The title of today’s post comes from a regular segment on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.  The objective is for each panelist to share an insight that may not have made the news or is an unexpected harbinger of things to come.  Although Conor Lamb, the apparent winner of yesterday’s special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district did not appear on MSNBC during the campaign, he ran a political race based on that very principle.

Lamb knew he would be wasting his time regurgitating Donald Trump’s mountain of lies, corruption and gross incompetence.  Much as rumors of IPOs and mergers are baked into the stock market indices days or weeks before they actually occur, individual voters had already made up their mind about Trump.  It was baked into their predisposition weeks or months before the campaign officially began.  They wanted candidates to tell them something they did not already know.  And that’s exactly what Lamb did.

At each campaign stop and at each door on which he knocked, Lamb sympathized with the angst shared among his future working class constituents.  Then he told them something they may not have heard.  He talked about the share of the Republican tax cut which has already been used for corporate stock buy-backs compared to the more publicized worker bonuses which have paled in comparison.  He explained how the short-term benefits of the tax cuts might be offset by future cuts in Social Security and Medicare.  He explained the deficit increase associated with tax cuts would preclude investments in infrastructure; so badly needed in the district.  In other words, he talked about what should have been the centerpiece of the GOP argument for electing another Republican in the 18th, not the titular head of the GOP.

And it worked.  How do we know?  Early in the campaign, pro-Saccone ads touted the middle-class benefits of the tax act.  But it did not make a difference in the polling.  Therefore, the closing, last gasp Republican argument returned to the same dog-whistle, cultural issues which did not work for gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in Virginia.

But Lamb didn’t stop there.  He explained how the recently imposed tariffs represented a zero sum game for voters.  Some would win but others would lose.  And the voters heard him.  Based on exit polling, only four percent of election day voters said the tariffs impacted how they cast their ballots.  While it may have made the victory more narrow, it did not change enough votes to carry the day.  And if it didn’t play in SW Pennsylvania which was tailored for the message, it’s unlikely to play as well in swing districts.

He told voters he was personally opposed to abortion but respected the fact Roe v. Wade was the law of the land.  He told voters his positions were not incompatible.  He talked about how Congress needed to reassert itself as a equal branch of government and stop worrying about what any president wants or says. He maintained that was impossible with the current House leadership of both parties.  The message, “We don’t need ideologues in the House telling us how to vote, we need leadership who helps us better represent our constituents.”

No campaign dollars were spent on anti-Trump ads.  We saw the same phenomenon in Virginia last November and in the Alabama special election to replace Jeff Sessions.  In the majority of voters’ minds, 2018 is already a referendum on the Trump administration.  ORANGE is the new BASE!  Victory comes not from parroting the national dialogue but by offering something that matters to undecided voters.  And they are most likely to respond to reasoned policy positions which focus on issues of local importance.  To paraphrase the John Houseman character in the 1970s Smith Barney ad campaign, “We win elections the old-fashioned way, we EARN them by respecting voters and talking policy, not politics.”

POSTSCRIPT

Lamb’s narrow victory was due largely to the Democratic ground game.  The best evidence of this supposition was the absentee balloting in Washington County, PA.  Saccone received a majority of the election day votes in Washington County by a margin of 53-46 percent.  Yet, Lamb received 62 more early votes cast than his opponent. Getting out the absentee vote takes a sustained ground game.

Some analysts have attributed Saccone’s lack of organization to the fact the 18th district had been either relatively or totally uncontested for 15 years.  The takeaway?  There is more than one path to retaking the House of Representatives in November.  While the low hanging fruit appears to be Republican districts which Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, there is potential to win relatively safe districts where the Republican incumbent is not used to a fight and a good counter-puncher like Lamb with a grassroots organization may be just the ticket Democrats need to deliver a few more surprises on November 6th.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP