by Rick Wilson
The Tampa Bay Times political editor Adam Smith captured it perfectly:
In fact, it would have been political malpractice for Kriseman not to wrap Trump around Baker and nationalize the race as he did. Baker made a terrible, and perhaps cowardly, decision to do little to distance himself from the president. The race effectively ended in August, when President Trump spoke of the “fine people” who participated in a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, where clashes led to a woman’s death. . . . Baker is a Jeb Bush Republican and anybody who knows him understands that he shares few of Trump’s values. Baker was so scared of antagonizing Republican voters, however, that he wouldn’t criticize the president’s Charlottesville comments, not even as mildly as House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did.7
Baker’s political tragedy is the story of a good man trapped by a bad president and his own fear. With all his good works in the African American community blown away by a tide of hatred and racial animus that Donald Trump slammed back into the American political dialogue, I’m sure Baker today ponders the counterfactuals of a robust, sharp attack on Trump and riding out the anger of the Trump base.
It’s a lesson for other Republicans, one that I am certain they’ll ignore.
THE PANIC OF PA-18
The signs of trouble in the GOP were all over the board in 2017 and 2018. They clung to a handful of easy-lift Congressional races in heavily red seats, but the cracks were showing; Democratic turnout was up, GOP morale was down.
It was a special election in the spring of 2018 that chilled House Republicans to their core. If a generic, conservative Republican couldn’t win in a generic, conservative Republican district, what did the future hold? Pennsylvania’s 18th district wasn’t the loudest or the most expensive race in the Trump era, but it was one of the most telling.
The various Coal Country Kristofs told us this part of America had been politically transformed by Trump, who cast its residents as the ignored, salt-of-the-earth working Americans who had been abandoned by Washington, the powerful and economic elites. These voters were described as a people singularly activated and motivated by Donald Trump. Working-class Republicans and Democrats were ready to MAGA. Nothing could sway them from his populist message, because only Trump had . . . oh, who am I kidding?
It turned out to be a political exercise that scared the GOP, but not nearly enough.
The 18th, comprising Pittsburgh’s southern suburbs and parts of Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington, and Green counties, was a deep red district from the start, with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of 11. The Democrats hadn’t even bothered to field a candidate in the previous two election cycles. In 2016 it had voted for Trump in a 60 to 40% blowout. This was Trump country, writ red.
Rick Saccone is a Republican cut from central casting for the district—ex-military, solidly middle class, solidly to the right across the entire spectrum of conservative issues. He is almost ridiculously generic. No major scandal marred his record, and his tenure in the Pennsylvania legislature was unremarkable in every way.
For once in their lives, the Democrats told their own progressive purity posse to shut up, sit in the corner, and let the grown-ups work. Conor Lamb was by no means a Nancy Pelosi Democrat, and that’s what made him a competitive force in the race. He split the difference on abortion, and as facile as “personally pro-life, politically pro-abortion” sounds, it’s also where a majority of Americans fall on the issue. He stood by the Second Amendment, even though the horrific Parkland shooting took place three weeks before the end of the race. He is a military veteran, and right for the district.
He didn’t even make it about Trump, showing a degree of political sophistication that belied his years. Lamb was engaged in the strategic play of permission politics; knowing he wasn’t a perfect fit with the politics of the district, he gave voters permission to consider him by not disqualifying himself to conservatives. It was, in the words of Vanity Fair, “Trump Kryptonite.”8 The other elements of his campaign persona were good enough for a look; by not responding to Saccone or Trump on their turf, he gave independents and Republicans a chance to say, “Okay, I can live with this guy.” It was the same trick we pulled in New York, giving liberals permission to come to Rudy. In contrast, Saccone’s messages was “All Trump All the Time.”
If you want to know why the GOP is in a panic in the spring of 2018, it’s this: they finally realized Trump’s negatives outweigh everything they try when it comes to paid advertising. The NRCC’s and allied groups’ usual portfolio of attacks was a complete failure in Pennsylvania. They spent $7.4 million on paid media; Lamb and supporting groups spent only $4.4 million. A nearly 2:1 paid media (broadcast television, cable, and digital ads) spending advantage was one of those old rules of thumb that died in the Trump era. So too did some of the thematic plays that had long worked wonders.
