Media Bias Against Progressives-- The Story Of Politico

Politico reporters, Sarah Ferris and Andrew Desiderio, presented a webinar Friday in how to please corporate media ownership and upper management by hammering how conservative talking points. The name of their Republican Party message lesson-- which was (seriously) sent out by the NRCC communications department-- is Swing-district Dems face blowback from progressive voters. The first and easiest lesson-- and the most common-place one among Beltway journalists is to refer to conservative Democrats as "moderates," making it seem like mainstream Democrats with widely and overwhelmingly popular ideas are extremists or radicals. That id always a must at Politico, but also used by most Washington Post and NY Times reporters and editors as well.

There was a time when conservative media would always refer to Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, the right of workers to organize into union, emancipation of the slaves, the right of women to vote, consumer protection, etc as extreme and radical, socialist and communist. A third of the population of the American colonies in the late 1770s opposed the Revolution and preferred the British monarchy. Many fought on the side of the British and many left the U.S. after the Revolution, skipping out to Canada, the West Indies and the motherland. Unfortunately, they didn't all leave and, worse yet, some of them returned. You'll have to ask Sarah and Andrew-- who referred to opposing Medicare-for-All (i.e., original Medicare) and the Green New Deal (which could be called saving the planet and humanity) as "dodging his party’s leftward drift-- what their antecedents were doing at the time.

They were upset that conservative Democrat Conor Lamb (PA) was approached by constituents asking him to back original Medicare (which includes revolutionary ideas like dental care and hearing aids) and saving the planet and humanity. They called the bills "some of the most liberal legislation the House has ever seen," which didn't include the attribution of the NRCC or RNC or NRSC, which use the phrase daily. "Liberal suburban voters, wrote Ferris and Desiderio, "including in swing districts like Lamb’s, are turning out in droves at town halls to complain about Congress’s inaction on their progressive wish list-- even as their representatives remain firmly in the centrist column. It highlights the quandary the vulnerable Democrats find themselves in: Remain moderate enough to appeal to the middle but risk the ire of the invigorated progressives." (At least they only implied "socialists" and didn't say it)-- though when the NRCC sent their handiwork out within 3 seconds of publication, the subject line was "socialists come for vulnerable Democrats."

Look at all these commies ruing the Politico owners' day: "At public events this week, freshmen in battleground districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California heard from voters clamoring for Medicare for All, drastic climate action, gun control and the impeachment of President Donald Trump, among other priorities. And it’s not just sign-holding, T-shirt clad activists coming to the mics: It’s white-haired men in golf polos, and moms in work dresses and heels."

Heels no less! Gun control. There's a radical idea-- one that around 90% of non-Politico employees back! "But the freshman centrist also rejected calls to back Medicare for All from at least a half-dozen constituents-- a move that’s been repeated by many other moderates, though it frustrates some in their own base who are growing restless on the bigger issues. 'We have a lot of work to do on health care, there’s no doubt about it,' Lamb told a middle-aged nurse this week who urged him to support the bill. 'I happen to think the issue of prescription drug prices is the alligator closest to the boat, the one we absolutely have to deal with in this Congress.' Lamb, instead, said most people in the district are 'pretty happy' with their current insurance plans. Later in the night, he took another swipe at the ever-growing scope of the bill, and at 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'It seems like each time Sen. Sanders introduces it, he adds another thing.' True, Bernie added mental health care-- obviously important for Lamb's moron constituents who believe they are "pretty happy" being ripped off by the current insurance system.

New Jersey Blue Dog Mikie Sherrill, they wrote "also faced an intense push for Medicare for All, impeachment and robust climate action, with many people in the room applauding loudly each time a progressive issue was raised. When Democrats voted for her in 2018, they had idea of what a bag of Republican-lite garbage they were getting. She sure didn't tell them. And all the Republicans said about her is that she's a socialist. Unfortunately, she wasn't. At her town hall, she "turned down multiple requests to co-sponsor the Medicare for All bill, to visible disappointment in the crowd. 'Right now, I think it's critical that we bring down health care costs and get everybody covered. That is my goal,' Sherrill said, who made it clear she understood the pain of rising drug prices and insurance bills with stories about her own families’ costly treatments." She doesn't understand anything. She's a hack who deserves to lose her seat. Unfortunately she has no primary opponent yet.

Even swing-district Democrats who have embraced the progressive agenda, like Rep. Mike Levin of California, are coming home to voters who are irked by the stalled progress. Many are pivoting to McConnell, turning him into the boogeyman in 2020 for his so-called “legislative graveyard.”

That must confused every single Politico employee. I mean what sense does that make?!?!

“[Voters] say, why isn’t the House doing more? Well, we are. We are moving forward. It’s the Senate, and it’s Mitch McConnell specifically that’s unwilling to do his job,” he added. “They didn’t run for positions as a United States senator so that they could watch Mitch McConnell block all of the legislation that we send them.”

With control of just one chamber, Democrats have also struggled to make progress on even on the least contentious of their campaign promises, like drug pricing and infrastructure. That puts a strain on the dozens of freshmen like Levin and Lamb who clawed back their seats from the GOP last fall, largely campaigning on local and pocketbook issues.

But key parts of the base are also keen to show Democrats they’re more interested in fighting Trump than simply trying to fix potholes.

Democratic Party bosses, they say, are still playing it safe on the more divisive issues that are reenergizing voters on the left — an attempt to hold onto a “big tent” base in 2020 and protect vulnerable members like Lamb and Levin without alienating increasingly vocal progressives.

