Archive for the ‘Republicans’ Category

Trump and Republicans don’t want Nancy Pelosi to go – CNN

That's because they think she helps them win elections. And they've been winning a lot.

"I certainly hope the Democrats do not force Nancy P out. That would be very bad for the Republican Party - and please let Cryin' (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck (Schumer) stay!" Trump tweeted Thursday morning as some Democrats call for their House minority leader's ouster after Tuesday's special election loss in Georgia.

The Georgia contest was the most expensive House race in history, and the GOP dusted off the same playbook it has used effectively since the Republican wave of 2010: Hammering Democratic candidates with a relentlessly anti-Pelosi message that drives out the conservative base.

Democrat Jon Ossoff never found an answer for the attacks -- and Republican Karen Handel won Tuesday night by 4 percentage points.

Why the relentless focus on the Democratic congresswoman from San Francisco?

It was at the heart of their strategy to turn out reliably Republican voters who might be queasy with Trump's first five months in office, but did not want to see Pelosi and national Democrats celebrate a marquee victory in their own backyard.

Pelosi "consistently polls very unfavorably," said John Rogers, the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- the House GOP's campaign arm.

"I think in this instance it had a motivating effect for our voters on the turnout front," Rogers said Wednesday.

That the Pelosi-bashing continued to hurt Democrats -- already struggling to get their bearings after Trump's win in November -- left some fuming after a morning meeting Wednesday.

Having Pelosi as the face of the party "makes it a heck of a lot harder" to win House seats, said Rep. Tim Ryan, the Ohio Democrat who challenged Pelosi for the House minority leader post after the 2016 election.

"One of the disappointing things from the last couple of days is that that approach still has a little bit of punch to it. It still moves voters," Ryan said.

Pelosi herself erupted about the GOP ads last week, after Republicans accused Democrats of overly harsh rhetoric in the wake of the shooting at the Republican congressional baseball practice in Virginia.

"As we sit here, they're running caricatures of me in Georgia," Pelosi said.

She complained of the "vitriolic things that they say that resulted in calls to my home constantly, threats in front of my grandchildren -- really, predicated on their comments and their paid ads."

Pelosi said she didn't want to hear Republicans "all of a sudden be sanctimonious" as if they had "never seen such a thing before."

On Thursday, Pelosi fielded several questions at her weekly briefing about calls by some in her party for her to step down after the recent losses. Pelosi acknowledged the attacks but added, "I think I'm worth the trouble."

The focus on Pelosi comes in part because she's the only figure in Democratic politics who is universally known and detested on the right.

In 2010, it was Pelosi and then-President Barack Obama. Years later, it was Pelosi, Obama and then-top Senate Democrat Harry Reid. Now, with Obama and Reid gone, Republicans have occasionally tried latching Democratic senators to Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, with mixed results. But the Pelosi attacks on the House side have been consistent for years.

Ossoff regularly attempted to deflect questions about whether he would back Pelosi in the House, saying he hadn't given it any thought.

That non-answer didn't work -- so some Democrats on Wednesday were going further in distancing themselves from the former speaker.

Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat, told CNN his party needed new leadership.

"Whether she's a leader or not is up to the caucus to decide," Moulton said. "But this is something we certainly have to discuss, because it's clear that I think across the board in the Democratic Party, we need new leadership."

Republicans' ability to effectively use Pelosi as their bogeyman in Georgia was especially stark when contrasted with the Democrats' tactics there.

Trump's collapse in November -- he beat Hillary Clinton by just 1.5 percentage points in a district that Mitt Romney had carried by 24 points four years earlier -- was the sole reason national Democrats saw the race as potentially competitive.

And progressive activists' willingness to pour millions of dollars' worth of small-dollar online contributions into Ossoff's campaign -- donations fueled almost entirely by a desire to deal Trump a political setback -- was what convinced Democrats to take the race seriously.

Yet neither Ossoff's campaign nor the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attempted to tie Republican winner Karen Handel to Trump in a television ad even once.

Democrats were hesitant to attack the President in such a historically heavily Republican district. But their reluctance left Ossoff running on a milquetoast message, allowing Republicans to drive the narrative that he would be a Pelosi lackey on Capitol Hill.

"One important lesson is that when they go low, going high doesn't f**king work," Tanden said.

