Kiss Of Death Endorsements: Trump And Pelosi

I know I don't have to interpret that Twitter poll for you, although if you don't know who Shahid Buttar is, he's the progressive Democrat who, along with Nancy Pelosi, came out of the March jungle primary and will face her one-on-one in November. (You can contribute to Shahid's campaign here, as you can see, the only candidate endorsed by this blog.)

After Pelosi exhibited startling, even breath-taking hypocrisy by endorsing Joe Kennedy III who is challenging incumbent Democratic Senator Ed Markey for his Massachusetts seat, just 6.8% of respondents said her endorsement will influence them to favor Kennedy or favor him more. On the other hand... well you can see.

Most Republican senators aren't asking for Trump's endorsement. Like Pelosi's, an endorsement by Trump is just toxic-- especially among independents. Sure, in states or districts that are so heavily Republican, an endorsement from Trump or Pence or Mitch McConnell would be a net plus... and in deep red House districts it makes sense to ask for an endorsement. Senate seats are different. Trump is still popular in Wyoming, Idaho, Oklahoma and the Dakotas but don't expect to see Trump endorsements being ballyhooed by incumbent senators where independent voters determine winners. I don't know what John Cornyn (R-TX) is going to do but I would bet that Susan Collins (ME), Cory Gardner (CO), Thom Tillis (NC), and Joni Ernst (IA) aren't going to be advertising-- at least not to a general audience on TV or radio-- that Trump is backing them.

On the other hand, in Alaska, where nearly half the voters are independents, there is a lot of ballyhooing of Trump's endorsement of Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan-- all of it from Independent Al Gross who is running on the Democratic Party line. I spoke with Gross' campaign manager yesterday and he was almost gleeful to have seen Trump endorse Sullivan. "I hope President Trump comes up here to campaign for Dan," he said. "A majority of the state doesn't approve of him, and with his help, we can make that 60%!" He sent me this:

Yesterday, Collins announced that part-time Maine resident George W. Bush-- remember, relative to Trump and for many people, the stink has worn off now-- has endorsed her-- his first endorsement of 2020. "The nod from the former president, whose politics appear centrist by Trump-era standards, may nudge some traditional Republicans into Collins’ corner," wrote David Sharp for the Associated Press. "Trump has not endorsed the Maine senator, whose race is among a handful critical to Republicans’ hopes of keeping control of the Senate, where they have a 53-47 advantage. Collins, meanwhile, has not said whether she intends to vote for Trump." Fellow New England Republican, Governor Phil Scott (R-VT) made an announcement yesterday that leaves no doubt he doesn't want and would not accept Trump's endorsement: "I won't be voting for President Trump... I have not decided, at this point, whether to cast a vote for former Vice President Biden... something I would consider."

After Pelosi's endorsement of Joe Kennedy III infuriated progressives-- not as much because of the pick as because of Pelosi's disgusting hyocrisy-- AOC sent her followers a fundraising letter from her own campaign but for for Markey, a staffer explaining the double standard:

Last year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee instituted a new blacklist-- targeting staffers and companies who worked for primary challengers. Unsurprisingly, that overwhelmingly targeted people who worked with progressives.

Now, it’s clear: That blacklist was never just meant to "protect incumbents." It was meant to block progressive leaders from being elected, like Ayanna Pressley, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, or even Alexandria in 2018.

...Markey is not taking the safe route. He’s causing good trouble in Washington, fighting for international peace, a Green New Deal, and dismantling ICE. These are hard fights to win. Many look at them and back down. But not Ed Markey.

Markey is listening to the next generation of leaders-- the young folks on the ground working day in and day out to change the world-- and does everything in his power to amplify their voices on Capitol Hill. If Washington had more leaders like Ed Markey, we’d be a lot better off.

Scary that Pelosi is no longer self-aware enough to understand that her endorsement really is a kiss of death in most places in the country-- even in as blue a state as Massachusetts. Isn't she supposed to be retiring now and passing along her seat to her daughter? You know, the dynasty thing-- like the Kennedys.

No, Not "Both Parties" Fault-- The Blame From The Entire Financial Crisis Millions Of Americans are Facing is Only The Republicans' Fault-- 100%

In his interview with Stuart Stevens published yesterday by the New Yorker-- on the occasion of the release of his new book, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump-- Isaac Chotiner asked the former GOP political operative (and now, Lincoln Project #NeverTrumpers), how he came to see that the Republican Party wasn't polluted by Trump but that the Republican Party was polluted by itself. Stevens now understands that Trump didn't hijack the GOP but that what we have is what the GOP turned itself into. He pointed out that Trump "says he has ninety-five per cent Republican approval, and that’s probably an exaggeration, but let’s say it is eighty-nine per cent or so. You look at what Trump is saying, and the degree to which the Party is comfortable with it, and I don’t know what conclusion to come to other than that Trump very well suits the Republican Party... What appealed to me was a party that believed in personal responsibility, that character counts, and that was strong on Russia and free trade, and strongly pro legal immigration. It’s not just that the Party has drifted away from those principles, like parties do. As far as I can tell, the Party is actively against every one of them. We’re the “character doesn’t count” party. We’re the anti-personal-responsibility party. We’re the pro-Putin party. I think the only conclusion is that a party that said it believed in these things didn’t really believe in them."

Just before that was published published, the Washington Post put out an ominous piece by Erica Werner and Seung Min Kim, Congress flails as coronavirus ravages the nation and the economy stalls. Their point-- everything is a disaster and the Republican-controlled Senate, at Trump's direction, "is doing what it does best: nothing at all."

Two months ago, the House passed a bill that would have helped people get through these extraordinarily tough times. McConnell went on vacation and refused to allow even a debate on the merits. As the virus surged and the economy collapsed McConnell plotted how to make the Democrats look bad. Polling shows that that has backfired, making the GOP even more unpopular and putting more of his caucus in jeopardy for November defeats.


"Let's be clear about what's happening here," progressive Texas Democrat Julie Oliver told me this morning. "The House passed the Democratic relief bill, the HEROES Act, weeks ago-- it would have extended the $600 unemployment insurance that has served as a lifeline for so many of the Texas families we've heard from here in our district who are hurting right now. Roger Williams voted against it. He believes that Texans who are struggling should get 'zero' in relief. Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans refused to take the bill up for consideration. And that negligence-- while people are losing everything, going hungry, kids and families facing eviction-- is truly corrupt." You can help Julie replace Williams here.

“The Republicans are pushing the American economy into a depression because they are unwilling to do what is necessary to prevent it,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI). “This is not the fault of ‘Congress’ generally-- this is happening to America because of the Republicans. We want to strike a compromise, but their ideology prevents them from meeting the moment.”

...“Congress has to rise to the crisis. It is too serious,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), one of at least a half dozen endangered GOP senators whose political fortunes are in the balance. “If we can’t work together in a bipartisan, bicameral way in the midst of a persistent pandemic that is causing such harm to people’s health and their economic stability, then we will have failed the American people.”

