Freedom Caucus Terms

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. 

Charlie Mahtesian at Politico:

The letter from HFC Chair SCOTT PERRY (R-Pa.), Republican Reps. CHIP ROY (Texas), DAN BISHOP (N.C.), ANDREW CLYDE (Ga.), PAUL GOSAR (Ariz.) and Reps.-Elect ELI CRANE (Ariz.) and ANDY OGLES (Tenn.) makes several demands of any would-be Republican speaker, including that they:

• Reinstate the “motion to vacate” — basically, allowing any member of the House to force a vote to oust the sitting speaker. The letter notes that the rule was “in place for a reason from 1801 to 2018”;
• Provide the House with 72 hours of notice on every bill and grant members the ability to amend legislative text;
• Promise that Republican leadership and associated outside entities (like the McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leader Fund) will not wade into primaries;
• Give conservatives more representation on so-called “A” committees, including the House Rules panel;
• Use must-pass bills to try to secure a number of policy wins, including: (1) leveraging the annual defense authorization to reinstate service members who were dismissed due to their refusal to get the Covid vaccine, (2) forcing any debt ceiling increase to be accompanied by spending cuts, and (3) requiring the farm bill to include cuts to food stamps.

A reminder:  The seven members on the letter are completely separate from the five other conservatives who have voiced their intention to vote against McCarthy regardless of what assurances he makes. Read the full letter here

The Walker Campaign Autopsies

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  In a normal year, Republicans would have regained a majority in the Senate.  But in some places, they threw away seats by running bad candidates. The worst was Herschel Walker in Georgia.  He ended up with 48.6 percent of the vote.  If the Republicans had run a normal candidate (e.g., Doug Collins) or even if Walker had run a normal campaign, the GOP would have taken the seat.

Marc Caputo at NBC reports that Walker's son told the campaign about his unacknowledged children.

By that point, because of the family information provided by the candidate’s son in January, the staff was prepared for questions about Walker’s other children after it had conducted opposition research into him to anticipate future surprises. The “oppo” book, however, didn’t have information about the abortion story, which rocked Walker’s campaign.

The oppo book was also the second dossier made about Walker.

Before Walker announced his candidacy Aug. 25, 2021, he engaged three top political consultants with Georgia roots — Austin Chambers, Paul Bennecke and Nick Ayers, who had served as former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff. They promptly hired a law firm to conduct opposition research on Walker. It’s a standard practice on campaigns to do self-research, in order to know everything that could come out about a candidate.

In just two weeks, the firm assembled a 500-page dossier filled with possible business scandals, controversial quotes from Walker and allegations of domestic violence and bizarre behavior, according to four sources who had seen the oppo book.

“We found 500 pages in two weeks on you and God only knows what else is out there,” Chambers told Walker, according to one of the sources who overheard him discuss the book with Walker in a July meeting in the dining room of a Republican donor who lived in Atlanta’s Buckhead district.

Insiders diverge on why the three consultants did not end up working for Walker, but knowledgeable sources say they parted ways.

Natalie Allison at Politico:

Interviews with a dozen campaign staff members and Republican operatives working with the Walker campaign suggest that it wasn’t just the candidate who had flaws — the campaign itself was hampered by poor decision-making.

Some said that Walker and his wife, Julie Blanchard Walker, never fully empowered his team to make decisions, frequently questioning suggestions and plans by veteran campaign operatives. The pair insisted on spending what aides described as an “excessive” amount of time poring over proposals for every campaign stop, bottlenecking planning. That included wanting to spend significant time in heavily Democratic areas to woo Black voters, a problem that worsened in the runoff when staff wanted Walker to focus exclusively on mobilizing Republicans who had just voted for him in the general election.

Staffers said Blanchard Walker even suggested her husband should be winning as much as 50 percent of the Black vote in Georgia, regularly commenting that the campaign needed “to be getting him in front of his people, in front of his community,” as one person working on the campaign recalled.

Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast:

Walker wasn’t surprised he had won Johnson County. He won it, in fact, with slightly under 74 percent of the electorate. Walker was instead surprised—“absolutely shocked,” according to a former staffer—that he didn’t win 100 percent of the county. Not only did Walker fall well short of those absurd expectations, Gov. Brian Kemp outperformed him in Johnson County, another fact that infuriated him, three staffers said.

“I’m gonna call the sheriff and have him find out who didn’t vote for me,” Walker said, according to one aide.

 

Consultants and the GOP

 Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

Erick Erickson:

A number of years ago, I noted a connection between various Republican consultants and the incestuous ties within political campaigns. The GOP has a problem with a lot of consultants. They get paid commissions whether a candidate wins or loses. They get commissions from most parts of a campaign business and, interestingly, do not invest in parts that do not pay commissions. It is time for action.

On the consultant front, here in Georgia, it is not just that Raphael Warnock outspent Herschel Walker. It is how Warnock outspent Walker. In 2021, Warnock had over seventy varieties of streaming ads for digital services. The Republicans had two. This time, again, Warnock more precisely targeted various voters online than the GOP did. One will not be surprised to discover how little consultants make off digital advertising.

In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama brought his consulting team in house, paid them salaries, and gave them benefits. The GOP continued to rely on outside consultants who drew commissions and often worked multiple candidates. Obama hired some of the best and had them totally committed to him. The GOP hired the freelancers who freelanced and made commissions. Obama got better deals because his consultants were in house, not marking up their work for commissions.

There really are no commissions for early voting ground games. The GOP consultants have focused on media ad buys, mail pieces, and not critical operations for vote mobilization. That must change for the GOP to win. Either the consultants need to rethink or the GOP needs better consultants.

Trump is going through some things...

 Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  And for Trump, things are getting bad, even before the indictments.

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

Tuesday delivered a spate of bad news for Donald Trump and the Republican party. First, Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6 committee, announced that criminal referrals to the US Department of Justice would be forthcoming. A few hours later, a Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization on 17 counts of tax fraud, conspiracy and falsification. According to prosecutors, the former president was complicit.

And now, the incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock has prevailed in a hard-fought runoff. Georgia again rejected Herschel Walker and Donald Trump, his patron.

Come January, Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues in the US Senate will be staring at an actual 51-49 Democratic majority. The president’s nominees will have an easier time winning confirmation. In the end, the minority leader and his caucus will bear a portion of the cost of those abortions Walker reportedly paid for.

The ex-University of Georgia football great now joins the ranks of other Trump-endorsed casualties: Pennsylvania’s Dr Oz and Doug Mastriano; Arizona’s Kari Lake and Blake Masters; Michigan’s Tudor Dixon. Unfortunately for them, swing-state America yearned for normal.

But wait, there's more.  Alayna Treene at Axios: 

• A series of polls pitting Trump against his expected 2024 rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has stirred unease within Trumpworld..
• Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed local election officials in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin for their communications with Trump and his allies as part of the department's investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election....
• Trump drew massive backlash from Republicans for hosting a dinner with antisemitic rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, as well as pushing for the suspension of the Constitution.
• An appeals court dropped the Trump team's effort to appoint a special master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.
• The Supreme Court denied Trump's bid to block the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns.
• A federal judge ordered Trump's former White House lawyers to provide additional grand jury testimony, dealing a blow to Trump's attempt to exert executive privilege in the Justice Department's investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

Newsom Won But Screwed Up

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

California Governor Gavin Newsom spent much of 2022 trying to raise his profile outside the state.

Big mistake. 

Nate Moore, Ruy Teixeira, & Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

Newsom failed to match Biden’s 2020 margin in every one of California’s 58 counties. The pro-Republican swing exceeded 10 points in 44 counties and 15 points in 17 counties. Nine counties that supported Biden in 2022 voted for Republican Brian Dahle this year. Though apparent across the state, Newsom’s struggles were primarily concentrated in the majority Hispanic areas of the Central Valley. Of the 15 counties with the largest rightward shifts, nine are majority Hispanic. The heart of the Central Valley—Tulare, Kings, Kern, Madera, and Merced Counties—swung 18 points towards Republicans.

