The battle for Democrat Claire McCaskill’s Missouri senate seat is turning into a culture war. In a Tuesday speech described by Josh Hawley’s campaign as the candidate’s “kickoff remarks,” the state attorney general built his argument against McCaskill by tying her to a cadre of faraway elites and an out of touch political establishment — “the D.C. cartel.”
Liberal elites, said Hawley, “deride not just our location but our whole way of living.”
“Washington, D.C. disrespects us. It disregards us. The political class doesn’t even pretend to listen,” he told voters.
The front-runner in the GOP primary, Hawley referred to his likely opponent as the “eager ally” of “Hollywood and Wall Street and the D.C. political establishment” in their quest to “rig a system that favors them, the wealthy and well-connected, while ignoring the rest of us.”
The trifecta of Hollywood, Wall Street, and Washington recurred throughout Hawley’s prepared remarks, with the destinations scoring five mentions, three mentions, and six mentions, respectively. “Hollywood mocks our values and our flag while it floods our homes with images of violence and exploitation. Wall Street colludes with government to make the big corporations bigger and bigger, choking off competition and squeezing out the little guy. And Washington — they’re the worst of the bunch,” Hawley said, contending that McCaskill is a top recipient of money from the entertainment, financial, and lobbying industries.
“She doesn’t believe she has to earn your trust, just cloud the facts,” said the candidate. “She will take Hollywood’s money and Chuck Schumer’s too, and do their dirty work.”
Like Republican candidates in other races, Hawley alluded to the National Football League’s controversy over “The Star-Spangled Banner,” insisting that Missourians “hold to our faith. We commit to our churches. We rise for the anthem. And we honor those who have fallen in service to this country.”
McCaskill is considered to be one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents, facing re-election in a state President Trump won easily. Calling her a “partisan liberal Democrat,” Hawley, who’s set to host Trump at a fundraiser on Wednesday, asserted that McCaskill is the “face of Washington’s failure.”
Candidates in red state Republican primaries are eager to drag Democrats into cultural battles, forcing them to confront questions to which the answers will either put them at odds with voters or their party’s national base. And when it comes to the GOP’s base, cultural questions provide primary candidates with opportunities to prove their conservative credentials.
Over in Indiana, GOP candidate Rep. Todd Rokita’s first television advertisement was a case study in this strategy. Images of trucks, AR-15s, and kneeling football players culminate in the candidate’s description of himself as “pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-Trump.”
As populist sentiments against coastal elites run high among conservatives — bolstered by Trump’s strategic media baiting — Hawley and Rokita are casting themselves as the authentic representatives of their states, and their opponents as the pawns of wealthy outsiders.
It’s the Heartland against the world. And with Hillary Clinton actively insulting voters in places like Missouri and Indiana, belittling their worth compared to blue states, Hawley’s argument is very powerful.
