The Akin Ploy, 2022

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

In the 2012 Missouri  Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative."  The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe.  It worked.  Other campaigns have tried the same thing.

Henry J. Gomez and Natasha Korecki at NBC:

Democrats bracing for devastating midterm losses this fall are zeroing in on a strategy that lands them on the battlefield now.

They are investing millions of dollars to meddle in Republican primaries for governor, attempting to elevate their preferred competitors in November or weaken their biggest threats.

Next week's messy GOP fight in Pennsylvania is the most blatant example. State Sen. Doug Mastriano is ahead in recent polls — and his would-be Democratic opponent wouldn’t mind if it stayed that way.

Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general running unopposed in his party's primary for governor, is airing an ad that brandishes Mastriano’s conservative credentials, making sure to say a Mastriano victory is a win "for what Donald Trump stands for." That's all but an endorsement in a GOP primary, but it could hurt later in a race where even some Republicans have doubts about Mastriano's electability.

That a Democrat is behind the ad underscores the lengths to which the party will go to engineer an easier general election in what's expected to be a volatile environment this fall.

"Both public and private polling indicate that Doug Mastriano is poised to become the Republican nominee on May 17 — and our campaign is prepared to start the general election now and make sure Pennsylvanians know his real record," Shapiro spokesperson Will Simons said in a statement to NBC News.

Picking Your Opponent

In an excerpt from her memoirs, Senator Claire McCaskill gleefully admits that she sought to help Todd Akin win the GOP primary to run against her in 2012:

My consultants put together a $1.7 million plan. Four weeks out we would begin with a television ad boosting Akin, which my campaign consultant Mike Muir dubbed “A Cup of Tea.” The production costs were pretty low, about $20,000, because we didn’t have to film anything. We just used pictures and voice-overs. We would spend $750,000 at first and run it for eight or nine days. Then we’d go back into the field and test to see if it was working. If it was, we’d dump in more “McCaskill for Senate” money, and we’d add radio and more TV in St. Louis and Kansas City. The second TV buy would approach $900,000. We hoped that some of our friends watching the TV ads would catch on and some of the outside groups would augment the last week with mail and radio. Sure enough, a radio ad calling Akin “too conservative” that went on the air in the closing days of the primary was paid for by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. We would later find out that their rural radio buy was $250,000.

As it turned out, we spent more money for Todd Akin in the last two weeks of the primary than he spent on his whole primary campaign.

The Clintons' Enemies List

At the end of the 2008 nomination campaign, the Clintons assembled a "favor file" -- or less charitably, an enemies list. Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes write at Politico:

There was a special circle of Clinton hell reserved for people who had endorsed Obama or stayed on the fence after Bill and Hillary had raised money for them, appointed them to a political post or written a recommendation to ice their kid’s application to an elite school. On one early draft of the hit list, each Democratic member of Congress was assigned a numerical grade from 1 to 7, with the most helpful to Hillary earning 1s and the most treacherous drawing 7s. The set of 7s included Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), as well as Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Baron Hill (D-Ind.) and Rob Andrews (D-N.J.).

Yet even a 7 didn’t seem strong enough to quantify the betrayal of some onetime allies.

When the Clintons sat in judgment, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) got the seat closest to the fire. Bill and Hillary had gone all out for her when she ran for Senate in 2006, as had Obama. But McCaskill seemed to forget that favor when NBC’s Tim Russert asked her whether Bill had been a great president, during a Meet the Press debate against then-Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) in October 2006. “He’s been a great leader,” McCaskill said of Bill, “but I don’t want my daughter near him.”

McCaskill regretted her remark instantly; the anguish brought her “to the point of epic tears,” according to a friend. She knew the comment had sounded much more deliberate than a forgivable slip of the tongue. So did Hillary, who immediately canceled a planned fundraiser for McCaskill. A few days later, McCaskill called Bill Clinton to offer a tearful apology. He was gracious, which just made McCaskill feel worse. After winning the seat, she was terrified of running into Hillary Clinton in the Capitol. “I really don’t want to be in an elevator alone with her,” McCaskill confided to the friend.