Democrats and many Republicans insist it is imperative to act soon to pass another big relief bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called the virus “a freight train that is picking up steam and picking up speed” Friday as she called for Senate passage of the House Democrats’ $3 trillion bill. Talks are ongoing between congressional Democrats and top Trump administration officials, and many people involved think they will manage to produce some kind of agreement in the next couple weeks.

But Republicans are divided between those like Collins who support aggressive new action and a significant minority of GOP lawmakers who think Congress has done its job and should not spend any more money at all to pile on the deficit.

President Trump’s weakening standing in the polls means there is less imperative for reluctant fiscal conservatives to rally around legislation that might help his political fortunes. The president himself has also reduced the sense of urgency for some in his party by embracing unlikely hopes that the economy can heal itself by reopening, or that the virus will disappear on its own.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) waited months over the late spring and summer to act, saying he wanted to see what impact the programs already approved were having before agreeing to anything more. During that time the virus itself frustrated widespread hopes that the situation might improve and began to surge in states that had reopened too aggressively.

McConnell finally released a $1 trillion bill last Monday as the GOP’s answer to the much larger bill passed by House Democrats in May, but he struggled to get consensus within his party and with the Trump administration, including complaints from members of his own conference about everything from the price tag to a new round of stimulus checks.

Facing a deadline Friday for $600 weekly emergency unemployment benefits to expire for nearly 30 million Americans, Republicans quickly started to pivot to talking about a short-term unemployment insurance fix, rendering their own bill all but irrelevant in a matter of days-- with Trump himself dismissing it as “sort of semi-irrelevant” the day after it was released.

Democrats have consistently rejected the notion of a short-term fix, and in face of the GOP’s disunity they have shown little willingness to compromise on their push for the most generous relief bill possible, with an array of provisions that Republicans reject, such as $1 trillion in new aid for cities and states. Republicans say they do not think Democrats want to pass anything at all because they’d rather have a political issue; Democrats angrily reject that accusation.

After 3-1/2 years of rancor under the Trump administration, there is little trust left between the two parties, and no direct communication at all between Trump and Pelosi.

The result is stasis.

“In order to cut deals and find compromise in this hyperpartisan political environment you have to have at least a small amount of trust in each other,” said Jim Manley, who was a top aide to former Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid of Nevada. “The problem right now is that no one trusts their colleagues on the other side of the aisle.”

Congress rarely acts except when up against a deadline, and stopgap spending bills and partial government shutdowns have become almost routine in recent years, as Congress repeatedly offers fresh proof of its own dysfunction. As economically harmful as a government shutdown is, however, it is nothing compared with the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 150,000 Americans while simultaneously clobbering the economy. Gross domestic product dropped 9.5 percent in the second quarter of the year, the Commerce Department said Thursday-- a decline that would have been even worse without the economic aid provided by Congress.

Multiple lawmakers of both parties have said the only really comparable situation is a war. Yet with the two sides so far apart on multiple issues, the prospect of failing to get any deal at all is a real possibility.

“I don’t even want to fathom that, it’s unimaginable that we wouldn’t, given the needs that the country has,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). “It would just be so bad if we didn’t that ultimately you would hope that... the fever would break.”

...McConnell coordinates closely with Mnuchin and Meadows, but his posture of remove puts the onus on the Trump administration to sell any deal made with Democrats to GOP members of Congress. Republicans have been unhappy with some of the deals Mnuchin struck with Democrats early on, including the unemployment insurance payments that have now expired. Most Republicans want to extend them, but at a greatly reduced level, while Democrats want to continue the $600 weekly payments at their present level.

The two parties spent much of the past week blaming each other for allowing the payments to expire.

In the first sign of progress after days of stalemate, a meeting at the Capitol Saturday between Pelosi, Schumer, Meadows and Mnuchin yielded guardedly positive comments from all involved-- although a deal did not appear imminent.

Despite the current chaos and uncertainty, Congress may ultimately find its way through to making another deal to help revive the economy and help Americans. But even as the virus rages and the economy teeters, the rancor shows every sign of getting worse before it gets better.

“Our politics is such that there must be significant political pain before hard things can get done,” said Brendan Buck, who was a top adviser to former Republican House speaker Paul D. Ryan. “That’s our forcing mechanism, and the political pain will be starting very soon.”

Adam Christensen is running for Congress in north-central Florida, for the seat teabagger Ted Yoho is abandoning. He told me this morning that "The Florida GOP knew exactly what they were doing when they ok’d one of the largest corporate giveaways in history right before a pandemic. They knew what they were doing when they built one of the worst unemployment websites in the country after 2008. They knew what they were doing when they made sure that Florida had one of the lowest unemployment benefit payouts in the country. They knew what they were doing when they muddied the waters with the shut downs, masks, and basic public safety. And my representative, Ted Yoho, knew what he was doing when he voted for the biggest companies in the world 100% of the time he was in Congress. The response to this pandemic and conditions that made it worse were not an accident. The response was purposeful. They had planned and implemented these policies for years. Now all of us are facing the consequences for their actions."

Let's Put The Pandemic's Preference For America Into Some Context

Worldwide, reported COVID-19 cases were 5,391,485 yesterday, of which 1,666,012 were in the U.S. The 5 countries with the next highest caseloads have, combined, far more people than the U.S. does, but, also combined, far fewer cases:

• Brazil- 342,410
• Russia- 335,882
• Spain- 282,370
• U.K.- 257,154
• Italy- 229,327

The U.S. has something even worse-- Trump. "It’s perfectly clear by now," wrote Andrew Sullivan on Friday, "that the United States does not have a functioning president or administration. It also seems clear that this does not matter to a sizable chunk of the population. They just don’t care-- even when it could lead them to lose their lives and their livelihoods. A year ago precisely, Trump’s approval rating was, in FiveThirtyEight’s poll of polls, 53.8% disapprove, 41.1% approve. This week, the spread was 53.1% disapprove and 43% approve. Almost identical. None of the events of the last year-- impeachment, plague, economic collapse-- have had anything but a trivial impact on public opinion. Neither, it seems, does the plain evidence of Trump’s derangement... I know we’re used to it, but there is no rational or coherent explanation for any of this. There is no strategy, or political genius. There is just a delusional pathology in which he says whatever comes into his head at any moment, determined entirely by his mood, which is usually bad. His attention span is so tiny and his memory so occluded that he can say two contradictory things with equal conviction repeatedly, and have no idea there might be any inconsistency at all."

A new YouGov poll for Yahoo News found that fully 44% of self-identified Republicans actually believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements. Just 26% of Republicans correctly identify the story as false. Obviously, normal people do not believe this far right trope.

Another example churches are often a breeding ground for the contagion. Putting their services online, saved South Korea as the disease spread from church-goer to church-goer early on in the pandemic. Last week, churches opening early in the U.S. had to close down again when their parishioners started getting sick. Trump's response?

