Playbook PM: How Youngkin's top advisers would have attacked Youngkin

From: POLITICO Playbook - Thursday Nov 04,2021 05:43 pm

Nov 04, 2021

By Ryan Lizza, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun

Presented by

GLENN YOUNGKIN’s victory in Virginia has Republicans promising to emphasize the issue of critical race theory and Democrats scrambling to understand how seriously to take it.

CNN’s Manu Raju, Alex Rogers and Melanie Zanona report that the issue was recently discussed among leaders at the DCCC, where “a split emerged between two of the party's frontline Democrats: Rep. CAROLYN BOURDEAUX of Georgia, who is white, and LAUREN UNDERWOOD of Illinois, who is Black. Underwood wanted to forcefully counter the GOP's misinformation head-on, while Bourdeaux was leery about elevating the issue, according to sources familiar with the matter. Rep. JAHANA HAYES of Connecticut, another Black woman, sided with Underwood during the meeting.”

On Wednesday, we interviewed Youngkin’s two top strategists, JEFF ROE and KRISTIN DAVISON. We’ll have a full transcript of the nearly hourlong session in POLITICO Magazine on Friday and you can also hear the interview on Friday’s episode of our flagship podcast, Playbook Deep Dive.

But we also wanted to share with our loyal Playbook PM readers today an excerpt, one that speaks to the CRT debate that the two parties are having.

We asked Roe and Davison how they would have advised the Democrats if they had been working for McAuliffe. Here’s what Davison said:

“I would have hit us on education first a lot harder than they did. That's actually what I was afraid of for most of the time, annoying everyone about it. But TERRY [MCAULIFFE] focused so much on [DONALD] TRUMP and made his campaign so much about Trump, then abortion, and then I think climate change was in there for a minute. It's like they literally took the Rolodex of all the base issues and tried to hit us as being extreme on them. … And what they should have done instead was go towards the typical: Democrats are very good at painting Republicans as being bad on education, saying we’re going to fire teachers and cut pay. Having been governor before, he had a record there. He should have hit us first and disqualified the issue.”

We’ll have much about this in the magazine and podcast, but there are two key points here: 1) Youngkin’s advisers were preparing to lean into a Democratic issue since January and their big fear was that Democrats would retain their traditional advantage on that issue. 2) The race was about education, as many gubernatorial races often are, not CRT, which was only important to a small subset of voters. More to come ...

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HERE WE GO … AGAIN — Last Thursday, the Hill was gearing up for a potential vote on President JOE BIDEN’s legislative agenda only for it to be delayed as Dems continued to haggle out the finer details.

Well, here we are a week later with Speaker NANCY PELOSI talking about a potential vote.

“Hopefully, we’ll see if we have votes for BBB tonight and BIF tomorrow morning,” Pelosi reportedly said in a Democratic whips meeting this morning, per our colleagues Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle.

— The wind at her back: A new report on BBB by the Joint Committee on Taxation has a helpful takeaway for Pelosi: The reconciliation package is fully paid for.

— BUT, BUT, BUT: Some Democrats have said they won’t back the bill until they get reports from both the JCT and the Congressional Budget Office, which will provide a more detailed breakdown of the package.

To wit: On “Morning Joe” today, Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) said that he wants to pass the BIF and then wait on a CBO score before moving to BBB. “I truly believe that we need to slow down,” he said. “We need to wait and see if inflation is transitory.” Our colleagues Sarah Ferris, Heather Caygle and Nicholas Wu report that “several centrists, who huddled to discuss the budgetary score Thursday afternoon, privately said they still needed more information before a floor vote on the social policy measure.”

Pelosi said it shouldn’t take long to get a CBO score but seemed frustrated with the idea that the bill has changed significantly. Her bottom line is that the bill is paid for, and she’s sticking to her commitment to pass both bills together.

“I really was very unhappy [with last week’s delay], because we had an Oct. 31 deadline,” she said. “I thought that that was eloquent. But not enough, I guess. So now we're going to pass both bills. But in order to do so, we have to have votes for both bills, and that's where we are.”

She also touched on Manchin’s opposition to paid family leave: “With all the respect in the world for the point of view he represents, I disagree. I think this is appropriate for this legislation. It fits very comfortably with child care, health care, home care, family medical leave, and it has the full support of our caucus.”

Where things stand: Pelosi projected confidence that most of Dems’ provisions will make it through the Senate rules and the CBO score won’t bring back any major difference than the JCT. But moderate Rep. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-Fla.) isn’t so sure. “There needs to be some level of understanding as to whether or not this bill, as written, can survive the Senate’s procedural process,” she said.

The outstanding issue, then, is quashing the remaining tensions over what makes it in and lining up the votes.

So when might that happen? We’ll let Pelosi take it from here: “Stay tuned.”

SENATE GOP UPS ITS RECRUITING EFFORTS — Senate Republicans, emboldened by Tuesday’s races, are looking to “expand the Senate map by convincing several reluctant top-tier Senate prospects to run in 2022,” Natalie Allison reports . “The votes were still being counted in New Jersey and Virginia when Gov. LARRY HOGAN’S phone first began blowing up” as “the callers sought to persuade the popular Maryland Republican to jump into the Senate race against Democratic Sen. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, whose reelection is all but assured otherwise.” Also on the call sheet: New Hampshire Gov. CHRIS SUNUNU and Arizona Gov. DOUG DUCEY.

Good Thursday afternoon.