The NRCC and the Congressional Leadership Fund, Paul Ryan’s personal PAC, launched their advertising assault with something they thought was a guaranteed winner: the massive Republican-passed tax bill of 2017. It was, we were assured, the thing that would fix what ailed the GOP. The themes were, to boil it down, “Evil witch Nancy Pelosi wants to take your few remaining pennies, and Conor Lamb will help her. Aren’t you loving your Trump Bonus?” People weren’t. The tax cut ads supporting Saccone flopped in focus groups and were pulled from heavy rotation and, finally, after burning through a $2.5 million stack of cash, taken down altogether.9
I know what you’re thinking. How could a tax bill that was written by Wall Street lobbyists and designed to protect hedge funds, major investment banks, and real estate developers not persuade Rust Belt voters? How could they not drop to their knees in praise of and thanks to Paul Ryan when they’re looking at as much as $15 per week more in their paychecks? Didn’t they get the news that major corporations were engaged in a wave of stock buybacks and executive bonuses that would—wait for it—trickle down?10
The failure of the ads praising the GOP tax cut was inevitable; you can’t sell bad dog food with good PR because the dogs don’t care about the PR, only the taste. This wasn’t even good PR. Generic, gauzy, “Thanks for muh tax cut” montages of workers, scare shots of Pelosi, and over-the-top voice-over work wasn’t going to cut it, and didn’t.
It was an article of faith among DC consultants that passing anything in 2017 was better than passing nothing. “We have to give Trump a big win, and this helps us, too,” was an argument made with a straight face by ostensibly intelligent adults. This was always arguable, but most Americans weren’t screaming for the protection of the carried interest loophole and for private equity guys to pay the same tax rate as a greeter at the Olive Garden. Then the argument morphed into “Wait until they see the benefits in their paychecks.” That fell flat when the numbers weren’t as sky high as they expected and when voters started learning that they could no longer deduct state and local taxes.
When those ads failed, the GOP’s argument seemed to be “Well, we’ve screwed that pooch. How can we do something that everyone outside of Trump’s base hates?” You guessed it; immigration reared its ugly head again, despite the painful lessons of Virginia, New Jersey, and other races in 2017. Of course, when you’re going to fuck it up, do so with gusto, right? The next wave of ads did everything but Photoshop MS-13 face tattoos on Lamb.
It was pure Trump immigrant scaremongering and included bonus footage of Nancy Pelosi in almost every frame. Both of those tactics once scared Republican voters into line. I’ll freely admit to putting Nancy in dozens of candidate and SuperPAC ads over the years because GOP voters hate her with a fiery passion. Ryan, the NRCC, and Saccone failed to answer the most important question of any ad: Does it work?
Those ads, as noted elsewhere in this chapter, work on one group and one group only: Trump core voters. They’re less compelling for softer Republicans, and both independent and Democratic voters find them repellent. They close the door to even considering the other candidate. The ad
s were politically tone deaf, generically clunky, and, by the end, clearly not working. While Conor Lamb’s ads were talking about how he’d defy both sides in Washington to do the right thing for his district, Rick Saccone and his allies were screaming about the imagined scourge of deadly Mexican immigrants.
At the close of the campaign, Saccone got two things only the president could deliver: Trump declared the opening of a global trade war by the unilateral imposition of a 25% tariff on imported steel and a 15% tariff on imported aluminum. The conventional wisdom was that trade policy was a giant vote-getter for Trump in the Rust Belt and that the PA-18 audience would be similarly entranced, but it didn’t move the numbers; only 3% said it made them more likely to support Saccone.11 While it was a net positive in the district, voters had other things on their mind.