DSCC Executive Director

At The New York Times, Jonathan Weisman profiles Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:

Mr. Cecil tries to resist national political winds and tailor each campaign to the particular candidates and the states they are running in. Republican campaigns tend to ride national waves, running on broad national issues like the size and scope of government, the level of taxation and the defense of the homeland. Mr. Cecil had different ideas for different Democratic candidates.

For instance, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota ran on “North Dakota values,” a languishing farm bill and essential air service to rural America. Sherrod Brown, practically buried under an avalanche of Republican advertising, ran as David against Goliath, even if he was the incumbent in Ohio.

“Each one of our candidates campaigned to their strengths,” said Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, who won re-election in November in a race many expected him to lose. “I hate to use a basketball analogy, but you don’t put a point guard under the basket and tell him to rebound. Sherrod Brown has a different set of strengths than I do.”

At times last cycle, Mr. Cecil courted controversy. In Wisconsin, he backed the candidacy of Representative Tammy Baldwin, a liberal lesbian from Madison, when many Democrats wanted a more moderate voice from a rural corner of the state. Ms. Baldwin won, beating a four-term governor, Tommy Thompson, the Republicans’ candidate of choice.

In Missouri, Mr. Cecil encouraged Senator Claire McCaskill to pull off one of the most clever feats of the campaign cycle, an advertisement just days before the Republican primary that “blasted” Representative Todd Akin as the most conservative, most vehemently anti-Obama candidate in the Republican field. The effort was seen as a boost for Mr. Akin, the opponent she preferred.

Akin

Despite his devastating gaffe, Akin says he will stay in the race. Slate reports:

Republican Todd Akin made a return trip to Mike Huckabee's radio show on Tuesday, again making it clear that he has no intention of ending his Senate campaign in Missouri despite calls from his own party to call it quits.

"We are going to continue with this race for the U.S. Senate," the Missouri congressman said. Barring a surprise change of heart, Akin's comments effectively stop the countdown clock that was ticking toward the 5 p.m. (local time) deadline he faced to exit the race if he wanted to spare his party a host of likely bureaucratic hurdles should he later call it quits.

His decision comes in the face of a remarkably swift and united GOP and conservative effort to get him out.  CNN reports:

Five past and present Republican senators from Missouri, including highly regarded names such as John Danforth and Christopher "Kit" Bond, added their voices to calls for the embattled candidate to get out of the race.

"We do not believe it serves the national interest for Congressman Todd Akin to stay in this race," said the statement by Sen. Roy Blunt and former senators Danforth, Bond, John Ashcroft and Jim Talent. "The issues at stake are too big, and this election is simply too important. The right decision is to step aside."

The latest call signaled that Akin stood alone in wanting to remain in the race.

Top Republican officials -- including Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus -- also have signaled that the six-term Missouri congressman should withdraw.

Yesterday, National Review editorialized:

Most Republicans who hold the view that unborn children have a right to life regardless of the circumstances of their conception will have the wit to explain themselves in a way that prevents most voters who disagree from vetoing them for that reason.

While Akin is a stalwart conservative and an honorable man, we regret to say that he inspires no such confidence. That is one reason why Senator Claire McCaskill, the sitting Democratic senator, boosted him during the Republican primaries with ads calling him a “true conservative.” She knew that she is the weakest Senate incumbent on the ballot this year and that her only hope was to draw a weak opponent. Akin won a three-way primary with a plurality of the vote; there was no run-off. McCaskill’s strategy is now paying off.

Akin has backed off from his remarks, albeit with the politician’s excuse of “misspeaking.” People who make such remarks on television are typically capable of making more like them, or rather incapable of exercising the judgment to refrain. We suspect that this same lack of judgment will cause Akin to blow past tomorrow evening’s deadline for him to leave the race and allow the Republicans to select a better nominee. We hope the congressman, who surely wants to see a Senate with as much conservative strength as possible next year, will prove us wrong.