THE INVESTIGATIONS

FEDS ARREST STEELE DOSSIER RESEARCHER — Federal officers this morning arrested IGOR DANCHENKO, “the primary researcher of the so-called Steele dossier, a compendium of rumors and unproven assertions suggesting that [former President DONALD] TRUMP and his 2016 campaign were compromised by and conspiring with Russian intelligence officials in Moscow’s covert operation to help him defeat HILLARY CLINTON,” NYT’s Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage write. The arrest is “part of the special counsel inquiry led by JOHN H. DURHAM, who was appointed by the Trump administration to scrutinize the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing, the people said.”

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ALL POLITICS

PRIORITIES USA WARNS DEMS — If Democrats thought Virginia and New Jersey were wake-up calls, Priorities USA, the party’s most prominent super PAC, has a message: You ain’t seen nothing yet. “In [a new memo], the PAC’s leaders write that Democrats can’t allow themselves to get dragged further into intraparty warfare and risk fierce backlash absent taking swift action on Capitol Hill,” Christopher Cadelago and Sam Stein write . “The memo warns that ‘infrequent or first-time 2020 voters’ who swung to Democrats could not only sit out the midterms, but were open to voting for Republicans down-ballot as a check on President Joe Biden’s power.” The memo

PROGRESSIVES DOUBLE DOWN — Despite a string of disappointing Election Day results, progressives aren’t lying down and shouldering the blame. In fact, they’re doubling down on their stances ahead of the 2022 midterms, Holly Otterbein reports. “Several progressives said they were prepared to go on the offense after Tuesday’s elections because party moderates telegraphed that they would blame them for McAuliffe’s loss in Virginia before polls even closed — plus, they said, centrists do this to them every election cycle.”

2024 WATCH — Rep. ADAM KINZINGER (R-Ill.) is retiring next year after a tough redistricting draw in the state. But he’s already thinking about his next move. Kinzinger “is actively weighing whether to seek his political fortunes in the Senate, the Illinois governor's mansion or even the White House, despite serious questions about whether there's any future at all for a Donald Trump critic like him in today's GOP,” CNN’s Melanie Zanona reports.

— A host of GOP presidential hopefuls will be out making moves at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual national leadership conference this weekend, Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser reports. Among the participants who will speak at the four-day conference: former VP MIKE PENCE, former Secretary of State MIKE POMPEO, NIKKI HALEY, Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS, Sens. TED CRUZ and RICK SCOTT, South Dakota Gov. KRISTI NOEM and CHRIS CHRISTIE.

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

BUSY BODIES — The Jan. 6 select committee has been busy, according to Rep. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.). “We’ve had, actually, over 150 interviews with a whole range of people connected to the events, connected to understanding what happens, so that just gives you a sense. It is a range of engagements — some formal interviews, some depositions,” Cheney told Olivia Beavers and Kyle Cheney for Congress Minutes. “There really is a huge amount of work underway that is leading to real progress for us.” The number underscores the fact that much of the committee’s work is happening behind the scenes.

THE PANDEMIC

MANDATE UPDATE — The Biden administration today released two new rules that it will begin enforcing on Jan. 4 — one setting up new vaccination-or-test requirements for businesses with more than 100 workers, and another implementing a vaccine mandate for health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid. The new date delays any enforcement until after the holiday season, offering reprieve to “business leaders who complained the rules would wreak havoc on the supply chain and possibly aggravate worker shortages,” Rebecca Rainey writes.

THE ECONOMY

RECORD HIGH — The trade deficit “widened in September to a record $80.9 billion, driven by climbing demand for capital goods like computers and electric equipment and industrial supplies that have been soaring in cost as global supply chains remain snarled,” WSJ’s Josh Zumbrun and Anthony DeBarros report. “The deficit in trade of goods and services grew 11.2% in September, the Commerce Department said Thursday.”

RECORD LOW — Unemployment claims fell to another pandemic-low of 269,000 last week, AP’s Paul Wiseman reports. “The four-week average of claims, which smooths out weekly ups and downs, dropped below 285,000, also a pandemic low.”

ON THE WAY DOWN — AP’s Matt Ott reports that the “average long-term mortgage rate in the U.S. ticked back down this week following several weeks of increases.”

CLIMATE FILES

THE SUMMIT — Here’s the latest out of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, via WSJ’s Sarah McFarlane and Sha Hua: “Dozens of countries agreed to stop funding new coal-fired power plants, a deal that brings some previous holdouts like Poland and Vietnam aboard a growing coalition of countries vowing to wean their economies off the fossil fuel. Separately, a group including the U.S., the U.K. and Canada pledged to end public funding of overseas oil and gas developments.”

BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we’ve got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don’t miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

NUKES IN NOKO — North Korea “has the capacity to make more base ingredients for nuclear bombs than previously believed, according to new research, suggesting the KIM JONG UN regime possesses the potential to accelerate the earliest stages of production,” WSJ’s Timothy Martin reports in Seoul.

PLAYBOOKERS

GRIDIRON GANG — The U.S. Capitol Police bested members of Congress, 26-6, in the 12th Annual Congressional Football Game for Charity at Audi Field on Wednesday night. The game raised more than $600,000 for The Capitol Police Memorial Fund, Our Military Kids and A Advantage 4 Kids. The members’ team — called The Mean Machine — was captained by Reps. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) and coached by former NFL players Ken Harvey and John Booty. The USCP team — The Guards — was captained by former officer and founder of the game Jim Davis.

TRANSITIONS — Mini Timmaraju will be the next president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. She most recently was senior adviser to the director at the Office of Personnel Management. Announcement … Alison Patch is now senior director of comms for Virgin Orbit. She previously was director of international affairs at APCO Worldwide.

ENGAGED — MacKensie Kvalvik, comms director for Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), and Sean Petersen, a tech consultant, got engaged on Friday in the mountains of western North Carolina. The two first met as college students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Pic