#80: Fiona Hill Showed Us All

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Eloquent, courageous, committed State Department and National Security Council officials taught us all a lesson in the last two weeks. It’s heartening that they are there and that they are looking out for their country. The juxtaposition of their integrity with Trump’s failure to muster any at all will stay with us for a long time.

Even though these hearings are coming to a close, the Ukraine disclosures will continue. Most notably John Bolton will feel inclined to relate what Trump said when Bolton asked for the release of the $400 million necessary for Ukraine’s defense. Bolton is interested in protecting his own defense hardliner reputation. More than any other Trump appointee, he has a “brand” independent of Trump, and is not acting beholden. If not him, perhaps we will hear more from Rudy Giuliani, who has camped out in the danger zone that has taken down other public officials. At this point in time, it is more important to him that he is on the news than what he says or what is being said about him on the news. Only sleep prevents him from saying more things damaging to Trump. He could very easily end up arrested. Beyond Ukraine disclosures, there’s also there is a very good possibility that the Supreme Court will refuse to hear arguments for shielding Trump’s tax returns, which itself will open up a new Trump-world of turpitude.

It’s important not to get confused about what the American people think about impeachment, and what it has to do with the most important presidential election of our lifetime on November 3, 2020. 70% of Americans believe that Trump did an unacceptable thing in Ukraine by asking a foreign government to intervene in our domestic politics. More than 50% think these actions warrant an impeachment inquiry, and up to 50% conclude that Trump should be impeached, convicted and removed from office. This is in comparison to the 29% who wanted that outcome for Bill Clinton.

What do the public’s views on impeachment have to do with the upcoming election? Just because voters in battleground states are less enthusiastic about impeachment than in blue states doesn’t mean that they think Trump is prime presidential material. The Ukraine narrative is just one important dimension of how voters feel about Trump, but it will be an critical element of the 2020 campaign.
Has anyone seen Nancy Pelosi slip on any banana peels lately? Her intent is to impeach the President because his impeachable offenses are obvious and thus unavoidable. She plans to conclude the official House processes as soon as she can. She believes the monumental evidence presented will boost our case on November 3, even as the Senate votes to acquit. We are in good hands.

Even so, we have let ourselves fall into the “Trump voters never change” fallacy. Five million or more Trump voters changed when we took back the House, flipped Virginia, won the state house in Kentucky and defended it in Louisiana. Where do we think those voters are coming from if not from the ranks of independents and Never Trump Republicans? Sure, it is nice for Trump or any elected official to start with 38% of voters supporting her or him no matter what. But that didn’t work so well for George McGovern and Barry Goldwater, because you have to have a way to expand from there. The issue is how many additional Republicans and Independents will go to Trump’s side in November, and the extent to which impeachment is one more reason for them to flee.

Even the sainted NPR has grown befuddled by the myth of Trump’s base and the way it could help him in the upcoming year. Their own coverage stresses that American opinion is set in stone, even though the poll results say the opposite. In the poll, 39% of independents and 24% of Republicans said that they could imagine evidence that could change their mind on impeachment. That isn’t a low number, it’s a high number. And, as has been the case for some time, Trump’s strategy for keeping the base is a huge impediment to him attracting anyone else.

Articles of impeachment will be passed in the House, and the Senate will acquit Donald Trump. It’s an election year, and the Republican Party is not going to implode itself, which is what would happen if Republican Senators removed Donald Trump from the Presidency. The sequence has been set up to go like this for some time: 

1. The Mueller report and ultimately the Ukraine debacle solidify the opposition to Donald Trump. 
2. Aggressive explication of these and other Trump misdeeds becomes our order of the day.
3.  The impeachment trial, though not securing a conviction, fully exposes Trump’s malfeasances. 
4. Further abuses become known. 
5. In the face of these disclosures, Trump’s disapproval ratings remain low, or go lower. 
6. As the election gets closer, Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes becomes narrower and narrower, an order of magnitude more narrow than the firewall he and Putin overcame in 2016. 
7. We select an excellent ticket, continue to register voters, fix our 2016 turnout problem with 2018 style turnout strategies, and win our country an election.

Impeachment is about defending the Constitution because we must, and using the subsequent disclosures and debate to win the election, because we must. It puts that many more purple states in play, and thus creates many more paths to victory.

