As senators gathered on the floor for a typical Monday night vote at the end of October, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, approached Senator Chuck Schumer, his Democratic counterpart, with some unsettling news: Border security was going to have to be part of any package to free up endangered assistance for Ukraine.
To Mr. Schumer of New York, the majority leader, the ultimatum revived unpleasant memories of his participation in difficult immigration negotiations in 2013 that yielded a compromise, only to collapse despite strong bipartisan support in the Senate. But saying no could doom the Ukraine aid and leave Democrats holding the bag. He and his staff grappled with the problem for a week, then gathered for a conference call on Sunday, Nov. 5. A bold new approach took hold.
. . .
The tanking of the immigration proposal, hammered out over weeks of talks between the designees of Mr. Schumer and Mr. McConnell, ultimately cleared the way for passage of the foreign aid bill. Enough Republicans — 22 in the end — were unwilling to desert Ukraine, and many of them believed that Mr. Schumer and his fellow Democrats had made a good-faith effort to strike a border security deal that was sabotaged by members of their own party.
That’s not going to stop the New York Times from publishing multiple think pieces that all lay the special election victory at the feet of triangulating on the border. And if Souzi lost, it would have been because Democrats weren’t tough enough on the border. They’ve been fed the Republican narrative and eat it up because it fits their priors and lets them be “fair and balanced”. Doesn’t matter that the border is objectively not open (highest apprehensions ever) or that illegal immigration was higher under Bush. Calling out those inconvenient facts might get them scolded by a disingenuous conservative and have to admit that policy-wise there really isn’t a question of which party is better.
Anyone remember how Eric Adams, the tough on crime Democrat that did the unthinkable and barely won a Democratic primary in New York was the new template Democrats should follow and a future presidential contender? It wasn’t because of his brilliant politics, it’s that New York Times columnists are the exact sort of upper-middle class white suburbanites that frets incessantly about urban crime (way more than people who actually live where the crime happens).
Every centrist win is because of the inarguable strength of centrism, and every centrist loss is because the left sabotaged them. And a win by a moderate Democrat in a bluish-purple district is clearly about their pet issue and should be mimicked nationally.