Democrats still need to link voters angry over Roe v Wade to House elections

Update 9/14/22:  Sen. Lindsey Graham has just handed blue states a legislative litmus test for Democrats to use to put GOP House candidates on the spot on the issue of abortion.  It is a gift to Democrats   Lindsey Graham’s national 15-week abortion ban probably won’t help Republicans in the midterms - Vox   The flip side of this is for voters to ask if the candidate would support making Roe v Wade the law of the land?

Thanks to that old partisan technique of drawing district borders to make as many congressional districts "safe" for one party, there are few districts left that can swing one way or the other.   There are enough swing districts, however, still in the contention that both parties have a chance to control the House.    The keys to winning a swing district are two: public policy issues that motivate greater than average turnout and the "quality" of the candidates. For Democrats, the determination of winning swing states will be the position of the candidates on the codification of Roe v Wade and fear of a Trumpist takeover of the government, the end of democracy. Those are their top two issues per a very recent NBC poll.  For the Trump GOP, it is the economy, stupid, and absolute loyalty to Trump and Trumpism.   Where Democrats are falling short so far is connecting the young and suburban voters with their opposition to the overturn of Roe v Wade to their own district congressional and state legislative candidates. One way to make a link is to ask, "how will the candidate vote if elected to make Roe v Wade the federal law of the land".   Putting that question directly to candidates for Congress should be very revealing and pertinent to the position to which they are being elected. It is more than "what side are you on" on abortion rights. It is easy to demagogue that answer.  

 NY Times compilation of Democratic party ads re: choice   Recent polls show 57% of all Americans opposed the overturning of Roe v Wade and 52% of states with restrictive laws on women's choice.  PP_2022.07.06_Roe-v-Wade_REPORT.pdf (pewresearch.org)     Saving democracy is the single top issue for 21%; jobs, economy, and cost of living combined are still top.  Since Roe v Wade overturned, Democrats, closed the enthusiasm gap signaling the issue is will motivate Democratic turnout in November.     NBC August Poll shows increase concern for democracy   https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/after-redistricting-heres-how-each-party-could-win-house     

 The strategy Democrats take also will vary from state to state. Where to put the campaign money and attention is important.  Wasting money on a lost cause district is not wise, but in a swing district, efforts count more.  Tying the issue of Roe v Wade legislation connected with political party affiliation is also helpful because, given the usual diminished attention to individual congressional campaigns and the prohibitive expense of TV advertising, voters tend to vote straight tickets for congressional and down-ballot candidates if they are uncertain who they are and what policy positions they favor.  The fewer Senate and state-wide races will get the media exposure since the cost is spread out statewide with more moderates, unaffiliated, and swing voters voting in general elections than in primaries. Due to more and more states using non-partisan commissions to draw boundaries in 2022, gerrymandering is not as determining a factor as it has been in the past in the midwest. States in the south, having their state legislatures draw the district boundaries, are the most gerrymandered, but in the West, with wider use of the independent commissions to draw boundaries (as in Colorado), the outcome was little change.  For example, in southern states, only 10 percent of congressional districts are swing,  lower than the national average. Still, in the midwest, there are more swing districts than there were before this year's redistricting (a process after each census year),  enough to offset the southern states' gerrymandering efforts by Republicans.  Both parties have a path to winning a majority in the House this year per the Brennan Center. .https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/after-redistricting-heres-how-each-party-could-win-house     

 

GOP Congress joins President Trump to derail justice

A version of this was published by the Sky Hi News January 9-10, 2017
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-congress-joins-with-president-trump-to-derail-justice/

One of the most disturbing developments in the past several months is  that the Republican Congressional leadership has  reversed a prior hands off posture and joined forces with the White House to attack the credibility, and/or to divert attention from  special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into  the Trump campaign and his administration's role into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election .  Until then  most of those same GOP  Congresspeople had supported or tried  to act neutral or even praised Mueller and the FBI. The special counsel investigation was commissioned in the spring of 2017 after the firing of James Comey. The FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections began in mid 2016.

The GOP dominated   Congress  has  launched  their campaign apparently  coordinated with a similar White House strategy. .  Donald Trump kicked off the New Year with a tweet calling for investigations into a Hillary Clinton aide regarding emails passwords and  into the FBI,   he claimed was full of anti Trump agents, citing emails of one agent as proof..