Reporting for Politico, Gabby Orr wrote Friday afternoon that "A sudden shift in support for Donald Trump among religious conservatives is triggering alarm bells inside his reelection campaign, where top aides have long banked on expanding the president’s evangelical base as a key part of their strategy for victory this November. The anxiety over Trump’s standing with the Christian right surfaced after a pair of surveys by reputable outfits earlier this month found waning confidence in the administration’s coronavirus response among key religious groups, with a staggering decline in the president’s favorability among white evangelicals and white Catholics. Both are crucial constituencies that supported Trump by wide margins in 2016 and could sink his reelection prospects if their turnout shrinks this fall." A PRRI survey last month showed Trump's favorability collapsing among both white evangeicals-- down 11 points-- and among white Catholics-- down 12 points. He had already been cratering among mainline Protestants but declined a further 18 points in one month!! Well, at least, he'll always have the Hassidic Jews of Brooklyn!

Republicans would have be out of their minds not to understand that these kinds of numbers at the heart of the GOP base is going to threaten dozens of career politicians' careers as well. This week Change Research looked at 8 key Senate races where Republican incumbents are struggling to hang on and found that voters in all 8 states "want aid allocated to state and local governments for essential services, jobs, and schools, benefits and protections for essential workers, and public health initiatives including testing and treatment." That's Pelosi's HEROES Act which McConnell and his cronies have bottled up in the Senate. These are the 8 incumbents with the percentage of voters who support the HEROES Act:

• Martha McSally (R-AZ)- 59% support, just 37% agree with McSally and McConnell.
• Cory Gardner (R-CO)- 62% support, just 34% agree with Gardner and McConnell.
• David Perdue (R-GA)- 55% support, just 38% agree with Perdue (and Kelly Loeffler) and McConnell.
• Joni Ernst (R-IA)- 53% support, just 43% agree with Ernst and McConnell.
• Susan Collins (R-ME)- 59% support, just 36% agree with Collins and McConnell.
• Steve Daines (R-MT)- 54% support, just 40% agree with McSally and McConnell.
• Thom Tillis (R-NC)- 65% support, just 30% agree with Tillis and McConnell.
• Lindsey Graham (R-SC)- 54% support, just 40% agree with Graham and McConnell.

Change Research also reported that voters in battleground states say that they are more likely to vote for an elected official who supports the HEROES Act-- 68% so in North Carolina, 65% so in Colorado, 63% in Maine, 61% in both South Carolina and Arizona, 59% in Georgia and 57% so in both Montana and Iowa. This is incredibly bad news for these Republican incumbents who are attached at the hip to both Trump and McConnell.

The 21st Century's Second Worst American Villain?

Starting with Don Jr, the Trumpists lost their collective shit when Greta Thunberg was named 2019 person of the year. Trump really, really, really wanted a legitimate Time Magazine cover to put in his golf club houses celebrating his illegitimate presidency. But would he have approved of someone not him but more like him than Greta? Probably not. But what about MoscowMitch?

Walter Shapiro made a good case for why it is the elderly Kentucky closet queen and #1 Trump enabler who should have been named person of the year-- like in a bad person of the year... like the way Hitler was in 1938 or Stalin was in both 1939 and 1942, or Nixon in both 1970 and 1971. Oh, wait... I got that wrong. Shapiro wants to name MoscowMitch the Person of the Decade, not the person of the year.

If there was a moment that defined the decade, it was a Capitol Hill meeting in early September 2016 when top Obama administration officials (including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and FBI director James Comey) briefed congressional leaders on the Russian hacking of the election.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in particular, challenged the intelligence findings and refused to sign a joint letter singling out Vladimir Putin. Instead, in late September, the four party leaders in Congress sent a mealy-mouthed letter to the states warning against unnamed “malefactors” who were “seeking to use cyberattacks” to disrupt the elections.

Confronted with an unprecedented foreign attack on our elections (from Wikileaks data dumps to spreading inflammatory misinformation on social media), the Obama administration chose caution over forceful action. As the Washington Post summarized in a 2017 article, “Obama’s approach often seemed reducible to a single imperative: Don’t make things worse.”

In many ways, McConnell is the Person of the Decade when it comes to the destruction of democratic norms. From cynically depriving Merrick Garland of a confirmation vote for a seat on the Supreme Court to turning the Senate into a no-dissent rubber stamp for a Republican president, McConnell symbolizes the vicious partisanship of a dismal decade... Trump’s reign of error has only been made possible by the cowardice of the Republican Party.

Other than lowering taxes for the super-wealthy and gutting government regulation, every principle that once defined the GOP has been repudiated by Trump and his congressional enablers. A belief in the Constitution, separation of powers, balanced budgets, skepticism about Moscow, hatred of North Korea, free trade and the value of decorum and civility: All were thrown overboard to satisfy Trump’s ego needs and unbridled id.

Is McConnell's toxicity enough to help bring down Republican senators like Susan Collins (ME), Cory Gardner (CO), Martha McSally (AZ), Thom Tillis (NC), Joni Ernst (IA), Dan Sullivan (AK), David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler (GA) and Steve Daines (MT)-- while winning the Democrats an open Seante seat in Kansas? Seems impossible-- but it was more impossible a couple of months ago. What about fellow closet queen Lindsey Graham? Impossible?

Can The Democrats Win Back The Senate Next Year?

Dan McCarthy, a right-wing Arizona Republican skincare company executive who is challenging Martha McSally for her Senate seat next year, told a Phoenix radio audience this week that "the Washington DC establishment, Mitch McConnell... the swamp creatures of Washington, DC-- they've given us two choices, McSally or Kelly. I'm a conservative outsider. I've been looking at this for a little while and I said, 'I'm not so sure if that's acceptable to me; I'd don't know if the status quo's OK... What I'm hearing is-- from a lot of people-- very smart people, by the way-- that losing another Senate seat is unacceptable... I think the voters deserve an actual choice, not an appointment. People like the idea of a conservative outsider... I don't think Arizona will allow DC money to buy votes."

McConnell and the DSCC are counting on holding the Arizona seat, one of the two top Democratic Party targets for the 2020 Senate elections. If Bernie and/or Elizabeth Warren wins in 2020 a hostile McConnell-lead Senate will be pretty deadly for all their plans. 2018's anti-Red wave didn't extend into the Senate races last year and the Democrats ate shit, losing seats where very right-wing Democrats had been banking on the accumulation of Republican-lite voting records to save them. It didn't work. There are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats (including 2 independents) in the Senate today. 4 of the worst Senate Democrats-- Claire McCaskill (MO), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Bill Nelson (FL) and Joe Donnelly (IN), perfect DSCC lesser-of-two evils candidates-- lost seats that the Democrats couldn't afford to lose, even while 3 of them outspent their Republican opponents. The only Republican incumbent the Democrats managed to oust was Dean Heller (NV), who Trump had been spatting with and who was not embraced by Trumpist voters. The Democrats managed to slip another worthless conservative, Jackie Rosen, into the seat-- a complete waste. (She already sports a solid "F" from ProgressivePunch and currently is ranked as the 4th worst Democrat in the House.

