Friendly Fire: New tactics for Team Tammy, new charges for Menendez, and Feisty Joe’s SOTU

Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we prove it every week. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends. Here, they discuss the week’s events with editorial page editor Tom Moran.

Q. Joe Biden came out swinging at his State of the Union speech Thursday. Did he soothe fears over his age?

Julie: I loved it. There will be a thousand op-eds this week about how Biden was not “presidential,” about the State of the Union should be a unifying opportunity, about how this was a campaign speech and not a presidential speech. Screw that. Republicans burned the old playbook years ago and it’s about time Democrats understood that and behaved accordingly. Biden lectured Republicans on their hypocrisy, the media on its age fixation, the discredited Supreme Court on its antediluvian views on women. It was great. I hope he keeps it up through November.

Mike: That sure was a feisty Grandpa Joe they rolled out. He was smart to address the age issue head on and mix it up with Republicans. But yelling throughout the speech while squinting to see the teleprompter are unlikely to jolt his poll numbers. He needs sustained activity. He was nowhere to be seen for a month, so the question is we he follow this up with sustained activity.

Q. What about his attempt to flip the script on immigration? He squarely blamed Trump and Republicans for blocking a bipartisan bill that would tighten restriction and beef up security on the border. Is that going to work, at least partly, to contain the damage to Democrats on that issue?

Julie: All the president did was speak the truth. You know who agreed with him? Jim Lankford, the ultra-conservative senator from Oklahoma, who worked tirelessly to craft a tough border bill that his own party and presidential standard-bearer tanked. Democrats should take that message to voters over and over again in the coming months.

Mike: It’s a smart attempt by Biden, though I am not sure it will work. He’s right that Trump blocked a bill that would have been a step in the right direction, but the crisis is happening on Biden’s watch, and he will be blamed.

Q. Nikki Haley, crushed in nearly every state on Super Tuesday, quit the race and declined to endorse Donald Trump. Did she accomplish anything more than Chris Christie did? Will the 22% who voted for her go mostly to Trump or President Biden?

Julie: Trump’s margins on Super Tuesday – and in every prior primary – are a huge alarm bell for his campaign. Yes, he crushed Haley, but she also received somewhere between a quarter and a third of the vote in states that will be competitive in the general election. If even a quarter or a third of those Republicans stay home or vote for Biden in November, Trump will be in trouble.

Mike: All the alarm bells for Trump pale in comparison to the optimism his campaign feels right now. Haley was never a threat, because she never really went after him in any meaningful way. Trump’s team is very optimistic because Biden’s numbers are in the toilet right now, and he shows no ability to make his campaign change.

Q. In the Senate race, Tammy Murphy decisively won the party line in Bergen County over Rep. Andy Kim, with the energetic help of the county chairman, Paul Juliano, who was appointed to his $280,000 job at the Sports Authority by Gov. Phil Murphy. Was it a fair fight?

Julie: Bergen County Democrats would argue that they have a convention, where committee members are able to cast their votes privately, which is exponentially fairer than in other counties, where the decision rests either exclusively or largely with the county chair. But let’s be honest about the reality of how this is done: The Bergen County chair, whom I personally like very much, did not meet with Andy Kim. He threw his support to Tammy almost immediately and worked his county committee to express his support for her. County committee members themselves run on the Bergen County Democratic Committee line, so they need to stay in the chairman’s good graces in order to keep the line for themselves. That does not add up to a particularly equitable process for anyone whom the chair does not support.

Mike: Crying about fairness makes Kim supporters sound like Trump. These are the party rules. The party leaders will react to their committee members, who will react to the voters. If you want to change the system, you have to beat the system, not whine about it.

Julie: It’s actually smart messaging from Kim to energize progressive voters and get them to turn out. As I keep saying, the smart move by party chairs this June would be to employ the My Lai strategy this June and sit on their hands. Sometimes you have to burn the village in order to save it.

