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By John Dineen
We’re witnessing a spirited discussion over some Democratic campaign organizations “paying to play” in Republican primaries — governors and House seats, primarily.
Democrats have poured money into specific Republican races to advance the fortunes of the more radical and — in Democratic eyes, at least — beatable candidates in the general election.
The discussion revolves around two questions:
Is it right?
Is it smart?
The consensus of articles I’ve read is pretty clear: not right, not smart. Public officials, both Democrats and, not surprisingly, Republicans, denounce the scheme on both ethical and tactical grounds. But they don’t explore why Democratic campaign operations might be doing something, well, wrong and dumb.
Politico quotes both Republicans and Democrats, who are “seething” and “aghast.”
Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.: “It’s dishonorable, and it’s dangerous, and it’s just damn wrong.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.: “While I think a certain number of Democrats truly understand that democracy is threatened, don’t come to me after having spent money supporting an election denier in a primary, and then come to me and say, where are all the good Republicans?”
Even the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has engaged in the tactic, treads lightly. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., said on MSNBC, “I think you might see us do that,” while pointing out, “We have a high bar for that.”
“We have a high bar for that” doesn’t have that Churchillian “We will fight them on the beaches” ring to it.
In The New Yorker, Amy Davidson Sorkin is critical of the ethics and the tactics, but she also raises a longer-term, strategic concern.
“But the tactic of manipulating Republicans into nominating proto-authoritarian election deniers is damaging even if it works, in the short term, exactly as intended — that is, even if it helps the Democrats win some seats. For one thing, it habituates Republicans — voters, activists, local officials — in the practice of uniting behind extremists after the primary. It cajoles them into discarding whatever taboos might be left at this point. And making the most conspiratorial voices the loudest changes the tone of the political conversation. Candidates of the sort who might vote to impeach Trump the next time — and it’s all too plausible that there could be a next time — will be driven from politics.”
Given all those negatives — wrong and dumb, and possibly dumber — why do it?
A hard-line position of “the end justifies the means” is the rallying cry for most of the world’s worst atrocities.
On the other hand, some critics appear to adopt the other extreme — that it’s wrong to try to influence the other party’s primary under any circumstances; that is, you should adhere to the rules of the game as you believe they should be, not necessarily what they are, and regardless of what the other party does. “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail,” as former Secretary of State Henry Stimson said of U.S. code-breaking in 1929.
To be sure, “the end justifies the means” can lead us to a dark place. But “the means justify the end” suggests that a dark place is acceptable as long as we end up there playing by the rules.
Extremes make good foils. A middle ground — and this is where journalists are most comfortable — ought to take into account some critical considerations — considerations that matter if your job is, say, winning elections.
This is not a drill
Having worked in political campaigns, I can attest to the imperative of winning that attends them — within ethical guardrails — under ordinary circumstances. If you’re a Democratic operative in 2022, you likely believe that GOP success in the fall and in 2024 would be a calamity for democracy and the nation. That has to be part of your calculation of the politics of this. You have to win. This is not a drill.
Yes, many Republicans feel the same way about Democrats, but that’s now part of the GOP DNA: in large part the fruit of years of investment in a closed GOP information system. Most Republicans believe, without evidence, that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Democratic calculations need to take into account any Republican reaction, but it shouldn’t shake their own conviction.
What is an establishment Republican in 2022?
The litmus test for critics of the Democratic tactic has been GOP candidates’ position on the 2020 election. Fair enough. And in gubernatorial races, that presents a high risk.
But, rhetorical heat aside — and I recognize the potency of Sorkin’s argument — how different in substance are the so-called extremists from the so-called moderate, or establishment, GOP candidates?
It’s reasonable to ask if terms like “moderate” and “establishment” are talismans to which journalists cling, with little evidence of their existence anymore. Most House Republicans voted against accepting the electoral count at the fateful Jan. 6 session. Not one Republican in the House or Senate voted in favor of the recent climate change-health care bill — and as Elizabeth Kolbert points out in The New Yorker, climate had been at one time a bipartisan issue. Senate Republicans have openly rejected the idea that any Democratic governance is legitimate; as a matter of course, they aim to thwart it on principle.
There have been crucial exceptions to that characterization, but not many. In legislative terms, then, how different are the GOP candidates? In which case, let’s promote the candidate we think we can beat, would seem to be the Democratic reasoning.
What about the money?
It’s worth noting that these kinds of decisions are possible now that our politics are awash in money in a way they never were before the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. Political decisions are now weighed in an environment in which you always have to fear a large sack of opposition money from out of nowhere landing on the head of your candidate or your cause. Kolbert points to the Citizens United ruling as the end of bipartisan cooperation on climate.
…
None of these considerations makes an airtight case either for or against the Democratic strategy. Indeed, the high stakes involved reinforce how excruciating a choice it is.
Aaron Blake of The Washington Post points to past races where the practice has worked for Democrats, but adds, “Whether that holds in 2022, we’ll have to see. And if it doesn’t, there will be plenty of I-told-you-sos.”
As Sorkin points out, elevating extremists within the GOP accustoms rank and file Republicans to, well, extremists — making the strategy dubious even if Democrats are successful.
Regardless, no strategy appears likely to head off the new American political norm of growing intolerance eliding into sporadic violence and threats of violence.
Ultimately, the two parties operate with different visions of governance in 2022 — they are no longer center-right and center-left competitors. Whichever party carries the day, in November and in 2024, we face divergent paths as a nation. Whether the Democrats are acting wisely or not, there should be no misunderstanding the path they’re trying to avoid.
(One Dog Barking is an occasional column by my husband, John Dineen. He is a former senior congressional staffer and media executive and founder of briefing.center, a news and information service.)
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