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Warnock should be leading by more than he is. [1]

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Date: 2022-10-17

I have been watching the Warnock vs. Walker Senate race closely, and I wish Warnock’s people were handling it differently. The strategy of attacking Walker at his (admittedly major) moral and character weaknesses just isn’t going to work as well as we think it ought to work, for the simple reason that convinced Republican voters don’t care about any of those things, and the attacks aren’t giving Republicans a reason to change their minds. (Disclaimer: I don’t live in Georgia, and therefore I am not seeing the local ads that Georgia residents are seeing. If these local ads address the concerns I lay out below, I would appreciate knowing about it.)

It’s the failure to even try to change people’s minds regarding issues of political substance that has me concerned. All Warnock’s campaign people seem to be doing is an old-fashioned, “conventional wisdom,” get-out-the-vote campaign based on that old standby, negative advertising. I have always hated negative advertising in principle because, while it may get your guy elected, in the long run it feeds the narrative that all politicians are rotten. Furthermore, negative ads only work if enough people even care about the sins being highlighted (which may no longer be the case in American politics) and since it will only work in this case if there are already enough potential Democratic votes in Georgia to win the election. What if there aren’t? What if, given 100% voter turnout, 51% of Georgia voters would still rather have a Republican—any Republican—in the Senate than any Democrat?

Now, the reason the Warnock campaign isn’t going to change many people’s minds is that it focuses on things that really don’t matter to a convinced Republican voter. I think that by now almost everybody in Georgia realizes that Walker is a scoundrel. But you know the old saying: “He may be a scoundrel, but he’s our scoundrel.” So what if he’s a hypocrite and a liar? If he votes for Republican goals once he’s elected, that’s all that matters. So what if he’s, um, not particularly bright? That just means he is likely to do whatever his Republican “betters” tell him to do, and less likely to show individual rebellious initiative. To anybody who is really, really committed to Republican supremacy in government, Walker is actually an almost ideal candidate. His flaws don’t matter (to them), while his presumed willingness to follow orders (unlike, say, Liz Cheney), makes him a perfect “team player.” That is why polls have him seriously capable of winning this election. (Currently Walker trails by only two percentage points according to Fivethirtyeight. That is not a comfortable margin.)

Meanwhile, the Republican agenda in general is truly bad for any American who is not in the upper, oh, thirty percent of income-earners. For anybody who is in a household that is earning $100 thousand a year or more (that’s the 65th percentile) and is only concerned about their own economic status and nobody else’s, the Republican world really does make a lot of sense. (Assuming, of course, that they ignore such things as “what if I lose my job or suffer a major medical emergency that my insurance does not cover?”) And for those in lower income strata who are deeply committed to the “family values” that the Republican Party pretends to champion, the Republican social platform also seems to make a lot of sense; this is where Republicans pick up the rest of their majorities: from lower-income voters who are still making enough to get by and be content, and who really believe that America would be better if it could stop those illegal invaders from coming in, while making the country safe again for religious people and family values. The Democratic Party should be spending a lot more time persuading ordinary Americans that the Republican vision for America is not really good for them, and that even the “social issues” are a mirage which the leaders themselves don’t even care about, but which they are willing to promise in exchange for their freedom to pursue their economic goals (which are what they actually care about).

I mean, how many Americans have actually read Rick Scott’s “Rescue America” plan? That is what Democrats should be campaigning on, not Herschel Walker’s hypocrisy. Oh, Scott’s plan gets mentioned every now and then, but it isn’t getting nearly the attention that it ought to be getting. If Georgia (and Florida!) were to be blanketed with ads explaining how Scott’s plan is a backdoor attempt to abolish—or at least severely cut back—Social Security and Medicare, I’ve got to believe that this would have a major impact of Democratic fortunes. If more Boomers realized how deeply committed Republican leaders are to the idea that Social Security is morally (and Constitutionally) wrong and should not even exist, there is no way that would fail to improve Democratic prospects. But, no. . . Democratic strategists seem to think that focusing on “low-hanging fruit” is the way to go. They don’t seem to realize or care that persuading people to vote for Warnock and the Democratic agenda is a better strategy than persuading people to vote against Walker.

I am working on a point-by-point rebuttal of Scott’s plan, but if you want to see it as he presents it, here it is online, under the “12 point plan” tab. And before you get all outraged by it, stop and think how it probably looks to an average American who isn’t all that politically perceptive. Just calling it “evil” and promising to work against it is not going to get the job done; Democrats have got to be able to explain why it isn’t as good as it seems to be (and make no mistake, it does seem to be pretty good in a lot of ways; understanding why it appeals to decent people is the first step to countering it with objectively truthful arguments).

May the Force be with Raphael Warnock in November!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/17/2129482/-Warnock-should-be-leading-by-more-than-he-is

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