That’s a tough task, especially as trademark ideas, like Medicare for All, have gained prominence with help from a more-liberal-than-ever field of 2020 presidential candidates.

The tone of the town halls is far from the scathing public showdowns of the post-2010 Obamacare era. Still, the events this week drew standing room-only crowds in some cases, with dozens of people looking to take the mic and occasionally prompting outbursts of “impeach now!” or “Moscow Mitch.”

Levin has embraced many of the agenda items progressive voters are pushing. Still, the California freshman was confronted over his support for a Senate-passed humanitarian aid package for migrants at the southern border, which most Democrats opposed over concerns it didn’t go far enough.

Politico is careful to never refer to the concentration camps as concentration camps. And, yes, voters are angry that Democrats like Pelosi and Levin voted to fund the concentration camps which plenty of grassroots Democrats were horrified by. Levin, who is Jewish, noted that he has criticized members of both parties for anti-Semitic remarks... Like when Trump said their were very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville, the anti-racists and the Nazis. Both sides.

Balls by Nancy Ohanian

Conor Lamb Has Been As Terrible Since His Election As Anyone Might Have Assumed-- A Guest Post From Mike Elk

He got to the church on time

As you probably know-- or should know-- since his election, Conor Lamb, who now represents a purple swing district northwest of Pittsburgh (PA-17), has been one of the worst Democrats in Congress. His Trump adhesion score is a shocking 54.8%, even more in line with Trump than conservative Republican Walter Jones (NC) and less Trumpoid than only two Democrats still serving in the House, ultra-reactionary Blue Dogs Henry Cuellar (64.7%) and Collin Peterson (62.9%). Pittsburgh area labor leader Mike Elk sent us a piece he wrote for Payday Report this week, Conor Lamb Marries Lawyer at Anti-Union Jones Day. Last Friday Lamb, who voted for Joe Kennedy III as speaker, got married. Mike's post:

On Friday, Congressman Conor Lamb (D-PA) created a viral sensation when he tweeted a video of him singing “Get Me to the Church On Time” by Frank Sinatra as he hurriedly drove from D.C. back to Pittsburgh to get married on Saturday morning. The video garnered over 150,000 views and helped bolster the image of Conor Lamb as likable wonderboy of the Democratic Party.

However, Payday Report has learned that Lamb has married Hailey Haldeman, a controversial corporate lawyer at the notorious anti-union firm Jones Day.

Last March, Lamb credited labor for his stunning upset in high profile PA-18 Special Election last year.

“Organized labor built Western Pennsylvania... Tonight, they have reasserted their right to have a major part in our future” Lamb told a crowd of union supporters during his nationally televised victory speech last March in Cannonsburg, PA.

However, Lamb’s marriage to Haldeman, as well as previous statements Lamb made that a $15 an hour minimum wage is too high, have made many in organized labor questions his commitment to their values.

In Congress, Lamb has voted with Trump 56% of the time. He was one of only three Democrats to vote for extending the Trump tax cuts; helping the measure pass by only 2 votes. The Central Catholic graduate also was one of only 18 Democrats to vote for a resolution praising ICE and denouncing attempts to abolish it.

Lamb’s marriage to Haldeman has confirmed to some labor leaders that Lamb’s vote with Trump weren’t down out of political expediency, but more a reflection of his economic class and the elite corporate worlds in which he and his wife socialize.

“We never really trusted the guy in the first place, but then he goes and marries someone from Jones Day. You just can’t trust a guy who would do something like that,” says one senior labor leader, who declined to go on the record out of fear of retaliation against his membership from Lamb’s political patron Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

Among organized labor, Haldeman’s firm, Jones Day has garnered a reputation as one of the nastiest anti-union law firms in the country. Recently, the Columbia Journalism Review profiled how Jones Day held a secret summit, where they instructed media companies on how to stop the growing digital media unionization movement.

Currently, Jones Day is representing Slate as they push the Writers’ Guild union to accept “right-to-work” style open shop language as part of their contract talks. The union at Slate has refused to accept the provision and in December, workers at Slate voted to authorize a strike by a margin of 52 to 1 to resist management’s demands.

“Negotiations, where Jones Day is at the table, are uglier than anything else we see,” says Robert Struckman, president of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild told the Columbia Journalism Review. “Negotiations are always hard, but they’re not always ugly. Jones Day makes the process ugly.”

It’s unclear what involvement Haldeman has had in the firm’s anti-union practices. Haldeman did not return Payday’s request for comment.

However, Haldeman has bragged openly on Jones Day’s website about her role as the lead associate representing Sherwin Williams in a high-profile lead paint removal case brought by 11 municipalities in California. As a lawyer, Haldeman successfully worked to reduce Sherwin William’s responsibility to remove lead paint from over 4 million homes in California.

As a protegee of Jones Day partner Paul Pohl, who made his fortune representing big tobacco companies, Haldeman has also represented some of the most toxic polluters in the country including Transocean for their role in the BP Oil Spill.

In addition to her work at Jones Day, Haldeman also sits on the board of the Mattress Factory art museum, where she is the only lawyer on the board. In 2018, The Mattress Factory faced NLRB charges for illegally retaliating against a group of women, who reported sexual assault by a senior member of the museum’ staff.

At the time, the board, on which Haldeman is the sole legal counsel, was criticized by the women at the museum for failing to take appropriate legal action to remove the staffer accused of sexual assault for nearly a year. The board also was heavily criticized by the group of women for failing to take action to reverse the retaliation.