The antidote to a president charged with  high crimes and misdemeanors  is impeachment. This is the power delegated to  Congress. It is  an unlikely action, since  both Houses are  controlled by the GOP with their members now fawning  with admiration  of Donald Trump after the passage of their unpopular tax reform agenda.   The only way to curb the Republican’s Congressional participation in any diversion or obstruction into the Mueller probe  is to change which party controls committee chairs and sets their agenda. That opportunity will come in November 2018 when one third of the Senate  seats and all House of Representative seats will be on the ballot.

Last week  Trump loyalist, Devin Nunes, (R-CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee,  renewed his earlier demand the FBI and the Department of Justice  turn over the fruits of their investigation into a dossier authored by former UK spy  Christopher Steele. This could be seen as  tactics to  kill a messenger and  divert attention  from the core investigation into Trump campaign and administration’s Russian connections.. The FBI  first resisted,  but yielded to pressure from House Majority Leader Paul Ryan in a meeting the first week this January.  Nunes. also in October  had  launched an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s actions on Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation as the “real Russian connection investigation”, both  cases previously investigated and died for lack of evidence, but still  a red meat attention grabber for the Trump base.

Two Senate  Republicans,  Lindsey Graham and Chuck  Grassley,  last week referred a criminal accusation to the FBI,  claiming   Steele  presented contradictory dates he provided in testimony to them.  This impact of the action by the two senators is  to keep Steele from coming to the US to testify and  to distract public and investigative  attention from the fundamental  thrust of the Mueller investigation.  Grassley also has stonewalled  his prior promise to release  testimony of Steele’s boss  about who  commissioned   and oversaw Steele’s research project.   The outrage of the senators’ action is that their  only alleged criminal findings after months of hearings was to refer Steele, the whistle blower,  who had brought  the results of his investigations to the FBI’s attention in the first place. That dossier, Steele’s field notes, presented evidence that  Donald Trump had engaged  in questionable financial dealings  and sexual misconduct  with Russians   before he was a candidate and could have been compromised by Russians and subject to blackmail.. The  FBI then  in October 2016  had set about to verify his findings from separate sources, in addition to their already ongoing investigation. The results of those and other findings by Mueller and the FBI have not been released to the public.

Update January 9, 2018
Update: Tuesday, January 9, Democrats released the testimony of the company that hired Christopher Steele. https://www.cnbc.com/…/sen-dianne-feinstein-unilaterally-re…
The GOP has tried to discredit the Steele dossier to show that it kicked off the
FBI investigation of the Trump campaign Russian connection. It was not. It began with the Australian Ambassador and the Australian government telling the FBI earlier in 2016 about a conversation with campaign staffer George Papadopoulis who had inside information of Russian possession of Democratic emails. https://www.theguardian.com/…/donald-trump-russia-inquiry-g…

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/5/16845704/steele-dossier-russia-trump

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/25/jennifer-rubin-now-we-know-why-republicans-are-attacking-the-fbi/

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-02/trump-suggests-deep-state-doj-
should-investigate-huma-abedin

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/28/nunes-blasts-doj-fbi-for-failure-to-produce-records-
relating-to-anti-trump-dossier.html

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/politics/paul-ryan-nunes-justice-department/index.html

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/5/grassley-graham-ask-doj-probe-
trump-dossier-author/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senior-republican-refers-trump-dossier-author
-for-possible-charges/2018/01/05/ead4585e-f0af-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html

Kudos to Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush on the Trump "Muslim ban" issue.

Listening to the GOP CNN candidate debate last night, the proposals on fighting terrorism were all over the board, but what deserves my praise is the moving spontaenous combusting of Lindsey Graham who pasionately said: "We are not at war against a religion, Islam, we are at war with the terrorists".  While I question creeping increase of boots on the ground by 10,000 he advocates, I do not oppose it if they are the right boots on the ground...special forces, and there are to support our Arab allies.  However, that is the problem, too,  Until the other day, when Saudi Arabia announced a large military coaltion of other Sunnis in the world to fight terrorists, the Arab allies have been MIA when it came to fighting ISIS.  Whether we need to increase military spending is another issue that deserves scrutiny.  Is a shortage or funding of personnel and equipment the reason we have not gone after ISIS with boots on the ground  or is that just a way  for him to make his case for more defense spending?

