"Massie is a complete and total disaster as a congressman, and frankly as a human being."
Trump, campaigning against Rep. Thomas Massie
Trump is making an example out of Massie.
Today is election day in Oregon, too.
There are no polls in the hotly-contested races that I follow in Oregon: the Democratic nomination for the state Senate seat held by retiring State Senator Jeff Golden. and one for the U.S. representative in the 2nd District.
In the state Senate race, political newcomer Cristian Mendoza Ruvalcaba has raised and spent some $180,000 in direct and in-kind contributions, most of it from the Oregon Nurses Association PAC. That is three times the money raised by his two well-established opponents with active campaigns, Tonia Moro and Denise Krause. We will find out if money can equal long-established networks of supporters.
None of the candidates for U.S. representative has spent much money on paid ads or boosted social media. All are newcomers to politics in this district. This is an utterly grass-roots, door-to-door, shake-hands-at-meetings campaign -- in a district of 750,000 people. I think the campaign will consist mostly of voters choosing someone based on the Voters Pamphlet. The winner will face incumbent Republican Cliff Bentz in a district with a 20-point Republican edge. Is he or she a sure loser? Possibly not -- and that is partly because of what is happening to Massie in Kentucky.
Bentz has been invisible and politically flat-footed over the past year. Trump is watching him. Bentz has been silent or mumbled on vote-by-mail, on the National Guard in Portland, on ICE patrolling Oregon farms, on releasing the Epstein files, on taxes on billionaires, on making health insurance unaffordable, and on bankrupting rural hospitals in his district, Bentz has done as instructed. He is stuck taking the unpopular position, the one that presents as hurting the district rather than defending it.
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Trump understands political theatrics. His attacks on Massie puts fear into the minds of potential independent voices in the GOP caucus. Trump can end careers, going back to Jeff Sessions, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jeff Flake, and Mitt Romney up to the Indiana state senators and incumbent U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy last week, and perhaps Massie today.
Trump's purges give Democrats in Oregon an edge this November. Oregon's Democratic governor Tina Kotek is vulnerable. She comes across as a continuation of former governor Kate Brown, carrying Brown's Covid baggage. A fresh, energetic, independent Republican would have a strong case. But a Republican candidate cannot contradict Trump on any matter of controversy, and any competent Democratic campaign will make that crystal clear. Kotek has problems, but she is more popular than Trump and a candidate carrying the specter of Trump.
Brad Hicks, the Republican candidate who will face whoever wins the Democratic primary for state Senate, has a central-casting look as a Chamber of Commerce tight-with-the-business-establishment candidate. Some will like it; some will think it far too cozy with his business funders. In either case it could be a local brand, not a national one. Not so in the Trump era. A decade ago a Republican in that district, Alan DeBoer, who won election over Tonia Moro, could offer an independent, reasonable-guy image. Friendly. Earnest. Not mean-spirited. It is a different era now. Trump puts demands on Republicans: He won the 2020 election; mail ballots are fraudulent; the January 6 rioters are patriots and deserve tax money; the war in Iran is a success; fossil fuels are better than renewables; the ballroom is a fantastic idea. I expect the Democratic winner of today's primary to have an easy target in November.
Could the Democratic primary winner in the congressional race defeat Cliff Bentz? Probably, statistically, under any conventional circumstances, no. The district is too red. But Trump is pulling Cliff Bentz down with him. Tens of thousands of district constituents will discover that their health insurance has become utterly unaffordable. Bentz is stuck and cannot free himself. Look at Cassidy. Look at Massie. About once every decade the country gets a "throw the president's bums out" election. We are due. If this is the year, Bentz will go down with the GOP ship. It could happen.
What Trump is doing to Massie is hardball politics. He enforces a message: Obey; your future is tied to mine.
One more thing: It is just possible Massie could survive today's election. But even so, a Republican pays a price.
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7 comments:
A bargain with the devil. Wonder if the republicans feel any private shame?
Bentz is vulnerable to attack in by his constituants due to the rising cost of gasoline in an area of gas cars and long driving distances. Linking Republicans and Trump to the cause is key as gas prices are killing Eastern Oregon's economy.
The current issue about Tom Massie should reinforce your opinion that Trump is not a conservative. Trump has had public fallouts with Massie, Elise Stefanik, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, all conservatives, because they wouldn't bow-down to Trump. When they wouldn't bow, then Trump smeared them. Trump demands total submission by his lackies, or he destroys them. I support Massie, and hope that he kicks Trump's ass.
This state senate election will prove that money doesn't always win. I've never seen Ruvalcaba's advertisements, but clearly all his support is coming from Portland. He'll be lucky to come in 4th place behind Krause, Moro, and Stine.
None of the Dems has a chance against Cliff Bentz, since District #2 is majority Republican. Cliff Bentz isn't impressive, but Republicans will vote (R) just like Dems religiously vote (D).
99% of the voters don't know who Brad Hicks is, and they rely on the biased media to tell them. Brad Hicks is not a business leader. He's never led a business. He doesn't know anything about business, and he's spent his entire career as a lobbyist working for special interest groups. He's never supported anything beneficial to the common man. He doesn't give a crap about the common man. I think that once voters discover how unlikable and nasty Brad Hicks is, then Denise Krause has a good chance to beat him.
Lobbyist: takes one to know one.
I'm not a lobbyist, and I've never worked as one.
Brad Hicks graduated from SOU with a bachelor's degree in Political Science, then he immediately went to work as a lobbyist in Salem for 7 years. After that, he came back to Medford and ran the Chamber of Commerce, which is a lobbying firm for the good old boys in town. That is Brad Hick's work history. I don't need to be a lobbyist to know what it is. I just need to be informed, which I am and you're not.
And Massie’s career is now over. I don’t care much for his seeming all-purpose obstinacy, but in this instance I’d prefer to have seen him win.
Massie loses to AIPAC. Dem Denise Krause beats Dem Tonia Moro by 4% for state senate. Chris Beck wins Congressional #2 Dem primary.
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