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GOP Fears Its Mediocre Senate Candidates Will Ruin Midterm Campaign

GOP Fears Its Mediocre Senate Candidates Will Ruin Midterm Campaign

After months of sharpening their knives in anticipation of the midterms, Republicans' glee has turned gloomy as the election cycle's contours shift.

That is particularly true in the Senate, where a several-point post-Roe bump for Democrats in the generic ballot is perhaps the least of Republicans' worries. The main problem is that Republicans are saddled with subpar, Trumpian candidates in the most critical Senate races at a time when Donald Trump's star appears to be falling.

On background, one GOP strategist warned of "massive problems on the candidate front.” On the record, veteran GOP operative Kevin Madden offered a more tempered view: “There are warning signs that some of these candidates are not as strong as they could be given the opportunity at hand."

Take Trump's hand-picked candidate in Georgia, the verbally challenged former football star Herschel Walker, where the National Republican Senatorial Committee is already trying to perform an intervention, according to TheWashington Post.

The Senate GOP campaign arm recently installed several trusted Republican operatives to help right Walker's ship, including veteran strategist Gail Gitcho as a senior adviser, Chip Lake as a consultant, and Brett O’Donnell, the party’s "most celebrated debate prep strategist," according to the Post.

O'Donnell's in for a treat with Walker, who is making a strong bid for the most consistently incoherent candidate on the trail in modern memory.

Walker's latest triumph was dumbing down the climate change debate by 'splaining how America is cleaning up China's air quality.

"Since we don’t control the air, our good air decide to float over to China bad air. So when China get our good air, their bad air gotta move. So, it moves over to our good air space. And now, we gotta clean that back up," Walker clarified. Got that?

It doesn't help that Walker's staff was reportedly blindsided by the discovery that the candidate fathered three children he had never publicly acknowledged. But Walker's biggest deficit appears to be that his campaign doesn’t trust him to ... well ... talk.

When Georgia conservative radio host Erick Erickson invited Walker on his show for a one-on-one, hour-long chat, the campaign declined because aides didn't want him going "free form" for an entire hour, per the Post.

“I don’t know anyone who has confidence in the campaign including people on the campaign. He doesn’t have standard candidate discipline,” Erickson said. “He just doesn’t have a deep grasp of the issues nor really the desire to learn those issues."

Senate Republicans are also haunted by flashbacks from the 2010 and 2012 cycles, when wackadoodle GOP candidates doomed their chances of regaining control of the upper chamber.

In Ohio, Trump-backed GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance has compared abortion to slavery, saying they had both "distorted" American society.

“There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery, and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society,” Vance said in an interview with the Catholic Current last October. “I think that’s one of the underappreciated facts about abortion," Vance added.

Vance's Democratic challenger, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, called the comparison "absolutely disgusting" in a tweet about the remarks.

“We cannot let him anywhere near the Senate," added Ryan, who has pledged to end the filibuster in order to codify abortion protections into federal law. On Friday, the Ryan campaign announced that it hauled in an eye-popping $9.1 million in the second quarter.

In Pennsylvania, TV huckster Dr. Mehmet Oz quickly fell behind the Democratic Senate nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who has been recovering from a stroke he suffered in mid-May. Early polling last month showed Fetterman leading Oz by 9 points.

Fetterman is expected to return to the campaign trail within weeks. In the meantime, Fetterman has been pounding Oz for being a carpetbagger from New Jersey.

Even GOP incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin isn’t exactly on a glide path to reelection this fall.

Though some election analysts have just begun to recalibrate their predictions in this post-Roe environment, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg doesn't view abortion as the only driving force favoring Democrats.

For the past two cycles, he says, nothing and no one have galvanized a coalition of voters to vote against Republicans more than Trump and the MAGA movement have. Rosenberg expects November to follow in similar fashion.

“The question is, are there forces in the election more powerful than the disappointment in Biden?” posited Rosenberg. “The answer is yes, and that is opposition and fear for MAGA, which is the thing that has driven the last two elections.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Did The January 6 Coup Fail?

Did The January 6 Coup Fail?

January 6 should have been the point of no return, the pivot point at which even the most blinkered sugar-coaters of Trumpism recoiled in disgust from what they had wrought.

For everyone who had convinced themselves that, whatever Trump's flaws, the true threat to the American way of life lay on the left and only on the left, January 6 was a blaring klaxon. Yes, he was a buffoon and incompetent and unfamiliar with the levers of power — and yet this clown nearly brought a 244-year-old democracy to its knees.

The most threatening aspect of January 6 was not the ferocious attack on the Capitol but the response of Republican officeholders thereafter. Even after the unleashing of medieval mob violence, 147 Republican members of Congress voted not to certify Joe Biden as the winner of the presidency. The transformation of the GOP from a political party into an authoritarian personality cult became official that day.