Jeb Bush on MSNBC this morning  on Morning Joe put the connection together that we cannot look like we are denying all Musims entry to the US because it looks like we are at war with Islam...and makes it very difficult to lead a coaltion of Arab boots on the ground.  Can we ask the Turks or Arabs or Jordanians or Gulf States to contribute troops but deny their visitors and those seeking medical aid to come to the US because they are Muslim?  I would put it even more harshly:  Trump has virtually been considered persona non grata by our European allies and Jordan, not to mention Israel.  How could he have any credibility leading such a coalition.

Rarely do I ever agree with Dick Cheney, but he, too, recently said that banning Muslims from entry to the US was harmful to our national security.  This was a direct aim at Trump.  http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/dick-cheney

A note to a reader of the blog, asking that I do not use the term ISIS.  It is a point well taken, but ISIL or daaesh  has never caught on with the general public.  In fact, spokespersons for US Muslim interests use ISIS as well.  I write for the public and I use ISIS so I do not have the bulk of my readers ask "who??"  The admimnistration makes it a point to use ISIS.  Our Arab supporters use daaesh.  If I had my druthers, I would use daaesh, too, but until ISIL is more accepted, or daaesh becomes accepted in the popular vocabulary.  My words are limited to 530 in my column and to always define the various names of ISIS means it is even harder to fit my words into the restrictive space.

All presidential candidates should be asked these questions about their Iraq policy; answers should not be simple

With the presidential marathon race now off and running, there are  questions  we should demand every candidate to answer.   Top of my list is what to do about  Iraq and ISIS.  Most fascinating so far are the polar opposite views of GOP candidates jockeying for their party’s nomination, ranging from Sen. Lindsey Graham, the ultra hawk, v. Rand Paul, the ultra anti interventionist. There are no simple answers.

Assuming  the establishment wings of the Republican party manage to quash Paul’s candidacy, the likely successful GOP candidates will call for more aggressive policies there.

Recent polls are  showing that the US electorate is still opposed to sending massive  troops,  but more support a limited increase of boots on the ground. Expect the GOP to continue to scare  the wits out of the American public that ISIS is a personal threat to their safety, that the US is incapable of stopping ISIS’ attacks on the homeland, and that they have a solution that  will keep us safe.

Opposition to massive re-invasion of Iraq lags in popularity because many  Americans have not forgotten that  the US deployed 2.5 million troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  400,000 of them were deployed three or more times. The Iraq war alone cost a conservatively estimated $1.7 trillion dollars of taxpayers’ money. As of April 2014, 6800 US troops had been killed in Iraq.

Where the hawks have an advantage is a message of simplicity.  Send more troops. Never mind even  Graham is only talking about 7,000 special ops and trainers in addition to the 3,000 already there. While forcefully criticizing Obama’s policies, all he proposes is to increase the numbers some. Pres. Obama at the G7 summit Monday indicated he had asked the Pentagon for proposals. Perhaps they are not that far apart.  Still the question lingers,  Would this be a forever intervention with continuing mission creep?

However, the situation in Iraq is not simple.   Unlike 2003  there is now a full blown three way civil war to fill a power vacuum left after the fall of Saddam and the US departure.  ISIS threatens the power of  the Saudi Royal family that has their own caliphate founded on  similar theology, yet the Saudis are usually an ally of the US.     There is  a full scale  religious  civil  war in Islam playing out in Iraq  between the Sunnis (the Arab Muslims) and the Shia, the Iranians.  The Shia dominated  government in Baghdad, closely connected to Iran by a shared religion,  is our ally, but their Sunni troops that had not already joined ISIS,  are not loyal to Shia leadership.  Iranian troops are already engaged fighting ISIS .  Simultaneously,  the Kurds , our most effective allies, hope their participation leads to independence, , which no one else involved wants.

 So the GOP hawks want us to get more involved in this mess and train and arm whom? As a friend of mine says,” How is the everyday Joe supposed to understand this? “ and that is the advantage the GOP hawks have in beating the war drums.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/politics/lindsey-graham-iraq-not-a-mistake-election-2016/index.html

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/03/08/iraq-opinion-polls/24276663/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/4/lindsey-graham-dont-vote-for-me-if-youre-worn-out-/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_media
http://time.com/3912543/barack-obama-isis-strategy/

http://www.costsofwar.org/iraq-10-years-after-invasion