After the defeat of Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s special election, some Democrats are having an epiphany: maybe we’re talking about Russia too much. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where he was asked by Willie Geist if the party should keep shifting to the Left or gravitate towards the center. This comes after some left wing groups said that Ossoff lost because he was too moderate. Murphy said that his party needs to be “hyper focused” on an economic message that says the Democratic Party wants prosperity for everyone, not just millionaires and billionaires (aka the Democratic donor base). On a side note, that’s true since 42 percent of Obama voters who flipped for Trump felt that Hillary Clinton would favor the wealthy. At the same time, it highlights the collapse of Democratic election messaging.
“The fact that we’ve spent so much time talking about Russia has been a distraction from what should be the clear contrast between Democrats and the Trump agenda, which is on economics,” he said. Adding that he rides a commuter bus for an hour back in Connecticut to speak with constituents, where he said they’re concerned about wages, education, and public safety, not about Russian collusion.
He mentioned The Washington Post’s Robert Costa’s remarks about this, where the reported also said that voters don’t care about Russian collusion, especially those moderate GOP voters who Democrats are trying to pick off in time for the 2018 midterms.
“One other takeaway as I leave Atlanta is the Russia issue, and President Trump’s handling of these investigations, the special counsel. When I’m in Washington, that’s a consuming issue for Democrats. It alarms even some Republicans,” Costa said “On the ground in Georgia, moderate suburban Republicans were not talking about Russia,” he added.
Also, what’s all this “we” talk about Russia, senator? If by “we” you mean your party, then—yes; I agree that Democrats have been going down this rabbit hole for months. It’s becoming a public embarrassment, as zero evidence exists that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election. Every update yielded no evidence of collusion or wrongdoing. It’s merely Trump associates meeting Russians. It’s not illegal. Yes, some of these rendezvous were undisclosed. Disconcerting? Maybe. But there’s no evidence of collusion. That’s what’s buried in almost every story about this Russian collusion hysteria that doubles as a Democratic attempt to find something impeachable against President Trump.
Democrats lost because they had no economic message in 2016; Murphy is right about that. So, they decided to fix it by…going on peddling some tripe about Russian collusion? Its possible Ossoff could have won last night if the Democrats had hunkered down on a winning economic message (infrastructure, pension protections etc.) instead of this endless attempt to nullify the 2016 election. The problem is that the Democratic base, who lives in the progressive urban bubbles and coasts of America, wants their party to keep digging in on Russia.