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      Why Rick Scott and Mitch McConnell Are Feuding Over Midterm Elections

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      Senator Rick Scott has an 11-point plan to “rescue America.” Senator Mitch McConnell would rather he not.Republican insiders have long worried that they could blow a golden opportunity to retake the Senate this year. And while most are confident that a red wave will still wash enough of their candidates ashore in November to win a majority, some doubt occasionally creeps in.The latest reason: an ongoing disagreement between two of the top Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, and Rick Scott, the leader of the party’s campaign arm. At issue is the “11-Point Plan to Rescue America” that Scott has presented as a platform for the midterms, and that McConnell has emphatically rejected.And while Scott has said that the plan is just his opinion, developed using his own campaign funds, Democrats have been all too happy to pin its provisions on the Republican Party writ large.They’ve seized on one bullet point in particular, which reads: “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.” That idea polls badly, according to Morning Consult, though other provisions of Scott’s plan are popular.On Thursday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee paid for a truck-mounted billboard to troll Senate Republicans during their one-day retreat. “Senate Republicans’ Plan: Raise Your Taxes,” the billboard read.Never mind that McConnell has brushed back Scott, telling reporters at the Capitol last week, “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda. We will focus instead on what the American people are concerned about: inflation, energy, defense, the border and crime.”McConnell also made it clear who was in charge. “If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader,” he said. “I’ll decide, in consultation with my members, what to put on the floor.”Scott defended himself last week in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, saying his plan had “hit a nerve” with Washington elites, whom he accused of misleading voters about the sustainability of federal deficits and entitlement programs.“Part of the deception is achieved by disconnecting so many Americans from taxation,” he wrote. “It’s a genius political move. And it is bankrupting us.”Scott’s plan has some powerful backers, including the Heritage Foundation, which plans to host him for an event later this month. The think tank has long advocated “broadening the base,” the preferred term on the right for increasing the number of Americans who are subject to taxation.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.“Conservatives in this country are demanding an ambitious, conservative agenda,” said Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation. “Therefore, it excites us to see members talking that way.”Democrats dust off a playbookScott’s plan is a fortuitous turn of events for Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, Democrats say.“Chuck, I’m sure, is salivating,” said Jim Kessler, a former Schumer aide who is now an executive vice president at Third Way, a center-left think tank.In the first sentence of a letter to his Senate colleagues this week, Schumer wrote, “As Senate Republicans debate their plan to increase taxes on millions of working Americans, Senate Democrats have focused on ways to get rising prices under control to help working families.”Senate Democrats are considering holding hearings, and possibly a series of votes, to highlight Scott’s plan and to force Republicans to take uncomfortable positions on it.It’s a playbook that Schumer has run before. In 1995, as a member of the House representing New York, he used Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” to accuse Republicans of trying to force cuts in popular spending programs. Gingrich, who became the speaker of the House in 1995 — either because or despite that plan, depending on whom you ask — has embraced Scott’s platform.“That was probably the first thing that Chuck did that showed him as a national political leader,” recalled Kessler. With Scott’s plan, he said of Schumer, “I’m sure he sees it and says to himself, ‘I’ve taken this apart before.’”Privately, Democrats are realistic about their chances of hanging onto the Senate, and say they must seize the “gift” Scott has given them to force Republicans onto the defensive. On the day of the State of the Union, for instance, Senate Democrats ran an ad accusing McConnell of fighting “for the same wealthy insiders who get rich by keeping prices high.”During their own retreat on Wednesday, Democrats heard a presentation by Geoff Garin, a pollster, that impressed many of the senators present. Garin’s surveys have found that more voters blame the coronavirus pandemic, “China and foreign supply chains” and “large corporations raising prices to increase their profits” than they do President Biden for inflation.“The bottom line here is that Democrats have a very strong case to prosecute on rising costs,” Garin said.Republicans see the attack on Scott as a desperation play in what could be a difficult election for Senate Democrats, who must defend incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire while trying to pick up seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.