CNN's Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.

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Trump and Republicans don't want Nancy Pelosi to go - CNN

The GOP’s Suburban Nightmare – POLITICO Magazine – POLITICO Magazine

Surveying the Democratic wreckage after a disastrous 1952 campaign, Robert Taft, the typically taciturn Ohio Republican senator, made a bold prediction about the opposition. The Democratic Party, the onetime Senate majority leader asserted, will never win another national election until it solves the problem of the suburbs.

Taft wasnt exactly right, but he wasnt wrong either. The millions of voters fleeing overcrowded cities to seek the American dream would ultimately power Republicans to victory in six of the next nine presidential elections, and in the process, reshape the GOPs postwar image as the party of the suburbs.

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But that Republican Party is now gone, and suburbia is no longer its trusted wingman. Although Donald Trump managed to win the suburbs narrowly in 2016, 49 percent to Hillary Clintons 45 percent, a little over half of suburbia voted against him, according to exit polls. This marks the third presidential election in a row in which the GOP nominee failed to crack 50 percent of the suburban vote.

Once the Republican Partys stronghold, suburban America threatens now to become its nemesis. A combination of demographic change and cultural dissonance is gradually eroding its ability to compete across much of suburbia, putting entire areas of the country out of the GOPs reach. Its a bigger crisis than the party acknowledges, a reckoning that threatens Trumps reelection and the next generation of Republican office-seekers.

Karen Handels Georgia special-election victory Tuesday enabled the GOP to kick the can down the road, but not for long. The same Atlanta suburbs that once produced Republicans like Newt Gingrich voted for Clinton in November. They followed up a few months later by nearly sending a 30-year-old, first-time Democratic candidate to Congress. Republicans may be gloating now, but its an ominous sign for the 2018 midterm elections, when control of the House is likely to hinge on roughly two or three dozen suburban districts currently held by the GOP.

Trump won the 2016 election, of course, boosted by the margins he ran up in smaller cities and rural areas. But he lost the populous close-in suburbs of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., home to the precincts that first heralded suburbias arrival as a political powerhouse. That wasnt the real story, though. He was also defeated in other, later-blooming suburban giants, including Atlantas Cobb County and Southern Californias iconic Orange County, both onetime exporters of Sun Belt conservatism that occupy storied roles in the formation of the contemporary Republican Party.

Theres a reason Ronald Reagan once said Orange County was the place good Republicans go to diebefore 2016, it had last voted Democratic for president more than 80 years ago. The symbolism of Trumps defeat in one of the GOPs holy places was apt: This was the election where the full extent of the partys suburban rot was finally revealed.

Never mind the places he lost. He also barely squeaked by in traditional GOP stalwarts like Richmonds Chesterfield Countythe most populous in the state outside Northern Virginiaand Johnson County, the wealthy Kansas-side suburb of Kansas City. In many of the rock-ribbed Republican suburbs where Trump won easilyplaces like Waukesha County outside Milwaukee, and Hamilton County, on the outskirts of Indianapolishe trailed well behind Mitt Romneys 2012 pace.

Some of the erosion can be written off as a one-time reaction to Trump, a candidate uniquely ill-suited for the suburbs. His populist stylethe bombast, belligerence and frank disregard for credentialed elitessounded discordant notes in the more comfortable precincts, among the well-educated professionals who flocked to John Kasich and Marco Rubio during the GOP primary. So did Trumps caustic or tin-eared statements on gender, race and ethnicity on a suburban landscape that bears little resemblance to the original lily-white version.

But the truth is that Trump arrived in what was already the twilight of the GOPs suburban era.

In the decades following World War II, the suburbs formed the electoral backbone of the party, providing a reliable counterweight to big-city Democratic margins. The GOP was quick to grasp the new math in the 1950s, viewing the flight from the cities as an adrenaline shot for what was then a flat-lining party. Republicans celebrated the suburban way of lifeand its consumption ethoswhile Democrats, wedded to powerful big-city mayors and their machines, consistently derided it.

Have you ever lived in the suburbs? joked New York City Mayor Ed Koch in 1982. Its sterile. Its nothing. Its wasting your life.

