You’re welcome.
You won’t see this clip in any of the other morning tip sheets.
So please support me and my work on the Wide World of News by becoming a voluntary paying subscriber or contributor today.
You can become a paying subscriber at fixed rates or a Founding Member here:
Or you can become a contributor to the cause by giving the amount of your choice via:
* Check. Send a simple email to markhalperintalk@gmail.com and ask how you can mail in some money.
• PayPal. markhalperinnyc@gmail.com
• Venmo. Mark-Halperin-4 (telephone number ends in x3226)
• Zelle. markhalperinnyc@gmail.com
* Buying me a cocktail (at Tosca prices….), tax and server tip included, by clicking here.
* Buying me a cup of coffee (or a week’s worth) by clicking here.
Thank you for your support and consideration.
Mark
****
Tuesday night at the DC mainstay Tosca, at a table in the back, I had a two-martini dinner with two political consultants, one Democrat and Republican. I’ve known them both for years and have always found them each to be honest and realistic about both their own party and the other side.
Both are working on a large number of midterm races around the country, so they have access to reams of polling data, strategy memos, and the thinking going on at the highest levels of their parties, from the White House to Capitol Hill to the major campaign committees.
Amid the calamari, curly pasta, veal, chocolate cake, coffee, and those martinis, both agreed to speak on background and let me record the conversation, knowing I would publish the transcript in this newsletter, anonymity allowing them to both speak freely about their views of the campaign and the strengths and weaknesses of both Blue and Red.
This transcript has been edited extensively for clarity, comedy, and to make it seem like the dinner really happened.
WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE THROUGHOUT. Political consultants drinking martinis talk spicier than penne all'arrabbiata!!!
****
MARK HALPERIN: So, how do you two see the midterms?
HONEST FICTIONAL REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN CONSULTANT: We need this to be a normal midterm cycle, by which I mean we need voters to reflect the usual reaction to an unpopular president, two years into his term, with the public in a grumpy mood generally and scared and angry about the economy. If that is the election we get, we take the House with at least plus 20 and we control the Senate by two or three seats. The gubernatorial races are another matter.
HONEST FICTIONAL DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN CONSULTANT: We need this to be an abnormal midterm cycle. None of what my friend REDACTED said is wrong. If that is what the voters vote on, we are toast. We need this to be about abortion, MAGA extremism, and did I mention abortion?
HFRCC: If we don’t take the Senate and barely take the House, what Lindsey Graham did today [announcing a new federal bill to limit abortion access] will go down in history as one of the dumbest things anyone in our party did this cycle, and that is saying a lot. I mean, Rick Scott putting out an agenda to cut entitlements, McConnell giving Biden all these legislative wins while letting Trump pick our nominees, Trump being Trump – there is a LOT of competition for who has been the dumbest, but I think ol’ Lindsey just locked up the crown.
HFDCC: I can’t disagree there (laughing). Let me associate myself with my unidentified colleague who was quoted in a Politico story I saw on my phone while I was waiting at the bar for you two. He said something like, “Dems might need to send gift baskets and champagne to Graham and other Republicans for their selfless act of service today.”
MH: So abortion is going to save your party in November?
HFDCC: I actually don’t think it will. What are people talking about at the Waffle House in Macon, Georgia this morning: Their 401(k) accounts and the price of bacon -- or Lindsey Graham’s abortion bill? Unfortunately, it is the former.
HFRCC: OK, true, but what are they talking about at the Whole Foods in Macon?
MH: There actually is no Whole Foods in Macon.
HFRCC: Ok, fine, but you get my point. All you need to know is the WPA [a Republican consulting firm] data that NBC reported on the web yesterday. By 51% to 32%, battleground state voters say Republicans are more extreme on abortion than Democrats. It also said that 41% of likely voters surveyed said Dobbs made them more likely to vote for a Democrat, while 24% said it made them more likely to back Republicans. Our firm, the NRSC, the NRCC – everybody has the same polling. Graham at least was trying to do something to put us on the offense on this issue, rather than just sit back and let it destroy winnable races. But offense is parental consent and partial birth abortion, not a federal ban!