Which states to keep in play? There’s been considerable statistical analysis of the Obama/Romney and Clinton/Trump races to see how levels of approval/disapproval correlate with vote totals from a year later. This study shows that if we win Michigan, where we won the governorship by a solid margin in 2018, and hold onto states Hillary Clinton won, we would likely be at 249 electoral votes, and would need only 21 more from these states:

• Pennsylvania - 20 electoral votes
• Wisconsin - 10 electoral votes
• Florida - 29 electoral votes
• North Carolina - 15 electoral votes
• Georgia - 16 electoral votes
• Arizona - 11 electoral votes

This demonstrates how many more ways we have to regain the Presidency over and above winning the firewall states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which we collectively lost by 80,000 votes in 2016. For instance, if we pick up the states Hillary Clinton won and (as predicted) win Michigan, then Florida alone will put us over the top (and we have been losing it by tiny margins) or Pennsylvania and Arizona, or North Carolina and Arizona.

It’s all very encouraging and makes us want to imprint a state deeply into our psyche and our action plan. Pennsylvania would be a good place to do three things, on the way to winning the presidency there in 2020. Then, soon, this missive will take on Arizona.

1) Follow the Lead of Swing Left
	We lost Pennsylvania to Donald Trump by 44,000 votes in 2016. It never should have happened, since Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania by 5.4% in 2012 and John McCain by 10.7% in 2008. We have recovered nicely since, winning races for Governor and Senator by wide margins in 2018. In the next year we will take nothing for granted.  With its “Super State” strategy, Swing Left continues to be a “go to” organization in our effort to gain the electoral votes in targeted states. You can sign up to send letters to independent voters and/or contribute to campaign funds that will be spent in Pennsylvania once candidates are chosen. Don’t wait until November 3 to pay attention to Pennsylvania.
2) Support Registration and Turnout in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
	On election night, things might be going very well. Or, you may find yourself hoping that there are still unreported votes from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. The National Coalition of Black Civic Participation is organizing around registration and turnout in multiple cities and states. You can give them your email and see when they need your help and go ahead and donate today so you don’t forget. The click to donate is under “Get Involved.”
3) Make Certain Candidates Understand Pennsylvania Issues
	At this point, our candidates have presented policy positions on scores of issues. Ultimately, employees of manufacturing companies and other unionized laborers are going to want to hear what the specific Democratic agenda is for the working woman and man. One could make an argument that voters in 2016 did not recognize a coherent, impassioned approach from Democrats about how they would focus on jobs and employment, Take a look at what our candidates are saying today. It’s time to watch our favorite candidates on these issues to make sure that this perception or belief doesn’t wound us in 2020.

Fiona Hill, Ambassador Marie Yovanovich, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman are exemplars. If our faith in American public servants had been waning, they have restored it. They all put themselves forward, and they were all counting on us to do the same in the next year, to stand up. That’s what we will be doing.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#79: We Will Win This Election the Old Fashioned Way

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends. If you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

We learned an extremely painful lesson in November of 2016 and took great advantage of that lesson to take back the House in November 2018. What comes next is no mystery, no enigma, and no puzzle. There won’t even be a tingle of spines unless we make it so. On November 3, 2020, (less than one year from now) we will win the most important election of our history by doing what we already know how to do one more time.

For that result to happen like it should and like it must, we must stay on the path. Keep the independents we won back in 2018. Register voters. Fight voter suppression. Persuade more independents. Support strong candidates. We have a huge pent up demand for a President who will immediately tend to payment of our overdue obligations to the environment and to health care in America. In selecting a candidate, let’s remember that every conceivable Democratic nominee would do exactly that.

So, let’s use our terms carefully. There are no “moderates” in the Democratic field. Except for the self-identified Socialist Bernie Sanders, all of the top ten candidates are liberals by the usual definition. The use of the word “progressive” to describe some and not others is an appropriate extra smooch from advocates that is mostly related (but not entirely) to the candidates’ policy positions. All of the major candidates would protect the Dream Act, reform student debt, reverse Trump’s LGBQT discrimination, advance universal background checks, restore global alliances and make a massive commitment on climate change.

Thus, the “lanes” that candidates are said to occupy can be misleading. Earlier in the campaign season, there were huge blocs of Sanders voters for whom Biden was the second choice, and huge blocs of Biden voters for whom Sanders was the second choice. There is not much difference in the Senate voting records of Booker, Klobuchar, Warren, Sanders and Harris. There are policy disputes among our candidates that we should understand and sort out, but let’s not overstate them. Clearly the top two are specific ways to tax the wealthy and the major disputes over Medicare for All.

As we go down the path, let’s keep our heads up. As many as 57% of voters have indicated that they have no plans to vote for Trump. Unbelievably, there are Democrats and independents who can’t stop themselves from predicting Trump will win. Are we so wounded that we can’t even recognize the advantaged position we assumed last November? Last week we took back both the Virginia House and Senate. We won the governorship in Kentucky, a state that Donald Trump carried by 30 points three years ago. These are not random happenings or liberal fantasies. They are what is taking place in our country, today. Our candidates are polling well in head to head match-ups with Trump. We hold the majority position on most of the issues confronting America, and we are running against an incompetent and venal man.