These Central Valley counties are also well below the state average in educational attainment. Though 34.7 percent of Californians have college degrees, fewer than 15 percent of Kings, Merced, and Tulare residents do. As education polarization continues to grow, the large Republican gains in these counties is not surprising. Highly educated counties, like Marin and San Mateo Counties in the San Francisco suburbs, shifted right by far less and remain safely in Democratic hands.

California Democrats’ struggles, especially in the aforementioned counties, can be ascribed to poor mobilization and failed persuasion. Newsom, who was a surefire bet for reelection, declined to campaign. His website did not include a platform and the sole debate with his Republican opponent came on a Sunday afternoon chock full of primetime football. His considerable campaign war chest went towards running ads in Texas and Florida—thousands of miles from his own constituents. This top-of-the-ticket complacency likely tanked Democratic turnout. Newsom, of course, still comfortably won reelection, but down-ballot Democrats suffered.

Democrats came up short in six competitive House seats across California. Each seat was eminently winnable: Biden carried five of six, including three by double digits. In the 22nd District (Biden +13), Republican David Valadao survived by four points. Though Valadao’s vote to impeach Trump certainly helped him in the blue-leaning district, astoundingly low Democratic turnout in majority-Hispanic counties carried him to victory. While California hit 61.5 percent of 2020 turnout, the 22nd District cast only 53.6 percent of its 2020 total. In the 13th District (Biden +11), turnout reached just 57.6 percent of 2020. Republican John Duarte is poised to win by less than half a point. In northern Los Angeles County, Republican Mike Garcia defeated Democrat Christy Smith (for the third time)—again aided by low turnout.

Terminating the Constitution

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

Kristen Holmes at CNN:

Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution to overturn the 2020 election and reinstate him to power Saturday in a continuation of his election denialism and pushing of fringe conspiracy theories.

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused “Big Tech” of working closely with Democrats. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

Trump’s post came after the release of internal Twitter emails showing deliberation in 2020 over a New York Post story about material found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Saturday that Trump’s remarks are “anathema to the soul of our nation, and should be universally condemned.”

 

Trump calls for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" so he can take power again. Are conservatives and Republicans sticking to their complacent confidence of 2020 that a Trump 2nd term posed no real authoritarian threat? pic.twitter.com/Yxl8gekRgJ

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 3, 2022

DeSantis

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The 2024 campaign has begun. 

To sum up: DeSantis is not a fun and convivial dude. His “Step away from the vehicle” vibes are strong.https://t.co/sSpThqLbuJ

— Mark Leibovich (@MarkLeibovich) November 30, 2022

A November 4 report by Douglas Soule at The Tallahassee Democrat

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo recently appeared on the podcast of a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, where he continued to make claims about vaccines that are contradictory to widespread medical consensus.

Medical experts have said Ladapo’s claims are dangerous, and that his very presence on the podcast — and other recent appearances on shows promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories — gives credibility and support to anti-vaccine rhetoric.

Lapado’s latest comments are part of a litany of dubious claims that have alarmed public health officials in Florida and across the country since he got appointed surgeon general more than a year ago by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

His appearance last week was on the podcast of Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a Ohio physician who is well-known not only for her unsupported COVID-19 beliefs but her false claims that vaccines cause autism.

Tenpenny is currently facing an investigation from the State Medical Board of Ohio, which is considering revoking her medical license for ignoring investigators and a subpoena, according to Cleveland.com.

She repeated the autism myth — and many others — during her conversation with Ladapo. Tenpenny falsely stated that no vaccine has been proven safe or that they can prevent sickness, and that they all cause harm.

Ladapo didn’t correct her.