The New Yorker got a copy of a conference call between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups, including one run by the Koch brothers’ network. The gist of the call was that many conservative voters like HR1, the voting rights bill, and there’s not much messaging that works against it. The article has the audio.
The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.
They describe an AOC-related message that seemed to move voters a bit, but I can’t figure out what it means. They admit it doesn’t make sense. They also think lying might work, claiming that the ACLU and Planned Parenthood oppose the bill when they have criticized parts of it.
Of most concern in the bill is the limitation of dark money and identification of donors. Why, that might open them to harassment! Republicans get more dark money than Democrats do.
And here is some information to help illuminate a particularly West Virginian mystery.
With so little public support, the bill’s opponents have already begun pressuring individual senators. On March 20th, several major conservative groups, including Heritage Action, Tea Party Patriots Action, Freedom Works, and the local and national branches of the Family Research Council, organized a rally in West Virginia to get Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat, to come out against the legislation. They also pushed Manchin to oppose any efforts by Democrats to abolish the Senate’s filibuster rule, a tactical step that the Party would probably need to take in order to pass the bill. “The filibuster is really the only thing standing in the way of progressive far-left policies like H.R. 1, which is Pelosi’s campaign to take over America’s elections,” Noah Weinrich, the press secretary at Heritage Action, declared during a West Virginia radio interview. On Thursday, Manchin issued a statement warning Democrats that forcing the measure through the Senate would “only exacerbate the distrust that millions of Americans harbor against the U.S. government.”
Open thread!
West of the Cascades
I hate Joe Manchin.
JMG
Manchin says a lot of things. He wasn’t in favor of using reconciliation for the Biden relief plan, but he changed his mind. I think Schumer (and Biden) have told him, “we’d love some Republican votes and you’re just the man to round them up.” After Manchin beats his head against that wall, he may change his mind again.
Nicole
Eh, I went and read the entire statement and I think Politico is making his statement into something it wasn’t:
https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/manchin-pledges-bipartisan-efforts-on-voting-rights-legislatio
Senators can say whatever they like. It’s how they vote that is what matters for us schlubs.
guachi
Manchin’s quote is comedy gold. (The entire statement is more hilarious than just the quote). Shows he cares more about white men in the minority of the Senate than actual minorities.
Millions of Americans mistrust their government because they know Republicans want to take away their ability to vote.
jl
I think Biden has the right political instinct: delivering real tangible benefits to all the ‘lesser’ people who’ve gotten the shaft for decades, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, urban/rural status, geography, is the best way forward for the Dems.
Someone needs to sit Sinema and Manchin down and explain to them in simple English that if they want to keep their seats, they need to get on board with delivering some justice and relief, deliver their votes for necessary change. They’re continuing with BS PR which might have been an adequate desperate resort when impossible to deliver much. Much like the early Obama years, people are expecting improvement in their lives. Obama’s approach may have been the best back then, but times change.
This is an IMHO, since I don’t claim much talent at political tactics, but getting on board with J and K seems a safer bet for keeping their seats than BS and posturing, now that the Dems can deliver really good policy if they choose to do so.
Spanky
@Nicole:
This is my shocked face.
The Moar You Know
Don’t know how much money the Democratic Party has, but now is the time to spend it all.
Go big and win the prize, or be what Karl Rove predicted, a minority party forever.
ETA: when it’s time for nutcutting, Manchin isn’t going to be the problem. He likes winning. It’ll be Sinema.
bluehill
ARP was just a warmup for the real battle that will be HR1. It will likely decide which party will have power for a while, so repubs will sell out to prevent passage, although they have backup plan in the courts.
Turgidson
So all the GOP has is “BUT ZOMG AOC IS GOING TO FORCE YOU TO VOTE FOR STALIN’S CORPSE!!!”
It’s funny but not really because that might just be enough to kill the thing.
piratedan
@Nicole: ty for that, it isn’t the first time that Politico takes a statement and generates a complete unrepresentative take from it. Trying to get better about my outrage until I confirm the source… why it’s like asking Vogel or Baker to not see everything in a GOP frame when reporting.
Jeffro
All of this crazy shit has to, just has to, bite the trumpublicans in the rear next November and again in 2024. I mean, these will have been their accomplishments:
Not much to run on. Oh wait, forgot:
Yeaaaaah…there’s a platform for ya, America!
Nicole
@Spanky:
Right? The older I get, the more and more I really understand that you have to go back to the original source, because the media is more than happy to tell you what they want you to think the politician said.