Even worse than Rosen, was the other winner (of Jeff Flake's open seat) from 2018. Kyrsten Sinema was previously the worst Democrat in the House. She has already surpassed Joe Manchin (54.01) and Doug Jones (46.88) as the Senate's worst Democrat (43.40). Congratulations to Little Chucky Schmucky, who hand-picked her. For 2020 Senator Schmucky, has picked an "ex"-Republican, Mark Kelly, for the Arizona special election to fill McCain's seat (temporarily filled by appointee Martha McSally).

If Elizabeth Warren or another Democrat is vice president, the Democrats will have to win a net of 3 seats to wrest the leadership away from McConnell. That means they have to reelect Doug Jones in Alabama (R+14) and win 3 of these seats or 4 if they lose in Alabama:

• Alaska (R+9)- Dan Sullivan
• Arizona (R+5)- Martha McSally
• Colorado (D+1)- Cory Gardner
• Georgia (R+5)- David Perdue
• Iowa (R+3)- Joni Ernst
• Kansas (R+13)- (Open)
• Kentucky (R+15)- McConnell
• Maine (D+3)- Susan Collins
• North Carolina (R+3)- Thom Tillis
• Tennessee (R+14)- (open)
• Texas (R+8)- John Cornyn

Even with Sen Schmucky making all the (wrong) calls, do the Democrats have a shot at winning next year? They do-- a chance. I want to piece together 3 posts from Thursday in The Hill about this. The first was by Jordain Carney: GOP frets over nightmare scenario for Senate primaries. It actually knits the other two-- Kansas Republican suggests Kobach candidacy threatens Senate GOP majority and Alabama senator says Trump opposed to Sessions Senate bid-- together. "In Alabama and Kansas, two deep-red states that should be safe GOP seats," wrote Carney, "the party is facing bids from conservatives Roy Moore and Kris Kobach, respectively, who are viewed as unelectable in a general election and have a history of stealing the national spotlight. Republicans say they feel good about their chances to hold onto the chamber in 2020-- when they will be playing defense in mostly red territory-- but bloody fights in those two states could help widen Democrats’ path back to the majority."

A GOP operative watching the Senate races who is “cautiously optimistic” about Republicans keeping the majority, warned that Republicans can’t “afford to play games” by potentially nominating a candidate with baggage that compromises their ability to win in November.

“We don’t need to be having any problems, it’s not a state we can stumble in. The map for the majority is OK, but if you have to start diverting resources to Kansas it complicates things,” the operative said, adding that Alabama is also viewed as a “must-win state.”

National groups have wasted little time staking out opposition to Moore and Kobach. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), which is aligned with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), blasted both of their campaign announcements. Neither group has ruled out intervening in the primaries if either emerges as a viable contender for the party’s nomination.

A second Republican strategist added that the message against the candidates is that the two states should be easy Republican wins that will help the party keep control of the chamber-- and “people like Kris Kobach and Roy Moore threaten that.”

“They both have a record of losses that doesn’t sit well with Republican voters,” the strategist added, characterizing the two candidates as an “unnecessary headache” and a “distraction” in the larger battle for the Senate.

It’s not the first time conservative challengers have created early frustrations for Republicans.

During the 2012 cycle, then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) was viewed as likely to lose her race until GOP nominee Todd Akin, who defeated more-mainstream picks during the primary, said that “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

In the same election cycle, conservative challenger Richard Mourdock defeated longtime Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) during the primary, only to lose against Democratic nominee Joe Donnelly.

But the party has become more adept at beating back primary candidates they either view as anthema to general election voters or likely to spark a fierce intraparty fight.

National Republicans spent heavily in 2018 to successfully defeat former coal CEO Don Blankenship during the West Virginia Republican Senate primary. And, causing a sigh of relief for party leadership, Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) passed on challenging Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) for the party’s nomination next year.

This cycle they are defending almost two dozen seats, compared to 12 that Democrats are trying to hold onto. But most of the GOP seats are in deeply red states, meaning the battleground for the Senate will likely be limited to a handful of seats like Maine, Colorado and Arizona.

The dynamic has left Republicans feeling optimistic about their ability to hold onto the Senate, where Democrats would need to win at least three seats and the White House in order to have a vice president break ties in their favor in an evenly-divided chamber, and four seats to win an outright majority.

“The map’s going to be fairly large, our members are going to have to work hard to win reelection and we think that they’re well positioned to do that,” said Sen. John Thune (SD), the No. 2 Senate Republican.

Republicans also argue that Democrats have struggled to snag big-name recruits in several Senate races, including Georgia and Montana, that would allow them to expand the map of top-tier races beyond the handful of early toss-up states.

How much of a threat Moore and Kobach will be during the 2020 cycle, and if they can help expand Democrats’ path to retaking the Senate, remains to be seen.

Lacking Moore’s personal baggage, Kobach could be the bigger headache for Republicans. The former Kansas secretary of state lost last year’s gubernatorial election by 5 percentage points. Before that he was considered for a Cabinet post, headed up Trump’s panel investigating alleged voter fraud and was briefly considered for an administration job overseeing immigration policy.

“It seems to me that if you have just lost a statewide race that the chances of you winning, running again for another statewide race would be very difficult,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who Kobach is trying to succeed. “Kris Kobach, once he makes up his mind, makes up his mind.”

McConnell sidestepped weighing in on the Kansas Senate race except to plug his preference that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo get in the race.

“I’m not sure the president agrees with this, that I’d love to see the secretary of State run for the Senate in Kansas. But the filing deadline is not until next June,” McConnell said.

Moore won the party’s primary in 2017, including defeating Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL), only to narrowly lose to now-Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) by less than 2 points after facing several allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s. Moore, 72, denied the allegations, but Republicans are hopeful the damage will keep him in a distant third place during the 2020 race.

McConnell, asked about Moore during a weekly press conference, predicted that Alabamians have “seen quite enough of Roy Moore.”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) told The Hill that he had discussed the seat and various candidates with Trump.

“He’s damaged,” Shelby said, about Moore. “He wouldn’t be good for Alabama.” 

Trump, almost never a team player, could hurt the Republicans in Alabama because their surest path to victory would be to nominate Jeff Sessions. Trump is against it. On top of that, he is very much a Kobach fan since, like him, Kobach is an extreme xenophobe and racist. And then there's the albatross problem. Trump is polling badly in Iowa (-12), Maine (-11), Colorado (-12), Arizona (-7), North Carolina (-3) and not as well as he should be in Texas (+4), Kansas (+4), Georgia (0) and Alaska (+4).