“If I were them, I would try to use it, too,” said Justin Sayfie, a Republican consultant who runs an influential Florida political news website. “But they’re going to have to put a lot of money behind it. How much penetration are they going to be able to get with a message about Rick Scott?”Two visions of how to winMcConnell and Scott have a fundamental difference of opinion about how to win the Senate, people who have studied both men say.There’s McConnell, the calculating insider, who is leery of putting forward a political agenda that could open Republicans up to Democrats’ attacks. Republicans have long memories of how, in past election cycles, Democrats have had success in accusing them of wanting to cut popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.“McConnell hates variables,” said Kessler, the former Schumer aide. “He’s like a boxer who likes to cut off the sides of the ring.”In January, when a reporter asked McConnell what his agenda might be if Republicans retake the majority, he replied simply: “That is a very good question. And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”Then there’s Scott, the ambitious outsider, a former businessman whose presidential aspirations are no secret. He’s rankled some of his fellow Republican senators by taking broad swipes at Washington — despite leading the committee in charge of electing more of them.And while they share the same goal of winning back the Senate, aides and allies of both men have sniped at one another through the press, particularly over their relationship with Donald Trump.Scott has cultivated a relationship with the former president — he made sure to send copies of his plan to Mar-a-Lago — while McConnell at times has condemned Trump, who in turn refers to the Senate minority leader as “the Old Crow.” Trump has even tried to recruit Scott as a future majority leader, according to a Politico account.McConnell’s office declined to comment.“There will always be critics, but we don’t waste much time worrying about the opinions of Democrat operatives or anonymous Washington consultants,” said Chris Hartline, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Scott chairs. Asked what the Heritage Foundation would say to Senate leaders like McConnell, Roberts said, “We’re grateful for their service, and we’re looking forward to them embracing Senator Scott’s plan or coming up with a plan of their own.”What to read The U.S. Census Bureau says the 2020 census seriously undercounted the number of Hispanic, Black and Native American residents, even though its overall population count of 323.2 million was largely accurate, Michael Wines and Maria Cramer report.In February, the Consumer Price Index rose at its fastest pace in 40 years. Biden blamed Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for the increase, though inflation has been a problem for months, Jeanna Smialek reports.As oil prices rise, many governments are working to boost global production, potentially neglecting longer-term efforts to cut use of fossil fuels to fight climate change. Brad Plumer, Lisa Friedman and David Gelles report.postcardVice President Kamala Harris called for an investigation into potential war crimes by the Russian military, during a visit to Poland on Thursday.Andrzej Lange/EPA, via ShutterstockTwo V.P.s, one message for UkraineThe world got a glimpse of two potential future presidents today, in what we’re told was a sheer coincidence.Vice President Kamala Harris was visiting Poland, where she met with the country’s leaders, called for an investigation into potential war crimes by the Russian military, held a round-table event with displaced survivors from the war in Ukraine and appeared with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada in a show of Western solidarity.It so happened that her predecessor, Mike Pence, was in Ukraine on the same day as Harris’s trip. Along with his wife, Karen, he met with some of the refugees who are living in camps near the border with Poland. As Pence noted on Twitter, more than 2 million Ukrainians have fled the country over the last 12 days, according to U.N. figures.Pence’s trip comes as the former vice president tries to establish himself as a leader of the Republican Party on foreign policy ahead of a possible 2024 run. Last week, Pence blasted unnamed people in the party who, he said, were “apologists for Putin,” the Russian leader.Our colleague, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent, was traveling with Harris and sending dispatches from Poland all day long. According to a background briefing by an unnamed senior administration official, he reported, teams for the former vice president and the current vice president were “not in contact.”Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Gov. Murphy Tones Down Liberal Message in Bid for Suburban Voters