Only after facing the threat of having the museum’s funding pulled by the Allegheny County Regional Asset Control District Board, did the board finally agree to reach a settlement with the women in December. The terms of the settlement have not yet been released.

It’s unclear what role Haldeman has played in advising Lamb in political matters. However, Haldeman was a near-ubiquitous presence at Lamb’s side throughout his campaign and was regularly seen conferring with Lamb’s top aides.

Congressman Lamb’s office did not respond to request for comment when asked about what type of political influence his wife Jones Day’s Haldeman has played on Lamb. The campaign also did not respond to request for comment about what type of measures Lamb has made to prevent any conflicts of interests arise from his wife Haldeman’s work at Jones Day. Lamb’s refusal to answer press inquiries is not new. During his campaign, the former Marine once famously hide in the back of a barn at the Greene County Fairgrounds to avoid answering questions about immigration.

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Pennsylvania Doesn't Look Good For The Party Of Trump (fka- The GOP)

Triage-- another one bites, another one bites, another one bites the dust. The NRCC, looking to toss dead-weight overboard, pulled all their remains broadcast ads for incumbent Keith Rothfus in PA-17. Under the newly drawn boundaries the district has an R+3 PVI and Obama would have lost it both times. Trump beat Hillary in those boundaries 49.4% to 46.8%. But district polling shows virtually no path to victory for incumbent Keith Rothfus, a Trump rubber-stamp and enabler at a time when it isn't viable to be a Trump rubber-stamp and enabler. The last public poll of the district, by Monmouth, game Conor Lamb a 12-point lead over Rothfus. A Republican Hill chief of staff told me, on condition of anonymity, that "if they're already pulling the plug on incumbents in R+3 districts that Trump won by 3 points, we are so fucking doomed... I don't want to think about how many seats we're going to lose in Pennsylvania. By Halloween they'll be pulling the plug on Smucker and Perry too.

"I'm glad he raised that question, because it's just where I wanted to take this tonight. Yesterday, the Allentown Morning Call released a statewide poll of likely voters by Muhlenberg College. Here are the top line results:

• With less than two months remaining before the much anticipated 2018 elections Democratic candidates are in strong positions across an array of races within Pennsylvania.
• Incumbent Governor Tom Wolf has retained a solid leads over State Senator Scott Wagner in his bid to win a second term as the Commonwealth’s chief executive, with the Democrat maintaining a 55%-36% lead over his Republican challenger.
• In the United States Senate race in Pennsylvania Democrat incumbent Bob Casey Jr. maintains a substantial 53%-35% lead over his Republican challenger Congressman Lou Barletta.
• In a generic ballot in the midterm congressional elections in Pennsylvania the state’s voters continue to favor Democrats over Republican candidates with 50% of voters preferring the Democrat in their district compared with 39% supporting a Republican.
• President Trump’s job approval among likely voters in the Commonwealth appears to be a drag on Republicans on the November ballot with a majority (55%) disapproving of his performance as President.

Unexpectedly, Trump didn't do badly in Pennsylvania. If Russia monkeyed with voting machines in precincts in a few targeted counties in a few targeted states last cycle, Pennsylvania was certainly one. He beat Hillary 2,970,733 (48.18%) to 2,926,441 (47.46%). Right now Pennsylvania's congressional delegation has 12 Republicans and 6 Democrats. That's going to change very drastically in January when the new Congress is sworn in. My predictions (if the election were held today):

• PA-01 toss-up Brian Fitzpatrick (R)- Scott Wallace (D)
• PA-02 Brendan Boyle (D)
• PA-03 Dwight Evans (D)
• PA-04 Madeleine Dean (D)
• PA-05 Mary Scanlon (D)
• PA-06 Chrissy Houlahan (D)
• PA-07 Susan Wild (D)
• PA-08 Matt Cartwright (D)
• PA-09 Dan Meuser (R)
• PA-10 toss-up Scott Perry (R)- George Scott (D)
• PA-11 toss-up Lloyd Smucker (R)- Jess King (D)
• PA-12 Tom Marino (R)
• PA-13 John Joyce (R)
• PA-14 Guy Reschenthaler (R)
• PA-15 Glenn Thompson (R)
• PA-16 Mike Kelly (R)
• PA-17 Conor Lamb (D)
• PA-18 Mike Doyle (D)

So right nw it looks like 9 Democrats and 6 Republicans plus 3 toss-ups, one in blue-leaning territory, which I'm tempted to say Democrat Scott Wallace can win and two in red territory that may well split-- Jess King (D) and Scott Perry (R). These are the statewide generic congressional results:

Going Into The Midterms, How Toxic Is Trump For Congressional Republicans?

Yesterday, Adam Smith quoted a Florida political insiders and operatives in a piece he did for the Tampa Bay Times about Señor Trumpanzee's impact on the Republican Party in the state. Democrats were jubilant and independents sounded like Democrats. One said, "The question is how has the Republican Party's silence on Donald Trump changed the party? Absolutely for the worse, unless you are his 30% base." But Republicans were split between glorying Trump and bemoaning his existence. Generally Smith found comments like these from Republicans:

• He has pushed the party right and into the position of nominating candidates who appear to be unelectable in the General Elections
• Energized the base…. alienated the moderates.
• it's the party of trump
• split the party
• He has ruined it.

