Pierce: This Truly Is an Ominous Result for Republicans
This Truly Is an Ominous Result for Republicans
Meanwhile, the Dems showed they're covering all the bases.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
AUG 8, 2018
Your go-to newspaper regarding Tuesday night's elections is not The New York Times, The Washington Post, or even The Columbus Dispatch. Take a bow, Kansas City Star. Between them, Kansas and Missouri produced the most fascinating results of the evening....
It is just as ominous a result for Republicans as people are saying it is, despite the mendacious little cock-a-doodle-doo from the president*, who is treating Balderson at the moment as though he were a valet parking attendant at the old Taj. This is a district designed by Republican state legislators to the specifications of John Boehner—who used to be someone, as you may recall. If Balderson is still sweating death by tabulation at noon on the day after the election, something truly is up.
And, as hard as many people may try to recreate the 2016 Democratic presidential primary ad infinitum, there was something for everyone last night. The win by Davids is a defeat for Bernie Sanders and for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who went all-in for her opponent, Brent Welder. In the Michigan gubernatorial primary, Gretchen Whitmer—who, I guess, was the "establishment candidate," despite being a reasonable progressive state legislator—beat physician and Rhodes Scholar Abdul El-Sayed, who ran a terrific campaign and very likely will be heard from again. This is not a party in turmoil or disarray. This is a party covering all the bases....
Right to work is a fundamental Republican issue. It is a conservative article of faith. It has been a goal of the corporate conservative movement ever since that beast was revived in the 1970s. It is the emotional core at the heart of the careers of people like Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest facility formerly known as the state of Wisconsin. There is almost nobody in the party who is opposed to it in principle or in practice. It was central to the mission of all those Republican state legislatures that got elected in 2010 and 2014. The assumption was that right-to-work was unassailable.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22674284/ohio-special-election-result-ominous-for-republicans/
