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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: As goes Ohio, so goes... [1]
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Date: 2023-08-09
New York Times:
Ohio Vote Shows Abortion’s Potency to Reshape Elections The Dobbs ruling has turned a coalition of liberal, swing and moderate Republican voters into a political force. Even in August in Ohio. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, argued that Tuesday’s vote over how to amend the State Constitution was about protecting the state from a flood of special interest money. Secretary of State Frank LaRose, another Republican, urged voters to protect the “very foundational rules” of their constitution. But Ohio voters clearly didn’t buy it. About three million of them showed up to vote for abortion rights — an issue that was not technically on the ballot, but was the undeniable force that transformed what would have normally been a little-noticed election over an arcane legislative proposal into a national event.
This issues result [along with similar results in KS, KY, and the WI judicial race] makes abortion impossible to ignore as a political issue. They are also failing in their ”raise the voting age” gambit in various states.
Don’t just look at the polls. Look at special election results.
Oh, and don’t miss Tommy Tuberville threatening national security over abortion policy. Even when there isn’t a special election scheduled, it’s in the news.
And there’s other news, from the New York Times:
Previously Secret Memo Laid Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn Biden’s Win The House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation did not uncover the memo, whose existence first came to light in last week’s indictment. A lawyer allied with President Donald J. Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy. The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing “a bold, controversial strategy” that the Supreme Court “likely” would reject in the end. But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”
By the way, Kenneth Chesebro is also known as Co-Conspirator 5.
x this is a key point
The Yes on 1 side made transphobia a key part of their campaign message
https://t.co/wBpDQYmI5y — Joe Sudbay (@JoeSudbay) August 9, 2023
Grace Panetta/19th News:
Ohio voters reject measure aimed at blocking abortion rights amendment The defeat of Ohio’s Issue 1 is a blow to efforts by conservatives who want to raise barriers to passing ballot measures that would establish a right to abortion. Liz Walters, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, criticized how GOP leaders put the measure on the ballot as “remarkably cynical.” “They put this issue on the August ballot kind of taking a bet that most Ohioans weren’t going to pay attention and weren’t going to see this as the naked power grab that it is,” Walters said. “But I think that’s backfiring on them.”
x In the Ohio GOP’s scam referendum, the majority backed majority rule. When you do everything you can to rig an election & still lose, you have a problem. Ohio’s voters sent a message today about democracy, abortion rights & manipulation
My column:Free link
https://t.co/UaI4iII7Hr — EJ Dionne (@EJDionne) August 9, 2023
Paul Waldman/Washington Post:
Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024 Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it.
Philip Bump/Washington Post:
Is the Ron DeSantis slide reversible? The presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday that it was revamping its leadership team. While such moves do not always augur a campaign’s imminent demise, the demise of political campaigns often follow such shake-ups. In recent years, nearly every presidential candidate who has shed staff in the summer before primary voting failed to win the nomination. Perhaps DeSantis can prove to be an exception. Perhaps this shift is what is needed to redirect his efforts, to reverse the trend. The question then becomes: is such a reversal even possible?
x DeSantis makes his move
https://t.co/HSSQGT2bU5 — Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) August 8, 2023
Greg Sargent/Washington Post:
These Ohio workers feel betrayed by Trump. That gives Biden an opening. In Ohio, memories of the episode remain raw: As president in 2017, Donald Trump traveled to the eastern part of the state and vowed that industrial jobs are “coming back,” adding, “Don’t sell your house.” Less than two years later, the General Motors plant in Lordstown closed down, and its workers screamed betrayal. Trump’s broken promise has created a big opportunity for President Biden right now, due to another major labor dispute unfolding in the same region. The United Auto Workers union is demanding that workers at an Ultium Cells plant near Lordstown — a closely watched GM-backed project that manufactures electric vehicle battery cells — get wages and working standards that match those of conventional autoworkers, and UAW wants Biden to get much more active in publicly pushing for an equitable resolution. If Biden helps achieve better wages for these Ohio workers, he can boast of restoring good manufacturing jobs in the same region where Trump has long exploited the social decay of deindustrialization. He can demonstrate that workers have a big stake in transitioning to a decarbonized future. But if these EV manufacturing jobs turn out to be substandard, workers in Ohio and elsewhere might come to see the broader decarbonization push as a threat to their livelihoods.
Daniel Nichanian/Bolts magazine:
Tennessee Puts Voting Rights at the Whims of State Officials The state made an infamously difficult process of restoring voting rights for people leaving prison even harder, now requiring that they plead for approval from a governor or judge. Michael Moore has spent two years trying to regain the right to vote. He has worked to meet Tennessee’s byzantine list of criteria for having voting rights restored and filed extensive paperwork only to be denied because he still owes thousands of dollars in court obligations, more than he can afford. Then late last month, Tennessee’s elections director effectively shut down the process for restoring voting rights to Moore and hundreds of thousands of others in the state stripped of voting rights due to past felony convictions.
x It seems widely believed that Trump has been boosted by indictments, at least among Republicans. My @mulawpoll *national* doesn’t show that.
W/ Reps Trump fav is down 6 and unfav up 5 comparing Jan-July 2023 to Jan-July 2022. W/ lean Rep fav down 6, unfav up 5 also. pic.twitter.com/pAY5Ud4w3K — Charles Franklin (@PollsAndVotes) August 7, 2023
Jack Goldsmith/New York Times with a provocative piece:
The Prosecution of Trump May Have Terrible Consequences Mr. Smith’s indictment outlines a factually compelling but far from legally airtight case against Mr. Trump. The case involves novel applications of three criminal laws and raises tricky issues of Mr. Trump’s intent, his freedom of speech and the contours of presidential power. If the prosecution fails (especially if the trial concludes after a general election that Mr. Trump loses), it will be a historic disaster. But even if the prosecution succeeds in convicting Mr. Trump, before or after the election, the costs to the legal and political systems will be large. There is no getting around the fact that the indictment comes from the Biden administration when Mr. Trump holds a formidable lead in the polls to secure the Republican Party nomination and is running neck and neck with Mr. Biden, the Democratic Party’s probable nominee.
I’m far from the only person who noted that he left out something important: how terrible for the country it would have been had Trump not been indicted.
In fact:
x lest he finally be allowed to make a mockery out of America, the Constitution of the United States, and the Rule of Law. — @judgeluttig (@judgeluttig) August 8, 2023
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