Another thing to note – the NRCC, which normally spends money to protect incumbents, didn’t help Peter Meijer at all in this campaign. We should stop blaming Democrats for things Republicans do.
Agreed. Complaining about money the Dems spent removes agency from Republican primary voters over their own decisions. Nobody put a gun to their heads and made them vote for these nutcases.
In late Winter and early Spring of 2020, every Republican strategist was desperate for Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic nomination for President. Democratic voters made a different choice.
So, if I may summarize, the Democrats funded commercials that said, essentially, “Don’t vote for Gibbs! He’s a fucking nutcase!” This is evidence of Democrats helping him in the primary because, uh, everyone knows that Republican primary voters are looking for the nuttiest fucking nutcase they can find?
If they put out negative ads against Meijer because they want Gibbs (“Meijer voted for kicking puppies and against rainbows”), then sure, I get it. But putting out negative ads against Gibbs doesn’t seem like dirty pool to me, if they secretly wanted Gibbs to win.
Sorry for the double post, but this whole saga reminds me of when some Republicans blamed Democrats for Republicans not getting vaccinated. “You told us to get vaccinated, and you knew that would convince us not to do it!”
If the Republican party is in a state where boosting a lunatic is a viable tactic in the primaries, the problem is not with the Democrats.
It’s more subtle than that.
In the Illinois gubernatorial primary, the Democratic Governors Association ran two sets of adds in the Chicago area. The first was anti-Irvin (the sane candidate) talking about his corruption and how he basically was a Democrat anyway. The second was “anti”-Bailey saying he was "100% pro-life; 100% second amendment; " and something else, with a tag line of “too conservative for Illinois”. The problem is, to people who call themselves “pro-life”, that’s a positive point, not a negative. They didn’t say “against abortion, even in the case of rape, incest, or mother’s life in danger”, which is a stance favored by a majority of those who call themselves “pro-life”. The first time I saw one of these ads, I was gobsmacked, because I could tell it definitely was NOT directed as anti-Bailey to Republicans.
Now that Bailey won the primary, the Democratic Party adds are saying “against abortion…”; they’re hounding on the endorsement from Trump; they’re pointing out corruption; they’re having a field day with his initial response to the Highland Park shootings.
During my voting lifetime, Illinois had a series of moderate Republican governors; it wasn’t until the Republicans started nominating far-right candidates that the Democrats could put together a string of victories. Heck, even that was interrupted by Bruce Rauner. Rauner won because the Democratic incumbant, Quinn, was useless. Rauner proved to be even more useless because the Dems had strong majorities in both houses, and Rauner refused to work with them. I can see why Pritzker was slightly afraid of running against a moderate Republican, but he’s actually done a good job in office, and would win against pretty much anyone. Personally, I think it was wasted money.
Now, if the Michigan districts are purple, there’s a chance this will work out. Red? Forget it. Reddish Purple? I wouldn’t risk it - I’d rather have a sane person in office than a nut job, and you’d have a real possibility here.
Thanks. Those Illinois Dem tactics do seem more sleazy.
These are all newly created districts. Oh, one can look at the voting histories of the various communities within them, but a lot of history isn’t much of a guide these days.
I suppose, the Dem strategists behind the “too Trumpy for our state” campaigns could call upon plausible deniability in saying “we were trying to point out to the responsible, sane Republican voters how terrible this Trumpetista candidate is. Who would expect this to help him??”.
I don’t know how we are going to work from a default position that pointing out how horrible a Trumpublican candidate is will only make more GOP voters more enthusiastic about him, that we have crossed over into some sort of perverse every-day-is-opposite-day universe, and wind up in a position where negative campaigning can only happen effectively in one direction.
Looks like it worked out pretty good for the dems in Michigan.
Damn what beautiful blue state Michigan has turned out to be this election.
Love it.