Should the Democrats Risk a "Todd Akin?"

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sec. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

In 2012, Sen. Claire McCaskill became a folk hero to many Democrats, and in particular to nerdy Democrats who don't like to lose.  McCaskill at the time was facing terrifically bad odds that she would be returning to Washington for a second term.  The Missouri senator was running behind all three of her potential primary opponents, and had largely won six years ago on the backs of a solid campaign and more so the deep unpopularity of President George W. Bush.  With Bush out of office, and Mitt Romney likely to cruise to victory in the Show-Me State, McCaskill seemed like she was the most vulnerable incumbent senator in the country, and was surely going to lose.  That's when she did one of the savviest political moves I've seen in a long time, running attack ads against the man who was presumed to be her weakest general election candidate, Rep. Todd Akin, calling him "too conservative" for the state of Missouri.  Since the primary hadn't happened, this had the intended effect of helping Akin win the primary over his more palatable opponents, as Republican voters liked the "too conservative" label in a political system where we reward extremes.  After that, Akin's tendency to put his foot-in-his-mouth (something McCaskill, a veteran of state politics, would know about the longtime Missouri Republican fixture), gave McCaskill an opening.  Akin's "legitimate rape" comment was deemed so offensive that Missouri voters, who weren't wild about McCaskill but still had elected her statewide multiple times and could respect her even if they wanted a change, overwhelmingly went with the incumbent.  A once surefire race for the Republicans ended with the incumbent winning by 15-points while Mitt Romney cruised to victory in the presidential election.

Four years later, a similar situation seemed to be unfolding.  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to be too polarizing to actually win the presidential election, despite the fact that she seemed destined to win the Democratic nomination.  In particular, it seemed, that her most likely election opponent, Marco Rubio, could well be headed to the nomination after a strange victory for Donald Trump in Iowa.  For months the Democrats had privately been gleeful over the idea of running against Trump, who had weirdly gotten into the pol position after Jeb Bush faltered in the primaries, but it did appear that Rubio would probably emerge as the "grownup," in the room after the Republican Party came to its senses.  Then, in a moment of absolute horror in hindsight but at the time complete glee for the Democrats, the nation watched as Rubio killed his presidential campaign by not being able to handle the specific, targeted attacks of Chris Christie.  Christie, a skilled former US Attorney who was arguably the best debater (if you discounted people who lied) of the bunch, went mercilessly after the Florida senator in a Hail Mary pass for his campaign, but in the process took down the only reputable option for the nomination, with everyone in the party still assuming there was no way that Trump would actually win.  Democrats were shocked at their good fortune-the Republicans had nominated Todd Akin, and even if the country didn't love Clinton, they would, like with McCaskill before her, surely vote for Clinton rather than doom the nation to a racist imbecile with no grasp on literally any policy?  Right?!?

You know the answer to that one as we live in that nightmare daily.  But this poses a unique juxtaposition in terms of the risks of helping move the most unelectable candidate into the general election, and whether Democrats should be hoping that Steve Bannon's current strategy to fill the Republican Senate slate with a number of Trump/Akin-style candidates is going to be a good idea for the Democrats, still a long-shot to win the Senate but admittedly not as long of a shot compared to where they were a couple of months ago, or whether this is tempting the devil like we did with Trump, flying too close to the sun and suddenly getting burned when we find out the electorate only cares about the letter behind the name, not the sociopath in front of it.

"Politics ain't beanbag," as Finley Peter Dunn first uttered over 150 years ago, and though the phrase has lost some of its topical relevance, it's message is still vital today in a ruthless era of political campaigning.  As a result, the gut instinct in me says we should still celebrate our good fortune with Bannon backing right-wing primary challengers that will surely end up helping the Democrats in the general election.  Particularly in Arizona and Nevada, where Jeff Flake and Dean Heller, respectively, are facing tough hard-right challengers (Kelli Ward and Danny Tarkanian, respectively), the Democrats probably should be salivating.  Both states were marginal (Nevada a tight win for Hillary, Arizona a somewhat tight win for Trump), and the Democrats have two sitting congresswomen (Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema and Nevada's Jacky Rosen) ready to take them on in the general election.  Considering both candidate's general election abilities, Democrats have to be thinking this could be the equivalent of McCaskill's Missouri race, where a terrible Republican candidate in the general could give a candidate that might have been an underdog a leg-up enough to ensure a victory.  Bannon is also planning to heartily back hard right-wing candidates in Tennessee, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Mississippi, and while none of these seem like obvious targets for the Democrats to actually win (give or take the open seat in Tennessee), Bannon forcing the NRSC to spend a fortune to keep incumbents in states that aren't really in play in the general will likely help other Democrats running like, weirdly, Claire McCaskill, who could benefit greatly from having a dollar-strapped NRSC not spending much time on her reelection campaign.

But there's a problem here, and that's another reality of American politics: this country is a two-party system, and one of those parties, for the time being, is the Republican Party.  We saw in 2016 that the country is more a knee-jerk situation when it comes to identifying with a specific party at a presidential level than actually discerning whether their party endorsed a good man.  What happens if the Democrats can't sink the basket against either Flake or Ward?  While on-paper there's not a lot of difference between the two candidates, if you look at only how they'll vote on actual legislation, the rhetoric between the two is seismically different.  It's difficult to see Ward EVER criticizing President Trump, no matter how extreme he gets, and while Flake should be no person's idea of a moderate (that term has become, like most things in politics, misused and misrepresented through the years), he's more likely than Ward, to, say, punish Trump if he fires Robert Mueller.  Bannon is adding a new element to the country.  He's smart enough to realize that the country will always be a two-party system, and that with the exception of the Whigs those parties have remained the same two for nearly 200 years. (the way our elections are structured mean that's an inescapable reality), so if he is able to transform one of those two parties, he'll have an enormous amount of power because America seems addicted to "wanting change," no matter how ill-advised that change may be.

I don't have an answer here to this question-politics is about gambles, about risks.  It's hard to see, say, Danny Tarkanian beating Jacky Rosen for the Senate, whereas I can easily see situations where Dean Heller might do that.  But there's always a chance.  In Alabama we have a slight opening that we wouldn't have had if Luther Strange had beaten Roy Moore in the primary, but we also now have a very real possibility that Roy Moore will be able to filibuster on the Senate floor.  Bannon's play could well give Chuck Schumer & the Democrats come January 2019-it's difficult to see a situation where they win the Senate without it, quite frankly, but it also puts Steve Bannon as the key-holder to one of America's major parties.  It's a tricky situation, one that would admittedly be easier if Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell had a clear "line in the sand" when it comes to President Trump's performance-in-office, but at this point they don't-impeachment would have happened by now if they did.  Do the Democrats tempt fate and help move unpalatable Republicans into the primaries in hopes that they're easier to beat?  Do we finally admit there's only one party that represents the basic interests of democracy (at least until Trump leaves office), and try every trick we have in our holster?  Or do we admit that there's a benefit to holding onto Jeff Flake & Dean Heller as our opponents, even if it means that our candidates might not win?  The midterms, and the near-term future of Congress, will likely hinge on the answers to these questions.