Dem Rep Ryan: Democratic Party Has a ‘Toxic National Brand’

“It doesn’t matter who our leader is, the Republicans will always run against them, someone else in our caucus or Willie Horton”, referring to the convicted MA murderer that Republicans used to make Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis look weak on crime during the 1988 campaign.

Clearly, anti-Trump energy alone isn’t enough to beat Republicans not named Trump.

Some of the Democrats’ suggesting Pelosi should move on have recently argued that the Republican attack ads linking Democratic candidates to her are an effective campaign tool, and could hurt the party’s chances to flip control of the House in the 2018 midterms. The Left continued to characterize the race as Ossoff versus Trump as the runoff drew nearer. Today, the situation is reversed, with many Democratic leaders and activists more focused on ideological purity than on regaining political power.

Representative-elect Karen Handel of Georgia’s sixth district is well-known to pro-lifers because of her public battle with the abortion company in early 2012.

And former Republican Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Handel’s victory provides the GOP with a “huge relief and somewhat of a political sedative”, CNN reported. “They have to connect with the people, they have to focus on their priorities, and those are going to be different in a blue-collar manufacturing district in OH than they are in a highly educated, suburban district in Georgia or California”. Riding the wave of anti-Trump sentiment, Ossoff knew the race would be tight and could go either way. But the Democrat and the Republican involved in the race said they haven’t seen any other signs of trouble. He grew up in the district, then spent many years in Washington, D.C., so Republicans cast the 30-year-old as being out of touch with Georgia. “They were being judged partly on their own”. But as the race neared Tuesday’s vote, she said she started getting flooded with questions about where he lived.

The result comes as relief for Republicans who had grown concerned about whether their party, buffeted by the scandals that have plagued the Republican president, could hold the seat in Georgia’s sixth district, which became the most expensive congressional race in U.S. history.

“That’s why [the Sixth District] was in play”, says Mermin. People who want to keep more of the money they earn are selfish. Their best chance was arguably in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, a suburban one near Atlanta where Donald Trump barely edged out Hillary Clinton past year. One of the names picked was Tom Price, a Republican congressman from George who eventually was confirmed as the newest Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Of the seven congressional special elections happening in 2017, Republicans have won in four states – Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina and Montana – and Democrats have won in one, California.

It’s instructive to look at what happened Tuesday in neighboring SC, in a special election to fill the seat of Mick Mulvaney, the Trump administration’s budget chief.

“Democrats’ bold claims to compete for GOP-held suburban seats blew up in their faces in Georgia”, said Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

But since the media collectively declared it a referendum on Trump-and would have gone haywire if Ossoff had won-there is a reckoning about what the Democratic Party stands for. It was precisely because all the focus was on Georgia that SC flew below the radar, and did not inspire high turnout by Republicans. “They will do this to any and every Democratic leader because the only thing sustaining their majority is desperation”.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been scrutinized by Democratic lawmakers in the wake of Jon Ossoff’s Tuesday loss to GOP candidate Karen Handel in the Georgia special House election. Eight Democrats and 10 Republicans have filed their petitions to run in the special election, according to a tally kept by Ballotpedia.

Republicans control the presidency and both houses of Congress. By the next election, Democrats lost seats left and right, falling to 193 seats. “Trump needed a win, and he got one”.