As we go forward with our heads up, let’s make the correct and critical choice regarding the central element of our strategy to take back the presidency, the Senate, and thus save our country. Trump’s unpopularity gives us a huge head start. Are we going to re-visit and re-invest in what we know how to do, and which just won the suburbs and took back the House? It is pretty simple. There are several other states to put in play, but if we win two of these six Trump will have virtually no path: Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona. We won all of these in 2008 and all but North Carolina in 2012. 

This month’s polls show we’re starting in good shape. That’s where Medicare for All comes in. We decrease our chances with working people in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania or with seniors in Arizona and Florida or with independents in all these states by telling them we plan to carry out an enormous expansion of the federal government. Are we going to advocate this approach when respect for government is at the lowest? When independents and some Democrats say they aren’t interested, are we going to tell them they don’t understand what they need? If our candidates demur and instead favor huge expansion of health care coverage, are we going to accuse them of using Republican talking points?

Committing to Medicare for All is especially bizarre because it is entirely divorced from what would happen in the United States Senate if we do exceedingly well in 2020 and end up with 52 or 53 Democratic Senators. Even if a Medicare for All proponent were President, there is no chance that the Senate would pass such a bill. Further, our own Senate candidates in battleground states do not support it, instead opting for mammoth steps toward universal coverage. 

Whether or not we argue for Medicare for All in 2020, in 2021 the Senate would end up with the same very significant expansion of the Affordable Care Act that Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar espouse. Knowing this in advance, are we really going to jettison our health care political advantage for a campaign around doubling our taxes and outlawing private insurance? Are we going to depend on our lecturing skills to convince the voters that it will all balance out once health care costs are reduced? Are we thinking the other side will come to the table with a nice articulated pro and con issue brief rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars taking advantage of an issue we would have created for them?

It is time to stop this. In even considering running a Medicare for All dominated election, we are putting a beleaguered country at risk. Let’s remember this as we contemplate this risk. We are deciding on a president who would betray the Kurds, or not, who would deport Dreamers, or not. After November 3, 2020, we will have a president who will nominate someone to the Supreme Court who will or will not respect the settled law on Roe v. Wade. We will select a woman or man who launches a national effort to curb climate change or denies that it exists. Donald Trump will be president, or not.

There’s an argument that whatever independent voters we would jettison in advocating Medicare for All would be offset by new voters we would attract. The problem is, the scale of the latter is not close to matching the scale of the former, especially in battleground states. Sure, we would take this risk in a heartbeat if it was the only way to do what is right and just on a fundamental issue, but in this case the same health care reform steps will emerge in Congress in 2021.

There is a better way. We can have a ticket that nicely covers our plentiful common interests. We can move dramatically toward universal health coverage after the election without subjecting ourselves to self-inflicted wounds during the election. Let’s enmesh ourselves further in the race for the presidency by doing these three things:

1) Register Voters in Florida
	Barack Obama won Florida by 2.8% in 2008 and .9% in 2012. Donald Trump and Russian operatives won by 1.2% over Hilary Clinton in 2016. We can take back this state. Former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum lost his race for the governorship by half a percent. 700,000 more Floridians have registered to vote since this. Gillum’s new Bring it Home Florida has pledged to register a million more and to re-engage those already registered, which has not always been accomplished by the Florida Democratic Party. Gillum’s organization is a good place to follow Florida. Donating is a good way to boost our chances to win the state in 2020.
2) Commit Today to Fight Gerrymandering
	Several national organizations did great work to help flip both houses of the Virginia State Legislature. Notable among these was the Sister District project. Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s PAC is aptly named the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. He wants to flip state legislatures because of the way Republican controlled legislatures abused the redistricting process after the 2010 census. In addition to donating to candidates, this PAC litigates and helps build the “political infrastructure” to prepare for the redistricting that will take place after the 2020 elections. Now is the time to connect with this important effort. There’s a way to get on the e-mailing list even if you aren’t donating.
3) Evaluating Candidates Not in the November 20 Debates
	The November debate is going to look a lot like the October debate. Missing will be Beto O’Rourke who dropped out and Julian Castro who didn’t reach the polling threshold. Eventually the field is going to narrow. If you are still shopping, this is a good time to think also about Steve Bullock and Michael Bennet. Neither of these men has been advantaged by late starts. If one was in the thinking mode, one could also look at Michael Bloomberg, though there is a down market for billionaire candidates, or Deval Patrick, who would need to decide to run with lightning speed. There isn’t a website for Michelle Obama…

So, now it is less than a year until the election. As reviewed above, it is time to resolve our Medicare for All dispute in favor of not overreaching. Our energy level has not waned. Given the events of the last few weeks, our motivation could not be higher.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington