Did Rick Scott just hand Democrats an *actual* message?
You get the idea. Hopes were once high that Democratic majorities in the House and Senate would pass President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan — a sweeping (and expensive) proposal that cut across almost every domestic concern.
They had passed a coronavirus relief bill. And an infrastructure package. And yet voters either didn’t know or didn’t care. Biden and his party were dead in the water.
Democrats, desperate to avoid a political cataclysm this fall, have seized on Scott’s plan like Rose on that debris from the sinking ship in “Titanic.”
“The MAGA Republicans are counting on you to be as frustrated by the pace of progress, which they’ve done everything they can to slow down, that you will hand power over to them … so they can enact their extreme agenda,” Biden added.
Now, look. Simply saying “Donald Trump” and “MAGA” over and over again between now and November is no guarantee that Democrats won’t get walloped at the ballot box. If history is any guide — and it usually is! — then Democrats are headed for a rough election, almost no matter what their message is.
But we also know this about politics: Some message is better than no message. And a message aimed at casting your opponents as too extreme for the ideological middle of the country has worked before.
The Point: Rick Scott handed Democrats a bat to smash over his head and the heads of his fellow Republicans. That’s true whether or not it helps Democrats fight off their worst-case scenario this fall.
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