Then Saccone got the Trump Rally for which he’d been waiting. You know . . . a rally. How could poor Saccone not have seen how this would end? Instead of making a political case for his candidate, Trump stood on stage for 70 long minutes doing his usual Borscht Belt Mussolini shtick, bellowing, strutting, and doing everything but grabbing his sack on stage. It was a disaster, and Trump only mentioned Saccone in passing in the last moments of the event. The spectacle was for Trump’s needy ego, not to elect another Republican.
When the president arrived in western Pennsylvania the Saccone campaign was on its last legs, unable to understand why his numbers against Lamb were cratering, unable to understand why the ads darkening the sky like a thousand B-2 bombers weren’t working.
By the last night of the campaign, Saccone had cracked. With Donald Trump Jr. by his side, the beleaguered Republican said, “I’ve talked to so many of these on the left. And they have a hatred for our President. And I tell you, many of them have a hatred for our country. . . . They have a hatred for God. It’s amazing. You see it when I’m talking to them. It’s disturbing to me.”12
Saccone missed the point by a mile. It wasn’t hatred of God. It was hatred of Trump. Trump’s actions gave Lamb the latitude to run as a centrist Democrat without pressure from the left. Lamb may have won by only 0.28%, a mere 600 votes, but the size of the swing toward the Democrats sent a ripple of terror down the spine of the National Republican Congressional Committee and House leadership. One GOP congressman told me, “I’m only in a swing seat. Is Paul going to spend $10 million on me?”
The post hoc rationalization gymnastics on the part of Paul Ryan and the Republican caucus were spectacular, and telling. Some argued Lamb ran as a centrist, or even as a conservative Republican—you know, the usual pro–universal health care, pro-union, anti–entitlement reform, pro-marijuana conservative. Some noted Saccone’s wispy porn-stache and terrible fundraising, or was it his wispy fundraising and terrible porn-stache? Some used the classic DC blamestorming technique: “It was a bad candidate, not a bad message.” Representative Steve Stivers, head of the NRCC, was more honest. “This is a wake-up call,” he said. “Prepare to bear down.”13
The White House whispered, “If only Saccone had really embraced the president.” Trump advisor Jason Miller told CNN, “Saccone came across as Establishment and not close enough to Trump.” Saccone had been “Trump before Trump was Trump” from the start, and the president’s children, surrogates, and allies had vigorously campaigned for him.14 The advertising, previously described, was unadulterated Trumpism.
In the end, Trump’s death-finger touched Rick Saccone from the moment the Republican candidate entered the race. He had demographic, political, behavioral, and financial advantages from the very beginning. It was Saccone’s race to lose, and Trump helped him do just that.
MORE WARNING SIGNS
It isn’t just the direct win-loss scoreboard that counts; you should also look at the partisan swing; in all seven 2017 special elections, Democrats improved their vote by an average of 18%. Even where the GOP won, the Democrats closed the gap due to their level of motivation. Democrats are eager, activated, and determined to vote against Trump and Trump-allied candidates. They’ve posted record-breaking performances in districts that voted strongly for Trump, defying much of the political modeling for generic voting behavior.
This special election swing has traditionally had a solid predictive effect; in 1994, 2010, and 2014 special election swings presaged solid pickup years for the GOP. In 1998 and 2006, the Democrats saw the same effect.15
Another factor pointing to the Democrat wave elections is simple: Republicans are bailing out of Congress like a fighter pilot ejecting from a flaming jet. In the Senate, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Orrin Hatch, and Thad Cochran announced their departures.
For Corker and Flake, the sheer irritation of working in Trump’s Washington and watching the institution they served become one more part of the Trump cheering section was too much to bear. Both men were outspoken critics of the president, with Flake and Corker making remarkable and impassioned speeches against Trump on the Senate floor.16
Trump returned the favor, unleashing his band of merry lunatics to attack them. If you’re ever looking for proof that Trump hates his fellow Republicans more than he hates any Democrat or foreign dictator, his attacks on Corker and Flake should do it.
For Hatch and Cochran, age and health factors played a role, though both men came from a more genteel wing of the party that has disappeared in a constant screech of Trumpian vulgarity and fury.
