‘Just Ridiculous Lies’: Dems Incensed Over Misleading GOP Ads On Medicare For All
The GOP is hammering Democratic challengers in swing districts over a plan putting the government in full control of the health care system, betting that voter backlash over the multi-trillion dollar proposal will tip crucial House races to Republicans.
There’s just one problem: Few of the targeted Democrats actually support such a plan.
In battleground districts from California to Kentucky to New York, Democrats have gone out of their way to distance themselves from Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) $32 trillion single-payer proposal, only to be attacked for endorsing the plan anyway in Republican ads that range from misleading to outright false.
The effort to tie swing-district candidates to a single-payer concept — which Democrats are deeply divided on — illustrates the GOP's major disadvantage on health care after failing last year to pass unpopular Obamacare repeal bills.
Even President Donald Trump chimed in on the attacks Wednesday, railing against Democrats in a USA Today op-ed for plotting a socialist-style government takeover of health care.
"When it comes to core issues that voters are looking at, obviously Democrats have an advantage on health care," said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell. "So now you're watching the Republicans sort of move the goalposts."
How Will Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Impact The Midterm Elections?
Democratic strategist Wendy Osefo and Republican strategist Ford O'Connell on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
How Kavanaugh Has Shaken The Midterm Elections Kaleidoscope
Even at the ceremonial swearing-in of newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump took aim at the forces who opposed him.
Trump apologized to Kavanaugh for the “terrible pain and suffering” inflicted by sexual assault allegations during his confirmation battle. “Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation, not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception,” he said, declaring Kavanaugh “innocent” of the charges. "What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency, and due process.”
But a full-throated embrace of Kavanaugh and rejection of the women who made accusations against him — Trump called those who disseminated the allegations “evil” in remarks earlier Monday and previously told reporters in a press conference that the accusations he had faced made him skeptical of claims against Kavanaugh — risks turning off the suburban women who may determine which party controls the House.
Nevertheless, Kavanaugh seems to be paying immediate dividends in the red-state Senate races that give Republicans their best chance of defending and even expanding their majority in the upper chamber.
“Trump understood that if Kavanaugh was going to get confirmed, the buck stops with him and he has to take the reins to blast through the media gauntlet and the Democratic treachery,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “Senate Republicans don’t seem to understand how to fight or the stakes for 2018. Trump decided to put Kavanaugh on his back and literally will his confirmation.”
Senate Republicans largely followed suit — only Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted “present” — and have also echoed Trump’s criticism of the anti-Kavanaugh mob. Centrist Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, delivered the final blow.
“Trump knows he has the biggest megaphone among Republicans and that the various wings of the GOP trust his political nose, even when they don’t agree with his tactics,” O’Connell said.
Read more from W. James Antle III at the Washington Examiner
Kavanaugh Saga's Potential Lasting Impact On The Nation
With one floor speech, Sen. Susan Collins decided the fate of a question consuming Capitol Hill, Washington and the country for the past three weeks — and barely 24 hours later, that question's answer was cemented when the Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh's confirmation process roiled the country and at times evoked the worst in partisanship and human nature. As Republican Sen. Jeff Flake put it as he called for the FBI review into sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh, "This country is being ripped apart here."
But the turmoil wrought by the process, and the impact it has on Kavanaugh's reputation on the court, could endure.
Republicans hope the battle to confirm Kavanaugh will energize their base for the midterm elections.
Democrats were already fired up before the Kavanaugh confirmation process — "They're already jacked up to 10, it's personal for them," GOP strategist Ford O'Connell said. But the outrage over Kavanaugh has emboldened "complacent" Republicans, O'Connell said.
US, Canada, Mexico Agree To Replace NAFTA, Bringing Relief To US Workers, Farmers
The United States, Canada, and Mexico agreed to sign a new trade deal to “terminate and replace” the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
President Donald Trump says the new agreement will transform North America into a “manufacturing powerhouse.”
The new trilateral trade pact will be named the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Trump called the deal “historic news for our nation and indeed for the world.”
The partners have agreed to stronger rules of origin for autos and automobile parts that exceed those of both the original NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The new deal has a 16-year lifespan, with a review period after six years, providing more certainty for business investments. According to the White House, the review period gives the United States significant leverage in pushing partners to comply with their obligations.
The steel and aluminum tariffs that the United States imposed on Canada and Mexico will be dealt with separately.
The trading partners now have 60 days to finalize the legal text and sign the agreement.
The USMCA can give Republicans another victory to point to, especially in the heartland and industrial Midwest, according to Ford O’Connell, a political analyst and Republican strategist.
“It certainly is important in the overall calculus for Republicans in their quest to hold the Senate and the House in 2018,” he said.
“But in terms of his political impact with voters, it will be a far more valuable for President Trump in his 2020 re-election bid with voters than it will be for Republicans in 2018.”
Stocks Soar On USMCA Trade Deal
America First Policies senior policy adviser Curtis Ellis, The Weekly Standard deputy managing editor Kelly Jane Torrance, Independent Women’s Forum policy director Hadley Heath Manning and CivicForumPAC Chairman Ford O’Connell on whether President Trump trade deal with Canada and Mexico is a template for future deals.
How Would Flake Fare In N.H.? Strategists Weigh In
When Sen. Jeff Flake forced the delay of a final confirmation vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and ushered in an FBI investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, it proved momentous. For Democrats, it was a breath of bipartisanship. For Republicans, a reckless capitulation to the other party.
But as the Arizona senator touched down in New Hampshire on Monday amid mounting 2020 presidential primary buzz, some Republican strategists are asking whether Flake’s action during the Kavanaugh nomination process will even matter.
