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The interruption was unplanned but Joe Biden immediately knew this was no ordinary heckler. I agree! he told a babbling baby as the audience laughed. I agree completely. By the way, kids are allowed to do anything they want when I speak so dont worry about it.

It was a welcome note of light relief during a speech that could not be described as blockbuster television. Beside a blue sign that said Building a Better America, perched on a white boat at the New Hampshire Port Authority in Portsmouth, the US president was last week trying to gin up enthusiasm about infrastructure investment and supply chains.

Bidens choice of state was telling: Democratic senator Maggie Hassan faces New Hampshire voters in November as she seeks a second term in elections that will decide the control of Congress. And not for the first time, there are fears the Democrats have a messaging problem.

The party does have a story to tell about the creation of 7.9 million jobs more over his first 14 months in office than any president in history along with progress against the coronavirus pandemic, the passage of a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure law, diverse judicial appointments and leading the Nato alliance against Russias Vladimir Putin.

But opinion polls suggest this could be overwhelmed by Republicans characteristically blunt and visceral campaign targeting 40-year high inflation, rising crime, immigration at the Mexico border and culture wars over abortion, transgender rights and how race is taught in schools.

Hearts beats charts, said John Zogby, an author and pollster. Very simply, look at the Democrats whove won the presidency: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden. Contrast the obvious empathy and real-life stories with Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton.

Its the ability to tell a story that relates to all Americans. All of which is to suggest that Republicans will tell stories that matter and Democrats will show statistics.

The stakes this time could hardly be higher: the Senate is currently split 50-50, while Democrats can afford to lose only three seats in the House of Representatives if they want to retain control. Given the headwinds typically faced by the presidents party in midterms, Republicans believe both chambers are within their grasp.

Such an outcome could turn Biden into a lame-duck president, able to do little more than issue executive orders and veto legislation, while empowering congressional Republicans to launch investigations into his son, Hunter Biden, and other foes while paving the way for the return of the former president, Donald Trump.

The polls look bleak for Democrats. Last month, NBC News found that 46% of registered voters prefer a Republican-controlled Congress while 44% want Democrats in charge the first time Republicans have led in this survey since September 2014.

Inflation fears dominate, according to online focus groups run last week by Navigator Research with swing voters in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. They found that presenting economic facts only modestly moves the needle and pervasive inflation concerns outweigh job creation.

A North Carolina woman who took part said of the economy: So you can tell me its doing great but if Im struggling to buy groceries and gas and will be out of a job in two months, that to me is saying no, its not really doing that great.

Biden has attempted to shift blame for rising fuel costs to Putins price hike but with limited success. His public approval rating stands at 43%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, with disapproval of his job performance at 51%.

Democrats four most-endangered Senate incumbents Hassan of New Hampshire, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada duly seem to be distancing themselves from the president, for example by visiting the southern border and criticising his plan to lift a pandemic-era restriction there known as Title 42.

Biden, touring the country and refocusing on domestic concerns after two months dominated by Ukraine, wants to convince voters that investing in roads and bridges is a major accomplishment after years of unfulfilled promises from his predecessor. But most of the benefits will not be felt for years and even the word infrastructure tends to land with a thud.

There are further worries that the Democratic base, including many voters of colour, will stay at home on election day, disenchanted by the partys failure to get gun safety, police reform and voting rights legislation through Congress. Biden no longer uses the phrase Build Back Better and is struggling to salvage parts of that plan to address the climate crisis.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: The difficulty that Democrats have is that a message that would energise the base is not one that resonates with the centre. The swing voter doesnt prioritise voting rights, climate change, big expansion of spending. They want much more pedestrian things and Democrats have not yet figured out how to have a narrative that combines both.

Republicans have the luxury of opposition, Olsen added. When you dont have the power to be for anything, its easier to be against something and thats what youre going to see: Biden inflation, Biden weakness, Biden liberalism, Biden socialism.

They will try to paint the Democratic party as a whole with its left wing but, by and large, they will attack Biden and the Democratic party as out of touch and producing bad results for the average American on the things they care most about: crime, immigration and the economy. This is one of, if not the most, favourable environment for an out party that Ive seen in my lifetime.

Indeed, Republicans are exuding confidence despite still being in thrall to a former president who incited a deadly insurrection and despite offering no policy agenda. Florida senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the national Republican senatorial committee, published his own 11-point plan that includes forcing poorer Americans who do not currently pay income tax to do so, but it was swiftly disowned by minority leader Mitch McConnell.

