Month: November 2018

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November 7, 2018 6:00 pm

Chinese state media interpreted Tuesday’s U.S. election as Democrats riding a “wave of dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump,” in the phrasing of China Daily.

Chinese observers were thrilled at the prospect of Democrats impeaching President Trump, bogging his administration down with endless House investigations, or at least forcing him to scale back his “hardline policies on trade.”

China Daily mischaracterized Democrats in tough races as shying away from “harsh criticism of Trump” and portrayed them as winning an extraordinarily large number of House seats compared to previous first-term elections.

The Chinese paper was excited by left-wing “trailblazing candidates who are diversifying American politics,” especially socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the first Muslim women elected to Congress, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

China Daily also celebrated Deb Haaland of New Mexico and Sharice Davids of Kansas for becoming “the first two Native American women in Congress,” callously dismissing Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has long claimed to hold that distinction.

The profiles of groundbreaking female and minority candidates were not uniformly left-wing, as China Daily applauded the success of Tennessee’s new Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn for prevailing over the combined efforts of Democratic former governor Phil Bredesen and pop star Taylor Swift.

CNBC on Wednesday threw a little cold water on China’s hopes for the next Congress by arguing the trade war with China would not be much affected by the change of leadership in the House:

The as-expected outcome is set to challenge Trump on several areas such as military spending and his foreign business dealings, making it difficult for the commander-in-chief to pass major legislation. But on trade policy, one of the areas most relevant for the international community, Trump enjoys executive power and can set the terms regardless of whether Congress is divided or not.

That’s because “Congress doesn’t have much of an ability to control trade policy,” analysts at RBC Capital Markets wrote in a recent note. Rather, “the Oval Office has wide reaching powers to act unilaterally,” which means the president is likely to “keep pushing his trade agenda,” they continued.

“On trade, it’s going to be the same, if not worse, in terms of U.S.-China,” Steven Okun, senior advisor at McLarty Associates, told CNBC as election results were trickling in.

Former U.S. ambassador to Singapore David Adelman added that Democrats are traditionally “the more protectionist party,” while Republicans have grown “extremely hawkish” on China, so the trade war might be one of the few issues where the two parties share abundant common ground.

Adelman predicted Democrats would likely push back if Trump attempts to impose tariffs on the European Union or pull out of the World Trade Organization.

The UK Daily Express went further and cited analysts who thought President Trump’s trade war could “intensify” during the next Congress. The Express thought China’s assessment of the situation might already be prodding Beijing to offer an olive branch or two because the midterms did not produce the kind of result that could greatly weaken the Trump White House or force changes in its trade policy.

“The Democrats have retaken the US House of Representatives, dealing a major blow to President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda, but if anxious politicians in Beijing think that means a reprieve from the White House, they should think again,” CNN advised on Wednesday, making a similar argument that House Democrats can do little to help Beijing and probably wouldn’t be inclined to do so if they could.

Hong Kong professor Willy Lam suggested China’s seemingly all-powerful President Xi Jinping might be taking more domestic political heat for the trade war than Trump: “He has been widely criticized, not by name of course, but subtly, for failing to handle Trump’s multi-pronged challenge. He’s very much on the defensive.”

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” former Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said people should “take to the streets” over President Donald Trump removing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and appointing Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general.

Miller said, “The timing of this is so suspect because we’re so close to the end of the Mueller investigation. Whitaker coming in right now might be at the critical time to stop the key steps that need to happen, indictments or referral to Congress from taking place. I really do think this is a national emergency. I don’t think you can overstate the gravity of the situation. And it’s incumbent upon everyone in public life to respond to this like it’s an emergency.”

He continued, “This isn’t like all of Trump’s other attempts to interfere with the investigation. He’s reached over and found the one person among dozens of political appointees at the Justice Department who has a preordained hostility, publicly stated hostility to the investigation. I think for people in Congress, they need to step up and object to this. I think for the broad public, this is the time to maybe take to the streets and say this is not what you expect out of the government. I have a message for people at the Justice Department. There are a number of senior political appointees at the Justice Department. Republican appointees who believe in the rule of law and believe in this investigation, believe in what Bob Mueller and Rosenstein have done. The country needs to hear from them in the next few days. This is a crisis moment. They need to step forward and make their voices heard, in mass resignations if necessary, to say they just will not stand for this abuse of the Justice Department’s independence.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, became the youngest woman elected to Congress on Tuesday evening. In her victory speech, the congresswoman-elect criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), accusing the agency of committing human rights abuses.

NBC News projected the far-left candidate would go on to defeat her Republican rival and St. John’s University professor Anthony Pappas in New York’s 14th Congressional District with 74.4 percent of the votes counted.