It could cement his reputation as a peacemaker, the last defender of the dying era of civility, a narrative he pitched to an audience at St. Anselm College Monday evening. Or it could further irritate Republicans who saw a safe bet to transform the Supreme Court in Kavanaugh, and a careless and a self-centered disrupter in Flake.
More likely, Republican analysts say, it won’t change anyone’s mind.
To Republicans, voting no and bucking what for Republicans is a near-consensus choice on the Supreme Court could be the ultimate tactical error, strategists said. Whatever allies he makes on the left and middle would not likely stick by his side in 2020, many warned.
“When it comes to Supreme Court judges of the federal judiciary, Republicans of all wings of the party are pretty much on the same page,” said Ford O’Connell, a former aide to the McCain presidential campaign in 2008. “… And I don’t see the Democratic party base, even in a presidential primary, giving him the time of day.”
U.S. Deputy Attorney General's Job Hanging In Balance, Partisan Animosity Sensed In Washington
After Monday's flurry of conflicting U.S. media reports, it remains unknown whether U.S. President Donald Trump will fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
But if that happens, Democrats will be up in arms, as Rosenstein is supervising the investigation into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to clinch the 2016 presidential elections.
The two are slated to meet at the White House on Thursday, but it remains unknown what will happen. Some experts believe firing Rosenstein would be too risky a move for Trump.
The issue highlights the ongoing probe over whether Trump's campaign team colluded with Moscow in a bid to clinch the 2016 presidential elections, as Rosenstein is supervising the investigation into the controversial matter, which is headed by Special Council Robert Mueller. Trump has called the investigation a "witch hunt," while Democrats continue to support the investigation.
Should Rosenstein get the ax, there will likely be an outcry among Democrats.
GOP Strategist Ford O'Connell told Xinhua it is unclear how the Russia probe would be impacted if Rosenstein were fired.
"But politically, the Democrats would be screaming to high heavens and that's what you have to think about," he said.
Indeed, in the lead up to November's mid-term elections, a Rosenstein firing could galvanize Democratic voters to head out to the ballot box, and that would be bad for Trump, some experts opined.
Republicans Are Slowly Warming to Climate Change—Is it Already Too Late?
As Hurricane Florence took hold of the Carolinas in mid-September, partisan talk swirled like the winds.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blamed the Trump administration for listening to “naysayers” who didn't want to switch to clean energy. Fossil fuels, she told reporters, absolutely contributed to the severity of the hurricane: “This is something that we have to look at in a big way, and it’s not served by denial of the facts.”
Former Vice President Al Gore weighed in from a climate conference in San Francisco. “Every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation, and we’ve got to connect the dots between the cause and the effect,” he said. “Some people evidently can still deny the reality [of climate change]—it’s a little bit harder to deny the 3,000 deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria last year.”
Rush Limbaugh used his radio show to fight back against what he called fearmongering. “This is made to order for the climate change–global warming crowd,” he said. “Hurricanes and hurricane forecasting is like much else that the left has gotten its hands on, and they politicize these things.”
He’s right, at any rate, that the topic is deeply politicized. A recent Gallup poll showed a gaping partisan divide on environmental policy: 69 percent of Republicans said they were satisfied with the current state of the environment, while 67 percent of Democrats said they were dissatisfied.
All of this feeds a self-perpetuating narrative that Americans’ views on climate change are split straight down the aisle—and are irreconcilable.
“You’ve got the Democrats who run out there and blame a specific weather event on climate change, and then you have someone like Republican Senator Jim Inhofe who will throw a snowball in the Senate to prove climate change isn’t real,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and former McCain-Palin presidential campaign adviser. “Both sides call up the carnival barkers, and nothing gets done.”
But Democrats and Republicans have more in common than they might think.
The problem, said GOP strategist O’Connell, was that in solidly red states a lot of jobs relied on the energy industry. Republicans thought they couldn't be re-elected if they told their constituents, “Let’s kill your jobs,” he said.
Kavanaugh Drama Risks Driving Moderates, Women Away From GOP
The sexual assault accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is undercutting one of the GOP’s strongest issues for its base and risks further eroding support from women and independent voters who will be crucial to deciding which party controls Congress after the November elections.
Republicans have been treading carefully in dealing with the accusation by college professor Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh attacked her while they both were in high school. That’s been evident in the careful statements from President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers as they try to give Republican voters the conservative court majority that they want while not antagonizing women, who polls show already heavily favor Democrats in the election.
Trump, who is known for delivering harsh rebukes to critics, had a mild reaction Wednesday morning as uncertainty swirled about whether Ford would testify at a Judiciary Committee hearing next week.
Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh already had become a flashpoint for the November election, highlighting some of the nation’s widest cultural divides. Polls show voters as split on Kavanaugh as they are on a variety of other political issues. A Sept. 10 Quinnipiac University national poll released before the sexual assault allegations were made public found that 41 percent of registered voters supported Kavanaugh and 42 percent opposed.
There is some peril for Democrats as well. Along with the gender gap, Republicans are suffering from an “enthusiasm gap” compared with Democratic voters heading into the midterms, said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell, who has worked on state and national campaigns. But that could be closed if the party’s base views the 11th-hour allegations as an unfair tactic by Democrats.
“There is a risk for Republicans if they appear to be insensitive to the accusations, especially among suburban women,” he said. “But if this plays out as an ambush set up by Democrats, it will help Republicans in getting voters to turn out."
The political battle will play out in a handful of Senate contests on the ballot in November, but the impact may be wider in House races.
Read more from Steven T. Dennis and Erik Wasson at Bloomberg