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      In the first budget address of his second term, Gov. Philip Murphy responded to New Jersey voters’ discontent at a time of surging gas costs and high taxes.Gas prices are soaring. The war in Ukraine has rattled the stock market. And, months ahead of midterm elections, voters in key suburban swing districts in New Jersey are restive, contributing to increased dissatisfaction with the state’s Democratic leader, Gov. Philip D. Murphy.For much of his first term, Mr. Murphy governed as a steadfast liberal eager to talk about his successful efforts to protect abortion rights, legalize marijuana and enact stricter gun control laws.But on Tuesday, in his first budget address since winning re-election by just three percentage points in a state where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, Mr. Murphy offered a radically tempered message.The sweeping liberal rhetoric that defined his first budget address in 2018 was replaced by a recalibrated definition of progress and a promise to make New Jersey — where the cost of living is among the highest in the nation — a more affordable place to live.Months after remnants of Hurricane Ida crippled large parts of the state, killing at least 25 people, he did not utter the phrase “climate change.” There were no overt references to criminal justice, racial equity or immigrant rights. He cited a signature first-term win — lifting the minimum wage to $15 — just once, and instead chose to talk about tax cuts and rebates and a one-year “fee holiday” that would allow residents to visit state parks and renew driver’s licenses for free.“If you compare the really sharp racial justice messaging from last year to this year, there is a really big disconnect,” said Sara Cullinane, director of Make the Road New Jersey, a left-leaning coalition focused on immigrant and worker rights.“It seems that there’s a pivot,” she added.Instead of the unabashedly left-leaning budget message that set the tone for his first term, there were 24 mentions of the words “affordable” or “affordability.”“The Democratic Party is looking down at the 2022 midterms coming and knowing that its message needs to be revamped,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University.“Many voters, probably most voters, are disenchanted.”Mr. Murphy is scheduled to move from vice chairman to chairman of the National Governors Association in July and to take over leadership of the Democratic Governors Association for the second time next year. Democrats must defend governorships in the key battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, races seen as must-wins to stave off Republican restrictions on voting rights.The governor has made it clear that he heard the message voters sent in November in Virginia and New Jersey, where Republican turnout surged and Democrats lost seven seats in the Legislature, including the Senate president’s.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.“Quite frankly,” Professor Koning said, “they’re not interested in hearing about climate change and racial justice.”Democrats worry that the same factors that contributed to Mr. Murphy’s re-election by smaller-than-expected margins — pandemic fatigue, rising costs and President Biden’s waning popularity — could also spell trouble during November’s midterm congressional elections.Just before Mr. Murphy delivered Tuesday’s address, the Eagleton Center released a poll showing that the number of voters with a favorable impression of the governor had dropped to 33 percent, down from 50 percent in November. Of the people surveyed, more than 40 percent gave him failing grades in connection with New Jersey’s high property taxes and cost of living.“Governor Murphy has never wavered in his vision to make New Jersey stronger and fairer for everyone who calls our state home,” Mr. Murphy’s spokeswoman, Alyana Alfaro Post, said.“This year’s budget proposal builds on that progress,” she added, “and continues opening doors of opportunity for all New Jerseyans.”During his first term, Mr. Murphy accomplished many of his most ambitious policy goals: adding a tax on income over $1 million; legalizing adult-use marijuana; establishing paid sick leave for workers; and giving undocumented immigrants access to driver’s licenses.On Tuesday, he talked about the millionaires’ tax but did not mention the other victories, referring only to the “many steps we took together over the past four years,” before focusing on property taxes.“This budget attacks two of New Jersey’s most difficult and intractable problems: property taxes and affordable housing,” Mr. Murphy told a joint session of the Legislature, in a marked shift from comments he made in 2019 minimizing concerns over the state’s high taxes.“If you’re a one-issue voter and tax rate is your issue, either a family or a business — if that’s the only basis upon which you’re going to make a decision,” Mr. Murphy said three years ago, “we’re probably not your state.”This year’s budget proposal — a record-high $48.9 billion spending plan — did not appear to veer from priorities Mr. Murphy set during his first term and would continue to fund programs important to Mr. Murphy’s progressive allies.The plan, which the Legislature must approve by July, sets aside more money for education, mental health programs, health care for children of undocumented immigrants, addiction treatment and lower-cost housing. For the second year, Mr. Murphy has proposed making a full payment to the state’s underfunded public-employee pension system.Just as he did in his first budget address, Mr. Murphy quoted the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic — someone who knows “the price of everything and the value of nothing.” But that is where the parallels end.Gone was the fiery rhetoric from 2018, when he talked about the state’s high poverty rate, income inequality and the importance of embracing “the immediacy of the problems before us.”There was no renewed mention this week of initiatives to narrow the state’s racial income gap using tools like so-called baby bonds, an ultimately unsuccessful budget proposal he made in 2020 to give most newborns $1,000, payable with interest when they turned 18.Instead, a plan to set aside money to build 3,300 units of lower-cost housing was depicted as a win for the working class, not the working poor.