Ocasio-Cortez shocked many in New York politics, including herself, when she came out of nowhere to defeat 10-term Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s Democratic congressional primary last spring. The victory made her the national face of young, discontented Democrats — often women and minorities — trying to move their party to the left. She takes the record for the youngest woman elected to Congress from Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican representing upstate New York who was elected at age 30.

“This is what is possible when everyday people come together in the collective realization that all our actions… are powerful, worthwhile, and capable of lasting change,” Ocasio-Cortez told attendees during her victory speech.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ofrece su primer discurso tras ser elegida como la mujer más joven a la Cámara de Representantes. pic.twitter.com/JK2daERukf

— Univision Noticias (@UniNoticias) November 7, 2018

“Words cannot express my gratitude to every organizer, every small-dollar donor, every working parent and Dreamer who helped make this movement happen,” she added. “And that’s exactly what this is, not a campaign or an Election Day but a movement… for social, economic and racial justice.”

“We launched this campaign because no one was clearly and authentically talking about issues like the corrupting role of money in politics. Like the disturbing human rights violations being committed by ICE,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “By the fact that no one was giving a voice to the idea, to the notion that an entire generation is graduating with crippling loads of student loans debt that’s a ticking time bomb for our economy.”

Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx but raised in suburban Westchester County. Her father passed away while she was a student at Boston University in 2008. A self-described “Democratic socialist,” Ocasio-Cortez got her start in politics as an organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Among several far-left policy positions, the congresswoman-elect supports a national $15 minimum wage, universal health care coverage, and the abolishment of ICE.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The midterms weren’t a blue wave, but they weren’t shark fin soup for Republicans either, given that they lost the House by a small margin.

That said, the big loser who stands out here is hard-campaigning President Obama, the guy who thought he was the star of the Democratic Party and who, throwing the tradition of former presidents staying aloof from politics out the window, campaigned hard, long, and loud, for Democrats in this midterm. Turns out the ones he fought the hardest for lost.

Now he stands exposed as politically irrelevant, powerless, an embarrassment. Sorry ’bout that legacy thing, Barry-O.

First, he did some easy ones and those candidates marched right through, Obama or no Obama:

Tim Kaine of Virginia and Joe Manchin of West Virginia for the Senate, Jennifer Wexton of Virginia for the House. J.B. Pritzker for the Illinois governorship. A couple of minor leaguers for the House in Illinois as tag-alongs. 

Kaine and Pritzker, given their ties to the Obama administration, were probably favors repaid, and they ran in blue states, anyway, as did the Illinois pickups. Manchin, meanwhile, was primarily re-elected on his Kavanaugh vote, so Obama was likely irrelevant.

But then there were the midterm campaigns that weren’t gimmes, some very high profile, and high media-exposure ones: Joe Donnelly of Indiana for Senate. Bill Nelson of Florida for Senate. Andrew Gillum of Florida for governor. Stacey Abrams of Georgia for governor.

Those were the ones Obama went hoarse campaigning for, yelling and waving his arms, voice cracking, speeches described as fiery, telling voters to vote for these guys or die. With Gillum in particular, racial appeals were a factor and Obama’s presence was supposed to help. Gillum had a big media buildup about being a first black governor of Florida as an argument to draw votes, and he later cried racism to fend off corruption allegations. Adding Obama to campaign was obviously part of the appeal. This time, the race-politics identity card simply failed.

And Obama? What did he get? Zilch. Zip. Zero. Nada. The voters rather noticibly rejected the ex-president’s appeal for votes. Been there, done that.

A prized and coveted Obama endorsement, or campaign stop, obviously isn’t the election winner in a tight race it used to be. In fact, with these midterms, when it matters, Obama’s a bust. The lesson here that Democrats will surely notice is that it’s largely useless. 

Obama will be not be easy to get off the stage, given his love for the limelight. But I suspect we will be hearing a lot less about Obama on the campaign trail, except in the easiest of races, as the reality of what happened among Democrats starts to sink in.

Update: Washington Examiner argues that it was Obama’s ego that did him in.

Image credit: MSNBC, via YouTube, screengrab

The midterms weren’t a blue wave, but they weren’t shark fin soup for Republicans either, given that they lost the House by a small margin.

That said, the big loser who stands out here is hard-campaigning President Obama, the guy who thought he was the star of the Democratic Party and who, throwing the tradition of former presidents staying aloof from politics out the window, campaigned hard, long, and loud, for Democrats in this midterm. Turns out the ones he fought the hardest for lost.

