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Bill Scher Profile picture
Bill Scher
@billscher
Politics Editor for the Washington @Monthly. Also, contributor @politico @realclearnews, @DMZShow, When America Worked podcast. (Avi by @Jess_Sassenach.)
artofstark Profile picture Potato Of Reason Profile picture 3 subscribed
May 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Funny thing about the swing state general election trial heats that test Trump & DeSantis: they are almost all from GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies, commissioned by Koch-network group Citizens Awareness Project citizenawarenessproject.com/research/

... ...Every one of the POS/CAP swing state polls has DeSantis outperforming Trump

citizenawarenessproject.com/research/

ajc.com/politics/polit…

...
Mar 19, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
The @peterbakernyt int’vw of Ben Barnes nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/… absolutely strengthens the case that the Reagan ‘80 campaign (but not necessarily Reagan) illegally tried to undermine talks w/Iran to free the hostages

But it doesn’t answer the Q if that’s *why* Iran delayed… …as noted by Baker, Barnes did talk previously (if not as extensively) with historian @hwbrands for Brands’ Reagan bio…
Jan 12, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
How Democrats should handle the current migrant influx, both rhetorically and substantively, is a vexing challenge. But one they need to meet or else they will turn on each other.

I have thoughts in the @monthly, but in short...
washingtonmonthly.com/2023/01/11/dem… Dems need to communicate that the influx is a short-term problem but a long-term opportunity.

* We have a labor shortage and need workers.

* Many are fleeing broken socialist countries. America should be a bulwark against authoritarianism by welcoming those seeking freedom...
Dec 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
DeSantis' decisions are utterly baffling to me. I obviously have to acknowledge his noxious bets have all paid off to date. But what in the Sam Hill the is the upside of going all in on Covid vaccine skepticism? Here are some DeSantis/vaccine fact checks

governing.com/now/gov-ron-de…

factcheck.org/2022/01/sciche…

news4jax.com/news/2022/07/2…

cnn.com/videos/health/…

nbc-2.com/news/health/co…

washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…
Dec 11, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Taking this at face value, this is very naive thinking.

At minimum, she doesn’t need to go D->I to transcend partisanship get things done, as evidenced by her own legislative record

And it may make the task much harder… …before, Sinema could pretty much count on full D caucus support for any bipartisan deal. The big challenge was getting the Rs, convincing them a deal didn’t go against their interests.

Now, she can’t assume every D will be invested in voting for a deal of hers…
Dec 10, 2022 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
Hilarious. @cenkuygur (the self-appointed gatekeeper of progressivism who endorsed Rick Caruso over Karen Bass!) did a @TheYoungTurks segment just on this thread @cenkuygur @TheYoungTurks Cenk says of me: "He came in as a progressive" in the blog days, but "a brother's got to earn a living in Washington" & "There's only one way to get your bread buttered in Washington. Kiss corporate ass."

Here's the real story of my career...

Dec 9, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
We may have ourselves a Joe Lieberman situation, in which progressives chase a moderate out of the party, but not out of the Senate, so the moderate — untethered to any progressive base — becomes way more obnoxious… …at least in the Lieberman situation, progressives had a plausible rationale for a purge strategy. Lieberman was genuinely terrible on the Iraq War, CT was/is very blue, so trying to take him out came with little risk of handing the seat to the GOP…
Nov 4, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Looking back at the Oct/Nov RCP generic ballot averages in midterms of yore.

2006: Democrats lead all the way. Slight GOP momentum detected in the final weekend, and Dems end up underperforming in House popular vote, relative to RCP, by 3.6 pts (though still flip Congress.) 2010: GOP seized big lead in July/Aug. It narrowed a bit in Sept, but shot up in Oct. Gained about 3 pts over final weekend, yet ended up underperforming RCP by 2.6 points (though still flipped House and netted 6 Senate seats)
Oct 19, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Katie Hobbs held out and got her 30-minute non-debate PBS interview, which became top news on other AZ local TV news stations, i.e.: azfamily.com/2022/10/19/kat… & fox10phoenix.com/video/1131943 Another local AZ TV station that covered the Hobbs/PBS interview, with clips
Oct 18, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The overarching message of the ad is that Grassley is too old, but one line jumps out at me: "He wrote the law making it illegal for Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices."

