What Special Election Lessons? The Script Didn't Flip

<"Trust Us, Really..."

The Reckoner>

 <i.>

Our mainstream news media wasted little time clearing its collective throat Tuesday, once the dust settled from Ohio's Congressional special elections last week. No such drama for the Squawker and myself, as we also did our civic duty, in helping to whittle an eight-candidate field of city commissioners to six, which we'll winnow down to three seats in November.

I felt pleased that one candidate I particularly disliked wound up among the two who didn't make the cut. She sent a mailer that sounded like a political version of the dating game. It consisted of six bullet points, starting with this moth-eaten chestnut: "To be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars."

It reminded me of so many personal ads back in the day, from people whose chief desire amounted to "Going bowling/walking on the beach/walking in the woods with my mate." Right, who doesn't? But I'd skip to the next one, thinking, "Tell me about you, not your hobbies. I need more substance here." Evidently, my fellow voters thought likewise of Ms. Cliche Obvious Pants's precious bullet points.

The takeaways from Ohio seem more elusive. The 15th District Republican race offered little drama, as Trump-anointed ex-coal industry lobbyist Mike Carey swept an 11-candidate field. He garnered 18,655 votes to 6,724 for his nearest rival, Jeff Lane, a sufficient show of strength for a 12-county district that includes sections of Columbus, plus small towns and suburbs south and west of the city. He's favored this fall over Democrat Allison Russo, who netted an impressive 13,585 votes herself. We'll see how that turns out.

Carey played to Trump's cultish base, as evidenced by the photos I saw of him cradling an AR-15! (Or maybe it's an M-16...I can't tell, offhand.) Subtle, it ain't, but the Trump experience was never about that, anyway. Still, a lot of mainstream media headlines seemingly hedged their bets, coming off a Trump-backed candidate's defeat in another special election, in Texas.

Notable examples included the Canton Repository ("Trump Secures Win in 15th Congressional District With Mike Carey, But Low Turnout Clouds Picture"), and Jewish Insider ("An Early Test Of Trump's Clout In Ohio Special Election"). Even one of my favorite blogs, Down With Tyranny, raised a similar hope in its headline ("Will Trump Be A Double Loser In Ohio Tuesday?").

We know the answer: not really, amid continuing hype of "Republican civil war," and a "Trump resistance within the GOP," but I'm not seeing it here. For now, empty suits like Carey see a brighter future in lining up to kiss The Donald's ring. It beats ending up on the outs, as Liz Cheney has discovered.

Yes, turnout for the 15th District race was pitiful (only four Republicans, besides Carey, broke the 5,000-vote mark). Even so, Trump continues to cast a shadow over our democracy, because he has the money, the juice and enough warm bodies willing to aid and abet his quest. Short of his death, illness or imprisonment, we aren't wrenching free of him any time soon, especially if his army continues to reward the behaviors associated with him.

<"Silly Season TV":

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

The results of the Democratic race in the 11th District, consisting mainly of Akron, Euclid and Cleveland, OH, are way more troubling. Establishment-backed favorite Shontel Brown eked out a narrow win over progressive firebrand Nina Turner by a roughly 4,000 vote margin (37,666 to 33,420 votes), while two other candidates barely registered, with less than 1,000 votes apiece.

The postmortem crowing is running on overdrive, as the Washington Post's headline made clear: "Nina Turner's Loss in Ohio Means Biden Doesn't Need to Keep Caving to the Left." Politico fell in line, as well, with this summary: "Establishment Prevails As Brown Beats Turner In Ohio Special Election." I'll spare you further examples.

Turner's principal offense seems to have been her derisive summary of Biden's march to the nomination last year: "It's like saying to somebody, 'You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.' It's still shit." That commentary came in the wake of Bernie Sanders's second unsuccessful Presidential campaign, on which she served as his national co-chair.

Such comments raised the ire of Biden ally Jim Clyburn,  who didn't like being called "stupid" for not demanding more from his longtime buddy, as Turner stated during an appearance with hip-hop artist Killer Mike. Clyburn cited this moment as his reason for getting so personally involved, though I suspect it came down to a baser impulse: She doesn't belong here, because she backed Bernie. She led protests against Hillary Clinton's nomination. Let's put this firmly gal in her place.