Now he stands exposed as politically irrelevant, powerless, an embarrassment. Sorry ’bout that legacy thing, Barry-O.

First, he did some easy ones and those candidates marched right through, Obama or no Obama:

Tim Kaine of Virginia and Joe Manchin of West Virginia for the Senate, Jennifer Wexton of Virginia for the House. J.B. Pritzker for the Illinois governorship. A couple of minor leaguers for the House in Illinois as tag-alongs. 

Kaine and Pritzker, given their ties to the Obama administration, were probably favors repaid, and they ran in blue states, anyway, as did the Illinois pickups. Manchin, meanwhile, was primarily re-elected on his Kavanaugh vote, so Obama was likely irrelevant.

But then there were the midterm campaigns that weren’t gimmes, some very high profile, and high media-exposure ones: Joe Donnelly of Indiana for Senate. Bill Nelson of Florida for Senate. Andrew Gillum of Florida for governor. Stacey Abrams of Georgia for governor.

Those were the ones Obama went hoarse campaigning for, yelling and waving his arms, voice cracking, speeches described as fiery, telling voters to vote for these guys or die. With Gillum in particular, racial appeals were a factor and Obama’s presence was supposed to help. Gillum had a big media buildup about being a first black governor of Florida as an argument to draw votes, and he later cried racism to fend off corruption allegations. Adding Obama to campaign was obviously part of the appeal. This time, the race-politics identity card simply failed.

And Obama? What did he get? Zilch. Zip. Zero. Nada. The voters rather noticibly rejected the ex-president’s appeal for votes. Been there, done that.

A prized and coveted Obama endorsement, or campaign stop, obviously isn’t the election winner in a tight race it used to be. In fact, with these midterms, when it matters, Obama’s a bust. The lesson here that Democrats will surely notice is that it’s largely useless. 

Obama will be not be easy to get off the stage, given his love for the limelight. But I suspect we will be hearing a lot less about Obama on the campaign trail, except in the easiest of races, as the reality of what happened among Democrats starts to sink in.

Update: Washington Examiner argues that it was Obama’s ego that did him in.

Image credit: MSNBC, via YouTube, screengrab

MoveOn, a George Soros-funded anti-Republican PAC, was allegedly the biggest political Facebook advertisement spender last week — the final week before the midterm elections.

MoveOn’s Washington Director, Ben Wikler, bragged about the PAC’s advertisement budget, along with its “secret weapon” against the Republican Party, which consisted of using hundreds of videos of voters explaining why they’re voting Democrat.

NEW: Nationwide, @MoveOn was the biggest spender on political ads on Facebook last week. Today, we’re pulling back the curtains on this election’s “secret weapon”: a groundbreaking new way to do digital ads that leapfrogs the GOP’s political tech. THREAD. https://t.co/lhpoLDhANm

— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) November 5, 2018

“Nationwide, @MoveOn was the biggest spender on political ads on Facebook last week,” declared Wikler on Twitter, Monday. “Today, we’re pulling back the curtains on this election’s ‘secret weapon’: a groundbreaking new way to do digital ads that leapfrogs the GOP’s political tech.”

“Traditional political advertising works like this: campaigns run polls to see what voters care about. They choose a message. They spend ~$10k-30k to shoot & edit. If they’re smart, they test them, often via dial-test or focus groups. Then they pay to put them online & on TV,” continued Wikler. “This year, MoveOn turned that model on its head. We started by asking real voters in key races why they’re supporting their Democratic candidates. We collected more than 2500 authentic, unscripted videos—people talking into their phones.”

“We used a new, rapid, low-cost, and highly accurate technique to test whether the ads moved people. Classic scientific experiment, with randomized treatment and control groups. We found 260 videos that worked as extraordinarily persuasive political ads,” he proclaimed, adding, “We used Facebook’s targeting technology to run the 260 ads to people matching the specific folks who found them persuasive in our tests, across 89 House races, 10 Senate races, and 10 governors’ races. In all, we’re reaching more than 20 million potential voters in key areas.”

Wikler then declared that the advertisements “don’t look slick. They look real. Because they are.”

“That might help explain their impact. Or maybe it’s the topics people talked about—not stuff brainstormed on a consultant’s whiteboard, just actual people speaking from the heart… Regardless of exactly why, the most striking thing about this program: it actually *works* to move votes,” Wikler concluded. “Which is, unfortunately, a very rare thing in politics.”
On its official website, MoveOn, which is financially backed by socialist billionaire George Soros, explains its goal is to “end Republican control of Congress,” and promote a “progressive future,” and the PAC frequently uses the hashtag #ResistAndWin.