There’s a new episode of Conversations with Bill Kristol up and it is, typically, intensely interesting.
The guests this time are two of my favorite political analysts: Spence Abraham and Vin Weber. What I love about this pair is that they aren’t just talking heads—they’re practitioners of the dark arts of politics who have truly global views of the system. Abraham worked in Republican politics on the staff level, then was elected to the Senate, and then served as a cabinet secretary in the George W. Bush administration. He understands how politics works at pretty much every level. (And is a great guy, too.) Weber was in the media, then moved into politics as a staffer and a campaign guru, and then ran for election himself and served 12 years in the House, where he helped Newt Gingrich plan the 1994 Republican takeover. These guys are the real deal.
If you want to round out your understanding of what’s happening at this moment in politics, you should watch the whole thing:
Some of the nuggets I found most interesting:
* It is desperately important for Republican electoral prospects that they pass tax reform. If they do, it’ll be easier for Trump and the GOP to take credit for the strong economy. If not, then it looks like nothing but a string of failed legislating and won’t really matter whose fault this is.
* Abraham thinks that we’re going to see more and more celebrity candidates. So much so that he says that in 10 to 15 years we could see something like 20 percent of the Senate made up of celebrity candidates. Sit with that for a minute.
* Weber talks about semantic differentials in politics, where voters make snap either-or distinctions about candidates or issues. For example, “Senator X is a Good Guy or a Bad Guy.” Or “Congressman Y is smart or dumb.”
Weber argues that part of good electioneering is herding voters into semantic differentials that are helpful to your candidate. And the most powerful semantic differential is: “Are you one of us, or one of them?”
And here’s the thing: As a candidate you don’t even have to define what that means. You just have to frame it and the voters figure it out for themselves. Which leads Weber to think that the primary challenges to Republican incumbents may be pretty successful. Because they’re not really about policy or ideology. They’re about “us versus them.”
* One thing to always remember: No matter how unpopular Republicans might be in 2018, they don’t have to beat the 1927 Yankees. All they have to do is beat the Democrats in front of them—and that party is entirely in disarray.
There’s lots more in the episode. You should watch (or listen) to the whole thing.