The resulting race was as dispiriting as American politics gets,  complete with barrages of slick attack ads, charges and counter charges, super PAC spending orgies, and enough mud to keep the Mississippi River flowing for decades (climate change be damned). 

Clyburn's intervention stinks like the usual brutish machine politics, when The Kids (that's us, remember?) dare to question The Adults, like him and his crowd ("Sometimes, I have real problems trying to figure out what progressive means," a statement that revealed way more than he wanted it to, I suspect).

I know little about Shontel Brown. However, her campaign's go-along-to-get-along themes, coupled with her eagerness to hoover up special interest money from Republicans like New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft -- who donated $1 million to Trump's 2016 inauguration -- don't bode well for her future constituents. At least, those who can't drop a sufficiently heavy donation to buy the appropriate access to her conscience, such as it is.

It's the reason why critics like State Rep. Juanita Bryant ask, "As a Democrat who has helped Democrats all over the state, we cannot condone Democrats that are accepting money associated with Trump. How can we have someone who is the party chair and says that she's a Democrat's Democrat but is accepting Republican money?" 

It's a fair question, one that Brown will undoubtedly do her best to avoid answering. For the depressing nitty gritty, read "Lessons From The Nina Turner Race?" (see below). The donors lining up to buy the seat read, as you might expect, like a Who's Who of corporate America -- the same one, of course, that's busily donating again to Republican insurrectionists, after indulging in the usual 30-second spectacle of public moral outrage. You get the picture.

<iii.>

At the same time, the results show the need for progressives to work smarter. Hard work alone isn't enough when you're up against reactionary forces willing to spend whatever it takes to buy a seat. It's also fair to ask if Turner's dream was a realistic fit for a district where Hillary Clinton posted her strongest Ohio margin in 2016 (68 percent), and Biden ran equally well in 2020 (73 percent).

But if I were Clyburn and company, I wouldn't crow too long. The race also highlighted a continuing generational divide in a party whose senior leaders are, well seniors, in their seventies and eighties, from Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (70), at the lower end, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at the upper end (81). If I were Brown, I wouldn't crow too loudly, either. For all the dirty politicking on her behalf, Tuesday's result suggests she has a long way to go, before everybody feels the love.

"In the decisive Super Tuesday contests that effectively ended the Sanders campaign, the Vermont senator won an estimated 63 percent of 18-29 year olds and 42 percent of voters between 30 and 44," The Week notes, in its own commentary (see below)." These voters want sweeping change and aren't necessarily as put off as older voters are by the progressive left's broadsides against the Democratic establishment."

The recent scramble over last month's expiration of the eviction memorandum perfectly illustrates the last point of the above quote. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June that it preferred future extensions to go through Congress alone, yet Biden waited -- literally -- until the eleventh hour before the July 31 expiration date, before asking Congress to try and pass something.

How does this happen, with Democratic control of the Presidency, and both houses of Congress? Landlords, the last time I checked, aren't the most popular public figures. Shouldn't Democrats relish the idea of picking a fight with them? Sure, it's great that Biden rolling out a new 60-day extension, based on the pandemic, but it shouldn't have taken a public sleepover by Missouri Democrat Cori Bush to push him that way.

Such missteps make the Clyburns of the world look less like geniuses, and more like the Michael Corleone seen in The Godather, Part III (1990), as the aging wise guy struggles to hang onto his empire, while he gropes for a purpose beyond...well, continuing for the sake of it. But I'll give the Godfather this much: at least he sprinkled a little bit of sugar on that brown steaming bowl, if only once in awhile, when he wanted to win somebody over. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (The Dark Money Dance Continues):
Down With Tyranny

Lessons From The Nina Turner Race?:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/lessons-from-the-nina-turner-race

The Intercept 

In The Race Against Nina Turner,

GOP Donors Fund Shontel Brown:

https://theintercept.com/2021/07/27/nina-turner-shontel-brown-ohio-gop/

The Week

Democratic Leaders Should Think Twice

Before Crushing Progressive Primary Challenges:
https://theweek.com/politics/1003286/why-democratic-leaders-should-think-twice-before-crushing-progressive-primary

My Corona Diary (Take XXVII): What's Behind The Stimulus Cutoff Smokescreen?