But one GOP insider was especially cruel: "We've gone from being the party of Jeb Bush Republicans who can win everywhere and over perform in Democratic areas to the party of red hat Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel and QAnon. Who thinks this is going to end well?"

Yesterday Trumpanzee was blithely tweeting away that "Tariffs are the greatest" while more and more Americans are feeling them in their pocketbooks in ways that are hardly "the greatest." And if that wasn't bad enough, vulnerable Republican congressman, Mike Coffman, who represents a ring of suburbs that surround Denver from the west to the south and up the east, told the media that Trump "absolutely" got played by Putin. "I think the first summit was a terrible mistake. The second summit would be equally as bad... I think he was strong in talking to our allies and weak when it came to Putin." More congressional Republicans are opening their eyes and seeing Trump as an albatross hung around their necks going into the midterms.

Of course, some GOP congressmen are their own albatrosses-- photo by Chip Proser

Around the same time that Trump was tweeting his nonsense, Chuck Todd and the crew at NBC's First Read were checking in with swing voters-- the 18% of voters who dislike both parties in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. 55% are breaking for Democrats and 25% for Republicans, significantly up from lat month when 50% were breaking for Democrats and 36% for Republicans. "What’s more in our current poll," wrote the authors, "these voters disproportionately are down on Trump (68 percent disapprove of his job, versus 52 percent of all voters), and they are enthusiastic about the upcoming midterms (63 percent of them have high interest, versus 55 percent of all voters who say this)." This isn't going to hurt Republicans in deep red districts in, say, Alabama where they don't need independent voters to win. But look at Arkansas, as a different kind of example. All 4 districts are held by Republicans:

• AR-01- R+17- east
• AR-02- R+7- Little Rock
• AR-03- R+19- northwest
• AR-04- R+17 west and south

An anti-red wave isn't going to hurt Rick Crawford, Steve Womack or Buce Westerman. But French Hill is in real trouble and could lose his seat to Blue Dog Democrat Clarke Tucker. Overly cautious--very overly cautious-- Larry Sabato just moved AR-02 from "likely Republican" to "leans Republican." Judging by how Sabato rates races, that means Tucker is close to winning. It'sworth noting that Hill, an especially corrupt member of the House Financial Services Committee and a complete Wall Street puppet, had raised $1,954,935 by the June 30 FEC reporting deadline, compared to Tucker's $975,268. It a swing year that difference doesn't matter. Tucker has enough to get his message out, build name recognition and operate a field campaign. So long as he isn't wasting his money on consultants the DCCC is directing him to, he has what he needs too beat Hill.

And Arkansas is far from unique when it comes to this dynamic. Pennsylvania's new 17th congressional district has a PVI of R+1. Under the new boundaries, Trump would have beaten Hillary there 49.4% to 46.8%. But the incumbent, Keith Rothfus, is in big trouble. Conor Lamb lives within the new boundaries and he decided to run there instead of in the red hellhole he now represents-- and has become even redder under the newly redrawn congressional boundaries. In a newly released Monmouth poll he's leading Rothfus 51-39% in the Beaver and Allegheny counties district northwest of Pittsburgh. Arkansas, Pennsylvania... where else? Short answer: everywhere that Trump is.

The Climate For Federal Job Guarantee: NOW

Political Unrest by Nancy Ohanian

Charlie Cook doesn't go out on a limb with his electoral predictions. Year after year, cycle after cycle, he plays it very, very safe. This year, though, even he can't deny what's headed towards the congressional Republicans. This week he penned a column that explains-- in part-- why there may be as many as 70 or 80 fewer Republicans in the House in 2019 as there are now: Evidence Grows that Trump Is Dragging the GOP Down. The massive swing in PA-18 that swept Conor Lamb into office in the heart of Trump country is, he wrote "just the most-recent evidence of the Democratic tidal wave forming this midterm election cycle."

The outcome in the 18th was a continuation of a pattern seen in seven special House elections last year: Democrats running 6 to 12 points better than what The Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index would suggest they should in those districts, averaging an 8-point over-performance. Similarly, there was a 15-point over-performance for Democrat Doug Jones in December’s Senate victory in Alabama. Individually, each of these examples could be explained away, or rationalized, but collectively they tell a clear story.

Cook Political Report House Editor David Wasserman notes that there are 118 GOP House members-- almost half of the House Republican Conference-- in districts with a PVI score worse for the GOP than the one Lamb just won. Almost three-quarters-- 174 out of the current 238 to be exact-- of GOP members were not elected before 2007, meaning they have never been re-elected in a year with significant headwinds, like those last experienced by Republicans in 2006. Republicans benefitted from tailwinds in President Obama’s 2010 and 2014 midterm years. Any Republican attempting to dismiss the severity of this pattern should remember Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Charlie Dent’s line that “denial is not just a river in Egypt; this is a real problem.”

These results fit squarely with what history tells us about midterm election losses for the party that holds the White House, particularly when a president has low job-approval ratings, as President Trump’s are. This should not just be a concern for Beltway Republicans, but in state races up and down the ballot as well. Earlier this week, this column reported statistics compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Tim Storey, that in 27 of the past 29 midterm elections, the party in the White House lost state legislative seats. Storey, the undisputed nonpartisan authority on state elections, also calculates that the president’s party has not gained governorships in 26 out of 29 midterm elections since 1902, averaging a net loss of 4.5 governorships in these midterm election cycles.

...A lot of veteran Republican strategists and consultants are quietly warning GOP candidates of what lays ahead for them. Some are not so quiet. Former National Republican Congressional Committee Executive Director Liesl Hickey, one of the sharpest GOP operatives around, laid it out in three tweets on Wednesday:

We have a growing economy, with low inflation; businesses busy hiring, expanding, and investing; and an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent for five consecutive months, a 17-year low. Keeping in mind that most new jobs are created by small business, the National Federation of Independent Business’ small-business-owner optimism index is at a 35-year high. The just-released Business Roundtable survey of 137 CEOs of the largest corporations in America shows the best economic outlook in the survey’s 15-year history. And yet we have a president with toxic poll numbers who is becoming a millstone around the necks of Republicans in even some of the most GOP-leaning states and districts in the country.

Conor Lamb won despite being a shit candidate. And it was just because ne was running against an ever shittier candidate. Lamb didn't run against Trump and Trumpism. He didn't have to. The big swing in PA-18 wasn't a swing towards Lamb or a swing away from Saccone. It was part of the national disgust with Trump. And it was big enough to sweep-- albeit barely-- a miserable Blue Dog into Congress and get Beltway idiots to declare him a superstar and big enough to allow the DCCC to insist that the way to win is by running more shit Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, just what they would have done whether Lamb existed or not.

Eric Levitz doesn't have the Beltway cred of a Cook or a Wasserman. but his analysis (in New York Magazine) Thursday was better.. and, for Democratic congressional candidates, more useful.

Last week, a self-styled moderate Democrat won a congressional race in the heart of Trump Country-- and the last-surviving “Blue Dogs” promptly declared their vindication. For the Democrats’ right flank, Politico wrote, “Lamb’s successful center-left campaign is proof that the Democratic Party’s ‘big tent’ mentality is still a winning electoral strategy, despite an aggressive push from liberals for candidates that more closely adhere to the progressive purity made popular by the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).”

This analysis is at once banally true and insidiously misleading. There is no question that the Democratic Party would be unwise to trumpet the exact same message in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, as it does in Berkeley, California. And during his successful campaign in the former, Conor Lamb did hit culturally conservative notes on gun control and Nancy Pelosi, while saying as few words as he could get away with about immigration and Donald Trump. And yet, the suggestion that Lamb’s win exposed the folly of “progressive purity”-- as preached by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren-- is an odd one.

After all, those senators aren’t known as “purists” for their hard-line positions on gun control, or effusive support for the House Minority Leader. In fact, Sanders’s record on firearms and immigration includes stances about as conservative as those that Lamb just championed in southwest Pennsylvania. The reason why Sanders can nonetheless serve as a synonym for left-wing purity is precisely because the most salient divides in today’s Democratic Party do not lie on “culture war” issues, but rather, on economic ones-- which is to say, on those issues where Conor Lamb stayed least from progressive orthodoxy.

There is a lot at stake in these distinctions. The Democratic Party’s corporate wing has a vested interest in the idea that moderation on issues of regulation and redistribution is an electoral necessity in pro-Trump regions. Just last week, business-friendly Democrats helped Mitch McConnell make it easier for banks to discriminate against black people and evade regulatory scrutiny-- and justified their complicity (in anonymous quotes to the press) on grounds of political expediency: To get reelected in red and purple areas, Democrats needed to prove their “bipartisan” bona fides.

But there is little evidence that Democrats have any political incentive to broadcast their sympathy for Wall Street, or to demonstrate their sensitivity to corporate interests. In fact, there isn’t even much basis for believing that running competitive campaigns in pro-Trump districts and championing far-left economic policies are incompatible objectives. On the contrary, there’s actually some reason to think that Democratic candidates would have an easier time making inroads in Red America, if they ran on the right kind of radical fiscal policy-- like, for example, a federal jobs guarantee.

The idea that the federal government should serve as an employer of last resort-- by guaranteeing a public job to any American unable to find work in the private sector-- has a long history on the Democratic left. In the 1930s, the populist demagogue Huey Long popularized the concept as part of his Share Our Wealth plan-- a far-left alternative to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Three decades later, Martin Luther King Jr. called on the government to provide either guaranteed jobs-- or a guaranteed basic income-- to all unemployed Americans. And in the late 1970s, as U.S. workers suffered from the unholy combination of high unemployment and runaway inflation, the idea nearly made its way into law. But the proposal proved to be too left-wing for the Carter administration, and the Reagan Revolution banished it from the realm of “reasonable” debate-- until New York senator (and presumptive 2020 presidential candidate) Kirsten Gillibrand announced her support for the policy this week.

It isn’t hard to see why the federal jobs guarantee has spent so many decades in the wilderness: It is a genuinely radical proposal. In setting a minimum standard for wages, benefits, and hours-- and giving every private sector worker the option to walk off the job without suffering unemployment-- it’s a policy with the potential to drastically shift the balance of power between capital and labor. And given the scale of government intervention in the economy that it implies, it’s at least as “left-wing” as anything in Bernie Sanders’s 2016 platform; in fact, a jobs guarantee was ostensibly too radical of an idea for America’s favorite democratic socialist two years ago.

Thus, if American politics works as Blue Dog Democrats often suggest-- if swing voters have coherent ideological views, and move back and forth between the two major parties because their policy preferences (on economic and “identity” issues) lie near the center of a left-right axis-- then support for a federal jobs guarantee should be minuscule at the national level, and virtually nonexistent in Red America.

