This November, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey a former Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player, will square-off in the race for the U.S. Senate in California. In the state’s unique top-two primary system in which all candidates, regardless of party appear on the same ballot and the top two finishers advance. Schiff received 32.2% of the vote, Garvey 32.5%, Democratic Congresswomen, Katie Porter 13.8% and Barbara Lee 7.4%).
According to Porter and others, Garvey’s strong showing was aided by Schiff spending millions of dollars in statewide advertisem*nts highlighting Garvey’s conservative credentials and framing him as Schiff’s chief opponent. Schiff’s lavish media effort boosted Garvey’s visibility among Republican and right-leaning voters. A Schiff ad described Garvey as too conservative for California – “he voted for Trump, twice, and supported Republicans for years including far-right conservatives.”
Garvey was a first-time long-shot candidate with little chance of winning a statewide election in deep blue California until Schiff began running ads which sent a strong signal to Republican voters in the state that they should coalesce around Garvey.
Indirectly helping a candidate who you believe would make a weaker candidate down the road is not a new approach. Both political parties have employed the so-called “bank-shot” strategy to boost an opponent whom they view as less of a threat to them in a runoff or general election.
The most famous example of this approach was in former Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill’s 2012 re-election campaign where she spent $1.7 million in the Republican primary labeling Rep. Todd Akin as being “too conservative” in an effort to boost his chances of winning the primary. McCaskill trounced him the general election when in a debate he made this infamous quote about rape and pregnancy: “If it’s a legitimate rape the female body has ways to shut down the whole thing back.”
Adam Green, a California Progressive activist and Porter ally, issued a statement attacking Schiff following the election. “Adam Schiff put his own selfishness above democracy by lifting up Republican Steve Garvey, who will now turn out Trump voters in key House races that could determine control of Congress,” Green said.
There is no question that Schiff’s strategy was self-serving and Machiavellian in nature. I’d probably go further and describe it as clever, but sleazy politics. The deceptive nature of the scheme bothers me as I believe it contributes to the cynicism that characterizes our politics today.
I also recognize that tactics that are effective in our politics today will become more and more ubiquitous – witness the number of negative campaign ads.
I think the primary reason for low voter turnout is voter cynicism – the feeling held by large swatches of the electorate that all politicians are corrupt.
In New Jersey cynicism was reinforced by the Democratic Party’s failure to self-police and force Senator Menendez out when he sought a third term in 2018 after he was “severely admonished” by the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics for accepting gifts from Dr. Salomon Melgen without obtaining committee approval, for failure to disclose certain gifts, and for using his position as a senator to advance Melgen’s interests. Similarly, the “party line” promotes cynicism and should be abolished in New Jersey.
Nationally, what the Republicans are doing on Ukraine and immigration is cynicism on steroids. Republicans pontificated widely and loudly that they would not agree to provide aid to Ukraine without an immigration deal. A group of Republican and Democrat Senators in good faith negotiated a deal that Progressive Democrats were outraged with. They viewed certain aspects of the deal as far too Draconian. Nevertheless, President Biden indicated he’d accept the terms.
As spelled out in an article entitled “The Last Campaign” in The New Yorker on March 11, 2024: “None of this sat well with Trump, who had built his campaign on the politics of a permanent border crisis; if conditions improved, he would have nothing to blame on Biden…. Even before the bill was available, Trump posted on social media “A Border Deal now would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats.” Republicans fell in lockstep with Trump and f*cklessly thwarted the bipartisan effort to address two of our most urgent problems. Once again, self-interest trumped the national interest.
Cynicism reigns supreme in our politics today to the point that it is rarely condemned. I know it’s not going to happen, but I’d like to see “reverse psychology” advertisem*nts funded by political action groups banned on the basis that they are cloaked, in-kind contributions to the campaigns they are seeking to help. Given that’s far too Pollyanna, how about at least making it a requirement that the group funding these types of advertisem*nts make it clear what their underlying motivation for the ad is. Let’s at least have truth in negative advertising.
Irwin Stoolmacher is president of the Stoolmacher Consulting Group, a fundraising and strategic planning firm that works with nonprofit agencies that serve the truly needy among us.
