Well the election in Ohio we told you last week would be a barometer certainly turned out to be all it was advertised as. As of this AM the AP has still not called a winner, though the Republican and President have called it. The contest was that close.
So what does it mean? Here’s three observations:
1. Unless the Republicans find a better way to message their success they are headed to losing the House.
2. The President is a help in a primary, but not a general election. In a primary he drives Republicans to vote his choice. In a general election he drives opposition voters to the polls.
3. Now Trump won this district by eleven points in 2016. Yet here is an almost tied congressional vote two years later. It tells us a lot about the view of Trump, of course, but we think it also tells us how weak a candidate Hillary was. Doesn’t it make clear how much people didn’t like her?
What should Republicans do? The answer is clear, but the President won’t cooperate. To win, the Republicans must focus completely on the results of the eighteen months. The economy is rolling. GDP is up. Jobs are available. Unemployment is down. Isis is defeated and on its last leg. North Korea is back from the brink. NATO is paying more of its bill. The stock market is making all in it richer. Taxes were cut.
Their message should be:
Where are we not better off today than the day Trump took office? The Democrats have been against every initiative that made this possible. If you want to reverse all this then you should vote for them. If you want to continue moving forward, we are the answer. That’s it.
Why can’t they do this?
Simply because the President tweets messages every day that take away from it. In an age of social media, and the really first social media President, the President is an example of how not to use it.
It’s really that simple.
Of course the Mueller probe is a drain on the Presidency too. The President plays into the media’s hand with his daily messages on it. He should have one message on the probe. There was no collusion. That message should be the daily one on the probe. There was no collusion. When asked, he should say to the media go look at your coverage. For five months you led the day and evening news with collusion stories. There was no collusion. You were wrong. Don’t move the goalposts. You told America there was collusion. There was none — none.
That would be our approach. He can’t do it.
Some Thoughts
The NYT has a daily quotation of the day. Here’s yesterday’s
“People think twice about even buying an ice cream.”
Amir Sherafari, who sells fruit and vegetables in Tehran, describing the atmosphere of economic anxiety as Iranians prepare for the renewal of penalties by the United States.
You don’t hear how the administration is putting pressure on Iran by withdrawing from the Obama/Kerry agreement. Remember this, the Soviet Union fell through economic pressure from Reagan. This is the attempt here. As you hear the stories from the MSM of Trump pulling out of the agreement and how he wants war, remember that is what they said of Reagan, too. They were wrong then and they may well be wrong now.
Here’s a story in the NYT that says it all about a forever run liberal city:
In Chicago, One Weekend, 66 Shooting Victims, and Zero Arrests
Now they’ll blame the police, but go ahead and ask the police officer on the street if they feel they can do their job.
Finally, here’s a WSJ story. They run a daily “On this date” story. Read this one from 1998 and see who was behind this attack and realize how known he was to the government. Then ask what Bill Clinton did about it six years into his presidency and with two to go.
Bombs Explode at Two U.S. Embassies in Africa
In near-simultaneous attacks, bombs exploded at U.S. embassies in the capitals of Kenya and Tanzania, killing dozens. ‘‘U.S. antiterrorism experts are [in Nairobi], and they expressed dismay at finding onlookers swarming over the area while debris was being trucked from the site,’’ the Journal wrote on Aug. 10. The Journal reported: U.S. officials said they had no hard evidence so far to identify the killers and no credible claim of responsibility in the bombing attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But immediate suspicion focused on a group of Egyptian Islamic militants known as al-Jihad and their wealthy Saudi-born patron, Osama bin Laden… Saudi-born Mr. bin Laden has increasingly fascinated U.S. analysts because of his money and followers—all veterans of the Afghan war—have turned up in conflicts as far-flung as Tajikistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. In the past, U.S. officials say that a small number of operatives linked to Mr. bin Laden have been seen in Kenya. His religious fervor, and his role in organizing thousands of Arab volunteers to battle the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, have made him legendary throughout the Islamic world. Children have been named after him in Pakistan. Mr. bin Laden, who couldn’t be reached for comment, has given interviews from his Afghanistan base in which he said his goals are to drive U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf and replace corrupt secular governments with Islamic regimes. ‘‘If someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters,’’ he has declared. |