(Of course, sometimes, as in the case of the homegrown meth Senator, what they actually said is absolutely as insane as the media says it is.)
randy khan
Manchin, it turns out, has a pretty good grasp on reality. While I’d rather he were fully on board today, I worry much less about him than about Sinema, who just seems dug in for no apparent reason.
That said, the history of these sorts of things is that there always are people who are a hard no, until suddenly they say yes. So we’ll see.
I do think H.R. 1 is pretty well designed to do good things and be popular at the same time, and that’s not nothing.
Sure Lurkalot
I’m going to have to be convinced that there’s a plurality of conservative voters that like HR1/SB1. They like lots of things until they don’t.
jl
@randy khan: I’ve wondered whether Sinema thinks she can copy (blatantly and ineptly) the John McCain maverick act and it’s an easy ticket to perpetual office with the AZ electorate.
No way, for a Democrat, IMHO. Someone needs to try to explain that to her.
TheOtherHank
It floors me that they think like this: Evil Nancy and the Demoncrats want to do things that help people and improve their lives. How can we possibly compete against that? We’ve just got to keep people who aren’t irredeemable racists from voting. It’s the only way we can win.
I guess coming up with their own ideas that lots of people like conflicts with the core Republican belief that Rich People Shouldn’t Pay Taxes™ and which can only be achieved by appealing to the racism and misogyny of terrible people in nearly uninhabited places where they are the majority.
piratedan
@jl: she will have difficulty trying to make being a Green Party member an equivalence to being held captive by a nation state in a state of war, but if she joins the GOP, I fully expect Faux Network to try.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sure Lurkalot: PodSaveAmerica did some polling and found that even a majority of Republicans support it. Until you tell them that it was written by Dems, then support among Republican voters drops (though it’s still pretty high, all things considered).
Poe Larity
Politico writing is GPT-3 now. Embrace the AI, people. We could have 10 JC rage posts a day…
The Beeb has to go to Politico’s “Brussels Chief” for EU coverage now. I just about fell off the couch on that one. Oh the inanity.
piratedan
@TheOtherHank: whatever happened to America: Land of Opportunity! Give us your tired, your poor, your hopeless….
and that old quaint notion that everyone is equal under the eyes of the law, unless you’ve had a few too many drinks and then you’re body is apparently open season for anyone to do as they wish.
Roger Moore
@TheOtherHank:
I don’t think that’s how they see things. The key is that they see the world through a zero sum lens of winners and losers, and also through a view of ethnic interest groups. So what the Democrats are doing is taking stuff away from them and giving it to Those People. At least as bad, this is really just a form of buying votes with our tax money.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Sinema has nuts?
Bill Arnold
Perhaps a minority-dominated city should bring back the Southern literacy tests, but for White People. These tests were literally designed to be impossible to pass because some questions had multiple possible answers and the scorer could simple say they failed such a question. In this one, a perfect score was required and test takers had 10 minutes. (Try it!)
1964 Louisiana Literacy Test
Even Harvard Students Failed the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test – Designed to keep black people in the South from voting, a video experiment reiterates just how absurd the exam really was. (Steve Annear, 11/7/2014)
via
Omnes Omnibus
People need to stop overreacting to clickbait fucking headlines.
Brachiator
@TheOtherHank:
That’s just it. Republicans believe that people who cannot help themselves do not deserve to live. Republicans do not believe that the government has any role in helping ordinary people.
Of course, after all the blather about self-reliance, Republicans indulge in an orgy of handouts to corporate interests.
burnspbesq
At the same time that we’re trying to pass H.R. 1, DOJ needs to litigate under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Tony Jay
I didn’t know there were that many greedy billionaires and associated grafting millionaires in America, but to be fair I haven’t taken a headcount in, like, forever.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: as if
Jeffro
OT but: I know there are early concerns about Rick “trumpov lite” DeSantis in 2024 but no matter what he does or says, he’s still trumpov lite. Maybe better put as trumpov minus (minus the undeserved reputation as some sort of business/social success, minus the name recognition, etc etc)
And he’ll keep showing his ass for the next three years, and folks just miiiiight be a little tired of that schtick by then.
And we have yet to hear the true toll of DeSantis’ negligence in FL
And as President Biden put it, “Who even knows if there will be a Republican party in 2024”?
germy
Historical Firsts for Women That’ll Make You Say, ‘Wait, That Hadn’t Happened Yet?’