But new survey data from the progressive think tank Data for Progress (DFP) demonstrates the very opposite. Now, when an ideologically motivated think tank puts out a poll showing that the public supports a policy it endorses, one should generally take its findings with a bucket of salt; in most cases, you’ll find that the survey was strategically worded to yield the desired result. But as DFP co-founder Sean McElwee explains in The Nation, the think tank took pains to preempt that criticism:

To explore the possibility of Democrats’ running on a guaranteed-job plan, we asked the respected data analytics firm Civis Analytics to not only poll guaranteed jobs, but poll it in the way that would be most likely to gain opposition from voters. They asked respondents:

“Democrats in Congress are proposing a bill which would guarantee a job to every American adult, with the government providing jobs for people who can’t find employment in the private sector. This would be paid for by a 5 percent income tax increase on those making over $200,000 per year. Would you be for or against this policy?”

… The results of the Civis polling were nothing short of stunning, showing large net support for a job guarantee: 52 percent in support, 29 percent opposed, and the rest don’t know. “Even with explicit partisan framing and the inclusion of revenue in the wording, this is one of the most popular issues we’ve ever polled,” said David Shor, a senior data scientist at Civis Analytics.

These results are broadly consistent with previous polling on a jobs guarantee (in 2014, YouGov found a plurality of Americans backing the idea of “a law guaranteeing a job to every American adult, with the government providing jobs for people who can’t find employment in the private sector”). What makes DFP’s research revelatory is that it includes an estimate of the policy’s viability on a state-by-state basis. Using demographic data from a separate jobs-guarantee poll conducted by the Center for American Progress, the think tank modeled state-level support for the concept-- and found that “guaranteed jobs” is one of the least regionally divisive ideas in American politics.

“The urban-rural divide in support for the job guarantee is practically nonexistent,” Colin McAuliffe, a co-founder of Data for Progress, told New York, in an email. “We estimate 69% support in urban zip codes vs 67% in rural ones. On the other hand, for $15 minimum wage we estimate 69% support in urban zip codes and 49% support in rural zip codes.”

Now, these findings come with a small caveat: The CAP poll from which they derive did not include any mention of “Democrats” or tax increases. But it did describe a massive expansion of “big government,” asking voters if they agreed that “for anyone who is unemployed or underemployed, the government should guarantee them a job with a decent wage doing work that local communities need, such as rebuilding roads, bridges, and schools or working as teachers, home health-care aides, or child-care providers”-- and roughly two-thirds of rural America said yes.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Decades of political research has established that most voters view politics through the lens of identity, not ideology. Ordinary voters do not cast their ballots for whichever party or candidate most faithfully represents their abstract political philosophy, but rather, whichever one appears to best represent their people-- a group they may define with reference to class, region, religion, gender, race, or partisanship itself.

Thus, when the typical “conservative” working-class voter hears a description of the federal jobs guarantee, she does not plot the proposal’s ideological valence on the left-right spatial model she keeps in her head (or ask herself what Friedrich Hayek would think); she merely hears a common-sense idea for giving work to the idle, and providing employment security to working-class people like herself.

And this is part of what makes the idea that Democrats must campaign as economic moderates in working class, pro-Trump districts so misguided. Reachable voters in such areas are almost invariably cross-pressured: Their racial or cultural identities pull them toward the GOP, while their class consciousness (however dim) makes them more sympathetic to “liberal” economic ideas. Such culturally conservative, fiscally progressive voters constitute a hefty chunk of the American electorate: A recent study of voter opinion by the political scientist Larry Bartels found that about one-fourth of Hillary Clinton’s supporters espoused downright Trumpian views on “cultural” issues, while still endorsing (and, ostensibly, prioritizing) conventionally liberal convictions about the role of government in the economy. Meanwhile, Bartels found that a majority of Republican voters approved of “government efforts to regulate pollution, provide a decent standard of living for people unable to work, and ensure access to good health care, while substantial minorities favor reducing income differences and helping families pay for child care and college.”

This study, along with multiple others, testifies to a basic truth about American politics, circa 2018: If Democrats could only get voters to cast their ballots on the basis of their views on economic policy, they would dominate all levels of government.

But the party will make little progress toward that objective so long as it instructs its candidates in blue-collar, rural districts to disavow any policies that draw too sharp a contrast with Paul Ryan’s agenda. In reality, there’s reason to suspect that bold, easy-to-understand progressive policies like a jobs guarantee might actually make Democrats more competitive in such places, by increasing the electoral salience of class identity. In the Data for Progress poll, Republicans who earned less than $25,000 a year were more supportive of a jobs guarantee than Democrats who made over $150,000.

None of this is to suggest that every progressive economic policy is a political winner in every district in the United States. Conor Lamb’s reluctance to endorse a $15 minimum wage in rural Pennsylvania was not wholly irrational; given the median income in that part of the country, it’s likely that the $15 figure strikes some of his constituents as too high (although Lamb could have explained that the new wage floor would be phased in gradually). The point is simply that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there is no ironclad relationship between how politically pragmatic a given policy idea is, and how far “left” it would fall on an ideological scale.

A jobs guarantee is radical in theoretical terms, but has a strong claim to common sense in political ones: The idea that the government has a responsibility to provide opportunities for gainful employment to all its constituents is thoroughly bipartisan. Any speech about economic policy-- from any candidate from either party-- affirms this premise. There’s no (official) disagreement about the goal of maximizing employment in American politics; only about the means through which to do so. Republicans insist that reducing taxes on the wealthy and regulations on corporations is the silver bullet; Democrats have generally told a more complicated story involving education, innovation, diversity, and redistribution.

