Hey pundits: I know what you did last summer. You went over the edge with outrage because some Democrats dared practice politics to get the most beatable Republican opponents. There was rending of garments and gnashing of teeth from the august heights of the New York Times, which huffed, A Cynical Low for the Democratic Party, to the depths of Morning Joe, who was shocked, shocked at such perfidy.
The outrage was omnipresent. As described in detail by the great Driftglass:
And right there with the Times Editorial Board was its perpetually wrong and irredeemably pompous columnist, David Brooks, calling Democrats’ behavior “reckless and unpatriotic.” (As opposed to Brooks’s own use of anti-Semitic tropes against Democrats a couple of months later.)
Even some Democrats were “tut-tutting” about this, like Al Franken and Sarah Silverman on Al’s Podcast.
Well, the results are in, and guess what, the “cynical new low” worked spectacularly. Democrats prevailed in all six of the races where Dems supposedly meddled and the more extreme R won.
Not only prevailed. But prevailed by ten points or more. Again, as summarized by Driftglass:
- In the race for Illinois governor, JB Pritzker (D) beat forced birth crackpot Darren Bailey (R) by 13 points.
- In the race for Maryland governor, Wes Moore (D) beat far-right crank Dan Cox by 23 points.
- In the race for Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro (D) beat Confederate cos-play elections denier Doug Mastriano (R) by 13 points.
- In the Michigan 3rd District, U.S. House race, Hillary Scholten (D) beat far-right John Gibbs (R) by 10 points.
- In the race for Senate in New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan (D) beat crazy Don Bolduc (R) by 10 points.
- And that Kuster (D) vs. Burns (R) race that Politico was all worked up about? Democrat Annie Kuster kicked Bob Burns' ass by 13 points.
Who would have thought it was good strategy in, e.g., NH, for Maggie Hassan to prefer running against a guy who was all in on the great litter-box scandal of 2022 than a relative moderate. (See Showercap’s brilliant Maybe the Real Red Wave Was the Litter Boxes Our Furry Kids Pissed In Along the Way.)
Who? Well, modestly, us. On August 15, I wrote Meijer the Martyr? Enough Concern Trolling Democrats on Campaign Strategy. Peter Meijer was one of the leading “pet moderates” favored by the Times and other teeth-gnashers. Of course, “Moderate” Meijer agreed with Madison Cawthorn on 84% of Congressional votes and with with Kevin McCarthy on 90% of votes, and was a champion of voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering. His moderate cred came primarily from one vote — “Yes” — on Trump’s Second Impeachment. Good for him, though he was OK in 2019 with that “perfect phone call” from TFG to Zelensky. His 2021 one-time profile-in-the-minimal-amount-of-courage hardly offsets the vast majority of his votes — especially for McCarthy as Speaker.
The punchline came when a day after he lost the primary, Meijer showed up in person to enthusiastically support John Gibbs, the publicly misogynist guy who beat him, known for:
- suggesting women did not “posess (sic) the characteristics necessary to govern” the U.S. or that
- we are not a position to lecture Saudi Arabia on “what’s best for women” because American women have “widespread STDs” and millions “are on anti-depressants, are seeing therapists, and have low self-esteem.”
- British women “look better and seem less manly/aggressive than ours.”
Meijer the moderate martyr had no trouble rallying to support this guy. So no, NY Times et al. We don’t “need” phony moderate Republicans like him in Congress.
A lot more can be said about this, including the minuscule percentage of races to which this “outrage” applied: Again, Driftglass:
Anyway, out of all the hundreds and hundreds of federal and state races happening across the country, Democrats ran such ads in only 13 races. I did the math a few months ago, and it came to something like “0.77%” of all races, so not exactly a trend sweeping the nation, but it was yet another opportunity for the the Savvy Pundits to berate Democrats for the sin of doing politics, and they grabbed it with both hands and ran with it.
Or of course, consider the hypocrisy of these pundits, most of whom were silent in 2008 when led by Rush Limbaugh, Republicans eagerly embraced his Operation Chaos strategy, urging R’s to keep voting in the D primaries for the Democrat most likely to keep the nomination open longer to benefit Republicans. Or for innumerable instances of Republican rat-f&*king in Democratic campaigns going back to 1968 and beyond.
It’s even worse than both-siderism when behavior considered “savvy” when performed by Republicans, becomes a “cynical new low,” when Democrats do something vaguely similar, though not evil.
Bill Scher at Washington Monthly also has a good analysis: Democrats Meddled in Republican Primaries. Good.