For suburbia, the GOP functioned not just as a validator of its lifestyle but also as a guarantor. It was the party of growth, low taxes and law and order. Just as important, it served as a bulwark against racial integration and a vigorous critic of the big-city dysfunction that many suburban voters had fled. In return, the suburbs delivered a loyal and ever-expanding vote. By 1980, in a Frederick Jackson Turner-esque moment, the number of those living in the suburbs finally surpassed the number living in the central cities.

It wasnt until the early 1990s that Democrats finally made a full-fledged, unqualified play for the suburban vote. Bill Clinton explicitly targeted the tax-sensitive suburban middle class, speaking of personal responsibility, pushing for welfare reform and calling for the abandonment of Democrats free-spending policies of the past. The Northeastern and Midwestern suburbs were the first to go wobbly on the GOP, turned off by the culture wars waged by an increasingly Southern and socially conservative party.

Other subtle but important changes began to loosen the GOPs grip. As the suburbs aged, they began to experience more and more of the pathologies previously associated with the citiesamong them increased crime, poverty and crumbling infrastructure. At the same time, Americas great cities began to return to relative health.

Together, those developments brought some equilibrium to the relationship. The politics of the boogeyman-next-door began to lose its potency. City limitslike 8 Mile Road in Detroit or City Line Avenue in Philadelphiabegan to look less and less like political Maginot lines.

Perhaps the biggest change of all: The suburbs themselves grew far more diverse. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of racially diverse suburbs increased by 37 percent, growing at a faster clip than majority-white suburbs, according to one study.

The American Communities Project, which has developed a typology of counties, calls these kinds of wealthier and more diverse places urban suburbs. According to the ACP designation, there are 106 countieswith a combined population of 66.5 millionthat include the near-in suburbs of most major cities and display many big-city characteristics. In 2016, Trump lost 89 of them. Thats a dramatic departure from Ronald Reagans 1984 performance in those placeshe won 92 of those 106, including white-collar Oakland County outside Detroit; Long Islands Nassau County; Chicagolands DuPage County; and Riverside and San Bernardino counties in southern California. All of them are bigger than most major cities.

What happened in between Reagan and Trump? These suburbs gradually came into political alignment with their neighboring cities, moving the longtime antagonists toward something like a metropolitan alliance. At roughly the same time, the GOP largely gave up on competing among minorities and in the most densely populated areas.

The new GOP iteration differs in at least one important way from the one that dominated the suburbs in the Reagan years: It is now a conservative party that rejects metropolitan values, rather than a metropolitan party that embraces conservative values.

The threat to the party caused by the slow suburban bleed has gone all but unnoticed. Yet weve already gotten a glimpse of what the future could look like.

New York state stopped being competitive around the same time the populous New York City suburbs began going blue. The days when the GOP could carry Maryland ended when Baltimore County left the fold. Colorado and Virginia are likely to be the next dominoes to fall. Colorados Arapahoe and Jefferson counties, home to roughly 1.3 million residents, voted Republican in eight consecutive presidential elections through 2004. But since then, theyve voted Democratic in the past three. In November, Trump bottomed out at 39 percent of the Arapahoe vote.

Pennsylvania is another state where GOP presidential fortunes hit a wall once the Philadelphia suburbs drifted awaythat is, until last year. Trumps great electoral accomplishment was to figure out a workaround to the GOPs suburban erosion in places like Pennsylvania. He managed to overcome President Barack Obamas metropolitan Death Star with a patchwork alliance: forgotten and overlooked rural and small-town America, combined with smaller, whiter and less affluent suburbs. It wasnt enough to win the national popular vote, but it did provide enough of a margin to carry several key statesnamely Wisconsin and Pennsylvaniain which the GOP nominee had been shut out for decades.

Trumps coalition relied on several factors that wont be easy to replicate going forward, though. First among them: Trumps opponent. No matter the place designationurban, suburban or ruralClinton ran behind Obamas pace, according to exit polls. And in the suburbs, she was outperformed by Obama, John Kerry and Al Gore.

Trumps victory was also rooted in the strongest rural performance by a presidential nominee in decadeshe won 61 percent amid a huge turnout. Thats where the GOPs math problem comes in. To win reelection, Trump will need another gangbusters rural showing and to improve or at least maintain his 2016 levels in the suburbs, where roughly half the vote was cast last year. Theres little margin for error: Amped-up turnout in just three big cities aloneDetroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphiacould have flipped the 2016 election.