UPDATE: The Dems Want To Win? You Sure?

Iowa looks like a very prime target to me, but the DSCC seems to have given up before they started Although Tom Harkin (former Senator), Tom Vilsack (former Governor and Cabinet Member), Chet Culver (former Governor and son of a Senator), Bruce Braley (former Congressman and Senate candidate) and Dave Loebsack (7-term Congressman) all are alive enough to run for the Joni Ernst seat next year. But the DSCC has already endorsed Theresa Greenfield, who was disqualified in her House campaign last year for forging signature petitions, and has no relevant experience or accomplishments whatsoever. This is likely to be a wipeout that will far surpass the Patty Judge wipeout-- and in a state where Trump is completely underwater and where Ernst is a 100% enabler.

West Virginia's Senate Race: A Big Ugly Mess... Centered Around "Cocaine Mitch" McConnell

In his latest ad, West Virginia Republican Don Blankenship strike back at Mitch McConnell by refersring to himl as "cocaine Mitch"-- as in "Ditch Cocaine Mitch." Catchy. The primary is next Tuesday and McConnell is spending millions to make sure Blankenship loses. And it's working. Blankenship's polling has gone down from 1st to 3rd since McConnell's ad campaign went into full swing. Blankenship was formerly referring to McConnell as "a swamp captain," so this is a decision to get more aggressive with the very disliked head of the DC establishment Republicans.

McConnell controls a shady SuperPAC-- the Mountain Families PAC-- which is spending money in the primary to destroy Blankenship with TV ads reminding voters that he is a "convicted criminal," who lived a lavish lifestyle while ignoring mine safety laws. "Don Blankenship," one ad concludes, "was about the money. "West Virginia families paid the price." A million dollars in vicious ads like this have tanked Blankenship's campaign and made it a lot easier for popular conservative Democrat Joe Manchin to keep his seat.

The name-calling is intense. One of McConnell's former staffers, Josh Holmes, long rumored to be a McConnell lover, accused Blankenship of being "mentally ill" and Blankenship himself asserting that McConnell is in thrall to China, due to his Chinese father-in-law's shipping company, Foremost Maritime Corporation, which has financed McConnell's career and personal wealth. In fact, it was on one of the family ships, the Ping May, that the 90 pounds of cocaine was found-- being smuggled from Colombia to Holland. Recent polling has shown that McConnell is the most hated and toxic politician in America.

A decade before McConnell, a notorious closet queen, "married" Elaine Chao (a beard), her criminal father, James Chao, started donating to/bribing McConnell. In 2014, Lee Fang, in a report for for The Nation explains how McConnell benefitted from his relationship with his father-in-law (the cocaine smuggler).

The Republican Senate minority leader’s personal wealth grew seven-fold over the last ten years thanks in large part to a gift given to him and his wife in 2008 from James Chao worth between $5 million and $25 million (Senate ethics forms require personal finance disclosures in ranges of amounts, rather than specific figures). The gift helped the McConnells after their stock portfolio dipped in the wake of the financial crisis that year, and ensured they could pay off more than $100,000 in mortgage debt on their Washington home.

The generous gift made McConnell one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, with a net worth averaging around $22.8 million, according to The Washington Post’s review of his financial disclosures.

Following the gift, McConnell sent a letter of congratulations to an auditorium of Chinese officials in Shanghai who were gathered for an event honoring James Chao’s wife (McConnell’s mother-in-law, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao, who passed away in 2007). The Shanghai Mulan Education Foundation, created in her honor, regularly hosts students from the University of Louisville, where McConnell has a leadership academy bearing his name that sends students on trips to China.

The ties between McConnell and his in-laws have come under scrutiny before. In 2001, they were probed in depth by the New Republic in an article that charged that McConnell led an effort to soften his party’s criticism of China. Through James Chao, who was a classmate of Jiang Zemin, the president of China in the ’90s, McConnell and his wife met with Jiang several times, both in Beijing and in Washington. McConnell subsequently tempered his criticism of Chinese human rights abuses, and broke with hawks like Senator Jesse Helms to support Most Favored Nation trading status with China. As Foremost established closer ties with mainland China, McConnell endorsed the position that the United States should remain “ambiguous” about coming to the defense of Taiwan. In 1999, McConnell and his wife appeared at the University of Louisville with Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing. Li used the opportunity to bash congressional leaders for rebuking China over its repression of the Falun Gong religious sect. “Any responsible government will not foster evil propensities of cults by being over-lenient,” Li reportedly said at the event with McConnell and Chao. Rather than distance himself from the remarks, McConnell reportedly spoke about his “good working relationship” with Li.

...McConnell has positioned himself over the years as a tough on drugs politician. In 1996, McConnell was the sole sponsor of the Enhanced Marijuana Penalties Act, a bill to increase the mandatory minimum sentencing for those caught with certain amounts of marijuana. A press release noted that his bill would make “penalties for selling marijuana comparable to those for selling heroin and cocaine.”

In recent weeks, McConnell has touted his role in calling for more federal money to be used for drug enforcement.

Blankenship, whose own fiancée is from China, has been on the campaign trail telling West Virginia Republican voters that McConnell "has a lot of connections in China" and that his wife, now Trump's Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, is "from China, so we have to be really concerned that we are in truth" when it comes to putting America’s interests first. Meanwhile, McConnell's former lover, Holmes, noted that Blankenship had used a "racial blast" against the Taiwan-born Chao, whom he described as "the dictionary definition of the American dream... The one consistency we've seen over the last decade is that the death rattle of a primary candidate is always a tendency to attack other Republicans because they know reporters will report it. At this point what's clear is that voters are writing him off and so he knows that by attacking McConnell he'll get attention."

McConnell knows Manchin will easily defeat Blankenship, which is why he's doing all he can to make sure he loses next week's primary. As of the April 18th FEC reporting deadline Blankenship had raised $3,517,000, as much as the 2 generic GOP establishment candidates, Patrick Morrisey and Evan Jenkins combined. 99.94% of what Blankenship has "raised" ($3,515,000) came from his own bank account. McConnell's Mountain Familes PAC has spent $1,328,456 attacking Blankenship and McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund has kicked in another hundred grand. Meanwhile Schumer got into the act by spending $1,833,351 to help Blankenship, persuaded that he will be the easiest Republican for Manchin to beat. Sounds like a vile mess? Of one thing there is no doubt: the winner of the West Virginia Senate race in November will be a conservative who puts special interests ahead of working families' interests. The game may be expensive-- but it is definitely rigged.

Who's More Damaging To GOP Candidates-- Trump, Ryan, McConnell Or Moore?

