Trump abandoned by Penn-pals
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This week saw a special election (US version of a by-election) in Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district. The election was required after outgoing Congressman, Tim Murphy, stood down after the woman he was having an affair with fell pregnant and he suggested she have an abortion - a tough position for a pro-life Republican to maintain.
Pennsylvania 18th has been staunchly Republican in recent years - Trump won the district by 20 percentage points in 2016 and for Congressional elections Democrats have sometimes not even fielded a candidate. But with anti-Trump sentiment on the rise, and following December's shock result in the Alabama senate race before Christmas, it soon became apparent that a competitive race was breaking out between Republican Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb.
With polls tightening, the Republicans began to throw money at the race - Trump visited the district a couple of times, speaking at a large Saccone rally just days before the vote. Well, it was designed to be a rally for Saccone - in reality, Trump spent the majority of his speech talking about himself, attacking leading women in the Democrat party and ending with a rant against Oprah. In a rare mention of the man he was supposed to be talking up, he said "not to put the pressure on you Rick, but I won this district by 20 points", the not-very-thinly-veiled message being "so if you lose it, that's on you."
Cue much excitement when Conor Lamb won by just 627 votes, 0.2%. But as with any election of this kind, the result is only the start. Both sides immediately leap to talk up/down the result's significance - to the spin-mobile!
Yes, it is very common for the party that occupies the White House to suffer in special elections and mid terms. But the speed at which Trump's 20 point lead in this district dwindled away to nothing has added further momentum for the fight back against his administration.
But, what news from the Republicans? Did they say "this result is a disaster and a huge wake up call for us"? Or did they use a variety of excuses that often conflicted with each other?
Their main attacks against Conor Lamb in the campaign was that if elected, he would simply follow Democrats leaders in Washington like, well, a lamb. Biting satire indeed, and fine pun work to spot the Lamb/lamb opportunity. But following his victory, Republicans changed tack and suggested that as Lamb is basically a Republican, his win shows that Republican policies are still popular - an argument which handily ignores Lamb's campaigning for universal healthcare, expanded background checks for gun owners and for a woman's right to choose, and against Trump's tax cuts and social security cuts.
Some said that Saccone was a bad candidate and the defeat was all down to him. Well, yes and no. He wasn't the best candidate in the world (no Roy Moore, certainly). But here's the thing - bad candidates still win in safe seats. There are plenty of elected officials out there who, faced with some genuine competition or a non-partisan electorate, would never have got to where they are. Whilst Saccone may not have been the next Abraham Lincoln, that's still no excuse as to how the Republicans let such a safe district slip through their fingers.
One Trump supporting pundit even claimed the result showed the Trump bounce still exists, reasoning that Saccone was 5% behind until Trumps' late visit, so to only lose by 0.2% demonstrated the pull of the President is still there. Of course, this rather downplays the role Trump had in losing that 20% lead in just one year in office - essentially, it's like praising the house sitter who burnt down your house but swept your driveway for ash on the way out.
The public statements from leading Republicans show no acknowledgement of their failing, unpopular policies, nor any apparent realisation that their refusal to keep Trump in check is costing them in even Republican heartlands. Presumably, someone somewhere within the Republican party has realised the significance of this result (maybe a memo the title of which, in the words of Blackadder, rhymes with "clucking bell"). But the longer they claim publicly that everything is fine, the longer they give the impression of being unwilling or unable to learn the lesson that's right in front of them.