Instead, Republicansare filling the vacuum by assailing rising prices at the petrol pump and at the supermarket (Bidenflation), increasing crime rates in major cities and Bidens reversal of Trump-era policies on immigration. US authorities arrested 210,000 migrants attempting to cross the southern border in March, the highest monthly total in two decades.

The party has also reverted to its playbook of social and cultural hot-button topics, railing against a caricature of critical race theory (CRT) in schools and pushing state legislation to restrict abortions and ban transgender children from sport. It casts itself as a champion of parental rights while portraying Democrats as woke socialists bent on controlling lives and cancelling dissent.

Addressing the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank in Washington last month, Scott warned: We survived the war of 1812, world war one, world war two, Korea, Vietnam and the cold war. But now, today, we face the greatest danger we have ever faced: the militant left wing in our country has become the enemy within.

Come election season, Democrats are often accused of bringing a power-point presentation to a bar brawl: trying to explain policies in intellectual paragraphs while Republicans spin slogans ready-made for car bumper stickers. But this time some Democrats say they are ready to take the fight to their opponents.

Congressman Eric Swalwell of California has just launched the Remedy political action committee, which turns Scotts message on its head by contending that American democracy is under attack from within and promising to hold accountable those who choose party over country.

Swalwell said: At the end of the day, elections are about A or B. Its about drawing a contrast and we can just make it as simple as chaos or competency. When it comes to transitions of power, do you want violence or voting? When it comes to the character of who runs the country, do you want indecency or integrity?

When [pro-Trump members of Congress] Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene proudly declare that theyre not the fringe, theyre the base of the party, were going to make sure every voter knows that. Thats what theyre going to get if they give Republicans the keys to the country.

One dilemma for Democrats is how much time they should spend harking back to Trump, reminding voters of the existential threat that his party still poses to democracy, versus a positive forward-looking vision that encompasses bread-and-butter concerns.

Swalwell acknowledges that Democrats must identify with the pain that people are feeling from inflation while also offering solutions. He points to last months example of the House passing a bill to limit the cost of insulin to $35 a month (Americans currently pay around five to eight times more than Canadians). Some 193 Republicans opposed the bill while just 12 voted in favour.

Swalwell said: Were going to make them own walking away from solutions that would help people. Their plan for the economy is that 100 million people will pay more in taxes: thats Rick Scotts rescue plan that theyre running on. As people pay more already at the checkout stand, Rick Scott would have most Americans pay more in taxes.

Its going to be about choices and, if we have the resources to tell America what the choices are, were going to win. Right now I see the punditry betting against us but I dont see our supporters betting against us because, when you look at Democratic versus Republican fundraising quarter after quarter, were beating them. Theres no fatigue in our base. They get it.

The four embattled Senate Democrats Cortez Masto, Hassan, Kelly and Warnock outraised their Republican opponents in the first quarter of this year, boosting hopes that supporters will remain energised. Trumps determination to insert himself into dozens of races with risky endorsements, campaign rallies and his big lie of a stolen election could also galvanise Democrats and independents.

Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican national committee, predicts that Republicans will pick up 30 to 35 seats in the House but Democrats might just hold the Senate. He said: The Republicans main message is going to be Democrats cant run the country. I give you the economy. I give you culture. I give you crime. And the Democrats message is, Can we get back to you in a moment? That sums up the 2022 election.

He added: Republicans dont have to run on anything substantive; all they have to do is say, gee, look how screwed up these guys are. Youre going to see Republicans run a culture war-based strategy that drives the fear and loathing that white suburban families, particularly women, have over things that are not even relevant to their childrens lives, like CRT. And Democrats will be sitting there pissed off at all the wrong stuff.

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Joe Bidens message drowned out by beat of the Republican culture-war drum - The Guardian

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is leading a delegation of Republican lawmakers to the southern border in Texas on Monday, his office announced on Saturday.

McCarthy and nine other Republicans will be traveling to the southern border at Eagle Pass, Texas, in the minority leaders second congressional delegation to the southern border this Congress, his office noted.

The other GOP lawmakers joining McCarthy include House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Reps. Gary Palmer (Ala.), Tony Gonzales (Texas), Randy Weber (Texas), Michael Guest (Miss.), Chip Roy (Texas), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Diana Harshbarger (Tenn.) and Blake Moore (Utah).

Today the border crisis is exploding but the Biden administration is about to make this unprecedented catastrophe even worse by rescinding Title 42, McCarthys office said in a release.

House Republicans stand with our brave Border Patrol agents on the front lines of this crisis, and we demand that the Biden administration reverse their decision to end Title 42 and fully enforce the immigration and border security laws of our nation.

