Is it 2016?<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s, for today, throw out all of the arguments about the legitimacy of the 2016 election.\u00a0Let\u2019s ignore the Russian interference, and possible hacking into our electoral processes. And let\u2019s ignore the impact of Director Comey\u2019s actions in particular, and the FBI in general.\u00a0Let\u2019s look at the voter turnout, and what voters were willing to accept.<\/p>\n
We know that Hillary Clinton was a weakened candidate.\u00a0 The Sanders campaign, the continuing email scandal, and the years of Republican hard work to undercut her image took their toll. \u00a0House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy \u00a0said this about the impact of the endless Benghazi hearings:<\/p>\n
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she\u2019s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”<\/em><\/p>\n We also know that Donald Trump was an \u201coutlier\u201d candidate, beyond \u00a0the boundaries of normal political decency and the Republican Party itself.<\/p>\n A significant portion of the American population were willing to accept the absolute \u201cpolitical incorrectness\u201d of Donald Trump.\u00a0 They were willing to accept his abusive and lascivious attitude towards women, his insulting and bullying actions towards those he saw as enemies, and his outright lies about his own life.\u00a0 They knew, and know today, that they are making this choice; they see it as a way to “Make America Great Again” or more specifically, take America back to what \u00a0it was like seventy years ago.<\/p>\n We also know that a large portion of Americans were turned off by the entire campaign.\u00a0 The old adage, \u201chold your nose and vote,\u201d didn\u2019t play for many, particularly groups that generally vote Democratic, and they decided to skip the entire process.\u00a0 Bernie Sanders voters were mad, young people were disenchanted, and there was an undercurrent of\u00a0 \u201cmalaise.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The fact that Bill Clinton and Anthony Weiner were tied into the \u201cClinton Family\u201d negated much of the impact of Trump\u2019s transgressions.\u00a0 It was ugly every direction you turned.<\/p>\n President Trump is using the Kavanaugh nomination to try to recreate the atmosphere of 2016.\u00a0 He is trying to brand Democrats:\u00a0 particularly a woman \u2013 Nancy Pelozi, and a Jewish man \u2013 Chuck Schumer \u2013 as \u201c\u2026destroying a good man and his family to gain what they couldn\u2019t earn at the polls.\u201d\u00a0 Trump believes he can drag this election into the same mud bath that he found in 2016.\u00a0In that ugly hole, he\u2019s the best!!<\/p>\n So it shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise that the President mocked sexual assault victim Christine Blasey-Ford in a rally this week.\u00a0 He is not just reading the \u201ctea-leaves,\u201d he\u2019s also seeing polling data showing that the Kavanaugh crisis is firing up his base.\u00a0 He has found the critical appeal:\u00a0 your \u201cwhite son\u201d could be falsely accused, and destroyed, by the Pelozi-Schumer Democrats!<\/p>\n Trump thinks he can save the Republican Congress by putting himself \u201con the ticket.\u201d\u00a0 By making every Congressional Republican vote a vote for Trump, he believes he can bring out his base, and maintain a Congressional majority.\u00a0 Kavanaugh gives Trump the perfect stand-in, particularly after the anger-filled display he made in the last Congressional hearing.<\/p>\n The Trump voters will turn out, just as Republicans always do.\u00a0 It was a Democratic \u201cpipe dream\u201d to believe they wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 But that is not the determinate factor in the mid-term elections.\u00a0 The question is now, and always was, \u00a0will Democrats turn out?<\/p>\n Will Democrats take the passion generated in the special elections of the past eighteen months, and channel it into the November polls?\u00a0 Or will they allow the ugliness of the Kavanaugh situation, win or lose, to drag the election back into the \u201ceveryone\u2019s dirty as usual\u201d mindset that will kill their turnout.<\/p>\n Democrats needed to fight Kavanaugh with every weapon \u201cat their disposal\u201d in order to keep faith with their base, and maybe, to actually win the fight.\u00a0 The vulnerability of Roe v Wade, the Affordable Care Act, and all of the other Democratic foundations, required that action.\u00a0 And the fact that the Republicans have orchestrated \u00a0a \u201cwhitewash\u201d of an FBI investigation will make it an issue in the future.<\/p>\n But to be honest, from the Democrats point of view, the Kavanaugh nomination needs to be over, one way or the other.\u00a0 There are four weeks left before the election, a lifetime in political terms; and Democrats need to get back to the battle of healthcare, jobs, children at the border, and the failed Trump promises of the past two years.\u00a0 That\u2019s a better strategy to fire up turnout, because when Democrats show up, they win.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"