In the year since, most Republicans (with some extremely honorable exceptions) have descended further into cultishness. They blocked the creation of an independent January 6 commission, attempted to pack the congressional January 6 committee with Trump Dobermans like Rep. Jim Jordan, and engaged in flagrant gaslighting about the events of that day. Now, with the arrival of the first anniversary of the most shameful day in recent history, Republicans and right-wing opinion leaders returned to their comfort zone: Blame the media.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who showed uncharacteristic independence that day, has retreated to media bashing. "I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administration's failed agenda by focusing on one day in January," he told Fox News.

Radio host Erick Erickson tweeted that "there is a genuine obsession in the press about it. It was a bad day, but it doesn't outweigh crime, inflation, COVID, school closures, etc. for voters." Erickson was at pains to emphasize that he isn't now minimizing what happened at the Capitol, but merely responding to a "press corps obsessed with it as the worst thing ever."

This is not to say that there's no such thing as press overreaction or hysteria, but the right has been engaging in evasion for years with the "but the media" trope. In the wake of January 6, it looks not just dishonest but absurd. January 6 is not an "issue" like crime or COVID-19 or inflation. It's the heart of our system. Without bipartisan allegiance to the verdict of voters and the willingness to cede power to those you oppose, no other "issues" can ever be addressed.

Encounter Books editor Roger Kimball mocked the gravity of January 6. "Was it an effort to overthrow the government? Hardly." The trouble, of course, is the media: "To listen to the establishment media and our political masters, the January 6 protest was a dire threat to the very fabric of our nation."

In fact, Kimball claims, the media narrative amounts to a "January 6 insurrection hoax" to pair with the "Russia collusion hoax."

Unlike some of those cited above, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is not an apologist for Trumpism. He doesn't blame the media, but he doubts that Trump has the wherewithal to subvert our system. Yes, Trump did try to steal the election, Douthat writes, but the courts and state legislatures failed to do his bidding.

That's a comforting thought, but it fails to grapple with two things. One is the GOP's systematic purging of officials who did the right thing in the 2020 election. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has been removed from the board overseeing election certification and is being primaried, as is Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Across the country, Republican officials who stood in the breach when it counted and did the right thing are being hounded from office. Members who voted to impeach are resigning or close to resigning.

It's true that Trump didn't quite know where the pressure points were last time, but he's learning. He has supported secretary of state candidates who deny the validity of the 2020 result in four swing states. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled legislatures in a number of states have passed laws withdrawing power over election certification from local election administrators and handing it to legislatures.

But the most profound reason to fear a repeat of something like January 6 is that Trump has corrupted the minds of a substantial percentage of Republican party members.

The polls consistently show that about two-thirds of Republicans believe the Big Lie that the election was stolen. Nearly a third believe that "Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country." Among rank-and-file Republicans, January 6 is not even viewed as regrettable. One poll found that 52% identified those who entered the Capitol as "protecting democracy."Institutions are not self-sustaining. They are composed of people, and if people have lost faith in them or have given themselves permission to break the rules, they will crumble.

A people deluded and propagandized cannot be trusted to uphold the pillars of the democratic process. Trump failed at his improvised coup, but he succeeded in warping enough of the electorate to make another attempt — and even success — all too possible.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her most recent book is Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, David Perdue, and Kelly Loeffler

Georgia’s Right-Wing Feuding Jeopardizes Republican Senate Candidates

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters

The lie that Georgia's presidential election was rigged through voter fraud is a right-wing fantasy — but these baseless claims could have a very real impact on the upcoming Senate runoffs. And that has some members of the state's right-wing media apparatus panicking.

Groundless allegations of voter fraud in Georgia's presidential election have pitted members of right-wing media, and the Republican Party as a whole, against one another ahead of two crucial January runoffs that will determine control of the Senate.

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Right-Wing Media Use The Worst Anti-LGBT Massacre In American History To Lecture The LGBT Community

Right-Wing Media Use The Worst Anti-LGBT Massacre In American History To Lecture The LGBT Community

Published with permission from Media Matters for America.

Right-wing media personalities — each with their own records of anti-LGBT smears — used the June 12 Orlando massacre, in which a gunman wielding an assault weapon killed 49 people and injured 53 others at a gay nightclub, to lecture the LGBT community. The conservative media figures told them not to “focus on the gay community instead of the American community” and urged them to “come back home to the Republican Party.”

Numerous government officials and media outlets have identified the shooting as a hate crime. NBC News reported it was “both the deadliest terror attack inside the U.S. since 9/11 — and the deadliest hate crime against a gay target in American history.” CNN’s New Day devoted a segment to elevating LGBT voices in the wake of the massacre, where it was described as a hate crime. Both President Barack Obama and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton referred to the massacre as “an act of hate” against the LGBT community. Obama explained the significance that the attack occurred at a gay nightclub, calling it “a place of solidarity and empowerment,” while Clinton said, “We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear.”

Many right-wing media pundits, however, responded instead by lecturing members of the LGBT community about how they should react.