<"Musical Chairs (Employer Stylee)":

The Reckoner>

<i.>

How do you best pit people against each other? Roll out a policy change that signals, "Some animals are more equal than others," Then watch the fun, and don't forget to bring the popcorn. This story happened long ago, but still rings true for me, as we'll see. 

I'd just landed my first newspaper job, which I've chronicled here already, in "Jobs To Nowhere (Take I) The Post-College Comedown." Like many small papers, you got a piddling wage for many more hours than a minimum wage retail or office job of the time required. There was no overtime clause, and no add-ons, unless you counted the mileage reimbursement.

This being the mid-1990s, our reimbursement amounted to 18 cents per mile, for any event that required driving to and from our poky little office (mostly, local government meetings, and the odd special event). In contrast, the IRS allowed 28 cents per mile, so we were at a disadvantage, to put it mildly.

I traveled a lot, mostly for county commission meetings. That group met at the county seat, some 30 miles away. My beats also included city councils and townships that were somewhat closer, usually 10 to 20 miles, but often burned up plenty of time, whether you were driving, or not.

As the new boy, though, I didn't have a choice. My bosses, who worked even more hours, typically grabbed the in-town, in-office beats -- like City Council -- for themselves, a move that allowed them to preserve some semblance of a family or personal life. I got that part, even as my spirit started sagging under the weight of an ever-expanding schedule.

There matters stood, until a couple years into my tenure, when  management -- pleading poverty, of course -- suddenly announced plans to cut mileage, as in, right now. That left a lot of long faces around our office, until management reversed itself, just as abruptly. 

Their new proposal called for one mileage check, at a $75 flat fee, tops. We'd no longer get them every other week, along with our regular paychecks. We'd still fill out mileage sheets, of course, based on round trip figures set by management. I don't know if they suspected people padding mileage, or fretted that two or three mileage checks per month was way too much. I had no idea, and knew better than to ask.

At any rate, management wanted a yes or a no from us. The loudest screams came from our sports stringers, who drove farther, and traveled longer, than I did. For these people, who got paid per mile, and per story, the changes amounted to a royal screwing.

The three full-timers, myself included, also made our displeasure clear, because it meant that we'd take a hit, though a smaller one, as we'd all started various side hustles, In my case, since I'd started freelance writing, it might mean doing an extra story or review or two. It'll suck, I told myself, but I can make this up. It's manageable.

The discussions heated up, as people chose sides, depending on their status. One of our sports stringers wound up quitting, loudly and angrily, over the issue. Being a single, middle-aged woman probably had something to do with it. 

I could feel her resentment during this time, whenever she got back from a game. It wasn't fun to see someone who'd laugh and joke around now sitting there tight-lipped, and staring straight ahead, as she banged out her story, and scuttled off, without even a goodnight.

Eventually, the majority opted for the 75 bucks. Like most of these feudal situations, you end up choosing  something moderately awful or totally awful, because that's all the menu allows. We let our overlords know, and that was the end of it. But needless to say, nobody felt good about the situation. Morale already stood at 69 feet below sea level, and we'd now dipped a foot or two deeper, still.

<ii.>

Needless to say, the recent debate over stimulus checks -- who should get them, or shouldn't -- left me with an uncomfortable feeling of "deja vu all over again," to coin Yogi Berra's celebrated phrase. Bernie Sanders's celebrated Tweet (above) summarizes the case pretty well. How can a Democrati administration that floated $2,000 stimulus checks, even discuss these kinds of income cutoffs, that so-called centrists like Joe Manchin (D-WV) are peddling? 

It's bad policy, and bad politics, too, as many commentators have already pointed out. The good news is that for now, at least, the same basic thresholds from the last round ($75,000 per individual, $100,000 per couple) will remain intact, at least for now. They shrink by $56 per $1,000 over those amounts. Cut and dried, case closed, right?

Well, yes, except to the likes of Manchin (Mansion?), who loves to affect an "aw, shucks, I'm just one of you folks" image, which serves as a useful distraction from his net worth, variously estimated at $6 to $8 million, depending on the source. To put it another way, I don't know where he's buying those finely-pressed clothes, but I doubt they're coming from the same places where his constituents shop.

