The Washington Post doesn’t like Pritzker’s sleazy campaign trick, but not because it was sleazy – UPDATED – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

A Thursday Washington Post editorial condemns Democrats who have been “promoting Republican extremists” in recent primaries. “By boosting the primary campaigns of right-wing zealots running against more moderate Republicans,” the editorial says, Democrats seek to set up favorable races for themselves, against less electable candidates, in the general election.”

Their first example is from Illinois where “State Sen. Darren Bailey (R) won the Illinois GOP gubernatorial nomination after Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and the Democratic Governors Association spent $30 million to help him,” they wrote, by sponsoring ads that would boost Bailey. Democrats used a similar tactic in Pennsylvania, as the Post says.

It’s only natural that a paper whose tagline is “Democracy dies in darkness” would abhor one party meddling in the other’s primary, right?

No, there’s no indication whatsoever in the editorial that they give a damn about that.

Instead, their reasoning is that the Democratic strategy may backfire by actually enabling Donald Trump supporters. Here’s what they wrote:

If Democrats truly believe that Mr. Trump and those who embrace his lies present existential threats to democracy — and there is good reason to — they should join with anyone of any partisan or ideological persuasion to keep them as far as possible from office. Instead, they have enabled the crackpots.

In other words, undermining democracy to oppose the undermining of democracy is a problem for the Post only because it might not work as intended.

Maybe this is all something we needn’t worry about. After all, in his victory speech Tuesday night Pritzker assured us that “We Democrats play by the rules. We respect democracy. We honor our elections.” Comforting, no?

It’s important to remember that Republican Richard Irvin, who Bailey defeated, was guilty of his own sleaze of a different sort. He blasted out mailers accusing Bailey of being a liberal. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Bailey is a hard core conservative to the bone. Voters apparently saw through it immediately and Irvin’s polling numbers proceeded to tank. Irvin’s campaign also later admitted the mailers violated election laws by failing to show who paid for them.

UPDATE JULY 1: David Brooks of the New York Times has a column up harshly criticizing the Democratic tactic of meddling in Republican primaries to get the opponents they want. He, like The Washington Post, uses Pritzker’s ads in Illinois as his first example. Unlike The Washington Post, he uses the same word we used to describe the tactic — sleazy.

And Democratic strategist David Axelrod says the same in a CNN column: “At a time when faith in our system and elections is so strained, I can’t help thinking that this only adds to growing cynicism about their legitimacy. And at a time when we need both parties to produce responsible choices, this cross-party manipulation works against it.” And it may backfire, he adds.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.

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Howie Dewin
1 year ago

Their by-line should be “Democracy dies under Democrats”. Much more fitting and truthful.

Jeffrey Carter
1 year ago

Hillary wanted Trump too and CNN helped her get him

JimBob
1 year ago

Nominating Pritzker likely would not improve the Dems’ chance to win Illinois in 2024, so the geography rationale has little traction. Protecting Biden’s claim to the nomination doesn’t seem like a motive either. Perhaps Bezos is planning to run!? Maybe he can find a moderate running mate from Texas, Florida (or W. Virginia). AOC, Bernie & Hillary would push moderates toward Desantis. Bezos-Pritzker would invite Mutt & Jeff reminders for those of us who remember that team.

Jghaley
1 year ago

Wasn’t sure who to vote for
… insider vs outsider, until we got the Pritzker mailing about Bailey being too conservative. Hope it backfires. Can’t get far enough away from Pritzker.

Wilmette
1 year ago

I do wonder if the attitude against Pritzker here in Illinois is much worse than anyone realizes.

I hope Bailey is relentless in pointing out all the authoritarian/lockdown issues for Pritzker and in particular that Pritzker is masquerading as a health expert when the guy is morbidly obese and it’s offensive that he is lecturing us all about what health decisions to make. There’s nothing that Fat JB can do to combat that.

Zephyr Window
1 year ago
Reply to  Wilmette

Automatic 90% of the vote in Cook County. Adolph Hitler could run as a Democrat and would carry Cook by a huge margin. The voters there are simply idiots and care about nothing except the “D” after the candidates name. Remember, Pat Quinn lost 99 of the 102 Illinois counties yet won reelection by a slim 15K votes. He beat his Republican opponent by almost 1 million votes in Cook/County/Chicago.

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  Zephyr Window

10 years ago I accepted these results without any question. These days? I don’t believe results like this. They’re fraudulent. The pattern is always the same: downstate counties report first, and the Cook County starts reporting its vote totals, and somehow they manage to fin enough votes to win. Now the IL Democrat party is fight in court – right now – to allow Voting Clerks to count and certify unpostmarked and undated ballots received by the Clerk’s office up to 14 days after the election. Why are they so interested in counting late mailed ballots? It makes so little… Read more »

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

Read the article by Konkol about JB Pritzker’s campaign against his opponent. JB was paying $10 a signature to get on the ballot – the going rate for every other candidate was $3. JB paid for his own economy in the black community for 8 months the candidate said. That’s crazy if you think about it. He’s paying people $10 a signature to gather signatures. Is that not an incentive to ‘find’ as many signatures as possible? But the real question here: Is JB indirectly paying for votes too? If so, how much he is paying non-profits, who in turn… Read more »

Last edited 1 year ago by debtsor
jajon
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

I think the spending by both 2018 campaigns – Pritzker and Rauner – was a combined $300M, but your point is still valid. When you’re the richest politician in the country, worth $3.6B, and you’re good at nothing else, why not drop a wad and take a flyer on becoming a politician? And since being sworn in, he’s shown all of us his mediocrity. I pray that the red wave finds enough energy to wash him out of office. It will take a great effort to overcome the cheating we’ll certainly encounter.

Lion's Choice
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

AP Report last week said 1M Democrats in the US switched their affiliation to the GOP in the last year — mainly in suburban/exurban areas — such as those where the Illinois GOP lost house seats in recent years.

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-biden-covid-health-presidential-e50db07385831e67f866ec45402be8b9

This might not sound like much. But these are just the voters who actually made their party switch official with their election board. This could just be the tip of the iceberg of voters who have walked away from the Democrat Party (or those who feel that the Democrat Party has galloped away from them).

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

I don’t think many Chicagoans have changed their political affiliation. Chicago attracts its fair share of left wing progressive nutjobs who enthusiastically support progressive values. They raise their children (the ones they don’t murder in the womb) to be progressive nutjobs too. Then, when the inevitable results of a progressive values interfere with their safety too much, they move to the suburbs, and repeat the process all over again, taking over the community and destroying everything that is good.

Last edited 1 year ago by debtsor
Howie Dewin
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

I will bet in Cook/County/Chicago the number of democrats voting Republican or abandoning the D’s will be quite low. A story follows. My mother lived in Chicago as did I. She was a democrat tried and true. A church going Catholic. I asked her once the question, if Jesus Christ himself ran for office as a Republican would you vote for him? With a sheepish grin the answer was “No, never”. That about sums it up.

Linda
1 year ago

Pritzker is a lying piece of doo and I hope this does backfire and he loses the governorship to Bailey! He’s wanting to run for president and I don’t think he has a chance!

Morefandave
1 year ago
Reply to  Linda

The Peter Principle already kicked in on Pritzker. Maybe a new nickname for him: Peter Principle Pritzker. It has a lot of syllables, but it does have a nice ring to it..

Lion's Choice
1 year ago

Did you expect the Washington Post to care about truth or integrity or character? That’s literally never been true at the Washington Post.

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