Three Races January 28, 2023January 28, 2023 The other side is so good at confusing people. After 35 years of its shrinking relative to the economy as a whole — from 122% in 1945 back down to 30% in 1980 — that iconic Republican president, Ronald Reagan, sent the National Debt back up with tax cuts for the rich that were amplified by George W. Bush and then Trump . . . leaving Joe Biden a Debt that is, once again, around 122% of GDP. Since 1980, only Clinton and Obama — Democratic presidents — handed off a Debt that was shrinking relative to GDP when they left office. Yet the Republicans have managed to misguide many good people into thinking they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Likewise, though the murder rate is consistently higher in red states than blue — and though Biden calls for more police funding (as do almost all Democratic mayors) — the right has persuaded much of America that they alone care about crime. Which is ridiculous. (The only side that truly wants to cripple law enforcement is the G.O.P. which officially favors defunding IRS audits of the uber-wealthy and large corporations.) There is common sense middle ground to be found on so many of the issues that confront us — including gun safety and immigration — but more and more Republicans in the House and Senate reject compromise. It was bad ten years ago — “People don’t fully appreciate how committed the Tea Party is to not compromising” — and it just keeps getting worse. The Tea Party looks tame compared to the election deniers (and even Q-Anon adherents) who now make up a majority of Congressional Republicans. So the struggle to right the ship and empower the sensible center continues. (The combination of open primaries and ranked-choice voting would go a long way to empower moderates.) Three upcoming races for your consideration: In Missouri, Lucas Kunce is running to retake from Josh Hawley the seat Missouri Claire McCaskill once held. His ad is so good, I offer it here again. The 2024 Senate map is very tough for the Dems, but we can absolutely pull it off. Lucas Kunce is one of the reasons why. In California, Adam Schiff is running for Dianne Feinstein‘s seat. But so is everybody else, including the wonderful Katie Porter. Either would be great. The tragedy would be if, with a multitude of good Dems running, the blue vote split such that the two top open-primary candidates who made it to the general were both Republicans — and we lost the seat. That’s unlikely; but the lesser-but-certain tragedy, if one of them doesn’t drop out of the race, is that we will lose at least one of these two great members of Congress (and possibly both, if a different Democrat wins). My hope is that everyone will rally around Schiff, now, early, and somehow persuade Porter that — having just spent more than $20 million to narrowly defeat a poorly-funded Republican in a tough district — she will not abandon that district. Because her winning the Senate race would definitely mean losing Schiff AND very possibly flipping her own House seat red. (Schiff’s district went more than two-to-one for Biden; we would not lose it.) Both are too good for us to lose either one! In Wisconsin, more immediately, April 4, the replacement will be chosen for a retiring conservative judge on their current 4-3 supreme court. As one expert summarizes: “The court’s partisan majority is at stake, and for that reason this single seat will likely determine the future of voting rights, redistricting, union power, and other giant questions in Wisconsin for the better part of a decade. Recent court history tells us that the fate of Wisconsin’s ten Electoral College votes in the 2024 presidential election may also be in the balance.” To help effectively, click here. Have a great week!