If you didn’t read the NY Times story about Miller wanting to suspend habeus corpus, and Vance wanting to invoke the Insurrection Act, to deal with anti-ICE protests, Jamelle Bouie has a good backgrounder on it:
I’m not linking to the NYT story because they should have reported this when they got it. (Kathy dropped a guest link in yesterday’s comments if you want to read it). It’s a blockbuster. Trump being the rational person in the room who curbed both Vance and Miller is pretty concerning, considering that he’s clearly on the decline. (I don’t think he’s as cooked as some: most of his problem is his lack of personal discipline, plus lack of anyone around him who will make sure he gets better sleep and stays off of his fucking phone.)
Anyway, when I look at this I agree, as Bouie has remarked recently, that a broken egg cannot be mended. We need big change, and we need candidates who are willing to endorse a 2029 strategy that isn’t incrementalism and business as usual.
A microcosm of the problem we’re facing can be found in the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor (DFL) Senate primary. Jennifer Bendery has a piece about it in the Huffington Post, and it’s interesting on a lot of levels.
The two candidates are Rep Angie Craig and Lt Gov Peggy Flanagan.
The DFL has seen a big influx of new, politically involved members, stoked by the ICE assault on the state. 57% of the delegates at the party convention were first-timers.
Flanagan showed up for different organizations and courted delegates, and received the DFL endorsement, having nailed down 75% of the vote to Craig’s 11%, before Craig dropped out.
Craig is having a hard time defending her vote for the Laiken Riley Act.
Flanagan is ahead in the polls, (example) has decent fundraising (though Craig has raised more) and was endorsed by outgoing Senator Tina Smith.
So, not looking great for Craig, but the primary is August 11, so there’s time for her to change things up. How she’s trying, or not trying, is interesting.
First, she’s trying to make an “electability” argument by pointing out how booga-booga scary Republicans are, even though the race is rated “likely Democratic” by most forecasters. As one operative quoted in the story said:
“She seems to be trying to carve out an electability path, even though the polling that I’ve seen shows that she’s behind,” said this Democrat. “In rural parts of the state, too. So there isn’t really an argument for electability when you are not doing as well as the other candidate.”
Second, Craig is using Republican talking points to attack Flanagan, and by extension other Democrats: she’s saying that Republicans will use the $250 million in COVID fraud that they’ve been pumping through their media for months to attack Flanagan. (Never mind that JD Vance specifically attacked Craig and accused her of trying to cover up the fraud.)
Craig is also weasel-wording attacks against Flanagan:
Minnesota Democratic primary voters need to see (on broadcast, streaming and digital) that Peggy Flanagan isn’t being truthful in her campaign. She claims she doesn’t take money from corporate PACs but as the leader of a special interest group, she accepted millions of dollars from corporations, including the oil industry, big tobacco, big pharma and even a private prison company operating ICE detention centers helping ICE separate families, including Liam Ramos’ family. Now, that special interest group is spending millions of corporate dollars running misleading ads to get Flanagan elected.
It is important that Minnesota Democratic Primary voters hear from real Minnesotans expressing their disappointment in Peggy Flanagan’s dishonesty. People searching Peggy Flanagan need to know about her dishonesty as well.
The “special interest group” was the Democratic Lieutenant Governor’s Association (DLGA). Flanagan says she didn’t solicit money from the organization that Craig wouldn’t name (CoreCivic) and tried to convince the DLGA to give it back. Also, this was on Craig’s issues page. I guess it’s an important issue that voters need to know about. The rest of her “issues” page is completely non-specific endorsement of some good-sounding, non-specific principles. Flanagan’s priorities page show she’s for campaign finance reform, Medicare for All, etc. It’s specific.
Anyway, what does this have to do with broken eggs that can’t be mended? Simple: Craig is, in Flanagan’s words, running a 2016 campaign. She’s not engaging with the base — she’s alienating them by not showing up. Her attacks against Democrats are using right-wing talking points to try to prove that she’s more “electable” in a pretty winnable race. Her strategy is to be non-specific about what she will do when elected, all while using her bigger campaign fund to air-drop negative ads on her opponent.
Craig’s approach doesn’t recognize the amazing 57% of the DFL delegates who are new to the process. Those people just went through hell. Two of their fellow citizens were murdered in the streets by masked thugs. They deserve better than an absentee campaign and a bunch of pretty words.