A federal jobs guarantee offers Team Blue a prescription for how the government can increase employment opportunities that’s just as simple as the GOP’s, but far more intuitive-- namely, “directly hire all of the unemployed people.” And once one stipulates that American voters do not actually have any implacable hostility to “big government,” it becomes obvious that this pitch should be an easier sell than the GOP’s “give yet another tax break to the rich.”

For this reason, it’s heartening that top Democratic think tanks are hashing out detailed versions of the policy, and that top Democratic presidential hopefuls like Kirsten Gillibrand are embracing it.

Pragmatic, moderate Democrats-- who wish to expand the borders of “Blue America” this fall-- would do well to follow her lead.

If you missed this video on Wednesday morning about Job Guarantee, it's worth watching now. It's a Sanders Institute clip of Jane Sanders speaking with Bernie's top economic advisor, Stephanie Kelton, about how Job Guarantee would work.

Will Lamb And Saccone Wind Up Both Serving In Congress Next Year?

The old gerrymandered map is on top and the new ungerrymandered map is below

When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court moved to ungerrymander the state, the Pittsburgh area changed considerably. The city itself, PA-14 didn't change too much other than being re-numbered from PA-14 to PA-18. The PVI went from D+17 to a still very safe D+13, extra Democrats going to the newly created PA-17 which was formerly Republican Keith Rothfus' safe red seat (PA-12). The old PVI was R+11 and the new PVI is a very competitive R+3. That leaves the sprawling PA-18 district Conor Lamb just won. It's been cut down quite a bit and one of the areas cut out of the district is Lamb's hometown, Mount Lebanon. So what was a blood red district with a PVI of R+11 is now... and even worse R+14 (re-numbered PA-14).

The incumbent in the new PA-18 (Pittsburg's old PA-14) is Democrat Mike Doyle and he should have zero problem being reelected. Technically the incumbent in the new redder PA-14 Is Lamb but no one thinks he'll run there again. And the incumbent in the very red old PA-12 (now the competitive PA-17) is Keith Rothfus, basically a dead man walking. And that's where Lamb's home in and where Lamb will run, even though very few few of Rothfus' constituents were part of the old PA-18 who just participated in the election that put Lamb into office.

Right now there are 4 Democrats campaigning against Rothfus in the new 17th,  Elizabeth Tarasi, Aaron Anthony, Raymond Linsenmayer and Erin McClelland. The district includes Beaver County, part of Cranberry Township in Butler County, and northern and western portions of Allegheny County; it would have gone for Trump by just 2.5 percentage points. Lamb filed papers Wednesday seeking the Beaver County Democratic Party's endorsement in the new 17th. The Beaver County Democratic Committee plans to endorse a candidate next Thursday.

Meanwhile, Rick Saccone-- despite being blamed for his own loss on Tuesday, despite being derided for his "porn mustache" and despite not living in the new district-- is already circulating petitions to run in PA-14 (which includes half, including all the reddest parts of the district, he just lost). Republican State Senator Guy Reschenthaler is also running there. Reschenthaler doesn't live in the district either. The Democrat with the best-- the only-- chance to win in that race is Tom Prigg, who had been running against Rothfus, but decided to switch to the district he grew up in (Washington) after the new boundaries were announced and after Lamb made it clear he would take on Rothfus. (Prigg and Lamb are both veterans and although Prigg is much more progressive than Lamb, he had put a lot of time and energy into campaigning for him over the last month.) The establishment Democrat in the race, if she can get enough signatures by Tuesday, is Bibiana Boerio.

There's A Reason I Avoid Washington DC Like The Plague: It's A Truly Disgusting Sausage Making Factory Town

The most powerful political brand of 2018 belongs to Randy Bryce, the iron worker, single dad, caring son and veteran running against Paul Ryan in southeast Wisconsin: IronStache. He's raised over $5,000,000 in small contributions and he's so popular among ordinary working folks that incumbents are asking him to come to their districts and campaign with them! The Republicans had a military vet with a mustache running as well... and on Tuesday his red, red district swung 20 points blue and he lost to some mediocre woos Democrat named Conor Lamb in 2018's first mega-upset... first of many in all likelihood. Republicans are looking for a reason they got creamed. My favorite excuse was in the Washington Examiner. "Frustrated by Saccone’s performance, some Republicans have gone so far as to zero in on his mustachioed appearance. 'It's a porn stache,' said one Pennsylvania-based GOP strategist. 'He should have lost the mustache.'" Tell it to Randy Bryce. Women of all ages seem to swoon over his mustachioed everyman appearance. And, unlike Saccone-- or for that matter Lamb-- Bryce has something to say, something voters pay attention to... and find relatable.

The PA-18 race was pretty simple. The Republicans spent $10,000,000 to make the election about Nancy Pelosi. You don't think so? This is what voters in Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland and Greene counties were seeing for the last six weeks:



and this:



and, when they wanted to get out of the gutter (a little), this:



But Trump, more than the DCCC, more than the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, and far more than Lamb's campaign, made the PA-18 election about Trump. Trump-- who can't help himself, made the special election (in a district he had won by over 19 points) all about him. Tuesday was a referendum on Trump and Trump lost-- BIGLY! Trump is a fool-- and he won't listen to anyone. He's president so he believes everyone under him is also stupider than him, because... they're under him. In remarks delivered at a private fundraising event for Missouri right-wing nut Josh Hawley on Wednesday and obtained by The Atlantic, Señor Trumpanzee attributed Lamb’s success to the fact that he "sounds like a Republican."