Q. The First Lady’s campaign hired a new manager, Maggie Moran (no relation), who ran campaigns for Jon Corzine and Andrew Cuomo. What does she bring to the Murphy campaign? Are we likely to see a change in tactics?

Julie: If Tammy is smart, she will listen when Maggie has to deliver some hard truths to her. Maggie may not be part of the boys’ club that has surrounded the Murphys all these years, but she has more experience than all those boys combined. As for the change in tactics, the only tactic I have seen so far is to rely on county organizations to deliver Tammy the line. It’s not a bad strategy, though tactically it has been uneven. As I have repeatedly said, the Murphy campaign desperately needs a message – a raison d’être for her candidacy – because relying solely on the line may not be enough when the electorate is so hyper-engaged.

Mike: Maggie Moran is a huge get for the Murphy campaign. She is as smart and tough as they come. My bet is she saves the campaign and quickly rights the ship. Julie gives great advice that the candidate needs to better articulate why she is the better person to represent Democrats this Fall. Maggie will help with that, but the candidate must execute.

Q. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called up the National Guard and State Police to patrol the city subways. Is that a sensible use of police resources, or a political stunt? How do you expect Fox News to handle this?

Julie: After spending a decade at Fox News, I can tell you verbatim how they are going to respond, regardless of the statistics that show New York to be the safest large city in the nation: “New York is a crime ridden hellhole and Democrats have only made it worse.” As someone who rides the subway every day, I can tell you that bag checks by the National Guard are not going to make people feel safer, because people don’t fear being shot on the subway. What they fear is being harassed or pushed on to the tracks by mentally ill people, who seem to be on every platform and in every subway car. New York City, like every other major American city, needs to address the mental health crisis plaguing our streets and subways. Police and National Guard can’t do anything about that.

Mike: If you want to know why Trump has a chance, look no further than Democratic governors calling in the army to protect subway riders. This plays into larger issues in immigration and bail reform that are frustrating most voters. The last time Democrats looked so weak on crime, Rudy was elected mayor.

Q. Sen. Mitch McConnell, a lion of the Republican Party establishment, endorsed President Trump after years of bitter relations, including Trump calling him a “piece of shit” and insulting his Asian wife in racist terms. This despite McConnell saying Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 uprising. Help me understand this, I beg you.

Julie: Mitch McConnell prides himself on playing the long game and he’s been very successful at it. He’s profoundly transformed the Supreme Court and the Senate, which will be his legacy. But this was a short-term fix that will actually hurt McConnell’s world view in the long run. If he had voted to convict Trump after the January 6th impeachment, Trump would not be running today. A stronger Republican would be running instead, with a better opportunity to beat Biden and put more conservatives on the court to burnish McConnell’s legacy.

Julie: Also, what is it about Republicans throwing their wives under the bus? Between Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell, they consistently bend the knee to the man who maligns their wives. Is chivalry totally dead?

Mike: McConnell hates Trump. Hates him. But McConnell is more pragmatic than he is emotional. Trump will sign conservative legislation and appoint conservative judges. Biden will not. McConnell has outmaneuvered Democrats for years because he is a pragmatist.

Q. Finally, Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine, were charged in another superseding indictment, with new counts for obstructing justice, on top of the corruption and bribery charges. This came days after a co-defendant, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty and promised to cooperate with prosecutors. Are the walls closing in on the senator?

Julie: I don’t even know what to make of any of this anymore because each superseding indictment shows evidence of a man who stopped using his very prodigious brain somewhere along the way. The whole thing is like a Greek tragedy.

Mike: Maybe a few more indictments and his poll numbers will start going up like Trump’s.

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A note to readers: Mike and Julie are deeply engaged in politics and commercial advocacy in New Jersey, so both have connections to many players discussed in this column. DuHaime, the founder of MAD Global, has worked for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and President George W. Bush. Roginsky, a principal of Comprehensive Communications Group, has served as senior advisor to campaigns of Cory Booker, Frank Lautenberg, and Phil Murphy. We will disclose specific connections only when readers might otherwise be misled.