“Let’s not lose sight of who actually benefits when we build more affordable housing,” Mr. Murphy said of units available to people with low to moderate incomes. “It’s the educator or first responder who can finally live within the community they serve. It’s also the server at the local diner, the cashier at the grocery store.”Julia Sass Rubin, a professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said the speech represented a change in messaging, but not a “major retraction” of Mr. Murphy’s left-leaning priorities.“If you keep walking the walk, maybe they think they can adjust the talk a little bit, without substantively changing the direction,” Professor Rubin said.“It’s a way of trying to shore up what could be a vulnerability — both for the midterm elections and Democrats more broadly,” she added.Mr. Murphy emphasized “affordability” in his speech and played down progressive themes.Michelle Gustafson for The New York TimesJack Ciattarelli, Mr. Murphy’s Republican challenger who came close to unseating the governor, said the budget address showed Mr. Murphy was “definitely feeling the pressure from the closeness of the race and the themes that we hit on repeatedly, which up until this point he’s been tone-deaf on.”But the contents of the plan, he said, were the “same old, same old.”“There’s never been a better opportunity to completely reform the way we do property taxes,” said Mr. Ciattarelli, who plans to run for governor again in four years.Officials with left-leaning advocacy groups said that they found things to like in the budget draft, as well as missed opportunities.Ms. Cullinane, of Make the Road, praised the roughly $100 million the governor set aside for undocumented immigrants and working families who have been ineligible for federal pandemic-related aid. Andrea McChristian, law and policy director for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, applauded Mr. Murphy’s efforts to expand college access and to fund a pilot program designed to keep juveniles out of prison. But she questioned the absence of any discussion about closing juvenile lockups, making reparation payments to Black residents harmed by slavery or a renewed push to implement baby bonds.“That’s definitely a missed moment,” Ms. McChristian said.The missing emphasis on social justice is particularly worrisome in a year when New Jersey is flush with cash from sales tax collections, revenue generated by the robust housing and stock markets and federal stimulus funds, Ms. McChristian said.“This is the moment to be bold,” she said, adding, “We have huge racial disparities here.”Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, called it a “status quo” budget that continues to provide vital support for offshore wind energy but fails to take other meaningful steps toward addressing the climate crisis or establishing a guaranteed source of funding for public transit.“New Jersey should be investing in climate change solutions,” Mr. O’Malley said, “not fighting this fight with one hand behind its back.” More

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      How Billionaires Are Shaping France’s Presidential Campaign

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      In a nation with strict political finance laws, control over the news media has provided an avenue for the very rich to influence elections, this one more than ever.PARIS — The face of President Emmanuel Macron’s possibly fiercest rival in France’s coming election is not on any campaign poster. He has not given a single speech. His name will not be on the ballot.He is not a candidate at all, but the man often described as France’s Rupert Murdoch: Vincent Bolloré, the billionaire whose conservative media empire has complicated Mr. Macron’s carefully plotted path to re-election by propelling the far-right candidacy of Éric Zemmour, the biggest star of Mr. Bolloré’s Fox-style news network, CNews.With the first round of France’s presidential election just a month away, polls show Mr. Macron as the favorite. But it is Mr. Zemmour who has set the themes of the race with the openly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim views he had put forth each evening on television for the past couple of years.“Bolloré’s channels have largely created Zemmour,” François Hollande, France’s former president, said in an interview. But Mr. Zemmour’s emergence is just the latest example of the power of France’s media tycoons, Mr. Bolloré most prominent among them, to shape political fortunes. In a nation with very strict campaign finance laws, control over the news media has long provided an avenue for the very rich to influence elections.