Crossroads GPS v. "Obama-Claire"

On September 22, 2010, Claire McCaskill said on the Senate floor:

These are social welfare organizations, 501(c)(4)s, like Crossroads, which is one that sprung up. It has been the top spender. It hasn't been the Republican committees or the Democratic committees. The top spender in the Senate races is a group we have no idea what it is or who is writing the checks.

We have to realize they don't even have to file anything with the government, with the IRS, until February, March, April. How many people think these organizations are going to be around after November? Really? How naive are you?

Nearly two years later, Crossroads GPS is still around, as Bloomberg reports: 

It’s the quickest shorthand for understanding how Crossroads GPS, the committee inspired by Bush political strategist Karl Rove, is playing its well-financed hand in the 2012 elections — and not only the presidential race.

Crossroads is airing a TV ad in Missouri, where Democratic Claire McCaskill faces a serious challenge to her re-election in November, that opens with the question: “Obamacare? More like Obama-Claire, because Senator Claire McCaskill has voted with President Obama 90 percent of the time.”

Supporting the “New Majority Agenda,” the ad explains, requires ousting McCaskill — pictured alongside Obama at every turn of the 30-second spot. That agenda is Crossroads’ game-plan.

This is no new attack. Crossroads GPS has aired six ads in the Missouri race a total of 3,354 times, starting in July and counting through early May, according to New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which monitors advertising. Four of the six ads included a picture of Obama and McCaskill together. 

Crossroads GPS on Offense in MO, MT, NV, CD and VA

A release from Crossroads GPS:

Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS) today announced the launch of a new round of TV spots focused on jobs, reckless Senate spending, Obamacare, and tax increases in five key states.

The issue ads will start Wednesday on broadcast and cable networks in Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Virginia in a buy totaling $1.2 million.

Missouri and McCaskill:



 Montana and Tester:

 

 Nevada and Berkley:

 

 North Dakota and Heitkamp:

 

 Virginia and Kaine:

 

Crossroads Groups v. Kerrey and McCaskill

Crossroads v. McCaskill

At McClatchy, David Goldstein writes that the Crossroads groups are going after Claire McCaskill:

“She’s going to be the focal point of Republican efforts to gain control of the Senate,” said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads, a “super PAC” that backs conservative Republicans.

It played a role in the 2010 Senate race in Missouri that the GOP won, as well as other congressional campaigns around the country that helped Republicans take control of the House.

...

“Control of the Senate is up for grabs. You have a very competitive presidential election and the first re-election campaign for the new Republican House,” Collegio said. “These factors will cause a record amount of money to be spent by conservative and liberal groups. Literally, everything is at stake.”

American Crossroads and its allied group, Crossroads GPS, are the brainchild of Karl Rove, the political guru to George W. Bush, and Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Together they raised and spent more than $70 million last year, not all of its sources disclosed.

They have promised to more than triple that amount on the 2012 campaign.

Among the contests in their sights is McCaskill’s effort to hold on to her seat in the Senate.

Both Crossroads groups already have spent several hundred thousand dollars this year on ads criticizing her.

The ad echoed one from NRSC:

American Crossroads v. Obama and McCaskill

A new web video:

Josh Lederman writes at The Hill:

American Crossroads, the conservative group founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove, is rehashing Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D-Mo.) private plane saga with a combination of radio ads and billboards.

Unpaid back taxes on a private plane owned by McCaskill caused major political problems for the senator in March and gave Republicans fodder to portray her as out of touch and elitist. McCaskill eventually repaid almost $300,000 in taxes and said she would sell the plane.

The radio ad simulates a detective drama, interjecting sound bites from McCaskill's public statements as if she were responding to interrogation by a detective.

"I was working the truth squad out of St. Joe Airport. I found Sen. Claire McCaskill standing next to a fancy private jet," the narrator says sardonically.

"I made a huge mistake," McCaskill says.

The ad ends with the detective handing down a sentence of "guilty, for violating our trust."

The billboard, for fictional airline "AirClaire," shows McCaskill in a flight attendant-style outfit and suggests that while high air fares might be a downer for the general public, they don't affect McCaskill.