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John Hayward @Doc_0
, 12 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
Like I've said before: this White House is circus up front and a Wal-Mart in back. The public relations front end and the policy shop that interfaces with Congress are on two different planets.
The question for the midterms becomes: are voters watching the circus or shopping at the Wal-Mart? Are they obsessed with the same stuff as the media, or are they paying more attention to bread-and-butter issues, what's happening in their daily lives?
And crucially: if they're looking at the bread and butter, job creation and wages, how much of that do they associate with Congress? Do they feel like voting for their GOP senator and representative is important for keeping that policy Wal-Mart open for business?
Come what may today, I just don't think the GOP did a good enough job at packaging the good stuff or showing voters that Dems will kill the good times if they regain power. "Phase One is going great and you really want us at the helm in Congress for Phase Two."
They might have done well enough to minimize losses and even hold the House - which would be an amazing achievement, given the number of seats they had to defend - but it feels like an opportunity was missed for a harmonized national campaign.
Lessons can be learned no matter the outcome today, because the GOP will definitely need a harmonized White House-Senate-House effort in 2020. If they hold the House today it will be incredibly hard to win all three again in the next election.
It's especially hard to win epochal victories like that while playing defense, which is the role Repubs are too easily pushed into. Playing offense means boldly telling voters in a united voice, "We'll do THIS if you vote FOR us, and you really want us to do it."
The good news is that however today shakes out, the GOP caucus should end up more unified. The important thing is to tune out the people who will try very hard to launch a bitter party-destroying civil war, especially if the results are disappointing today.
That doesn't mean lockstep unity to Trump, although the pot-stirrers will derisively put it that way, especially if the GOP does well today.
It's absurd and futile to treat the president as anything but the titular head of his party - just ask any of the Dems who tried to run like the wind from Barack Obama in the 2014 midterm. The president is more than even the most senior senator. Pretending otherwise is folly.
But the rest of the caucus influences the president, too. That's part of what has been going on in the Wal-Mart back-end of the Trump White House. Steps that can pay dividends for conservatism for years to come have been taken.
Arguments that handing Dems a win today will somehow chasten Trump and make the GOP more conservative are absurd. If you want the Wal-Mart backend of this White House to expand and gear up for 2020, you hire more congressional Republicans to work there. /end
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