The development comes as the Biden administration recorded roughly 221,000 migrant arrests at the southern border for the month of March the highest monthly number of border encounters in two decades.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced it would be rescinding Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allows migrants to rapidly be turned away from the border and barred from seeking asylum. The policy is set to end on May 23.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed earlier this week that we are planning and preparing for the end of Title 42 enforcement on May 23.

There are a range of ideas out there in Congress: Democrats, Republicans, others, some who support a delay of Title 42 implementation, some who strongly oppose it, she added. And there are a range of other ideas of reforming our immigration system. This would all require congressional action. Were happy to have that conversation with them.

See the rest here:
McCarthy to head delegation of Republican lawmakers to southern border - The Hill

Because they have long held a supermajority and dominated Idaho politics, next months Republican primary elections are expected to be among the most competitive and influential races in a vital election year for Idaho.

Based on decades of political dominance in Idaho and Democrats not running candidates in most races, the May 17 Republican primary elections will answer the question of who controls the Republican Party and, therefore, sets the policy and political agenda for years to come.

With the closed primary, that has become basically the general election because Idaho is such a strong red state, said former Republican Speaker of the Idaho House Bruce Newcomb.

The 2022 elections are the most important elections in years. All 105 seats in the Idaho Legislature are up for election, and all statewide offices, including governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction are up as well.

History and electoral dynamics are certainly on the Republicans side. Although the Idaho Senate was split 21-21 in 1991 and 1992, the Republicans have controlled a majority in the Idaho Legislature since 1959, with the exception of those two years.

Republicans have also won every statewide office since 2002, when Democrat Marilyn Howard was re-elected superintendent of public instruction.

And even before a single vote in the 2022 elections is counted, Republicans know they will continue to enjoy a supermajority in 2023. Of the 105 legislative seats up for election this year, there are no Democrats running for 60 of the seats.

For the 2022 elections, the goals are clear, Idaho Republican Party Chairman Tom Luna told the Idaho Capital Sun. Republicans want to retain every statewide office and expand their supermajority in the Legislature. Theyre also looking to expand their political empire beyond the Statehouse.

Most recently we have been involved with what traditionally have been nonpartisan offices to get more conservative voices at the school board and city and county level, Luna said. That is the nature of success, keep what we have and expand what we have.

Idaho Republicans face division with the party

Supermajorities have interesting and complicated effects on elections and politics, said Jaclyn Kettler, associate professor of political science at Boise State University.

Republicans holding such a large majority in the state, whether you look at all the statewide offices or a supermajority in Legislature, actually provide some challenges to both parties, Kettler said. Republicans have internal division and Democrats face a few struggles, and one is perhaps even being able to recruit candidates to run.

Luna said the primaries are when Republicans hammer out their differences and decide which direction the party will head.

As I travel around the state, its still very clear to me Republicans agree on 80% of policy and 80% of values, but it is during the primary we debate the 20% we dont agree on.

Its pretty clear we have legislative candidates that represent different wings of the party, Luna added. As a state party, we dont get involved with supporting candidates in the primary. We let the voters decide.

But Idaho Democratic Party chair Rep. Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, said division within the Republican Party isnt merely about debating policies about how to cut taxes and reduce government regulation. She said the Republican Party and the Idaho House have moved farther to the right and pushed divisive and extremism.

Idahoans in all walks of life are seeing extremism play out in the Idaho Legislature and are deeply concerned about the future of our state, Necochea said. Examples she gave included reducing funding for higher education and the library commission, GOP efforts to remove a statute that protects librarians from imprisonment, passing a Texas-style abortion law and the Republicans focus on so-called indoctriantion and critical race theory in school.

Did the closed Republican primary election push the party to the far right?

Newcomb, a Republican who held the Houses top leadership position from 1999 through 2006, said he is worried about how the closed Republican primary election, which is only open to voters affiliated with the Republican Party, politicizes the party.

The big thing is we have become much more partisan, particularly the Republican Party and factions in dissent within the party, Newcomb said. If you look at Take Back Idaho, which includes (former state Republican officials) Ben Ysursa, Jim Jones, myself and Bob Geddes, we are concerned about the state Legislature in terms of addressing policy rather than conspiracy theories. There are factions (in the GOP) where we have CRT, critical race theory and those people buying into those stuff. Basically, in the beginning, hardly anybody could define it and no matter how much you shoot at it, it just keeps rising up. Now it is present in a lot of peoples campaigns and it shouldnt be.