This notable for several reasons... ...Dems just passed a law that finally allows Medicare to negotiate for some drugs (brand-name and biologic drugs without generic or biosimilar equivalents several years after their FDA approval), but that doesn't kick in until 2026. Franken doesn't bother trying to sell it...
Oct 14, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Why isn’t Katie Hobbs debating Kari Lake? I offer a little backstory in my latest for @monthly …

First, Arizona is unusual in that it has a governmental body, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which by law organizes debates… washingtonmonthly.com/2022/10/14/do-… …the CCEC has long done so in partnership with Arizona PBS, though PBS’ involvement in not mandated by statute…
Aug 3, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
What messaging worked in Kansas? Let's look at the ads from the winning "NO" team... One theme: labelling the proposed amendment as a "government mandate." In this ad the word abortion is not said:

"It's a strict government mandate designed to interfere with private medical decisions ... Kansans don't want another government mandate."

Aug 3, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
In what universe have Democrats been afraid to touch abortion?
Jun 26, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
There are a lot of plot points that led to the 5-4 majority that overturned Roe.

But what looms large in my mind, perhaps of greater significance than the Garland blockade, is the 2005 conservative revolt over the Miers nomination that gave us Alito… …Miers’ abortion record was murky but a speech she gave in 1993 sounded pro-choice enough to enrage pro-lifers and intensify the pressure on Bush to pull the nom…

washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…
Jun 2, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
You can hear Blake Masters talk about the Unabomber here

He's asked to name a "subversive thinker" who is "underrated" and would "influence people in a good direction," and he volunteers "Theodore Kaczynski"... ...Masters gives the perfunctory "he's a terrorist, he shouldn't hurt people, obviously" and "there's a lot" in his views "that I disagree with." But "there's a lot of insight there, there's a lot that is correct."...
May 28, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Here's a depressing thread of things I've written over the last eight years about the politics of guns... After last year's King Soopers shooting: "The chronic problem afflicting Democrats is that they always shift into gear after a public mass shooting but shift out of gear between mass shootings."

washingtonmonthly.com/2021/03/24/aft…
Apr 22, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Why do Democrats tell themselves nonsense?

Obama absolutely took a victory lap after passing Obamacare.

The receipts... Two days after signing ACA into law, Obama sold the bill at an Iowa City rally nytimes.com/2010/03/26/us/…
Mar 15, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
As I write today in the ⁦@monthly⁩, the “Romney Wuz Right” talk hangs solely on the Number One Foe line; it doesn’t bother to look at what Romney proposed to *do* about Russia.

So let’s take a closer look… washingtonmonthly.com/2022/03/15/no-… …Mitt’s Russia policy proposals were pretty thin. He mostly complained that Obama scrapped Bush’s missile defense system and told Russia (caught on a hot mic) that he’d be more “flexible” on missile defense post-election…
Jan 30, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Maher is doubling down on smearing Democrats and caricaturing them as loony leftists.

As I wrote in November, Maher's smears rely on falsehoods and misleading data points washingtonmonthly.com/2022/01/17/new…

But a couple things to note about this new hit job... ...Maher mocks Dems for welcoming Liz Cheney's criticism of Trump & the 1/6 riot

Just 3 months ago Maher delivered a heart-stopping monologue about Trump's "slow moving coup" where he praised Cheney for voting to impeach & lamented she was DOA in the GOP
Sep 28, 2021 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
I've been telling y'all for a loooong time:

Pelosi has a history of walking back an initial progressive demand in pragmatic deference to the Senate.

And she signaled back in June that the initial linkage demand wasn't all that firm in the first place.

Here's my own recap... ...June 30 is when I first saw Pelosi define the linkage demand in looser terms than generally assumed...

Aug 15, 2021 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
"I have requested that the Rules Committee explore ... a rule that advances both the budget RESOLUTION and the bipartisan infrastructure package" (emphasis mine)

I told y'all 6 wks ago washingtonmonthly.com/2021/07/02/nan… Pelosi had in mind tying BIB to the resolution, not reconciliation... ...To refresh, on June 30 I flagged comments from Pelosi that gave her wiggle room to treat the resolution as sufficient for moving forward on BIB...