The Politics of the President’s Pain at the Pump
Hello Hackaroos,
Well, as we’ve been saying, no matter how bad the January 6th news is for the Orange Menace, it still won’t outweigh the pain at the pump and cash register come November if things stay the way they are. That’s where we begin before turning to the Tory Leadership race in the UK and a few choice tidbits, including from one of our favorite states: Georgia.
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Let’s begin…
Inflation Nation
MURPHY: The news for the D’s just gets worse and worse. We are in the middle of the summer travel season so high gas prices are particularly painful for the American voter and food prices continue to be a proverbial kitchen table issue; one that actually happens in the kitchen! Meanwhile the clock is ticking and the space for Biden and his party to launch any kind of comeback in the midterms is ticking away. Solve it, Gibbs!
GIBBS: It’s brutal out there right now. The latest inflation report hits (another) forty year high just as many hoped/believed that inflation had peaked in the May report. As it turns out, no such luck. A mild bright spot is that gas prices have been on a steady decline almost continuously for a month, partly driven by price reducing demand. The University of Michigan’s consumer confidence numbers came out this morning, with more saying inflation was eroding their standard of living, matching the heights seen during the Great Recession. With less than 120 days before Election Day, it’s unlikely that anything will happen to change much of this in a way that could benefit the White House. This is baked into the political environment candidates will run in and the electoral calculus voters will use to make their choices at the polls for the remainder of the cycle.
Rule Britannica? The Race to Replace Boris
GIBBS: Murphy is burning to talk about politics across the pond, so I will just pour us all some tea and we can listen…
MURPHY: Nothing like a good Tory leadership race to show what real chicanery can look like. In the wake of Boris’ resignation, the game is afoot, so here’s a quick look. The Tories have an interesting process. It starts with a bunch of Tory Members of Parliament (MPs) entering the Leadership race. After a rush of early campaigning, their 358 Parliamentary colleagues start voting in a series of leadership elections. After each such election, the lowest scoring candidate drops out. Then a blitz of proper skullduggery ensues – with horse-trading and cross endorsements – and a few days later the MPs vote again. Someone else is eliminated, the field shrinks and the MPs vote again. So far, we’ve had two rounds of these winnowing elections and the race is now down to five candidates.
This weekend those five candidates will participate in two big TV debates, then the voting starts again next week. Once it's down to the final two candidates, the MPs step aside and Britain’s 200,000 card-carrying Tory party members (the UK version of the party “base”) choose the final winner. In the great Hobbesian tradition, this process is nasty, brutish and short. Interestingly, it combines the inside scheming and intrigue of party caucus race among wily politicians with the primary like politics of a contest among 200,000 Tory-base voters. (There might be an interesting lesson here for the U.S. with our never-ending campaign process.) Most of all, these Brit brawls are quite entertaining for we political junkies as well: the whole fast-moving spectacle receives vast and breathless coverage in the UK media, chock full of rumors, leaks, oppo dumps, gossip, nasty attack op-eds by pols on rival camp’s candidates. In other words, great fun. Here’s a quick look at the top 3 ½ candidates, at least as we head into the weekend TV debates and next week’s down to 4 election:
Rishi Sunak: Leading in MP votes in the second election (101 votes). Brainy technocrat. Policy wonk. Very wealthy. Sunny and upbeat, yet relentless. Strong insider game, but not as popular with party Members. The early frontrunner with a highly organized and professional campaign, but the early lead position is notoriously shaky in these sorts of contests. Here is Sunak’s leadership video:
Penny Mordaunt: (running second with 83 votes) Charismatic. Good on her feet. Most popular with the party base. Loud and proud on the I’m the next Thatcher horn. Military background (still a Royal Navy reservist). Next generation vibe, much like Sunak. Has a lot of buzz now, so she’s under attack by others via surrogates. She was blasted in a recent attack op-ed as a lightweight/political chameleon by her former boss and Tory grandee Lord “poison pen” Frost. (Quite a takedown, you can Google it.) This week’s TV debates may be very good for her. Here is her leadership video:
Liz Truss: Foreign Secretary. Running third. She may become the Unite the Right candidate among Tory wingers suspicious of Sunak and Mordaunt as too moderate and closet Brexit doubters. Not electric on the stump, but strong OG Brexiteer cred (the Golden Fleece to many Tory voters.) Plenty of local smart money originally thought she might prevail in the end, but Mordaunt’s strong launch has dimmed that buzz a bit. But if she can Unite the Right, she’ll be a serious as a soccer riot headbutt. Here is Truss’ leadership Video:
Kemi Badenoch: Less time in the Tory High Circle than the others. Running fourth, but has inched up. In many ways, the most interesting candidate. Young, riding a meteoric rise. From the right of the party, Badenoch is unabashedly attacking Britain’s relentless woke-ism while running against “cake-ism,” her clever phrase for the dishonest politics of promising big, popular spending programs. She is a favorite of many of the party’s wonky/right policy nerds. Totally self-made with an impressive personal story; a woman of color who spent much of her childhood in Nigeria and the US, before returning to the UK when she was 16. A future star for sure. Under pressure to get behind Truss. Here is video of her announcement:
More after the next round of MP voting next week.