Yet there are few signs that hes improving his standing in suburbiaand some evidence its getting worse. The most recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll puts the presidents approval ratings in the suburbs at just 42 percent, compared with 53 percent who disapprove. In the suburban Atlanta district that hosted Tuesdays special election, Trumps approval ratings were also underwater45 percent, according to one GOP poll.

One siren just sounded in a conservative suburban New York state legislative district that Trump carried by 23 points in November. In a stunning late May special election upset, the Democrat flipped the traditional script and won by 18in a seat where no Democratic Assembly candidate had been competitive in the past two decades.

Three years is a long time, but it wont be easy for Trump to win over his suburban detractors. Recent history suggests that once these big suburbs go blue, they dont come back. Suburban Baltimore County, which once produced Spiro Agnew, went Democratic for president in 1992 and never returned. The same holds true for the big three Philadelphia suburban countiesBucks, Delaware and Montgomeryall of which broke with habit to vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 and havent voted for a Republican nominee since.

The president need only gaze across the Potomac to get a close look at the problem. Northern Virginias suburban behemoth, Fairfax County, flipped in 2004by 2016, Trump could manage only an anemic 29 percent there. In nearby Loudoun and Prince William counties, the tipping point came in 2008.

No Republican has won the presidency in the postwar era without winning the suburbs. Trump will put that to the test in 2020. And with that, the GOPs suburban era may come full circle, with Republican leaders forced to offer some version of famed Chicago Democratic boss Jake Arveys 1952 post-election lament: The suburbs were murder.

Charlie Mahtesian is senior politics editor at Politico.

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The GOP's Suburban Nightmare - POLITICO Magazine - POLITICO Magazine

Will the Senate’s health care proposal sway key Republicans? – PBS NewsHour

HARI SREENIVASAN: We are now on the eve of seeing a Senate proposal for health care, including replacing the Affordable Care Act.

Republican leaders plan to release their bill tomorrow, after working on it behind closed doors for weeks. Late today, The Washington Post reported a draft bill largely mirrors the Houses version, but with some notable changes. It will end Medicaid expansion more gradually, but cut it deeply in the long term. It also removes language that restricts federally subsidized health plans from covering abortions.

Lisa Desjardins joins me now.

Lisa, considering the process here, tomorrows going to be an unveiling of this draft, not just to the public, but even to a lot of Republicans.

LISA DESJARDINS: Thats right. Most Republican senators have not seen the language yet, Hari.

They tell me that they will see it tomorrow around 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. Thats when Republican senators will gather for this exact reason. When will we see it? When will the public see it? Republicans tell me that is at the same time, 9:30 a.m. Eastern, online. Not clear exactly where yet.

Hari, even as we wait for the exact bill, today, were hearing from some key senators that they have alarm bells ringing in their heads. Remember, Republicans can only lose two Republican senators and still have this bill pass. Well, today, Rand Paul told me he sees what he hears as Obamacare-lite.

And another senator, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, told me hes concerned. He asked for more time to review this bill. He said a vote next week, as is planned, is too soon. He said hes not getting more time and hes not sure he can get to yes without it.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Speaking of health care, today was also an important day, a deadline for insurance companies to figure out whether they were going to participate in some of the exchanges or not.

LISA DESJARDINS: This is critical for what kind of options people will have on the individual markets.

And so far, today, Hari, we have learned some news from some insurers pulling out of markets, in fact, Anthem and Blue Cross/Blue Shield pulling out of markets in Wisconsin and Indiana.

But its really a mixed story, Hari, because were also seeing new insurers enter in places like Tennessee, which will have three more options for insurance than it did last year. And also I spoke to a company called Medica. They plan on offering insurance throughout Iowa. That will be new for them this year, adding another option for Iowans.

But heres comes the catch, Hari, in a way. Medica says, to do that, theyre planning to increase premiums by 43 percent. So we will get more news here, but its a really mixed picture, all of these insurers saying theres instability in the market.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Lisa Desjardins joining us from Capitol Hill, many thanks.