MH: Why aren’t the economy, Biden’s approval rating, and wrong track more powerful than abortion?
HFRCC: It’s interesting. One way to think about this election is this: Which will matter more to voters – the vector direction of gas prices and Biden’s approval ratings or the absolute numbers? Because while things are better for the White House than a few months ago on those scores, the overall still sucks. A president with Biden’s standing should be wiped out in Congress. But the current horse race numbers just aren’t telling that story.
MH: Is that abortion? Is that Trump? Is that the Republican brand? What is it?
HFDCC: All of the above. Our slogan is basically the same as the gallows humor one I heard was used in the offices of the George W. Bush reelection campaign: Times are tough; stay the course. James Carville said during the 2004 campaign that if Bush were reelected, given his record, it would be the single most incredible political achievement of his lifetime. Well, guess what? Bush won. And Democrats can win these midterms, too. Lindsey Graham’s abortion bill is the equivalent of John Kerry going windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket with a TV camera present. A surprising and delightful gift that will keep on giving until Election Day.
HFRCC: Highest food price inflation since Jimmy Carter. Worst stock market day all year. And you guys won the news cycle! Thanks to fucking Lindsey.
HFDCC: But this might not be the end of the story. When your party says the fundamentals will matter most by Election Day, meaning the economy and wrong track matter more than abortion and Trump, that could be right. Look, it isn’t just right-wingers like Americans for Prosperity pointing out on social how tough conditions are for working families. [Shows tweet on phone to table.]
It is Cardi B also. [Shows tweet on phone to table.]
You [talking to HFRCC] don’t know who Cardi B is, I know, but my kids do. [Laughter all around.]
And images like this one are going to be all over the fucking place, which will kill us in the suburbs. [Shows phone.]
HFRCC: You might be right. The other things we have going for us now is that some of our troubled candidates have actually righted the ship a bit. Oz is doing better, Walker is. Vance and Masters – who I call “The Thiel Twins” – might be doing better. Who knows? Laxalt, Smiley, O'Dea are all great. We might even catch a break in New Hampshire and get that race in play. The governors are a different story. We are going to get wiped out in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, maybe a few others, and that is going to kill us down ballot.
HFDCC: I see at least three big wild cards we haven’t discussed. Crime, which our party gets blamed for unfairly, especially after all our effort to expel “defund the police” from our side. Immigration, which tests off the chart for the Rs and about which the White House has not done shit. And Trump. Is Trump going to be on the stump? If so, where and what will he say? And is he the October Surprise?
HFRCC: We don’t fucking need Trump out there. Yes, he draws big crowds and press coverage. Sure, he fires up the base. But he takes the focus off of Biden and inflation.
HFDCC: I would pay out of my own pocket to fly Trump around in October, doing events for all the Republicans I’m working to beat.
MH: What is not getting enough focus now?
HFRCC: I would say the three Ms: Message, money, and media.
MH: Meaning?
HFDCC: Meaning is the fourth M!!!
HFRCC: Meaning, watch to see what both sides are messaging on Facebook and Instagram in the final two weeks and now in early voting states – the targeted messages that are more amped up than what McCarthy and Pelosi are saying. Meaning, which side is actually going to have more money to spend on ads? There is a LOT of dark money on both sides in the pipeline that is going to hit really late. And meaning the leftwing press bias is going to be so extreme, including in the debates, that our side is going to have to do what we always do – win on a completely slanted playing field.
HFDCC: So true! I will drink to that!!!
MH: Ok, one more before we go. I have to get up to write the newsletter. Which is more likely: Joe Biden has a press conference before Election Day or Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump do a rally together in Pennsylvania?
HFRCC and HRDCC [together]: NEITHER!!!
****
I wrote this from a standing start on Wednesday morning, so please excuse the typos and omissions!