emerging from the strong-arm actions of Dems is they have always been “the party of slavery,†and nothing has changed in how they execute power through the tools of coercion, fear, excessive punishment for misdemeanor behavior or failing to follow demanded protocols, whether or not they are within Constitutional guidelines.
Free will and freedom, though, is what is thirsted for after such a long period of deprivation. Safety from crime, higher middle class wages – both high on the list of public concerns – have been zeroed out by Democrat policies favoring criminals and illegals. With 2/3 of all drug deaths being from fentanyl, the wide open border, where drug and human trafficking is rampant, the Democrats remain seemingly detached. Where 60% of the people live paycheck to paycheck, and the high inflation has cut into the real wage earned, all the Dems can say is “not to worry,†there is really no inflation problem. Where you had an economy torn apart by rigid COVID protocols, you are now hearing from pharmaceutical CEOs testifying virus transmission was never tested beforehand for transmission protection. Those physicians who, early on, complained about the absence of safety oversight or informed consent measures, though, were ostracized. IOW, a severely uninformed populace was forced to take an experimental vaccine under the hammer of losing jobs, businesses, family experiences, schooling. The next shoe to drop will be the unveiling of the enormous number of deaths and abuses that “suddenly†or “unexpectedly†have arisen in the wake of this mass vaccination fiasco.
I agree with Curious pretty much.
Here in Colorado, the Democrats are mostly running on abortion, and the Republicans are mostly running on inflation and law and order.
The GoP candidate here for Senate is a bit of an oddball, but not a loon – mostly center-right. But he hasn’t gotten much traction and will probably lose.
https://www.realclearpennsylvania.com/articles/2022/10/13/pennsylvanias_suburbs_are_not_ok_858888.html
This is just one area of the country where worries are not focused on abortion but, as the article infers, it’s about survival. The writer also mentions the anvil hanging over states where winter looms, along with the higher costs of utilities. This is primarily because of Joe Biden’s anti fossil fuel policies, while he prostrates himself before dictators of the world begging for oil, and/or foolishly depletes our strategic oil reserves to reduce prices before a midterm election.
It’s the economy,,,, stupid.
Respondents cited gas and groceries as the primary concerns, but the largest sticker shock came from utility bills. ………
I can’t believe the sticker shock is not insurance, but maybe they’re asking the adult live-ins who probably aren’t aware of that.
As the boomers age, triggers such as nursing home care and liquidation of assets to satisfy medicaid will put dependent children and their children on housing and medicaid themselves.
without a work ethic and good financial habits, G’pa and G’ma can’t save you.
Just slightly off topic. Boy genius was invited by his prof to go to a talk by our current governor, an MIT grad. The focus was on bringing industry into the state with some emphasis on vocational education. Some of it sounded like propaganda but a lot of it sounded well thought out. He is not so much in favor of handing out large tax breaks and other bribes to bring companies into the state. Dumps that burden on state taxpayers. Understands that it is actually the safest course for a politician since it is quick. Even if it fails you have failed conventionally which is always safer.
On vocational education he went over a number of programs where they are trying to make sure kids got exposure to education in the trades earlier in school, making efforts to teach kids the value of those kinds of jobs.
The eye opener for me that I had not really thought about is that the high schools are actively sabotaging efforts to get kids to go to the tech schools. In PA the tech schools tend to be built by the county or for smaller populated counties through the efforts of a couple of counties. However, there are often multiple school districts within a county. The district loses money if they lose a student who goes to the tech school. Its a hard problem for the state to fix.
Steve
I don’t think too many commenters here should make proclamations pro or con on the issue of abortion as it is primarily an African-American lifestyle issue (387 abortions for every 1,000 live births) and those who speak from an inheritance of White privilege wouldn’t have the basis of experience 300 years of suffering under the whip of slavery gives you.
So There.
https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/the-demographics-of-abortion-in-america/