USA
This article was added by the user . TheWorldNews is not responsible for the content of the platform.

Opinion: Democrats may be playing with fire this primary season

CNN's senior political commentator and host of "The Axe Files", David Axelrod, is a senior adviser to President Barack Obama. , 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential elections. The opinions expressed in this commentary belong to him. SeeOther Opinions on CNN.

(CNN)It has become a legend in Washington.

David Axelrod
David Axelrod

2012, Phase 1 {30 Senator Claire McCaskill has become an endangered political species-an increasingly Republican Missouri Democrat. And she knew she was against her the possibility of winning her reelection that year. As

McCaskill recalled in detailyears later, she took the calculated risk of interfering with the Republican Senate primary by engaging in serious political jujutsu. I did.
McCaskill's campaign unleashed a salvo of negative ads against the far-right candidate Todd Akin, the very position and controversy thatknew. I deliberately attacked him with comments that brewed. Polling, he falls in love with the Republican base.

McCaskill and her strategist saw Akin as her most defeating general election enemy and set out to take him there.

Investing $ 1.7 million in his election funds, Democratic senators raise Akin from a distant second place to aRepublican candidate. Helped.He has more than 15 points in the general election. It has become a legendary Washington parlor trick.

McCaskill was her friend and was happy to see her return to the Senate. But ten years later, in Donald Trump's time, I'm afraid of that tactic when Democrats across the country re-execute her main intervention strategy. It looks wise, but it nourishes growing jaundice about politics. But more than that, miscalculations can put the militants in an authoritative position.

In Swing State, Pennsylvania, Democratic and Democratic alliance groupsspend millions in primariesand love Trumpdougma reject electionsAttacked Striano. Abortion-Prohibits the governor'scandidate as "too conservative" in the state.
This move helped strengthen Mastriano's main lead over potentially more electable Republicans, with Trump sensing the winner andriding his time. 61} Further enhanced when jumping.

And with Mastriano's first victory, Democrats continued to invest to influence other Republican races.

In Illinois, billionaire Governor J.B. Pritzker and the Democratic Governor's Association spend $ 30 million togetheran attack highlighting state senator Darren Bailey's Trumpian relationship. Increased opportunities with advertising. Andright-wing genuineat the same time, they have a negative ad intended to actually beat Mayor Richard Irvin, a more moderate African-American candidate on the outskirts of Aurora. I beat him with.

They got the desired result. Bailey won the landslide in the primary elections on Tuesday.

It was biopolitics, but in the swing state of Pennsylvania, it is at greater risk. Now that Mastriano has raised the Republican flag, tribal loyalty has sprung up. In a recent poll, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a candidate for Democratic governor,only 4 pointsTrump lost about 17 points to Illinois. , And the relatively popular Pritzker, which is willing to use whatever it needs, is now highly favored to win the reelection.

Full Disclosure, When I was a Democratic Campaign Consultant, I once created an ad by attacking a cheerful Republican front runner to interfere with the Republican primary. However, the attack was about the opponent's suspicious business practices, not his ideology, but the purpose of defeating him rather than promoting him in his primary.

This is another fish kettle.

Each Democratic campaign represents what Republican primary voters wanted, and claims that the final winner did. Indeed, in the Colorado primary, Akin's playdidn't workThe right wing, backed by democratic offensive ads, lost the Republican nomination in the US Senate. .. The market has been decided.
But politics is not a game. As much as we often treat it as one. When the belief in our systemand the elections are very tense, I have to think that this only adds irony to their legitimacy. And when both parties are needed to make a responsible choice, the operation between them goes against it.

But that aside, I have bigger and more practical concerns.

As a longtime campaign practitioner, I have no problems with hardball politics. In both Pennsylvania and Illinois, Akin's play may be remembered as winning politics in a tough year-the year proved to be very tough, and the old parlor tricks were terribly wrong. Unless it is a dangerous trick.

After all, the number of Democratic strategists who supported Donald Trump's nomination in 2016 was convinced that reality show stars would be dead-bang losers in the fall.