Revenge-threatening fundraising e-mails from the head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and its liberal stepsister, American Bridge 21st Century, that went out to thousands following the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Saturday perfectly illustrate the state of mind of those opposed. Tom Perez, the DNC’s chairman, wrote, “Make a $3 donation right now to make Republicans pay a price for Brett Kavanaugh.… If we don’t want people like Brett Kavanaugh to be appointed to lifetime positions in our federal judiciary, we need to elect Democratic majorities this November.”
The fund-raising e-mail from American Bridge, responsible for opposition research for the DNC and funded largely by billionaire George Soros, was similar, threatening a “day of reckoning” for Republicans for confirming Kavanaugh to the high court:
A day of reckoning is coming for Republicans on November 6, and American Bridge is doing everything we can to put the GOP on defense.
With 30 days until the election, we need the resources to keep the fight on the GOP’s doorstep. Will you donate $10 now and help us hold Republicans accountable?
Not that American Bridge needs the money with Soros doing most of the heavy financial lifting. He was the group’s largest donor for both the 2012 and 2014 election cycles, contributing a million dollars or more to the outfit each time. The group also enjoys support from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which donated $575,000 of its members’ dues to it in 2012.
Promises of payback, retribution, infliction of pain, and exaction of revenge are hardly likely to help the Democrats flip the houses of Congress in November. The outrage engendered by the obscene character assassination of Kavanaugh has ignited fury among Republican voters, putting the Senate well out of reach, according to the liberal Washington Post: “The weeks-long Kavanaugh saga appears to be pushing House races toward Democrats, even as it has given Republicans better odds of maintaining control of the Senate.” As we pointed out in an article on Saturday, that outrage is likely not only to maintain Republican control of the Senate, but to extend it.
The Democrat advantage in generic balloting for the House has already been steadily shrinking, now down to single digits according to polls taken before Kavanaugh’s confirmation. And that advantage could shrink further if Democrats use the threat of vengeance and payback as their election meme, according to liberal Democrat Alan Dershowitz:
The confirmation disaster … has done much damage to our country and its institutions. And the damage may well continue if Democrats regain majority control of the House and [then] conduct a revenge inquisition against the new associate justice…
[This] would simply be a partisan payback for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Nor is it likely to produce new information about what did or did not happen … in Maryland … in 1982.
Such threats, used as a campaign meme by Democrats in various close House races against Republicans, could backfire, wrote Dershowitz: “If the Democrats spend the next month running against Justice Kavanaugh, they will alienate many centrist voters who are sick and tired of partisan gamesmanship.”
According to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican voters are already “sick and tired” of the charade conducted by vengeful and threatened Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Prior to the Kavanaugh hearing, the intensity level was really on the Democratic side. But in the last week there has been a fundamental shift [by Republican voters].”
The weekly Rasmussen Reports generic poll that was taken in the middle of the confirmation hearings showed a small Democrat advantage over Republicans, 47-42, with four percent favoring some other candidate, and seven percent undecided. Other polls listed at the RealClearPolitics.com aggregator taken before or during the confirmation hearings show the Democrats’ generic “advantage” even slimmer and within the usual two- to three-percent margin of error.
If enough Republican voters remain thoroughly outraged and incensed by the Democrats’ tactics employed during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, and this is aided by Democrats “revenge” political messaging despite Dershowitz’s warning, the Republican Party’s chances of maintaining and even extending its advantage in the House improve daily.
Image: yuriz via iStock / Getty Images Plus
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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