The Thin Black Duke
@Omnes Omnibus: I know, right? I get tired reading about how DOOMED the Democrats are. I mean, aren’t we getting things done? Isn’t Joe popular right now?
GoBlueInOak
@The Moar You Know: Exactly. With Manchin, there’s the stuff he says to keep up his “John McCain, but a Democrat” schtick. And there’s some stuff he just isn’t going to be there on – like, the guy ain’t killing coal.
But on bread and butter economic issues, he’s fine. And on stuff like this – broadly popular voting rights and cleaning up dark money in politics that is BROADLY popular – he’s gonna be there at the end.
My guess is he doesn’t support out and out filibuster reform, but supports some move to thread the needle on moving HR 1, in some form, forward.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Will happen the day after the sky is first darkened by herds of flying donkeys.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
The Manchin! Sinema! stuff is getting old.
I’d love to hear about all our lovely Democrats.
But it’s okay. Second shot on Wed. I am feeling serious PTSD coming on.
Baud
@NotMax:
That’s exactly how Republicans picture us.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Seems the view of killing a lot of Americans bothers them little if it’s their choice of Americans to kill.
And the people making it a lot harder to vote, for them it’s a net gain on both of these issues.
After all their entire political point of view is that only people willing to financially suffer AND who look acceptable to them are capable of voting and only for them. Democracy has nothing to do with anything in their minds, their only 3 political positions are 1. a lack of skin color, 2. willingness to suffer financially for the right to have a government that considers #1 a priority, 3. no complaining about #2 even though their representatives only represent those who benefit massively from #2.
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: I am pretty sure that is what Merrick Garland has in mind. He talked abut things he can enforce now related to voting rights, but he didn’t mention any specifics.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Put in mind of Citizen Kane.
THATCHER: Is that really your idea of how to run a newspaper?
KANE: I don’t know how to run a newspaper, Mr. Thatcher. I just try everything I can think of.
THATCHER: (reading headline of newspaper he is holding up): “Enemy Armada Off Jersey Coast.” You know you haven’t the slightest proof that this – this armada – is off the Jersey Coast.
KANE: Can you prove it isn’t?
Redshift
@TheOtherHank:
Their real base is billionaires and lesser rich people. They only want government to stay out of their way and not take their money. Ever since they figured out they could get people to vote for them based on pure grievance, they haven’t needed to be for anything or have any actual ideas.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Yup.
“Rabbit season!” “Duck season!” gobs more durable.
:)
Redshift
@Ruckus:
The Heritage Foundation government that was set up in Iraq crystallized for me the conservative concept of democracy: “elections are held, and the right people win.” The same principle has become ever more obvious here since.
cain
This happens predictably ever time the Democrats are in charge – the media goes into attack mode while being servile little lambs for a GOP administration. It’s always about how they are losing even when everything they are doing is popular.
The recent conservative converts are suddenly aware of this.
James E Powell
@cain:
It would also be nice if our own people got out of the habit of going into a defensive crouch in the face of adversity.
We need to share that New Yorker article and the audio with everyone we know. Target tote baggers and other liberals who don’t think voter suppression is such a big deal because they have IDs and have never had trouble voting.
sdhays
@The Thin Black Duke: I saw a headline from the Washington Post this morning literally saying the GQP had a “lock” on the House in 2022, and I’m thinking, “We don’t even know what the districts will be in 2022 and Congress is more popular than any time in recent history, and you’re sure the House is lost 2 years from now?”
I didn’t click through, although I wish I knew the author of something so stupid so I can know to ignore whatever they say in the future.
Baud
@James E Powell:
QFT
Redshift
@sdhays: I saw that and was briefly annoyed. But then I saw it was an opinion piece by Hugh Hewitt. So chances are you’re already wisely ignoring him.
Malovich
That’s a damn funny way of saying ‘respect the will of the people’
Viva BrisVegas
That was an opinion piece by Hugh Hewitt, and although I haven’t read it, I know enough to know that his opinion is worth less than a bucket of warm spit.
You can at least put out a small fire with a bucket of spit. What use there is for the opinion of a lying Republican hack like Hewitt is unknown to me.
neldob
On PBS there was a Repug who was saying in Delaware (Biden’s home state !!! q the outrage) one cant bring water to voters in line. The idea was that people were canvassing voters, chatting them up with political speech that was illegal while using water as a pretext.