“If you’re a billionaire, you can’t entirely finance a campaign,” said Julia Cagé, an economist specializing in the media at Sciences Po, “but you can buy a newspaper and put it at the disposal of a campaign.”The political reach of media tycoons like Vincent Bolloré, center, has become enough of a concern that the French Senate opened an inquiry.Isa Harsin/Sipa, via Associated PressIn the long run-up to the current campaign, the competition for influence has been especially frenzied, with some of France’s richest men locked in a fight over some of the nation’s top television networks, radio stations and publications.The emergence of Mr. Bolloré, in particular, has intensified the jockeying in this election season as he buys up media properties and turns them into news outlets pushing a hard right-wing agenda.The phenomenon is new in the French media landscape, and it has prompted fierce jostling among other billionaires for media holdings. It has been the hidden drama behind the 2022 elections, with some of the media billionaires angling strongly against Mr. Macron, and others in support of him.On one side are Mr. Bolloré and his media group, Vivendi; on the other are billionaires regarded as Mr. Macron’s allies, including Bernard Arnault, the head of the LVMH luxury empire.The political reach of media tycoons has become enough of a concern that the French Senate has opened an inquiry. In hearings broadcast live in January and February, they all denied any political motive. Mr. Bolloré said his interests were “purely economic.” Mr. Arnault said his investments in the news media were akin to “patronage.”But there is little doubt that their media holdings give them leverage that France’s campaign finance laws would otherwise deny them. In France, political TV ads are not allowed in the six months before an election. Corporate donations to candidates are banned.Personal gifts to a campaign are limited to 4,600 euros, or about $5,000. In this election cycle, presidential candidates cannot spend more than €16.9 million each, or about $18.5 million, on their campaigns for the first round; the two finalists are then limited to a total of €22.5 million each, or about $24.7 million. By comparison, when he was a presidential candidate, Joseph R. Biden Jr. raised more than $1 billion for his 2020 campaign.Bernard Arnault, the head of the LVMH luxury empire, with President Emmanuel Macron of France in Paris last year. He is regarded as an ally of Mr. Macron.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Why do you think that these French capitalists whose names you know buy Le Monde, Les Echos, Le Parisien?” Jean-Michel Baylet, whose family has owned a powerful group of newspapers in southwest France for generations, said in an interview, mentioning some of the country’s biggest newspapers.“They’re buying influence,” said Mr. Baylet, a former minister of territorial cohesion, who himself has been accused of using his media outlets to advance a parallel career in politics — a charge he denies.The control of media by industrialists, whose core businesses depend on government contracts in construction or defense, amounts to “a conflict of interests,” said Aurélie Filippetti, who oversaw the media sector as a minister of culture.Armed with media properties, businessmen enjoy leverage over politicians.“Politicians are always afraid that newspapers will fall into unfriendly hands,” said Claude Perdriel, the main shareholder of Challenges, a weekly magazine, who said that he made sure to sell his previous outlets, including the magazine L’Obs, to other businessmen who shared his left-leaning politics.For Mr. Macron, that is what happened when early this year Jérôme Béglé, who is a frequent guest on CNews, took over the Journal du Dimanche, a Sunday newspaper once so pro-Macron that it was called the “Pravda” of the government. After Mr. Bolloré gained control over the newspaper’s parent company last fall, it began publishing critical articles and unflattering photos of Mr. Macron.It recently zeroed in on what right-wing competitors consider the most vulnerable aspect of Mr. Macron’s record: his crime policy, which the publication referred to as a failure and his “Achilles’ heel.”Though not widely read, the newspaper enjoys a following among the French political and economic elite and an agenda-setting role. “It’s one of the two or three most influential newspapers,” said Gaspard Gantzer, a presidential spokesman under Mr. Hollande.A newsstand in Paris. “If you’re a billionaire, you can’t entirely finance a campaign,” said Julia Cagé, an economist at Sciences Po, “but you can buy a newspaper and put it at the disposal of a campaign.”Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via ShutterstockOne of Mr. Bolloré’s television channels, the youth-oriented C8, has served as a powerful echo chamber for promoting far-right ideas. A recent study by the CNRS, France’s national research organization, showed that from September to December last year, C8’s most popular show devoted 53 percent of its time to the far right and to one figure in particular: Mr. Zemmour.But it is through CNews, created in 2017 after his takeover of the Canal Plus network, that Mr. Bolloré continues to extend his influence in the final stretches of the campaign. With its ability to shape the national debate around issues like immigration, Islam and crime, CNews quickly grew into a new, and feared, political force in France. It made Mr. Zemmour, a newspaper reporter and best-selling author, a star.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

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      Australia Asks: How Far Is Too Far in Making China a Campaign Weapon?