The other day, in talking about the immense value to Randy Bryce the Bernie Sanders endorsement was. I mentioned in passing how toxic most political endorsements are. No Democrats want endorsements from party leaders like Pelosi, Hoyer, Crowley or Wasserman Schultz. And in Republicanville, who would want an endorsement from, for example, Paul Ryan? He's like an anchor around the necks of Republican incumbents and candidates. I used as an example rubber stamp Ryan worshipper in Houston, John Culberson. Ryan's disapproval rating among voters in TX-07 are so high, they are helping to tank Culberson. And that's pretty typical nationally. And Mitch McConnell's favorables are even worse. As Kevin Robillard reported for Politico Saturday, Republicans are doing whatever it takes to distance themselves from the Senate Majority Leader.

Normal people detest him for what's he's doing and Trump supporters detest him for not doing more of it faster. "Nobody," wrote Robillard, "wants to be on Team McConnell. Heading into the 2018 elections, only one Republican Senate candidate nationwide has pledged unequivocally to back Mitch McConnell as majority leader. Most Republicans facing competitive primaries are hemming and hawing, admiring McConnell’s political savvy and fundraising apparatus-- but also looking warily at his sinking approval ratings both with Republicans and the broader electorate. Even in some of the red and purple states represented by Democratic senators where McConnell is hoping to pad his majority-- places like Missouri, Michigan and Wisconsin-- the leading candidates are dodging questions about McConnell's leadership or threatening to oppose him if the GOP Congress doesn't deliver on the party's legislative priorities in the coming months." Much like Pelosi does, McConnell has given GOP candidates permission to crap on him if it helps them win. Corey Stewart (VA), Sandy Pensler (MI), Roy Moore (AL), Danny Tarkanian (NV), Kelli Ward (AZ), Kevin Nicholson (WI) and Leah Vukmir (WI)-- all long shots who are unlikely to ever get a chance vote for or against McConnell-- have all been publicly attacking him.

McConnell’s political allies insist they’ve seen all this before, and they are ready to fight it. Past insurgent Republican campaigns have run television ads bashing McConnell, only to lose in GOP primaries anyway. Candidates distancing themselves from party leaders in Washington, they argue, is now standard practice and smart politics.

Bannon and his allies instead see evidence of McConnell’s ineffectiveness and unpopularity.

“Why are Republicans candidates tweeting out selfies with Steve Bannon, while at the same time doing everything they can to publicly distance themselves from McConnell?” Andy Surabian, a top aide to Bannon, asked rhetorically. “Because they know that McConnell is an albatross, not only in GOP primaries, but more importantly in general elections.”

The electorate hates Congress but McConnell is considerably more unpopular than Schumer, Ryan or Pelosi. Roy Moore is banking on him being unpopular enough to base much of his campaign on attacking McConnell. If he wins (again) it will be a bad omen for McConnell's ability to remain as GOP Senate leader. Moore is actually popular with Republicans-- and not just in Alabama. He has come to personify their sense of grievance and their feelings of martyrdom. The general election voters-- which include Democrats and, more importantly, independents, absolutely hates Moore and sees him for exactly what he is. And Republican candidates are being asked to take a stand on him in races everywhere. In primary races they can't be too harsh but if they're not, general election voters will associate them with a sociopathic child molester.

As Alex Seitz-Wald reported for NBC News, "Democrats are hard at work pressing the issue, dusting off the 2012 playbook they used to make former GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin toxic to candidates across the country."

"There has to be clarity by all candidates about the issue of sexual harassment and specifically about the candidacy of Roy Moore," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, told NBC News.

After scoring an unexpected suburbs-fueled landslide in Virginia's election this month, Democratic officials and party strategists think Moore will be especially radioactive with suburban women.

The Democratic opposition research group American Bridge launched digital ads Wednesday attacking GOP Senate candidates about Moore in Arizona and Ohio, and was already running one in Nevada.



"Not only is the Roy Moore scandal hurting Republicans of all stripes, especially those who have been silent on Moore, but it's also exacerbating the GOP civil war between the establishment and the Bannon wing of the party," said American Bridge spokesperson Allison Teixeira Sulier.

"The GOP owns Moore, his scandals and his backwards beliefs," Sulier added. "And in the same way that Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock dragged their party down, Moore will, too."

A few months after Akin made headlines for talking about "legitimate rape" in Missouri, Indiana Senate candidate Mourdock handed more ammunition to Democrats when he defended his strict pro-life stance by saying pregnancy resulting in rape is "something that God intended to happen."

Democrats used Aiken and Mourdock in races in other states to portray other Republican candidates as extreme.

In Michigan, where Democrats are defending Sen. Debbie Stabenow's seat, Democratic Party Chair Brandon Dillon slammed both of the GOP candidates in the race for failing to "show the bare minimum of decency and leadership" by speaking out strongly against Moore.

Concern about collateral damage helps explain why one of the most forceful voices against Moore among Senate Republicans has been the chairman of their campaign arm, Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who vowed the Senate should expel Moore if he wins.

...Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who has represented the state for 30 years, said on Wednesday that he's preparing to vote for a write-in candidate over Moore in the Dec. 12 election.

Asked by NBC News if Moore is damaging the GOP brand nationally, Shelby didn’t hesitate: "Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's on everybody's mind.

Is McConnell A Dead Turtle Politically?

Bannon has declared Mitch McConnell the enemy-- and there are plenty of Republican voters who agree. Did you see that stunning new poll from Harvard and Harris this week? When asked if they approve or disapprove of the way the Republican Party is handling its job, only 29% of respondents said approve. 71% said disapprove. And among Republican voters there were still 47% who disapproved and, disastrous for the GOP, 77% among independent voters.

The poll also asked respondents if they approved or disapproved of around a dozen political figures. The unfavorables are first and the second number is the favorables... among Republican voters:

Trump- 19%/78%
McConnell- 43%/24%
Ryan- 28%/52%

Note how much trouble McConnell is in among Republicans. Now among independent voters-- again, first number is unfavorable and second is favorable:

Trump- 59%/38%
McConnell- 59%/13%
Ryan- 54%/27%

Again... no love for the Turtle. He's lucky he's not up for reelection until 2020. Can you imagine Bannon recruiting some fascist to run against him in 2018. It'll be hilarious watching McConnell and Trump both campaigning for Republican votes in 2020-- if either or both of them are even running in 2020!

That same HarvardHarris survey indicates that 56% of Republican voters want McConnell to resign as Senate majority leader. To win Bannon's endorsement-- and the Mercers' money-- candidates have to pledge to vote against McConnell as GOP leader. And in the survey 61% of Republican voters say they support Bannon’s "movement to oust Republicans who fail to support tax cuts, tough immigration policies, and the repeal of Obamacare."

Yesterday, after Flake's brutal analysis of the insanity of the Trump Regime, McConnell took the floor of the Senate to praise him, something that will surely drive Trump and Bannon and the ascendant fascist part of the GOP base, insane(r). "On behalf of myself and I think many of my colleagues, we've just witnessed a speech from a very fine man, a man who clearly brings high principles to the office every day and does what he believes is in the interest of Arizona and the country," said McConnell.