GIBBS: Delicious! And I don’t just mean the tea!
TIDBITS
Democrats' Bright Spot Might Just Be The Senate
GIBBS: As I said earlier, it’s brutal out there. But, one bright spot might just be the Senate races. For this, there’s no better place to start than my favorite race in Georgia. A new AARP public poll conducted by none other than Tony Fabrizio (Donald Trump’s pollster) and John Anzalone (Joe Biden’s pollster) showed Raphael Warnock leading GOPer Herschel Walker 50% to 47%. Warnock is leading despite only 12% of Georgia voters saying things in the country are headed in the right direction and just 34% saying the economy is working well for them. Also, incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp leads Stacey Abrams 52% to 45% and Joe Biden’s approval rating is at just 34% in Georgia. So, what’s to account for this? First, Warnock is a very good candidate and he’s running a very campaign. But, as we talked about this week on the podcast, Herschel Walker is underperforming and this poll shows it. It’s clear that despite his glory days leading the Bulldogs to a national championship and having a near pristine political environment, voters are not bought in to the idea of Senator Walker right now. We saw similar polling from another AARP poll conducted by these two top tier pollsters in Pennsylvania that showed Lt. Gov. John Fetterman leading Dr. Oz, 50% to 44%.
Republicans are starting to sweat a bit about the quality of their nominees in big races and the GOP establishment is having flashbacks to 2010 and 2012 when winnable Senate seats slipped away because of candidate quality. Mitch McConnell has to be worried about what he’s seeing in other races, too, such as NV, NC, OH. Two more big Senate races have primaries that could further push ol’ Mitch to the Maalox in Arizona and Missouri. To be clear, these races aren’t over by any means. Biden won Georgia’s Electoral votes (yes, he did in fact win them!) by just 11,000 votes and Sen. Warnock was elected with 51% of the vote in the runoff, so these races are going to be close. What’s giving the GOP heartburn though is in states like Georgia where candidate quality is leading to ticket splitting that may just allow Dems to have a good news story on Election Night.
Lastly, speaking of John Fetterman, this is brilliant and might just break the internet…
MURPHY: There are sparks of Democratic hope in the Senate races for sure. Gibbs is right that the GOP has more than a few subpar candidates. In GA, you can read the close polling two ways. On the one hand, Warnock is in the hunt in a very bad Democratic environment, which is encouraging. On the other hand, Walker has been a world class gaffe machine for months yet he’s still very much in the race. Repubs are indeed nervous about Walker – a better candidate would be a sure favorite to win – but if they can hold off a total Herschel meltdown and keep the focus on Biden and the Democrats, they’ll still win. In OH, I hope JD loses – I remember him calling me to talk about running as an anti-Trump Republican – but the Buckeye state is a real uphill climb for the Dems this year, even with Tim Ryan’s blue collar hero campaign. (Where’s Springsteen?) Nevada, where Senator Cortez-Masto has been in serious trouble, the Roe decision is likely to give her a boost in one of America’s most pro-choice states (more even so than California).
Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week! A big week for the January 6th hearings!
Murphy and Gibbs