In the House it was like a stampede toward a dessert bar at fat kid camp; while 16 Democrats were leaving, 45 Republicans declined to seek reelection.17 In state legislatures, Republican retirements and open seats were running roughly 2:1 ahead of Democratic retirements and open seats.
I always say that off-year elections and long-lead polls should be seen as portents, not inevitable facts. The Democrats, long experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of certain victory, can still blow it in a hundred ways we can’t even anticipate yet. After the election results of 2017 and 2018, though, the patterns in the polling, fundraising, and candidate recruitment are bright-red flags, klaxons so loud they’re screaming to even the most politically tone deaf. Republicans hoped to campaign on a popular tax cut bill, but by early 2018, though it was popular, it was also far in the rearview mirror, politically speaking.
A one-issue legislative portfolio isn’t much to run on in 2018. In the minds of the voters, the tax bill’s effects are a marginal net positive, but that’s contingent on the stock market’s robust condition. Even after the passage of the tax bill, national polling gave Democrats a 46 to 42% advantage on handling the economy, 43 to 39% on handling the budget, and 46 to 41% on handling taxes.18 Ooopsie.
On every other issue, Trump hangs over Republicans’ campaigns like a dark cloud. Republican candidates no longer have the power to define themselves individually or to tell their own story. On the issues Trump loves and that make his base squirm with pleasure—immigration, deportation, and the Wall—the voters are substantially to the left of the president. While 16% of Republicans say immigration is their top issue, only 4% of Democrats and leaning voters agree.19 It’s another “Please the base, lose the rest” game.
What else do Republicans have to show for their work in 2017 and 2018? A full-throated defense of Donald Trump over the Russia issue and little else. Devin Nunes and the DC Vladimir Putin Tiger Beat Fan Club have spent every waking hour trying to generate phony counter- narratives to the doom that Mueller brings.
The polling shows it: 55% disapprove of Trump’s handling of Russian interference in the 2016 election, while just 30% approve; 61% believe the Russia probe is a serious matter, compared to 34% who think it’s just politics to discredit Trump; 55% believe he’s interfered with the investigation, and 58% say he’s not taking it seriously.20 If you’re a Republican candidate running on how mean Bob Mueller is to Donald Trump and how the fake news is keeping us from debating the real issues, like Seth Rich and the Awan Brothers, strap in, because it’s gonna get bumpy.
Republican candidates’ entire political destiny is n
ow in the wee hands of Donald Trump. Their fate is contingent on his actions, statements, beliefs, and—God save them—tweets. Every day of their campaigns will be a waiting game, praying that some lunatic tweet won’t blow up the last several weeks of their messaging or advertising strategy. Every day will be a day they hope indictments don’t drop or that Trump doesn’t decide to wander naked in the Rose Garden or nuke Bermuda.
The conceit that Trump’s rabid base will be motivated to support Republican knockoffs of Trump is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard in my life because the Republican base hates one thing more than Democrats and liberals, and that’s other Republicans.
We see doors closing to Republicans in swing states and purple states because they’re caught in a reflexive defense of the indefensible Trump and terror of what happens if they defy him. The Senate map of 2018 is largely favorable to the GOP simply for structural reasons; they’re playing defense in only 8 states, while the Democrats have 24 seats in play. In the House, the sense of doom in swing seats in affluent suburbs is palpable.
At this writing in the spring of 2018, it’s still not too late for Republicans to hearken to some better angels, but in the era of Trump, it looks unlikely. If they don’t choose another path, the warning signs of today may lead to political catastrophe tomorrow.
18
* * *
MY PARTY AFTER TRUMP
If the Republican Party is to survive, remain relevant, and be true to its founding principles, our leaders and our members will need to recall that before the spectacle of Trump we believed all men and women are created equal and endowed with the same inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We believed that government has no lawful power over us except by our consent. We believed that vigilance in the protection of the rights and freedoms of every American was not only our right but our obligation.