This looks unfriendly

Will Republican Cannibalism Do What The DCCC And DSCC Are Incapable Of?

A YouGov poll for The Economist last week showed congressional approval at 8% and disapproval at 71%. Yeah, Congress is not popular. An overwhelming majority of Americans see Congress as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. They're right. And congressional leadership is especially loathed by most voters-- all the top leaders' favorability has been underwater in every poll this year. A Morning Consult poll for Politico last month had Ryan's favorability at 32% and hs unfavorability as 45%-- almost as bad as Pelosi's, whose favorability was at 29% and unfavorability at 47%. McConnell was at 22% favorable and 43% unfavorable and Schumer was 26% favorable and 30% unfavorable. Worse yet-- for them and their parties-- voters are starting to say they will take out their dislike for the leaders on their own candidates for Congress. Look at this:

Asking voters the same question for Pelosi and Schumer yield about the same ugly results. On the other hand, registered Democratic voters still back their party’s legislative leaders. 45% said they’d be more likely to vote for a member who supported Pelosi, with 21% saying they’d be less likely. Among registered Republicans, 40% said they would be more likely to support a member of Congress who approves of Ryan Speaker, while 28% said they’d be less likely. Pelosi is facing more and more resistance to her leadership within congressional Democratic ranks. Texas Blue Dog Filemon Vela said that he thinks, "you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top. Nancy Pelosi is not the only reason that Ossoff lost. But she certainly is one of the reasons." Since then California Democrat, Linda Sanchez, a member of Pelosi's own leadership team, told her-- quite publicly-- it's time to say goodbye and make room for the next generation of leaders.

Over the weekend, The Hill reported that when Republican candidates for Congress are asked if they'll vote for McConnell they try to avoid answering. (The same dynamic is at play for Ryan and for the Democratic leaders.) Bannon has succeeded into turning McConnell into "a flashpoint" among Republicans.

The Hill asked nearly two-dozen Senate candidates this week if they would support McConnell as leader if elected. Not one campaign said outright that they would support McConnell, although two candidates appear to have expressed support for McConnell in the past.

Several candidates declared their opposition to McConnell and attacked their GOP primary opponents for not taking a stance on the question. Other candidates deflected, or spoke on background about the bind they’re in over the question of McConnell’s leadership. Most candidates were eager to avoid the question entirely, and ignored multiple requests for comment.

The candidate survey underscores the tricky balancing act facing Republican Senate candidates in 2018, which is shaping up to be a proxy war between the party establishment and its grassroots base.

On one side is McConnell and his deep ties to the national party’s donor network, a prized asset for any candidate facing a tough primary. On the other side is Breitbart chairman and former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, the anti-establishment provocateur with the influential news outlet who is asking candidates to oppose the majority leader.

... In primary races in Ohio and Missouri, candidates with crossover appeal between the grassroots and the establishment have both declined to endorse McConnell but are under fire from their Republican opponents nonetheless.

GOP Senate hopeful Mike Gibbons is calling on state Treasurer Josh Mandel, the favorite in the race, to sign his petition demanding that McConnell retire.

Mandel, who received millions of dollars in outside support from the McConnell-aligned group American Crossroads GPS for his failed 2012 bid, ducked the question at a press conference this week and told reporters he’d address it when elected.

“Just like we would expect from the career politician that he is, Josh is refusing to take a position,” Gibbons said in a statement to The Hill.

Mandel’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

In Missouri, Austin Petersen, who is running against state Attorney General Josh Hawley, the favorite, is similarly on the attack. Hawley has dodged the question of whether he would support McConnell, even as Rove publicly boasts about how he and McConnell recruited Hawley to get into the race.

“Hawley refuses to say whether he’ll support him,” Petersen told The Hill. “That’s playing politics. I said two months ago I wouldn’t support McConnell and I had everything to lose when I did that.”

Hawley’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In Arizona and Nevada, insurgent candidates Kelli Ward and Danny Tarkanian are demanding Republicans move on from McConnell as they seek to upset incumbent Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Dean Heller (R-NV), respectively.

So too is Alabama’s Roy Moore, who won his September primary runoff against incumbent Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) even after the Senate Leadership Fund-- another McConnell-aligned group-- poured millions of dollars into the race to oppose Moore.

Wisconsin’s Kevin Nicholson and Pennsylvania’s Jeff Bartos both told The Hill it might be time for new leadership in the Senate. A spokesperson for Nicholson said, “he’s prepared to support new leadership because of the Senate’s failure to pass a conservative agenda,” while Bartos said he’d tie his vote to whether McConnell could “deliver for the people who support the president’s agenda.”

  McConnell’s allies say there is no need for prospective senators to weigh in on hypothetical leadership votes and believe there is more support for the majority leader than is being publicized by the candidates.

They don’t think primary voters care about who the candidates might support for majority leader and are frustrated by what they view as Bannon needlessly sowing division within Republican ranks. Bannon has vowed to put up primary challengers to every incumbent running for reelection with the exception of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, GOP strategist Karl Rove, who oversees the powerful Senate Leadership Fund that seeks to reelect incumbents, attacked Bannon as a “failed presidential adviser and alt-right sympathizer.”

Rove accused Bannon of launching a “jihad against incumbent Republicans” and singled out Ward and Tarkanian as surefire general election losers and part of Bannon’s “collection of misfits and ne’er-do-wells.”

Bannon’s critics say he is getting too much credit for swooping in late in Alabama, where they say Moore was already headed for certain victory over Strange, the McConnell-backed candidate.

They view Bannon’s efforts as a money-making scheme to raise his profile and note that the incumbents he plans to primary have voted with Trump more than 90 percent of the time.

“If you’re a candidate wrapping yourself around an axle of who you’ll support in a leadership election that presumes you’ve already won a Senate seat, you’re doing it wrong,” said Josh Holmes, McConnell’s former chief of staff.

“Voters don’t have an ounce of interest in who wins a prospective leadership race, they care about jobs. This is nothing more than a vanity project for Steve Bannon and, like all vanity projects, it will go about as far as you can throw a thousand-pound stone. Bannon doesn’t have a movement behind him. The president does and without President Trump, Bannon is a nobody.”

Still, there is roiling anger at McConnell in some conservative quarters and those looking to harness that anti-establishment energy insist that running against the majority leader will be a winning issue for GOP primary candidates.

“Of course primary voters care about leadership elections,” said Adam Brandon, the president of FreedomWorks, which opposes McConnell. “They’ve seen failed leadership in the Senate for years and want to see the member they vote for be able to enact the agenda they ran on.”

The attacks between the two wings of the party are heating up and becoming increasingly personal.

“In 2018 we ought to revisit this question and find out if these people are still happy to be associated with Bannon,” said Holmes. “When you’re facing voters, I’d take one of the most successful majority leaders in history over a white supremacist any day.”

Andy Surabian, an adviser to Bannon, fired back.

