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Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we prove it every week. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends. Here, they discuss the week’s events with editorial page editor Tom Moran.
Q. Inflation dipped below 3% for the first time since the pandemic, and polls show that Kamala Harris has closed the gap with Donald Trump to an average of 3 points when voters are asked who they trust most to manage the economy. How big a deal is this?
Mike: On inflation, economic statistics matter less than how people feel. Even though prices aren’t going up as quickly as they did earlier in Biden’s term, they have not gone down at all from those dramatic increases. Wages and salaries have not kept up with inflation. If you are in the top half of the economy, you feel pretty good. But if you are not wealthy, things are very tough.
Mike: Here are some stats that show you how many people really feel. Credit card delinquencies are 30% higher than a year ago. Home mortgage defaults are triple what they were pre-pandemic. Two-thirds of people in the US feel they can only live paycheck to paycheck, never being able to save. Behind these stats are the faces of real families struggling to make ends meet. The economy is not working for everyone, and that means volatility politically for the party in power.
Julie: Let’s stick to basic facts: Wage growth has outpaced inflation for well over a year now. Home mortgage defaults are up because the Fed had to raise interest rates, which has raised monthly payments for homeowners. Why? Because Donald Trump so mismanaged the economy, leading to him having the worst economic record since Herbert Hoover, that it took both the Biden administration and the Fed to clean it up. As for people living paycheck to paycheck, this is not a new phenomenon and well predates Biden.
Julie: Americans are not stupid. They understand who has a good economic track record and who has a vision to put more money in their pockets, which is why Harris is now at parity with Trump on who will do a better job on the economy, according to recent polling. As for Trump, his only economic goals are to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy and slap prohibitive tariffs on basic goods to make them more expensive for everyone else.
Mike: Trump’s economic record is completely impacted by COVID. For all Trump’s faults, most voters don’t blame him solely for the economic devastation caused by a global pandemic and know the economy was quite strong before it.
Q. Harris is refusing requests to hold a press conference and promises only that she’ll do one sit-down interview by the end of the month. That’s drawing flak even from some liberal voices, like the Washington Post editorial board. At what point might that strategy start to hurt her?
Mike: Harris will only change her strategy when it stops working. Right now, the only people complaining are her opponents and the press. Good campaigns are not swayed by those who want them to fail. The Harris team will keep doing this until they see in their internal polling that the average voter cares about this. The average voter sees a very active campaign on the news every night and will see prime time coverage every night next week with the Democratic National Convention. They don’t really care if reporters get to ask questions.
Julie: Who can blame Harris for bypassing traditional media to deliver a direct narrative to voters? Editors act like gatekeepers, preventing coverage of important news topics because they deem from on high which topics are relevant. Let’s take one example from here in New Jersey: Gov. Murphy just bypassed a whole host of qualified women to appoint his crony George Helmy to replace Bob Menendez in the US Senate, whom the former attorney general accused under oath of trying to interfere in a criminal investigation – which is one of the counts for which Menendez went down.
Julie: That is newsworthy stuff and yet we are not proactively discussing Helmy’s appointment – which is the biggest New Jersey story all summer — because you have inexplicably made the decision that we should not. Similarly, Trump has been more and more unhinged, but the New York Times is not running daily stories about whether he is too old and demented to run for another term, though it was a front page story every time Joe Biden would stutter over a syllable. Why should candidates bang their head against the wall to convince traditional media of what is newsworthy and what is not?
Q. Trump claimed that the Harris campaign used artificial intelligence to spread false images of her crowds at an airport hangar in Detroit, a gathering witnessed by the media and thousands of spectators. “THEY DIDN’T EXIST” he wrote on social media. He recently claimed his crowd on Jan. 6 was larger than Martin Luther King’s crowd for the “I Have A Dream” speech. Is he losing his mind? Or is there hidden method to this madness?
Mike: Trump sounded like he was losing it that day. Trump needs to surround himself (literally not figuratively) with people who will grab the phone out of his hand when he is ready to rant on something so trivial. Since Harris got into the race, Trump has been knocked way off message, talking about crowd sizes and her ethnic background more than inflation and immigration.
Julie: See my answer above. Where is the drumbeat of media stories saying that Trump is too old and enfeebled to run? Trump is clearly trying to sow doubt in reality now, so that if he loses, he can sow doubt in the fairness of the election. If you believe that Harris invented crowds at an airplane hangar, you will believe that Harris invented voters to get herself over the finish line.