After the GOP spent millions painting Lamb as a Frankenstein monster made up of pieces of Obama, Pelosi, Bernie, Pocahontas and... did we mention Pelosi?, Trump told the Hawley supporters that "The young man last night that ran, he said, 'Oh, I’m like Trump. Second Amendment, everything. I love the tax cuts, everything.’ He ran on that basis," Trump said. "He ran on a campaign that said very nice things about me. I said, 'Is he a Republican? He sounds like a Republican to me.'"

Actually, what Lamb sounds like is exactly what he is, a wishy-washy Blue Dog Democrat with no political courageousness. He's not a Republican; he's from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. And he doesn't sound like Trump at all, although they agree-- to some degree-- on a few issues.

[T]he day after Saccone lost by a razor-thin margin against Lamb, a square-jawed Marine veteran who was careful not to make anti-Trumpism the central tenet of his campaign, Trump’s Twitter feed was empty of any mentions of the race. The president did return to one familiar self-congratulatory mode: He argued at the Hawley fundraiser that his last-minute rally for Saccone on Saturday in Moon Township had been an overall success, saying that it boosted the candidate’s vote total.

“We had an interesting time because we lifted [Saccone] seven points up. That’s a lot,” Trump said. “And I was up 22 points, and we lifted seven, and seven normally would be enough, but we’ll see how it all comes out. It’s, like, virtually a tie.” (It was not exactly clear what Trump was basing his conclusion of a seven-point boost on.)

He also attempted to downplay the race’s significance. “It’s actually interesting, because it’s only a congressman for five months,” Trump said, referring to the fact that the district will likely be redrawn ahead of the midterm elections in November"... Trump may have attributed Lamb’s success to the seemingly conservative message in his campaign, but he also cautioned that Lamb’s party affiliation would take priority in Washington, despite his pledge not to back Pelosi for speaker. “The bottom line is when he votes, he’s going to vote with Nancy Pelosi. And he’s gonna vote with Schumer,” Trump said. “And that’s what’s gonna happen, and there’s nothing he can do about it. So it doesn’t matter what he feels, it doesn’t matter.”

Speaking of which... this morning Mike Allen started the day with a warning that Pelosi could be in trouble after the Democratic wave sweeps her party back into power in November. He wrote that "Top Democrats" tell him that "if they take back the House in November, a restoration of Speaker Nancy Pelosi is no longer guaranteed."

• In fact, some well-wired House Democrats predict she will be forced aside after the election and replaced by a younger, less divisive Dem.
• Conor Lamb, 33, won his U.S. House race in Pennsylvania this week after saying he wouldn't vote for her for leader-- a new template for moderates.
• Pelosi has hung in through the minority, and remains the party's most consistent fundraiser. As for whether she'll return as Speaker, she has just said that it's up to the members. (Her allies note that she has never lost a leadership vote.)
• But others have their eye on the gavel, and many members want a younger, newer face. Her No. 2 and longtime rival, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, 78, covets the job but is three months older than she is.
• Pelosi is more likely to be the bridge to a younger generation. A possible successor, who works the caucus behind the scenes, is Rep. Joe Crowley of Queens, N.Y., who turns 56 tomorrow.
• Another possible candidate who's getting buzz: Rep. Adam Schiff, a fellow Californian who has a sky-high profile as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, investigating Russia's role in 2016.

One Democratic source told me that Pelosi hears footsteps: “She used to be retributional. Now she’s more inclusive.”

• Pelosi allies see some of the criticism as sexist, and say she has always been inclusive of all parts of the caucus' diversity, including newer members.
• Pelosi told the Congressional Progressive Caucus at a retreat in Baltimore last week: "Every morning, I don a suit of armor, eat nails for breakfast, and go fight inequality."
• President Trump plans to invoke her frequently in midterm speeches, and Republicans already use her image to raise funds. And in campaigns this fall, many Dems challengers will be put on the spot about whether they'd vote for her as Speaker.

One scenario, from a Pelosi ally:

• "She could win the caucus vote [for Speaker] easily but lose the floor vote."
• "[I]f Dems win the majority by, say, a 10-vote majority, and 15 newly elected Dems have committed not to vote for her [like Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania] for leader of the party, ... she could lose the floor vote for Speaker. That would give the House to the head of the Republicans."
• "She would never let that happen, and she would bow out to someone else."
• "[S]he’s the best vote counter this generation has ever seen. So she’ll know this scenario well in advance, and will figure out a way out that will preserve her legacy."

Be smart: If there's a post-election coup against Pelosi, Crowley is the likely winner because Schiff and the others would scramble the field and Joe is acceptable to all factions.

• One knowing Dem says: "My guess is Crowley is the next Dem Speaker/Leader. He’s the fresh face that the majority of the caucus yearns for ... He’s a spring chicken by congressional standards, at 55 years old."

Crowley is the most corrupt Democrat in the House. The Queens County Democrat boss who was handed his seat and never fought a real election in his entire life and the "former" head of the New Dems, is the bagman who launders Wall Street's money into the Democratic House Caucus. He's "acceptable to all factions" because he pays off all factions. Pelosi's corpse would make a better Speaker than Crowley. The thought of Crowley as Speaker is so disgusting that I'm going to go to the bathroom and vomit now. Crowley is even worse than this: