The lies Republicans tell one another
Campaign themes are frequently fragile things that shatter the moment they encounter reality.
I’m thinking of the Eisenhower-Nixon “missile gap” falsely promoted by John Kennedy in 1960. Then there was the matter of a convicted murderer being handed a get out of jail card by Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, the racial bludgeon used by George H.W. Bush to beat back his Democratic challenger in 1988.
Both “issues” evaporated immediately in the heavy air of governance.
Yes, voters, in the anxious hours before an election, are sometimes fooled by the shiny objects campaigns raise as real things. But there’s been nothing like the present moment. Talk about making things up.
Welcome to today’s Republican Party.
Republicans aren’t all dunderheads and simpletons. They just can’t be. What are the odds of that? But my goodness. Something is terribly wrong and it’s threatening all of us. In a democracy, a political party can’t dwell in the land of make-believe and still be handed the reins of power.
Say it ain’t so. So.
Here’s how things are going down in the Pennsylvania Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate, the one pitting Mehmet Oz against David McCormick and several other candidates.
Both Oz and McCormick – one a brain surgeon who hosted a TV show, the other a stock market financier – are spending millions on television ads to get their messages across to Republican primary voters. And what messages they are!
Oz: “Washington … tried to kill our spirit and our dignity.” (The nerve of those people.)
“Men shouldn’t play women’s sports.” (Well, yes.)
“Washington got COVID wrong.” (Does that include the Trump administration?)
My opponent McCormick “is part of the swamp that labeled Donald Trump as Hollywood, just like they say about me.” (Getting “Donald Trump,” “swamp,” and “Hollywood” in one sentence deserves a round of applause.)
“The liberal media wants to cancel me.” (MSM, at it again.)
“I’m a conservative. I believe in more freedom, stronger families, and secure borders.” (By inference, the other side – McCormick, we surmise – believes in fewer freedoms, weak families, and insecure borders. Hmm.)
“We’ll take back our country, we’ll get our country working again.” (What happened that the U.S. needs to be retaken? With unemployment at a 21st century record-low 3.8%, America is working, isn’t it?)
As for McCormick, he is spending a lot of time and money on TV and the internet attacking Oz. Oz hires “illegals,” he says. Oz “wants to take away our guns,” he says. Oz favors Obamacare, he says. Oz supports abortion rights, he says. Oz has good things to say about Black Lives Matter, he says.
And Oz and Oz it goes.
Seriously, David McCormick favors Christmas trees and Christmas, or so he told voters in a TV ad last December.
In a later ad, he said what he is against. First, it is “career politicians.” They make him “sick,” he said. Then he said he is “anti-woke … anti-illegal immigration … anti-political correctness … anti-socialism … and anti-Joe Biden and the radical left.”
In the same paid-for spot, he said he favors life, guns, police, workers, and most of all, Pennsylvanians.
Pretty lame, right? Yes, but when the history of the 2022 race for the Senate is written, “Wall Street” McCormick will be best remembered for a 30-second spot in which he highlights his street creeds by firing off rounds with a variety of weapons, including what looks like an M-16 army assault rifle.
Not to be outdone, Oz is airing his own such commercial, only he’s knocking down clay pigeons. The ad ends with Oz speaking. He says, “Our second amendment is not just about hunting. It’s about our constitutional right to protect ourselves against intruders or an overly intrusive government.”
Is that incitement? Is that an invitation to rip this house to the ground, to pillage the Capitol? It certainly sounds like it.
The out-of-staters Oz and McCormick are smart guys. Why are they being so stupid?
Unlike 1960 or 1988, the Republican campaign rhetoric of 2022 will carry on past Election Day. The fever gripping Republicans will not be quenched anytime soon. That’s a problem, regardless of the identity of the person who captures the party’s nomination for the Senate in Pennsylvania on May 17.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.