Mike: Julie makes a good point that when Trump starts losing, he accuses others of cheating. For Harris, it is AI crowd sizes. For 2020, the election was rigged. And even remember as far back as the Iowa caucuses in 2016, when Ted Cruz won so Trump just said he cheated with no evidence at all. Trump is happy to accuse both sides baselessly, sewing doubt in democracy for personal political gain.
Q. Rep. Mikie Sherrill is leading the charge against critics of Gov. Tim Walz’s military record, comparing the attacks in a CNN appearance to what she called the “Swift Boat bullshit” smear of Sen. John Kerry. Do those attacks on Walz have legs? And how important is Sherrill’s voice, as a Navy veteran?
Mike: Tom, my kids read this column, so please watch your language. About 1% of America has volunteered to serve in the military. Most of the other 99% admire that 1% for their sacrifice and bravery. I know I do. As of now, the controversy around any alleged embellishment has not been enough to damage Walz, or more importantly, Harris. Most people see that he served 20-plus years. That’s what they know, and they respect it.
Mike: As for Sherrill, this is smart and opportunistic politics. As she seems poised to run for governor, defending Walz gives her a platform to wave the Democratic flag to all the Democrats in New Jersey, well outside her district, while also reminding them that she also served in the military, something unique that sets her apart from others. Smart and easy politics for Sherrill.
Julie: As a veteran, Rep. Sherrill is the perfect person to speak to this attempted Swiftboating of Gov. Walz. We should thank him for his service – just as we should thank JD Vance for his service and thank Rep. Sherrill for her service. Walz spent 24 years in the military, which is 24 years longer than Trump or almost anyone who is trying to smear Walz now.
Q. Jersey City’s lost yet another round in civil service hearings over its attempt to fire cops and firefighters who showed traces of marijuana in their blood. None of them have been accused of being high while at work. What is driving this one? Could it affect Mayor Steve Fulop’s gubernatorial campaign?
Mike: Fulop is fine on this. The politics is more about common sense than medical definitions and union contracts. Most people don’t want on-duty cops and firefighters to have marijuana in their system, same with alcohol. Most people would see this as a reasonable request of public safety employees. While most would not want public servants fired for a first offense if someone doesn’t know how long any of this stays in your system, but the stated expectation must be that you have zero mental impediments when operating firetrucks or carrying a gun.
Mike: If that means you have to take precautions about when you smoke pot or drink off duty, than that is part of the job expectation. How would we feel if airline pilots had just a little weed in their system? Or bus drivers? Fulop will not be hurt politically by standing up for public safety, albeit in a different way than many would think.
Julie: Marijuana is legal in New Jersey, much like alcohol. Until there is a law that says first responders are banned from consuming cannabis or someone is caught stoned at work, I don’t know where Jersey City is going with this litigation.
Q. Finally, any thoughts on the passing of Michael Aron? The long-time anchor of New Jersey public television, he was the closest thing we had to Walter Cronkite, the most impartial journalist I’ve ever known, and a dear friend to many of us. Damn.
Mike: Michael Aron was a legend in New Jersey – a Harvard and Princeton alum who dedicated his life to public service in his own way, covering state government and politics for public television. He could have left the public television beat for more money and fame elsewhere but stayed in New Jersey, which he famously said “never disappoints.” Michael Aron was a fair journalist and a good man. He treated young operatives like me when I broke in with respect, helping us grow into the participants in public discourse we would become. He covered governors, US Senators and legislators without any fear, and he gave no favors either. Michael was an institution in this state for nearly a half-century, and we are a better state for it. I will miss him.
Julie: Michael Aron was a legend – and a friend. As Mike points out, he treated everyone the same, whether they were governors or interns. A lot of what I know about being on TV I learned by watching him. As a staffer, you knew your press conference wasn’t really a success unless Michael was there to cover it. And there was no one better to drink with before election night coverage. (Now that they are both gone, the truth can be told that Michael, Nick Acocella and I routinely got together at Marsilio’s for a glass or three before pulling six hours at a clip on-air back when NJN was still around.) I loved him, I will miss him and I am immeasurably sorry for the young kids coming up today who never got the chance to see him in action, because there will never be another like him.
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A note to readers: Mike and Julie are deeply engaged in politics and commercial advocacy in New Jersey, so both have connections to many players discussed in this column. DuHaime, the founder of MAD Global, has worked for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and President George W. Bush and is currently consulting Senate candidate Curtis Bashaw. Roginsky, a principal of Comprehensive Communications Group, has served as senior advisor to campaigns of Cory Booker, Frank Lautenberg, and Phil Murphy. We will disclose specific connections only when readers might otherwise be misled.