“No amount of smearing can change the fact that not a single U.S. Senate candidate was willing to go on the record and say that they supported Mitch McConnell for Majority Leader,” he said. “Everyone can see right through the clearly desperate, unfounded and pathetic attacks coming from McConnell Incorporated.”

On Fox News Sunday yesterday, McConnell told Dana Perino that Bannon and his allies are "specialists at nominating people who lose... They've been out there for a number of years. They cost us five Senate seats in 2010 and 2012. We would have got the majority sooner but for the fact they were able to nominate people who could not win in November. In '14 they were defeated everywhere, in '16 they were defeated everywhere, and the difference is we've been in the majority in 2014 and 2016, two Congresses in a row... The kind of people who are supported by the element that you've just been referring to are specialists in defeating Republican candidates in November. And that's what this inter-party skirmish is about. Our goal is to nominate people in the primaries next year who can actually win, and the people who win will be the ones who enact the president's agenda."

Bannon is expanding his war against the Republican establishment-- and, as we hoped, he's involving himself in House races beyond just backing Mafia goon Mikey Suits against Ryan ally Dan Donovan in Staten Island/Brooklyn NY-11. His new target: former Crusade for Christ activist and North Carolina state Senator Robert Pittenger, who represents a Charlotte metro congressional district that has been largely ethnically-cleansed. Pittinger was elected to Congress in 2012 in this R+8 district that Obama lost both times and that went for Trump last year 54.4% to 42.8%. Pittinger, who has a solidly conservative voting record, has been a target of the Tea Party extremists since 2014 when he said he wouldn't support shutting down the government over defending Obamacare. They ran crackpot Michael Steinberg against him, and Pittenger won with 67%. He faced no Democratic opposition. Last cycle he had two GOP primary challengers from the right, Mark Harris and Todd Johnson, which proved to be a tough race for Pittenger:

Berniecrat Christian Cano ran against him in the general and Pittenger beat him 58-42%. Cano hopes to run again but the DCCC and the Blue Dogs have recruited a Republican-lite candidate named Dan McCready. Harris is primarying Pittenger again, this time, in all likelihood, with Bannon's help. There's even talk of fellow North Carolina Republican, Mark Meadows, head of the neo-fascist Freedom Caucus, endorsing Harris against Pittenger. The race is rapidly becoming part of the proxy war between Bannon and Rove.

Meadows, a deeply conservative North Carolina congressman, has “typically never been involved in Republican primaries against a sitting member, but Dr. Harris, he’s a credible candidate who would be helpful in the majority.” 
Harris is the former pastor of Charlotte’s First Baptist Church, who came within 134 votes of unseating Pittenger in last cycle’s congressional primary and outraised him in the last fundraising quarter. He told McClatchy he would like to join Meadows’ Freedom Caucus should he win-- and would “certainly be interested in being engaged and involved.”

Meanwhile, “Bannon now plans to meet with Harris,” said a source close to Bannon, in an interview Thursday after Rove’s op-ed posted. “Bannon has decided to target Pittenger.”


... [Rove] appeared with Pittenger publicly last week at a rally at Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant in Charlotte, and headlined two fundraisers for the congressman.

It’s an alliance his challenger is eager to exploit. Indeed, Bannon’s Breitbart already is referring to Pittenger as the “Karl Rove-backed” candidate.

"It, in many ways, draws the lines in this race,” said Harris, who also ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2014. “Karl Rove has certainly represented the establishment. He has been wrong as many times as he's been right in recent elections. Robert Pittenger has decided to set his stakes with the establishment and the status quo.”

Adam Brandon, the president of the conservative group FreedomWorks, said Harris had been his activists’ choice “for a while.”

“But gasoline was poured on the fire when this is becoming a proxy battle between Karl Rove and Steve Bannon,” he continued. “We were getting involved in that race regardless of what was happening, but this is kind of a choice between a typical establishment Republican guy and someone who reflects the grassroots.”

In an interview with McClatchy, Pittenger, a frequent and vocal Trump supporter, laughed when asked about the criticism he faced over his connection to Rove.

“How silly these guys are, grasping for anything,” he said. “Let’s take a reality check, OK? No. 1, look at the record. My record in voting [with] Trump. I have 95.6 percent. Higher than Congressman Mark Meadows, OK? So let’s be clear on that.”

Pittenger was referencing FiveThirtyEight’s “Trump score,” a tally of how frequently a member of Congress votes with Trump (Meadows’ number, by that measure, is 93.3 percent, though he has worked closely with the White House and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, attended a fundraiser for him last month).

Pittenger ticked through a long list of conservative endorsements he’s notched over the years, including the National Rifle Association and National Right to Life, and noted his efforts on economic and anti-abortion measures underway on Capitol Hill right now.

His campaign staff also passed along a document titled “Rep. Robert Pittenger: Unapologetically Pro Trump,” which detailed the “over 200” media appearances, six rallies, nine town halls and other instances in which Pittenger has offered robust defenses of the president.

“My conservative credentials are impeccable,” he said. “This is simply a little power play by a few people who are gaming this. I’ve stood for conservative principles. I will win this election because my positions, what I’ve stood for, will be validated, regardless of what type of smoke other people try to throw up there. Pure nonsense.”

Rove too was dismissive. Asked about Bannon’s reaction to his op-ed, Rove said: “Now he’s just making himself sound unhinged.”

But some conservative groups are paying attention to the contest for reasons that have little to do with Rove and much more to do with Harris’ last electoral performance-- and recent fundraising numbers.

“I can tell you that Mark Harris is a rock-ribbed conservative, and he posted one hell of a third quarter,” said Andy Roth, vice president for government affairs at the conservative Club for Growth. He was referencing Harris’ $251,000 fundraising haul. “That opened our eyes quite a bit.”

Pittenger, who also faces a well-funded potential Democratic opponent, reported raising $242,000, though in the interview, said “we haven’t really started” and added that he is sure he will outraise Harris next time as he ramps up his fundraising focus.

In a recent interview with the Charlotte Observer, Rove praised Pittenger as a “consistent conservative in Congress,” and a “defender of the president’s policies.”

One closing thought that points to the danger-- for Republicans-- of all this in-fighting. As Josh Kraushaar pointed out over the weekend at National Review things are staring to look more desperate for Ryan and his majority than anyone expected. He and his team, wrote Kraushaar, "are growing increasingly alarmed that some of their most vulnerable members aren’t doing the necessary legwork to protect themselves from an emerging Democratic tidal wave. In some of the biggest media markets, where blockbuster fundraising is a prerequisite for political survival-- most notably in New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston-- Republican lawmakers aren’t raising enough money to run aggressive campaigns against up-and-coming Democrats."

He pointed out miserable fundraising numbers for vulnerable Republicans Steve Knight (CA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), John Culberson (TX), Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Claudia Tenney (NY) and Leonard Lance (NJ).