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Will the Senate's health care proposal sway key Republicans? - PBS NewsHour

North Carolina Republicans Are Trying to Strip the Governor of His Power to Challenge Laws – Slate Magazine (blog)

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper

North Carolina Department of Transportation/Flickr

Shortly after Roy Cooper, a Democrat, won the North Carolina governorship, the GOP-dominated General Assembly launched an all-out assault on his office. Legislative Republicans, bolstered by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, stripped the governor of various powersmost critically, his ability to restore voting rights and appoint certain judges. Cooper sued to block the new laws, and the state judiciary has mostly sided with him, striking down a slew of measures that restricted his ability to govern the state.

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Now, the state GOP believes it has devised a solution: stop Cooper from filing suit against unconstitutional laws in the first place. This week, the General Assemblys Republican leaders released their final budget, which includes a brazen plan to thwart the governor in several ways. First, the budget prevents Cooper from using the governors office attorneys without the General Assemblys permission. Second, the budget prevents Cooper from using lapsed salary savingsmoney saved when the state pays an employee less than it had budgetedto hire outside counsel. These provisions effectively prevent Cooper from suing the legislature to halt unconstitutional laws. In order for him to do so, the General Assembly would have to give its permission to be sued, or Cooper would have to pay private lawyers out of pocket.

The budget also takes aim at another office of the executive branch, the attorney general. Currently, Democrat Josh Stein serves as AG, which has caused problems for the GOP. After a federal court struck down the states draconian voter ID law, Republicans wanted to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. But Stein refused to defend the law, prompting a confusing legal maelstrom that ultimately spurred the justices to reject the appeal altogether. The budget aims to avoid this problem by forcing the attorney general to defend the legislature any time it is sued. (If the AG recuses himself, he must select another lawyer at the state Justice Department to replace him.) This unusual requirement deprives the attorney general of his traditional discretion and raises grave constitutional concerns about legislative interference in executive affairs.

Republicans also added a provision to the budget mandating that the legislature participate in any suit challenging a North Carolina law. That means the General Assembly can always step into a lawsuit against the state and defend the challenged statute, even though the governor cannotunless the General Assembly allows him to, and permits him to use his attorneys. Finally, just for good measure, Republicans slashed funding for the Department of Justice by nearly 40 percent, kneecapping Steins entire agency.

On Wednesday, I asked Coopers office what the governor made of the proposals.

Since gaining a legislative majority, North Carolina Republicans have had more than a dozen unconstitutional laws overturned by the courts, Ford Porter, a Cooper spokesman, told me. In response, they appear intent on dismantling checks and balances in state government. In addition to a legislative assault on the courts, Republicans are now attempting to rig the system by limiting the Executive Branchs ability to challenge unconstitutional laws.

If the General Assembly passes the budget in its current form, Cooper will likely veto it. The legislature will then promptly override his veto, at which point Cooper will probably sue before the new provisions take effect. He will have a strong case: North Carolina courts have already found that the legislatures intrusions into executive affairs violates the states constitutional command of separation of powers. But if Cooper loses, he may never be able to sue the General Assembly again.

The legislatures chicanery here is especially galling given its recent losses in court. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that the states legislative districts were unlawfully gerrymandered along racial lines. This gerrymander gave Republicans their current supermajoritiesmeaning their power is ill-gotten and, arguably, illegitimate. Yet the GOP has not hesitated to use this power to incapacitate the executive in probable contravention of the constitution. The Republican-led breakdown of democracy in North Carolina continues apace.

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North Carolina Republicans Are Trying to Strip the Governor of His Power to Challenge Laws - Slate Magazine (blog)

The culture war is alive and well. And Republicans will keep fighting it. – Washington Post (blog)

'Stop the violent left' supporting Karen Handel's congressional bid in a special election for Georgia's sixth congressional district aims to tie Democrats to the shooting at a congressional baseball practice on June 14. The Washington Post has chosen to blur a portion of this ad. (Principled PAC)

The culture war is alive and well even where you might not expect it. Thats one of the most overlooked lessons of yesterdays special election in Georgia. While a lot of was made of the absurd amounts of money spent on the race, the question of Donald Trumps effect down-ballot or which voters would turn out, Republicans won by going back to a playbook theyve used a thousand times before, one based on fear and contempt of culturally alien liberals.

In many ways, this race was unique its not as though in 2018 there will be a national spotlight and $50 million poured into all 435 House districts. But if you werent watching closely, you may have missed the scorched-earth culture war campaign that Republicans ran against Democrat Jon Ossoff. They barely attempted to make a case for Karen Handel; instead, their argument was that Ossoff is basically a Hollywood San Francisco radical hippie anarchist lunatic controlled by cover the childrens ears Nancy Pelosi.