The disconnect becomes even more glaring, when you realize that Manchin has voiced support for phasing out relief after the $50,00 and $100,000 thresholds for single people and couples, respectively. Manchin justifies this stance by saying that he favors "targeted relief," going to those "truly in need," phrases that invoke images of spoiled, upper-class brats laughing as they lounge on their yachts, celebrating their third round of stimulus money.

Here's the rub, though. There's different levels of need, depending on your personal situation, as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointedly stated, in a Tweet of her own: "We cannot cut off relief at $50K. It is shockingly out of touch to assert that $50K is 'too wealthy' to receive relief. Millions are on the brink of eviction. Give too little and they're devastated. Give 'too much' and a single mom might save for a rainy day. This isn't hard."

Indeed, it isn't, and it shouldn't be, except President Biden left the door open a crack, by suggesting a willingness to negotiate the overall amounts. That's also bad politics, because if you really buy into those rhetorical flourishes, you're allowing yourself to be deceived.

Phrases like "truly in need" are downright ugly, because they make no allowances. Even if you haven't taken a hit during this COVID-racked economy, it's fair to suggest that a $50,000 annual income goes a hell of a lot farther in, say, rural Michigan or Ohio, but probably won't even get you off the starting blocks in a big city like Chicago, for instance. 

Even $100,000 doesn't get you in the door anymore at our nation's capital, which now requires an annual estimated income of $122,900 or $143,000, if you're renting or paying a mortgage, respectively, according to gobankingrates.com: "That's an increase of 50.8% and 30.4%, respectively, since 2016." 

GO Banking Rates's story blames lack of affordable housing, rising property values and healthcare costs, and -- most ironically of all -- an influx of wealthy residents, which tends to aggravate whatever inequality already exists. If you don't see that different levels of need exist out there, you probably won't appreciate why a proposal to cut off checks after the $50,000 or $100,000 mark might earn some pushback.

And that's before we get to the other obvious point. The same Republicans, and their so-called Democratic "centrist' counterparts, who clutch pearls and fret about spending a few dimes too many on the great unwashed, will be the first to roll out attack ads when it's time to con votes, complete with the appropriate fake Churchillian voiceover: "President Biden could have helped you, But he left you in the dust. He didn't come through, and neither did my opponent."

Hopefully, when it's time for a do-or-die vote on Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal, we won't see a repeat of the sorry experience of 2009, when the Democrats allowed themselves to get buffaloed into accepting a $787 million stimulus -- instead of a trillion, as Obama proposed -- that proved too weak to jump-start an economy reeling from a widespread meltdown.

Even without that history, though, I'd be happy to remind them of what happens when you decide, effectively, that "some animals are equal than others." If you want to see how it makes people feel, take a moment to watch Ritchie Ramone outline why he quit the Ramones in the End Of The Century documentary.

As the drummer explains, the tipping point  came over T-shirt sales, where he wasn't a Ramone -- and watched those cash-filled envelopes passed to the remaining three founders, Johnny, Joey and Dee Dee, after shows. 

For a young guy trying to make it in New York City on a basic weekly salary, the disconnect got too hard to swallow anymore, and so, exit Ritchie Ramone, after four years (1983-87), and some 300- to 400-odd shows. "I just wanted some of that T-shirt money," Ritchie sputters, repeating each word, for emphasis. "What...was...the...big...deal?"

I'm sure our sports stringer asked herself the same question, once she realized what accepting that $75 flat mileage check actually meant. If nothing else, it gave her a not so eloquent summary of how she really stood with the people in charge.

Now that the Democrats are finally back in charge of the government again, I hope they don't fall into the same trap, and leave folks asking the same burning question: "What...was...the...big...deal?" 

You know the old saying, right? Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The only problem is, if they screw up...so are we. -- The Reckoner 

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before They Cap Your Check...)

Fatherly: Here's Who Will Get

The $1,400 Stimulus Checks:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/heres-1-400-stimulus-checks-193304359.html

GO Banking Rates:
The Salary You Need 
To Live Well In Washington, DC Skyrockets:
https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/economy/rising-cost-live-comfortably-washington-dc/

What's Really Happening!

--The Squawker