Since helping launch the Take Back Idaho PAC and saying he wants to push for the removal of extremists from the Legislature, Newcomb has been called a RINO, or Republican in Name Only.

Newcomb said the name-calling and meanness is illustrative of the partys shift and problems.

The other thing is campaigns have become so ugly and dissident that good people are reluctant to get involved.

Newcomb said Republicans deserve the blame for the division and extremism that has crept into the party and for underestimating the sophistication of divisive social media content.

A lot of it is people, like myself, were kind of asleep at the switch and thinking this will correct itself but it just keeps gaining momentum, Newcomb said.

Political scientist David Adler, the president of the nonprofit Alturas Institute in Idaho Falls, said the party has shifted so far to the right he doesnt see much distinction between Idaho Republicans, particularly in the Idaho House of Representatives. If there are differences, Adler said they should be measurable such as differences in voting records or by elected officials who stand up and denounce policies such as cutting funding for libraries and education or pursuing a bill that critics worried could lead to jailing libraries for material harmful to minors.

Adler points to two bills over the past two years that he says are illustrative of the state of the Republican Party in Idaho. One is this years abortion law, Senate Bill 1309. Every Republican but Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, voted for it and GOP Gov. Brad Little signed it into law. (Wood is retiring and will not return to the Idaho Legislature next year).

The other is the so-called anti indoctrination, anti critical race theory bill from 2021. The only Republican to vote against House Bill 377 was Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston.

Its one thing to say you represent a more moderate wing of the Republican Party and offer a distinctive voice than that offered by the far right, Adler said. But if in fact your voting record mirrors the far right, then essentially there is no moderate conservtive wing in the Republican Party.

Adler thinks the move to the right could eventually be damaging to the Idaho Republican Party, but it will take Idahoans deciding GOP policies dont work for regular Idaho families and launching a sustained move to attract independent and moderate voters to reshape the Democratic Party.

It would marginalize the far right in Idaho; it would place them on an island, Adler said.

For his part, Luna disagreed with Adler, Newcomb and Necochea.

We have a physiological difference on the proper role of government, Luna said. You have one side that really believes the answer is bigger government and more programs, right, more government programs. On the other side, Republicans insist on less government and know you need strong families. So everything we do should be building strong families, whatever your definition of families. We dont need big government where families are weak and not able to function as a unit and rely more and more on government programs. It is a different approach, where we want to strengthen families and strengthen the support system.

Luna said Republicans resisted extremism and anti-government activist Ammon Bundy, an independent candidate who originally announced he would run for governor as a Republican before going independent.

You saw that play out in its natural course, Luna said. He was not a Republican, he had never voted as a Republican and he realized he didnt have a place in the Republican Party and became the poster child of a RINO.

Luna said Republicans get criticized for their beliefs and infighting and but dont get enough credit for their accomplishments.

When I talk to the national press, I remind them we are the least regulated state and have one of the best economies in the country with two years in a row of massive tax cuts and rebates, Luna said. Its not an accident. Its the result of a robust and engaged Republican Party. When you write whats wrong with the Republican Party? or whats the future of the Republican Party? remind people it is that same Republican Party that created one of the fastest growing states, a state that is so attractive to others because of low regulations, reduced taxes and what I believe is a good education system for the money we spend.

The rest is here:
Primary elections 2022: State of the Idaho Republican Party - Bonner County Daily Bee

Dave Caudill| Opinion contributor

Phil Heimlich, I salute you.

Your famous father devised a maneuver to save people from choking on food while trying to swallow. You sir, are trying to save the Republican Party from choking as it maneuvers to swallow Donald Trump.

Heimlich is part of a far-too-rare cohort of the GOP. I hesitate to use the word "party"to describe what has become for so many in it a snarling, delusional cult with Trump ensconced as its chief snarler and truth denier.

Why cant more Republicans show the kind of integrity and willingness to compromise that Heimlich has consistently, going back to when Trump emerged on his fumbling quest to transform this country into an oligarchy led by one more rich would-be autocrat.

Lets try to understand what puts so many Republican officeholders in thrall to Trump. They, like a lot of politicians, put holding office and winning elections above almost all else. But as the news organization Axios Jonathan Swan put it to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell in a recent interview: "Where is your moral red line?"

The unfailing truth is that Trump lost the 2020 election by some 7 million votes. Why back such a poor loser who cant even admit that he lost?

Many Republicans like to cite "problems" with vote counting in the 2020 elections. But this is clearly another political ploy made despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Elected officials, courts and law enforcement on both sides of the political spectrum examined the possibility of fraud in the election and found that if it happened at all, it could not have changed the outcome.