That was the running theme of the television ads and direct mailers that flooded the district, convincing Republican voters that whatever misgivings they had about the Trump administration and however much Ossoff portrayed himself as a mainstream technocrat whose biggest priority was bringing high-tech jobs to metro Atlanta, nothing mattered more than their tribal hatred of liberals. You might think Karen Handels brand of extreme social conservatism (among other things she would outlaw not only same-sex marriage but also gay couples adopting children) would be a liability in a highly educated district like the Georgia 6th, but it wasnt.

As Nate Cohn pointed out a few days ago, 13 of the 15 congressional districts with the highest levels of education in the country are safe Democratic districts; only Georgias 6th and a suburban Virginia district are in Republican hands. Thats why Democrats saw an opening in this election. They hoped that with this electorate, which was far more comfortable with Mitt Romney than with Donald Trump (Trump won the district by 2 points, while Romney won it by 23), a mainstream, non-threatening Democrat could win.

But he couldnt. Which isnt to say Ossoff wasnt a candidate without plenty of weaknesses, but if Republicans can win on the culture war in Georgias 6th, they can do it almost anywhere.

Thats partly because they have so much practice. For half a century, theyve been telling voters that Democrats are alien radicals who indulge criminal minorities and bring chaos and violence wherever they go. Richard Nixon rode that message to the White House in 1968 (just check out this ad), and Republicans have been doing it ever since. So Ossoff, Republicans said, was not one of us, the ultimate distillation of the culture war attack. As one ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee said over pictures of anarchists smashing windows and Kathy Griffin holding up Trumps severed head, D.C. liberals, Hollywood elites, this is who supports Jon Ossoff. Because Jon Ossoff is one of them. Childish. Radical. Theyve targeted Georgia, but we can stop them.

In the wake of yesterdays result, a lot of people have advised the Democrats that the solution to this problem is for Nancy Pelosi to resign, which would supposedly prevent Republicans from demonizing her. Some of that advice is coming from people who obviously dont have the Democrats best interests at heart, but a lot of it is sincere. Unfortunately, it misreads not just that attack but also the way the GOP does business. While there may be legitimate reasons to ask whether Pelosi should remain the leader of House Democrats we probably should debate whether the current Democratic leadership is making good strategic and investment decisions thats a separate topic from whether she has become a liability as a cultural symbol.

Its certainly true that Pelosi is a villain for rank-and-file voters. Is that because of her politics? Of course not her positions on issues are basically those of the entire Democratic Party. Is it because shes from San Francisco? Of course Republicans have been using San Francisco as a symbol for conservative baby boomers resentments for decades, a representation of all the drug-taking and free love and fun that the hippies had while the buzzcut squares seethed with jealousy and contempt. Is it because Pelosi is an older woman? Oh, you bet it is. Just like Hillary Clinton, she has been the target of a nakedly misogynistic campaign of vilification for years, one that is now baked deep into Republican politics.

And if youre not a regular consumer of conservative media, you might not realize just how relentless that campaign has been, how often Pelosi is held up by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and the rest of the talk radio/Fox News nexus as everything that good honest Americans should hate. Which is why nothing Pelosi does actually matters. She barely appears on TV, but shes as potent a symbol for Republicans as ever. She could retire tomorrow, and I promise you, Republicans would still run a thousand ads with her face in them in 2018.

That wouldnt last forever, but by the time it faded, the conservative propaganda machine would have replaced her with a different villain. Weve seen again and again how effective that machine can be: One Democratic politician after another has begun with a profile as an inoffensive, hardworking, substantive public servant (think Dukakis, Gore, Kerry), then quickly turned into a monster who threatened everything Republican voters hold dear.

What that means is that the one mistake Democrats cant make again the one theyve made so many times before is to say, If we find the right person, Republicans wont be able to attack him. They will, no matter who that person is. Democrats need to take that culture war attack as a given and find more potent attacks in response the way they did with Mitt Romney, but didnt with Donald Trump. Or with Karen Handel.

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The culture war is alive and well. And Republicans will keep fighting it. - Washington Post (blog)