Latest Post | Last 10 Posts | Archives
Previous Post: Illinois House Bill HB 4900 Does Nothing for Illinois Consumers
Next Post: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition
Posted in:
* Oof…
* From Mallory Quigley at the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List…
Hi Rich,
As you know it is Election Day in IL-03. I just got back from the district where for the past 4 days a crew of 70+ college student volunteers and Susan B. Anthony List staff have been visiting the homes of Democratic primary voters urging them to get out and vote for pro-life Rep. Dan Lipinski.
Our team visited more 26,489 homes! Below is a short video of why we got involved and what it was like this weekend
The video is here.
* BuzzFeed asks the wrong question…
Should the Democratic Party accept and support anti-abortion candidates?
The party apparatus is supporting Lipinski at both the national and local levels. Go to the machine’s 23rd Ward and these are the kinds of lawns you’ll see…
It’s not about the party’s acceptance and support, it’s about the people who actually vote.
* Here are the campaigns’ final pitches to the media…
“I’m just a true-blue Democrat, and he’s a far-right radical Republican,” Newman said in an interview on Monday at her headquarters, citing Lipinski’s opposition to abortion, his positions on gay rights, and his 2010 vote against the Democrats’ signature Affordable Care Act health law. […]
“Marie Newman is a ‘Tea Party of the Left’ extremist who … wants to make the Democratic Party smaller and less inclusive,” the Lipinski campaign said in a prepared statement
* 538 takes a look at the tea party thing…
If, as this data suggests, the only prerequisite for being called a tea partier is to attack your Republican opponent from the right, then, sure, Newman is waging the mirror image of a tea party challenge. But that’s a fairly lazy conclusion; it lumps together all the primary challenges listed above when the data shows there are clear differences between them. […]
If you consider the district’s partisanship, then maybe Newman’s campaign is more like Richard Mourdock’s Republican primary challenge to incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar in Indiana’s 2012 U.S. Senate race: According to our partisan lean calculations, Indiana was as Republican then as the Illinois 3rd is Democratic now. Lugar was indeed moderate enough (a .304 DW-Nominate score) that a primary challenge made some sense on its own, but Mourdock infamously ended up losing that general election.
All things considered, it’s debatable whether Newman’s challenge of Lipinski is within reason, according to these ideological scores, or out of line. Lipinski is indeed a Democratic nonconformist who can’t reliably be counted on to vote against the Trump agenda — but he’s not wildly out of sync with his district either. The voters will have to decide how much heterodoxy they can tolerate on Tuesday.
The difference between Indiana’s election and this one is the Republican candidate is a bona fide Nazi…
* This is probably right, but the reasoning will be wrong…
Your cable news analysts will be pulling apart the returns from the 3rd to see if they signal a desire from voters for a more centrist Democrat — Lipinski, who has the same sort of appeal as centrist Democrat Conor Lamb, who won last week’s special congressional election in Pennsylvania — or a far more left-wing Democrat — Newman, who will excite the party’s base voters and donors.
The outcome is likely to have national implications for the sorts of candidates the party recruits in the coming months.
Conor Lamb was appealing because he promised to take a seat away from the Republicans, so the more liberal Dem voters looked the other way on some stuff for partisan reasons. It happens a lot. The 3rd is a solidly Democratic district. Liberals want it. We’ll see if they can take it.
* Also…
Back in 2004, a Democrat from a safe district voting with the president as often as Lipinski might have been tolerated. Gallup found that moderate and conservative Democrats made up more than 60% of all Democrats in 2004. Liberals made up less than 35%.
Today, it’s an entirely different ball game. Liberal Democrats, at 50%, are a greater force than the combined 48% of moderate and conservative Democrats.
We can see the change in the Democratic electorate on the specific issue of abortion, as well. According to a Quinnipiac University survey in December 2004, 67% of self-identified Democrats said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Still, a significant minority, 27%, said it should be illegal most or all of the time.
* And…
“It’s not about the direction of the party—it’s about the direction of the district,” Joe Trippi, the strategist who helped lead Jones to victory in Alabama, told Newsweek on Monday. “You often have incumbents who’ve been standing in the same place for a decade or more and don’t realize the electorate and the district are changing. That’s creating a lot of vulnerability for incumbents in both parties.”
* One more…
And while Pelosi would take heat from outside for backing a losing candidate against a progressive challenger, the inside game is different. Pelosi’s loyalty to her own members remains a key reason that she remains in control of her caucus.
*** UPDATE *** NBC National Political Correspondent…
Anti-abortion Democrats in the House:
1978: 125
1996: 70
2007: 32
Now: 3 (will fall to 2 if Dan Lipinski loses tonight)— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) March 20, 2018
3 of 193 (1.6%) of House Dems are now anti-abortion, while according to Pew 22% of Democratic voters are: pic.twitter.com/I79b68oMyu
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) March 20, 2018
* Related…
* Progressives look to continue gains on Illinois primary day
* In Illinois Primaries, Abortion Is the Big Issue
* 2018 Primary: 6 Congressional Districts to Watch
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 1:44 pm
Sorry, comments are closed at this time.
Previous Post: Illinois House Bill HB 4900 Does Nothing for Illinois Consumers
Next Post: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition
WordPress Mobile Edition available at alexking.org.
powered by WordPress.
Just curious, and I hope I am mistaken, but is the “John Kelly” President of the “Irish Republican Alliance” the same “John Kelly” that ran against Lipinski in the 2006 Primary?
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 1:49 pm
Papa Mikey, Hillary beat Trump 60% to 35% in the 19th ward in 2016.
Comment by Juice Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:05 pm
–The party apparatus is supporting Lipinski at both the national and local levels…..It’s not about the party’s acceptance and support, it’s about the people who actually vote.–
Hard for many to understand.
The crocodile tears that some shed for Lipinski are hilarious. This is no Last Hurrah moment.
He snuck in the back door with the old man’s resignation. The kid gets the rep job, the old man cashes in on the lobbyist job while still running the show.
His loss would not be some social/cultural turning point, but the end of a pretty sleazy political operation.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:07 pm
The 19th ward is split between the 1st and 3rd congressional districts.
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:12 pm
From March 14, 2018
Science ‘Champion’ Dan Lipinski Faces Tough Race in Illinois Primary….
The author’s basic argument- “If the seven-term legislator loses his primary race to the more liberal Marie Newman, his defeat would also silence one of the most vocal and persistent advocates for research in Congress.”
Later in same article-
“Lipinki’s views on research aren’t playing much of a role in his current race, in which he is facing a potent challenge from the liberal wing of his own party. Newman, his opponent, says ‘Lipinski has consistently campaigned as a Democrat but governed as a Republican,’ putting him out of step with the party’s core principles. In what was seen as an unusual rebuke to an incumbent, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)—an important party fundraising group—initially withheld its endorsement from Lipinski. This month, it broke its silence and backed him after several of Lipinski’s colleagues complained to DCCC officials.”
https://tinyurl.com/y9yk6cng
(Apologies if this is a rerun of something posted in CapFax previously)
Comment by Anon221 Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:12 pm
why is SBA List going all out to save Lipinski, another vote for Speaker Pelosi, instead of punishing Rauner/promoting Ives?
Comment by hisgirlfriday Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:20 pm
Juice: =Hillary beat Trump 60% to 35% in the 19th ward in 2016=
It’s also important to note that Bernie Sanders beat Hillary 49.5 to 46.9. This could be Clinton fatigue or an indication that progressive messaging is working. Or both. It’s also possible that there is a tad bit of Lipinski fatigue as well.
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:25 pm
to me, the biggest takeaway is that lipinski is totally reliant on the machine for his seat. he didn’t raise money (most incumbents try to raise sufficient funds to make challenging them daunting) and he didn’t appear to take it seriously until the last minute. this is a democratic district, but those are elements that allow a republican challenger to win in a gop wave year.
lipinski should have acted accordingly…
Comment by bored now Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:29 pm
I like conservative democrats
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:33 pm
Got to be careful not to read too much into things from a national perspective — local issues are paramount. But if Rauner and Lipinski both lose, take that as another sign that the major parties are moving further and further away from the center. And they’re being pulled there by the rank-and-file, not the party “bosses.”
Comment by Roman Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:36 pm
=I like conservative democrats=
I like fiscally conservative AND socially liberal democrats. The twain can certainly meet.
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:36 pm
Colin, my earlier comment was a reply to a since-deleted comment claiming Trump won 60% of the vote in the ward, which was simply not true.
I would agree with your perspective that its a combination of the primary electorate moving to the left and fatigue with Lipinski. If he loses that is.
Comment by Juice Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:44 pm
At this point, anyone who figures out how to fix the BNSF Metra line’s woes gets my vote. The new schedule is unacceptable.
Comment by ChrisB Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:47 pm
===primary electorate moving to the left
But it isn’t an example of polarization, it’s an example of the primary electorate better mirroring the general election electorate.
Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:47 pm
Lipinski squeaks by but it’s the beginning of the end. Dan Burke loses so Ed retires because Chuys coming…both events lead to speakers demise in 2020…sooner if JB goes down today…I’d hate to be Marty Quinn right now
Comment by Glass half full Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:52 pm
Lipinski hasn’t supported Pelosi in ages.
Comment by Precinct Captain Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 2:56 pm
===At this point, anyone who figures out how to fix the BNSF Metra line’s woes gets my vote. The new schedule is unacceptable.===
Fix the SW service as well and you could be appointed Congressman for life in the 3rd.
Comment by Sox Fan Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 3:12 pm
really hoping Lipinski goes down tonight
Comment by brooog Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 3:32 pm
Those Kornacki tweets are really interesting. Would like to see the Republican pro-choice breakdown.
Comment by Telly Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 3:34 pm
-Lipinski squeaks by but it’s the beginning of the end. Dan Burke loses so Ed retires because Chuys coming…both events lead to speakers demise in 2020…sooner if JB goes down today…I’d hate to be Marty Quinn right now-
Truer words have never been written. Though I suspect Ed will be carried out in a pine box before then. Without Madigan, Marty’s organization is no organization, and with Chuy infiltrating an increasingly Hispanic district, the writing is on the wall.
Comment by Anon35 Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 3:44 pm
I am a classic liberal, freedom of choice in economics and socially. Lipinski is the worst.
Comment by Ron Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 3:51 pm
I don’t think the “opposing abortion” 22% is telling us much. Do people who oppose it (on either side) want to outlaw it for other people? I think this is where the political parties part ways.
Comment by NoGifts Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 3:58 pm
NoGifts is correct.
Comment by Ron Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 4:11 pm
Exactly what Telly said: the dwindling number of pro-life Democrats has to be compared to the dwindling number of pro-choice Republicans. The underlying dynamics are about how voters are physically (geographically) segregating by politics.
Comment by You might say that, I couldn't Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 4:22 pm
Ron. What does freedom in economics mean?
Comment by blue dog dem Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 5:01 pm
I wonder what percentage of Millenials are pro-life. There will be narrow margins tonight as the parties move away from the center to better represent their growing (Dem)/ shrinking (GOP) bases.
Comment by Soothsayer Tuesday, Mar 20, 18 @ 5:01 pm