Warren Davidson, Heimlichs opponent in Ohios 8th District GOP primary, is among the Trump minions unwilling to admit that President Biden won the election. He almost surely knows that Biden won legitimately but calculates that its not politically expedient to say so. Hes the very definition of a politician without backbone.

But, of course, Davidson is not alone. Such a position has become the litmus test for a Trump endorsement, and Davidson has that. Presumably, it helps him to sleep at night.

Fortunately, Heimlich is not alone either. Republicans for the Rule of Law (ruleoflawrepublicans.com) is among the organizations working to restore the partys integrity.

Sarah Longwell, the groups executive director and publisher of The Bulwark (thebulwark.com), a news network that provides political reporting and analysis "free from the constraints of partisan loyalties,"attempted to explain the power of the "Big Lie"that Trump won the 2020 election. Longwell speaks often to focus groups and has concluded that people who believe the Big Lie dont believe its a lie. They are not bad people, shes concluded, they simply have no idea that they are being lied to.

A huge part of the reason they have no idea, Longwell writes, is that the news sources they pay attention to (heres looking at you, Fox) and candidates and public officials they voted for are going along with it. The officials do it to prop up their approval ratings, and Fox does it mostly to bolster its viewership. Consequently, the lie perpetuates itself.

Heimlich, and a lot of other Republicans, even those who wont say so, see through this Wizard-of-Oz-like curtain.

In a recent Enquirer news story, Hamilton County GOP Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou said of Heimlichs run against Davidson: "If he thinks hes rescuing us from Donald Trump, hes mistaken. Thats not how it works."

Mr. Triantafilou, how does it work? How does the Republican Party find more candidates who have crawled out from under the anti-democratic, mendacious, bloated boulder that is Donald Trump?

Dave Caudill of Mount Lookout is a freelance writer and editor and a former Enquirer staffer.

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Opinion: Heimlich working to restore Republican Party's integrity - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Leonard Pitts Jr.| Austin American-Statesman

Heres what were not going to do here.

We are not going to indulge the lazy rationalizations, false equivalence, cheap gaslighting and other forms of rhetorical chicanery that have become so common to political discourse in this era. Our country is in crisis, and we owe it better.

The warning is for those who claimed offense at the following observation, made in this space a few days back: What Americans have lost to be painfully accurate, what Republicans have trashed in pursuit of power is the willingness and ability to share a common national identity. It would seem to be self-evident truth. But not everyone agrees.

Constantly blaming Republicans, griped one respondent.

You ONLY blame the Republicans, complained another.

You exclusively blame Republicans, grumbled yet another.

Well, theres a reason the Republicans get the blame for destroying any sense of common American narrative. Its because pay close attention here they deserve the blame for destroying any sense of common American narrative.

Sorry, but Hunter Bidens laptop didnt do that. Black Lives Matter didnt do that. Whatever thing Fox News last told its audience to fear did not do that.

The Republican Party did it by a campaign of demonizing dissent, shredding norms and boundaries, embracing a politics of white resentment and fear and, perhaps most corrosively, delegitimizing the very idea of knowable fact, so that an ordinary birth certificate becomes an object of suspicion, an ordinary election a seedbed of distrust and the sacking of the U.S. Capitol an innocent visit by tourists.

Is it mere partisanship to hold the party accountable for this? Or are we not talking about something bigger and more foundational than political gamesmanship? Note how many of the GOPs ardent defenders George F. Will, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Kathleen Parker, Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen. Mitt Romney, Jonah Goldberg have become, to various degrees, estranged from it in recent years. None of those worthies may be credibly accused of being anti-Republican.

But what they are is conscientious enough that they cannot deny self-evident truth when it is right before them. Some of us prefer to peddle misguided both-sideism, to spew non-responsive non-sequiturs or stick metaphorical fingers in metaphorical ears going la la la la la la la until the truth safely passes them by.

Meantime, one party steers the ship of state toward jagged rocks.

Political scientists Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein once observed that, The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

They wrote that in a 2012 book called Its Even Worse Than It Looks. Ten years later, its even worse than that.

Its important to be clear on that, not to blame the GOP but because James Baldwin was right. You cannot fix what you will not face. And what America needs to face is the simple, chilling fact that the Republican Party is a clear and present danger.

Confronting that does not make you a partisan.

It makes you a patriot.

Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald.

Originally posted here:
Pitts: The Republican Party is a clear and present danger - Austin American-Statesman