There\u2019s lots of reason that the election of 2020 was critical, and that weren\u2019t all about Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0Say what they might, but Democrats had a wide choice of candidates.\u00a0\u00a0They had the old \u201cradical\u201d, Bernie Sanders, who surprisingly appealed to the younger members of the Party.\u00a0\u00a0There was the \u201cshining star\u201d candidate, Pete Buttigieg, the brilliant young mayor, veteran and gay man who represented \u201cthe future\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0There were the tech-millionaires, Andrew Yang and Tom Styer.\u00a0\u00a0And there were all the Senators; Klobuchar, Bennet, Booker, Harris, Warren and the others who \u201clegitimized\u201d the field with their traditional experience. Of course, since we\u2019re Democrats, we had our \u201cfar-out\u201d candidates, Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there was the most traditional candidate, the thirty-six year Senator, eight-year Vice President Joe Biden. Tradition is the world \u2013 he represented the \u201cnext in line\u201d in old order politics, the \u201cPresident in waiting\u201d. He had three problems: he was old, he always stumbled, and he was \u201cold order\u201d in a \u201cnew world\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s who we nominated, the \u201cold (and old) order\u201d candidate. Regardless of all the lies and the nonsense of \u201cStop the Steal\u201d by the Trump campaign, that\u2019s who won the election by seven million votes. The best argument that we can make \u2013 Americans wanted to go back to \u201cnormal\u201d, choosing a Warren G Harding type candidate (elected in 1920 after all of the upheaval of Woodrow Wilson, the first World War, and the League of Nations debate). America wanted to \u201creturn to normalcy\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s not necessarily what Biden wanted to do.\u00a0\u00a0He entered office with a transformational Franklin Roosevelt type New Deal program.\u00a0\u00a0But that wasn\u2019t \u201cnormal\u201d, and the narrow Democratic margin in the Senate allowed the prototypical \u201cold order\u201d Democrat, Joe Manchin, the power to stop anything (and everything).\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s the definition of \u201cnormal\u201d in American politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there are \u201cnew order\u201d Democrats who are tired of operating under the \u201cold order\u201d rules. One of them is Sean Patrick Maloney, the Congressman from New York, and Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. His job is to maintain the Democratic majority in the House, a daunting task. Tradition, the \u201cold order\u201d way, says that the Party that wins the Presidency loses seats in the House in the next election. And since Democrats only have a five vote majority, it wouldn\u2019t take much to lose control of the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maloney is a prime mover in the plan to not only choose good Democratic candidates for Congress, but to also help Republicans choose \u201cbad\u201d candidates to run against them. The idea is this: if Republicans run \u201cnormal\u201d candidates, then the \u201cnormal\u201d history will happen, and the Republicans will end up in the majority and Kevin McCarthy will be Speaker of the House. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something out of the normal has to happen. In mathematical terms, you have to change the equation to get a different answer.\u00a0\u00a0And here\u2019s how some Democrats are doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2021 Governor\u2019s election in Virginia was the primer. The Republican, Glenn Youngkin, ran on a traditional Republican platform. He distanced himself from Donald Trump, even as he still campaigned on many of the issues that were \u201cTrumpian\u201d. He came across as a \u201cold order\u201d Republican. And he was running against an \u201cold order\u201d Democrat, former Virginia Governor and Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe. So the \u201cold order\u201d equation held firm: the winning party of the Presidency traditionally loses the Virginia race in the next year. And Democrats lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to change the equation?\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t let the Republicans run \u201cold order\u201d candidates.\u00a0\u00a0And how could Democrats possibly impact who Republicans are going to nominate for office?\u00a0\u00a0Help out the ones they want to run against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Republican Party is smaller than it once was. Some \u201cold order\u201d Republicans have eschewed the Party of Donald Trump, and are now \u201cRepublican leaning\u201d Independents. So they don\u2019t vote in Republican primaries anymore. The majority of the current Republican voters still support Donald Trump and all of the ideas that come with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the majority of all the voters weren\u2019t willing to vote for Trump in 2020. The theory goes: if Republican run avowed Trump acolytes, they\u2019ll win in the primary, but they lose in the general election, if faced by a \u201cnormal\u201d Democrat. So to change \u201cthe equation\u201d, Democrats are helping the most extreme Republican \u201cTrumpers\u201d get nominated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The House election for the Western District of Michigan is a good example.\u00a0\u00a0Republican Congressman Peter Meijer voted to impeach Donald Trump after the Insurrection.\u00a0\u00a0Meijer is an \u201cold order\u201d Republican, conservative but definitely not a Trumper.\u00a0\u00a0He is running in the primary against John Gibbs, an acknowledged Trumper.\u00a0 Democrats are \u201con the air\u201d, paying for ads saying that Gibbs is \u201ctoo conservative\u201d and \u201ctoo close to Trump\u201d to represent Western Michigan.\u00a0\u00a0Of course, in the general election against a Democrat, that’s a completely legitimate ad.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s running now, in the primary, and is likely to motivate Trump-supporting Republicans to come out and vote for Gibbs against Meijer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats don\u2019t want to run against Meijer.\u00a0\u00a0They want to change the equation, and run against the extremist, Gibbs.\u00a0\u00a0Democrats are putting their \u201cmoney where their mouth is\u201d and paying for ads to run in Western Michigan, now.\u00a0\u00a0And that same kind of effort is happening in many districts all over the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s not just the House elections.\u00a0\u00a0John Fetterman of Pennsylvania (a \u201cnew order\u201d Democrat) is running for Senate against \u201cDr Oz\u201d, supported by Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0Tim Ryan of Ohio (another \u201cnew order\u201d Democrat) is running for Senate against financial manager and author JD Vance, supported by Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0They got what they wanted, a fierce contest with a \u201cTrump Republican\u201d, not an \u201cold order\u201d Republican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n