Who Wants More Senators Like Manchin & Sinema In A Tent Already Too Big?
Of all the Democratic senators up for reelection this cycle, New Hampshire conservative Maggie Hassan is the least deserving of reelection. She isn’t Manchin or Sinema… but her voting record is close. According to ProgressivePunch, she has the 9th worst voting record in the caucus— an 80.70 lifetime crucial vote score, just about the same as Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Jeanne Shaheen (NH). Generally speaking, she’s a useless political coward always trying to hide in the center. She’s taken plenty of repulsive votes but her most disgusting was her vote against raising the pitiful minimum wage. No one deserves to be reelected who took that position. Besides Hassan, the other conservative Democrats who helped the GOP kill an increased minimum wage were Manchin and Sinema, of course, plus the 2 scumbags from Delaware (Coons and Carper), Jeannine Shaheen (like Hassan, a New Hampshire conservative coward), Jon Tester (MT) and Maine independent Angus King.
This morning Alayna Treene, reporting for Axios, wrote that Hassan than the worthless Hassan may be saved by the GOP’s inability to get their shit together. Presumably a tiny percentage of voters will see her as the pro-Choice lesser of two evils and “as New Hampshire's Sept. 13 primary draws closer, there's still no clear Republican frontrunner to take her on in November. The GOP establishment's failure to coalesce around one viable candidate after its initial favorite— New Hampshire's current Gov. Chris Sununu— decided not to enter the race has helped clear the way for Democratic incumbent.”
Republican operative Ken Spain told Treene that “New Hampshire falls into the growing category of races where Republicans are relying on the political environment to carry some of their candidates across the finish line.” And Tom Rath (R), former NH attorney general, told her that “The race depends on a couple of things. One is, do the Republicans nominate an electable candidate? And there's no guarantee that that would happen. The second is, what does the electorate look like that actually votes?”
And then there’s the money game. Hassan raised $5 million in the second quarter and has around $7.4 million in her warchest (after spending $19 million promoting herself). In the 2nd quarter Hassan raised 4 times what all the Republicans raised combined. There are 5 Republicans who have raised enough money to get out a message, although all of them raised less in the second quarter than they did in the first quarter and 3 of them are self-funders: bitcoin tycoon Bruce Fenton ($1,628,100— 99% of his total), state Senate president Chuck Morse, the old guard establishment fave ($105,800), and Vikram Mansharamani ($263,261), a Boston financial author and speaker-for-hire.
The over fascist in the race, unhinged sociopath Don Bolduc, is popular in the fringes of MAGA world but hasn’t been able to raise enough money to seriously compete. As bad as Hassan is, it doesn’t look like she’s going to have a formidable enough opponent to be dealt the defeat she deserves.
And speaking of shitty, cowardly Democrats in Senate races, centrist congressman Tim Ryan is running in a far worse political environment than Hassan. New Hampshire has an even PVI and Trump lost there— narrowly— both times he ran. Ohio has an R+6 PVI (redder than Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas!) and Trump won there both times he ran, by 8 points both over Hillary and over Biden. His strategy— a classic DSCC losing approach— is to take Democratic voters, and especially progressives, for granted and try to win over moderate Republicans. I mean where can Democrats go? (The answer, of course, is no where— just stay home and not vote for the lesser evil.) Take a look at this repulsive ad he’s running now (exclusively on Fox):
Josh Krasushaar’s Axios headline Sunday was Tim Ryan's Ohio Ad Play: Run To The Right. Keep in mind that as of the June 30 FEC report, Ryan had raised $21,516,462 and spent $17,949,287, almost all of it on the general, while J.D. Vance raised just $3,623,515 and spent almost all of it ($2,994,710) in the primary race to establish himself as the most extreme right candidate and the one most Trumpified… a strategy that help with the primary but may be somewhat toxic in the general. He has just $628,804 in the bank to Ryan’s $3,567,175. Most of the spending for Vance came from Nazi sugar daddy, billionaire Peter Thiel, who spent over $13.5 (not counting whatever he paid Trump for the endorsement) tearing apart Vance’s primary rivals and trying to make Vance sound like a plausible candidate.
Vance is lucky to be running against an opponent as lame as Ryan. Kraushaar suggested that Rayn’s playing up to the Fox audience is “an unorthodox approach that reflects how significantly this congressman of two decades must disrupt expectations to stand a chance in the state.” But the unorthodox approach Kraushaar is referring to is not a values-free Democrat running to the center, it’s the idea of spending big during the summer when voters aren’t engaged yet. The idea is “to define Vance— and himself— with Republican audiences while he has the airwaves” to himself, since Vance doesn’t have enough money to run TV ads yet. Kraushaar wrote that “Ryan’s campaign has spent $6.4 million on television ads since winning the primary. Vance hasn’t spent any money on television spots since emerging as the GOP nominee. Ryan has aired TV ads saying "it is us versus China" and featuring a local sheriff accusing Vance of proposing to defund the police. His first general election ad dubbed Vance as an elitist who’s a ‘hit at Washington cocktail parties.’ … Whether or not he can beat the odds, Ryan has achieved his success so far by running to President Biden’s right and competing for culturally conservative voters in a state that’s been hostile for his party lately. That approach could serve as a model for Democrats in certain swing states or districts who tailor appeals to moderates over the progressive base.”
It sure isn’t how Sherrod Brown has managed to win statewide in Ohio and the go-right approach the other Ohio Democrats have used has invariably failed— like every single time it has been used… which has fundamentally destroyed the Ohio Democratic Party as a statewide organization. No doubt other NSCC hacks who have no reason beyond careerism to be running anyway will use that exact strategy in Arizona (Kelly), North Carolina (Beasley), Florida (Demings), Nevada (Cortez Masto), Colorado (Bennet) and, of course, Hassan in New Hampshire. Want too know who is not using that strategy and not pandering to Republican talking points. None of these candidates are.