All’s fair in love, war, and politics.
All’s fair in love, war, and politics, as they say. But there comes a point at which surreptitious deceptions in the effort to confuse and beguile voters say more about you than your opponents or even the voters you’re attempting to hoodwink.
“Democratic strategists in recent months approached officials at the party’s main Senate super PAC to discuss a bank-shot idea for flipping control of the Senate,” The Bulwark’s Lauren Egan reported this week. One of those ideas includes “quietly backing independent candidates in traditionally Republican states.”
“The strategy is highly sensitive,” Egan added. Sure, as one might expect from a tactic that tacitly acknowledges the atrocious odor about the Democratic Party. “Any involvement, should it come, would likely be done late in the cycle and with minimum disclosure.” The party is, however, not entirely dismissive of the prospects for success via proxy, and it’s reportedly considering the approach in states such as Nebraska, Iowa, and Alaska.
Indeed, something a little like this strategy took place in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race last year. There, nonpartisan Senate candidate Dan Osborn ostentatiously rejected the Democratic Party’s endorsement in his race against incumbent Republican Senator Deb Fischer. Democrats felt “betrayed” by Osborn’s independent affiliation, and they had a right to their irritation. Reportedly, the candidate told state Democratic Party chairwoman Jane Kleeb that he wanted them to “keep our ballot line open so we could form a coalition,” only for Osborn to make a show of denouncing the party for the benefit of his own electoral prospects.
Democrats ended up backing Osborn anyway — likely with the understanding that, if elected, he would vote with Senate Democrats. “In the final stretch of independent Dan Osborn’s attempt to unseat Sen. Deb Fischer,” Politico reported in December, “Senate Democrats’ main super PAC dropped more than $3.8 million into another outside group that was a top player supporting Osborn.”
A bogus independent candidate. Late in the cycle. Minimum disclosure. It’s all there. In the end, however, the strategy was a bust. Fischer went on to win her reelection bid by nearly seven points. But the feint wasn’t a total disaster. After all, Osborn outperformed every Democrat who has run for U.S. Senate from the Cornhusker State since Ben Nelson’s final reelection in 2006.
It would, however, be a mistake to attribute Osborn’s relatively modest success purely to his independent affiliation. It wasn’t just the “(I)” after his name that established Osborn’s autonomy. He made genuine efforts to distance himself from the Democratic Party. Those efforts ingratiated him to Nebraskans as much as they irritated Democratic partisans.
Still, any port in a storm. The Democratic Party’s brand is still moribund, and it doesn’t look like Democrats can count on Donald Trump to make the opposition look good simply by dint of his own missteps. Democrats will have to be the authors of their own rehabilitation. And if that means running Trojan horse candidates who only pretend to oppose the Democratic Party, that’s a sacrifice that will have to be made.