Yesterday, the Supremes rejected an appeal from a former Otero County, New Mexico commissioner, insurrectionist and cowboy pastor Couy Griffin, who was kicked out of office over his participation in Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 violent attempted coup. To this date, he is the only elected official to be banned from office via the 14th Amendment in connection with the insurrection. The Justices wrote that “We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office.” Wouldn’t he be a great candidate to run for higher office? And if the state can’t prevent him from running for federal office, which is what the Supremes seem to be indicating, the Democrats should encourage him to run for Congress or the Senate.
In fact, the Democrats have been doing that with the fascist fringe of the GOP lately— and it’s worked out well for their own candidates. I assume that partially because of Democrat help— they spent at least $2.7 million boosting him— the worst of the 3 top GOP candidates for Senate, Bernie Moreno, will win the Ohio primary today. Funny how both Trump and the DSCC were working to make sure Moreno is on the November ballot.
Yesterday, Lisa Lerer reported that the ad says Moreno is a ‘MAGA Republican’ who is ‘too conservative for Ohio,’ describing him in terms that are likely to make him more appealing to MAGAts who flock the primary. “Party strategists,” she wrote, “believe Moreno will be an easier opponent for the incumbent Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown, in the general election.”
Meddling in Republican primaries has become a regular tactic for Democrats in recent years. But it has become more ideologically complicated as President Biden campaigns on the need to defend democracy from Trump-aligned Republicans like Moreno.
In his Senate bid, Moreno has embraced Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election, repeating the former president’s discredited charges of a “stolen” election and calling those prosecuted for storming the Capitol “political prisoners.”
The risk of such primary meddling is that Democrats could undercut Biden’s message about the threat to democracy and further erode trust in elections. Not to mention, of course, the chance that Moreno could win in November.
One of the earliest cases of Democrats’ intervening in a Republican primary took place in 2012, when Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the Democratic incumbent, ran ads to help Todd Akin, a [fr right-wing] Republican congressman, win his party’s nomination.
McCaskill knew that Missouri was trending to the right, and that her approval rating would be dragged down by President Obama’s unpopularity in the state. Her best chance for re-election was to paint herself as the “reasonable moderate” in the race. And for that, she needed an extreme Republican opponent.
Her team poured $1.7 million into ads in the Republican primary race, casting Akin as “the most conservative congressman in Missouri” and “Missouri’s true conservative.”
The tactic succeeded. After Akin won the Republican nomination, McCaskill went on to defeat him in the general election.
The strategy has become more popular in recent years, especially as Republican primary races have tilted ever more to the right.
In 2022, Democrats spent about $53 million lifting far-right Republican candidates who questioned or denied the results of the 2020 election, according to the Washington Post, largely in states that lean Democratic.
Most of that spending was in Illinois, where the party successfully promoted a Republican candidate for governor, Darren Bailey, who said it was “appalling” that Republicans in the state wanted Trump to concede the 2020 election. (Bailey, now running for a House seat, was a subject of Friday’s newsletter.)
The tactic has carried over to this cycle. Earlier this month, Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat running for Senate in California, spent $10 million to elevate Steve Garvey, a Republican former baseball star. Garvey came in second in the state’s “jungle” primary, where the two top finishers advance to the general election regardless of their party affiliation. Schiff is widely considered to be on a glide path to the Senate.
The approach has also played out in some swing states. In the Pennsylvania governor’s race in 2022, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee, ran an ad during the Republican primary highlighting the conservative credentials of Doug Mastriano, a right-wing candidate. Mastriano won the primary, then Shapiro beat him in a landslide.
There are over a dozen MAGAts primarying more mainstream conservative Republicans in swing districts. I’m sure it’s a big temptation for Democrats to do more than just pray that the MAGAts prevail. Take PA-01, Bucks County, Ashley Ehasz is the Democrat in the race and she’s ready to take on a mainstream conservative Republican incumbent, Brian Fitzpatrick. But if Mark Houck, the MAGAt primarying Fitzpatrick, wins, Ehasz can start ordering drapes for her new DC office. Imagine how the Democrats challenging GOP incumbent Nick LaLota in the Suffolk County seat feel about a Republican primary that pits LaLota against MAGA crackpot (and criminal) George Santos! In Iowa, Christina Bohannan probably wishes the DCCC would drop a few hundred grand to help far right crackpot David Pautsch beat Mariannette Miller-Meeks. If that happened Bohannan goes to Congress. Similarly, in Texas, vaguely mainstream conservative incumbent Tony Gonzales was forced into a run-off with MAGA lunatic Brandon Herrera. If Herrera wins the runoff Democrat Santos Limon will win the general election. And so on.
Are you saying you're in favor of these tactics?
Well, if your party refuses to earn a victory, maybe they can avoid defeat by running against the biggest smelliest possible turds they can pay for.
When you think about it:
they been doin this for decades
it's a recipe for a nazi reich shithole very soon
vote proud all you democraps.