There are multiple tea leaves one can read to ascertain who’s winning or losing a race. Polling is the most obvious, of course. But one of the best indicators is to see who’s under attack — not just by their opponent, but by the media — for committing gaffes. (Notice I didn’t say who is committing the most gaffes, inasmuch as this is subjective. If a gaffe falls in the woods and nobody notices it, or nobody cares, is it a gaffe?)
Throughout this campaign, Democrats like Sen. Mark Pryor and Alison Lundergan Grimes have committed serious gaffes, and perhaps those missteps sowed the seeds for where they are today presumed losers. But in the last week, or so, other Democrats have been the victims of costly last-minute gaffes.
Here’s my ranking of the three most hurtful verbal blunders during the closing days of the 2014 midterms:
1). Kansas “independent” Greg Orman calls Bob Dole a “clown.” In case you missed this story, here’s a synopsis, via the Examiner:
“The incident stemmed from the appearance at a campaign event by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and Dole at a Roberts campaign event. The event followed a slew of Republican luminaries such as Ted Cruz. Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney who have appeared in Kansas on Roberts; behalf. When asked about this outpouring of support, Orman quipped, ‘It sort of seems like a Washington establishment clown car to me.’
“The Roberts campaign immediately pounced, calling the remark a “Slimy attack.” Dole himself expressed some befuddlement, stating, “I don’t think I’ve ever been called a ‘clown’ before.” The Orman campaign attempted to walk back the statement, saying, ‘Greg Orman has the utmost respect for Sen. Dole, and he obviously did not call him, or any other person, a ‘clown.’ The problem is that Orman did call Dole and a number of other people clowns, since that is what the riders in a clown car are.”
Why it matters: The most generous reading of Orman’s statement is that he wasn’t thinking of Dole when he said it. But this seems hard to believe when one considers Dole was stumping for Roberts at the time of the comment. The Kansas race is very close, so any slip-up could be fatal. What is more, Dole, a war hero who served with distinction in the U.S. Senate, has earned the right to be revered in his home state. Lastly, Dole’s reputation as a moderate who was willing to compromise while in Congress means that, by attacking him, Orman is attacking Kansans of a certain age who view themselves as moderate — not ultra-conservative — voters. Compounding the problem for Orman is the fact that both Roberts and Dole pounced on this comment. To paraphrase Nixon, Orman gave them a knife, and they twisted it with glee. If Orman loses tonight, this could be the reason.
2). Tom Harkin compares Joni Ernst to Taylor Swift. If attacking Bob Dole in Kansas seems like a bad idea, then implicitly attacking Sen. Chuck Grassley and farmers is a bad idea in Iowa. But that’s old news. Most recently, Sen. Tom Harkin, campaigning for Braley, had this to say about Republican Joni Ernst: “Well I gotta to thinking about that. I don’t care if she’s as good looking as Taylor Swift or as nice as Mr. Rogers, but if she votes like Michele Bachmann, she’s wrong for the state of Iowa.”
Just as Roberts and Dole pounced on Orman’s statement, Ernst exploited Harkin’s gaffe: “I was very offended that Sen Harkin would say that,” Ernst said on Monday’s broadcast of the FOX News morning show. “I think it’s unfortunate that he and many of their party believe you can’t be a real woman if you’re conservative and you’re female. I believe if my name had been John Ernst on my resume, then Senator Harkin would not have said those things.”
Why it matters: It may seem overly sensitive to play the victim card and feign outrage over what amounts to a compliment. But in an era when the “war on women” has been employed so effectively against Republicans, the notion that a Democratic man would comment on the looks of a serious female candidate for the U.S. Senate feels patronizing. Ernst was already expected to win tonight, but it could be that Sen. Harkin provided her with the final nail for Bruce Braley’s political coffin.
3). Mary Landrieu attacks the South. In case you missed it, in an interview with NBC News, Sen. Landrieu said:
“‘I’ll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans,’ Landrieu told NBC News in an interview. ‘It’s been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader.'”
“Noting that the South is ‘more of a conservative place,’ she added that women have also faced challenges in ‘presenting ourselves.’
The irony, of course, is that while Landrieu has distanced herself from Obama, she is chastising the South for being racist. Wouldn’t a more courageous and less hypocritical move have been to campaign alongside him? Likewise, it feels discordant for an incumbent female senator to lament how the South hasn’t been friendly to women.
Why it matters: It’s never a good idea to attack the voters, and the potential for this to backfire is very real. But this wasn’t a gaffe so much as it was a calculated act of desperation. Landrieu’s only hope of surviving both today’s election and the subsequent runoff seems to be to encourage minority voters, many of whom typically don’t show up in midterms, to be inspired to come to her rescue. This was the only card she had to play.
(*Disclosure: Matt Lewis’ wife works as a consultant for one of the candidates running against Landrieu.)