On Fox News’ Fox & Friends Sunday, Newt Gingrich — network contributor and favorite for Donald Trump’s potential vice-presidential pick — used the tragedy to say he hoped “the gay rights movement will come to realize that Islamic Supremacy is their mortal enemy.” In the past, Gingrich has chided the movement as “gay and secular fascism” wanting to “impose its will on the rest of us.”

Also on Fox & Friends Sunday, former Fox contributor and failed GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson exhorted gay people to avoid being too “ideologically driven” in order to start looking “very carefully” at “radical elements … for their own survival.” Carson has a history of bigoted remarks against LGBT people, which include comparing the gay community with practitioners of bestiality, saying marriage equality could destroy America like “the fall of the Roman Empire,” and asserting that sexual orientation is a choice because “a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight and when they come out, they’re gay.”

Fox’s Todd Starnes wrote June 13 that the attack was not about “the LGBT community,” but “the American community,” and denied that the president was “affirming and announcing solidarity with the LGBT community.” Starnes has appeared on anti-gay hate group media and has frequently included comments from the hate group Family Research Council in his own Fox reporting. In 2011, Starnes warned that proponents of marriage equality may try to make “traditional marriage” a hate crime, and he espoused several disparaging commentsabout LGBT people in his 2012 book Dispatches From Bitter America.

On his website, anti-LGBT Fox contributor Erick Erickson criticized “the way the media chose to report on the event … [as] a tragedy in the gay community.” Calling it “an unnecessary dividing line,” Erickson claimed that “the divisions and focus on the gay community instead of the American community” would reduce the tragedy’s impact on American anti-terror policy. Erickson concluded (emphasis added), “The chain of events that led a terrorist to an arsenal then to a nightclub without the FBI noticing is far more relevant and important right now than the agendas of various activists.”

Erickson has repeatedly compared the LGBT community to “terrorists,” including ” in a 2015 blog post titled “The Line Between Islamic Extremists and Gay Rights Extremists” that asserted “the divide between Islamic extremists and gay rights extremists is at death. They meet on the line of destruction.” In the wake of the June 17, 2015, mass shooting in a Charleston, S.C. church, Erickson claimed that Americans can no longer distinguish “normal from crazy and evil from good,” citing society’s acceptance of transgender people like Caitlyn Jenner.

The Resurgent’s Steve Berman wrote that “the LGBT community does deserve our special protection … against Muslims who follow an evil ideology sprung from their holy books.” While admitting that he “certainly do[es] not” agree with “the LGBT political agenda,” Berman concluded by threatening LGBT Americans: “I would gladly stand guard, AR-15 in hand, at any gay bar to protect these Americans, with whom I disagree, but will defend with my life. I do this because I love them like Jesus loves them. When the time comes for choosing enemies, I pray that LGBT Americans would choose very carefully.”

Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza tweeted, “Maybe gay activists will start to realize that playing with snakes — which is to say, coddling Islamic radicals — can be quite dangerous.”

D’Souza publicly outed gay classmates during his time at Dartmouth College in the early 1980s and in 2008 penned an op-ed contrasting gay rights and democracy. D’Souza wrote, “Gays do have the right to marry. They have the right to marry adult members of the opposite sex! What gay activists want is something else: the right to marry members of the same sex.”

Conservative blogger Jim Hoft, who in the past hurled anti-gay smears against openly gay Obama administration appointee Kevin Jennings, used the massacre in a June 13 Breitbart News piece to urge gay people to vote for Donald Trump, writing:

I’ve been a conservative activist for years. But today I’m coming out as a conservative gay activist.

In the past few years I’ve built one of the most prominent conservative websites in America. I created The Gateway Pundit because I wanted to speak the truth. I wanted to expose the wickedness of the left. I was raised to love my country. Today I serve my country by defending her from the socialist onslaught.

[…]

I can no longer remain silent as my gay brothers and sisters are being slaughtered at dance clubs.

There is only one man who can lead this nation and protect all gays and all Americans. His name is Donald Trump.

[…]

I pray that gays will come back home to the Republican Party – no more death.

Striking a different tone, the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD), an organization that works to support LGBT Muslims, stressed that the tragedy “cannot be neatly categorized as a fight between the LGBT community and the Muslim community.” In its statement, MASGD called on Americans “to resist the forces of division and hatred, and to stand against homophobia as well as against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry.” From the June 12 statement:

This tragedy cannot be neatly categorized as a fight between the LGBTQ community and the Muslim community. As LGBTQ Muslims, we know that there are many of us who are living at the intersections of LGBTQ identities and Islam. At moments like this, we are doubly affected. We reject attempts to perpetuate hatred against our LGBTQ communities as well as our Muslim communities. We ask all Americans to resist the forces of division and hatred, and to stand against homophobia as well as against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry. Let us remember that the actions of a single individual cannot speak for all Muslims. Let us also remember that there are many straight Muslims who have been strong allies to the Muslim LGBTQ community. We see the beauty in our cultures and our faith traditions, and we have experienced love, acceptance and support from many in our Muslim communities.

Photo: Dinesh D’Souza via Facebook.