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      Australia’s conservative government has claimed, without evidence, that the political opposition would cozy up to Beijing. To many, it has crossed a red line.MELBOURNE, Australia — A group of middle-aged Chinese Australians logged onto Zoom to step, kick and punch through their regular exercise class one day late last month. Then they lingered online to despair at the government’s attempt to turn China into a campaign weapon.After years of deteriorating relations between the two countries, the seven men and women in Melbourne were resigned to the fact that China would become a political wedge in the federal election due by May. But when Prime Minister Scott Morrison questioned the allegiance of a leader of the opposition Labor Party by accusing him of being a “Manchurian candidate,” that felt like a step too far.“I was shocked and surprised that he would go so low,” said Anne Pang, 63, the class’s instructor, who runs the Barry Pang Kung Fu School with her husband and is a leader in the Chinese Australian community. “It was totally uncalled-for and totally un-Australian.”The concern across Melbourne and the rest of Australia’s large Chinese diaspora reflects the intense emotions and risks associated with the Morrison government’s attempt to exploit rising fears of China.For months, Australia’s governing conservative coalition has been trying to deflect from its domestic vulnerabilities by laying out a case for re-election that suggests its opponents will cozy up to a powerful and dangerous Chinese government.Prime Minister Scott Morrison, left, and the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Anthony Albanese.Sam Mooy/Getty ImagesRecent evidence says otherwise: Labor has been a partner in toughening foreign interference laws and joined the coalition in every recent standoff with China, over tariffs, detentions and human rights. The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has said his party would deal with Beijing “in a mature way” but would not significantly alter the government’s approach.That has not stopped the coalition from issuing louder and more ominous claims about foreign threats and supposed domestic collusion as it has faced criticism over its handling of the Omicron outbreak and sexual harassment cases in Parliament.It’s led to whisper campaigns against Labor candidates of Chinese descent in Sydney, along with intense disappointment among those who generally support the government’s desire to stand up to Beijing, but want Australia to dig deeper into the policy challenges that Xi Jinping’s China represents.“It’s unhealthy and unhelpful,” said Wai Ling Yeung, a former head of Chinese studies at Curtin University in Perth who contributed to a new report about Chinese influence. “The kind of reflection we need to have is about how much have we in Australia made our economy reliant on China? How did we not diversify, and what are the lessons we could learn now from this experience?”Mr. Morrison — often celebrated by American officials for his handling of Beijing — “has lost control of any prudent or rational dimension in his approach to China,” said James Curran, a history professor at the University of Sydney who is writing a book about Australia’s China debate.“What’s going on here is a mark of sheer desperation,” he added. “He’s on the political back foot, and he’s looking for anything that will work.”Mr. Morrison’s rush down what Mr. Curran called “the new Cold Warrior’s path” has mostly involved following the hawks within his own center-right and often divided Liberal Party. Peter Dutton, Australia’s defense minister and a rival of Mr. Morrison’s, has led the charge, warning that Chinese missiles could reach Australia, then declaring in Parliament in February that Chinese officials see Mr. Albanese, the Labor Party leader, “as their pick.”Mongolian construction workers last week at Wentworth Point in Sydney, an area with a significant Asian population.Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesMr. Morrison, after previously resisting such language, seemed eager to outdo Mr. Dutton, tossing out the “Manchurian candidate” line, which he later retracted, only to repeat his claim (without evidence) that the Chinese government wants Labor to win.In an isolated country with a history of xenophobia, the political gambit is built on a mix of tried-and-true scare tactics and cherry-picked facts.The Australian authorities, in public statements and leaks, reported last month that China was behind a recent plot to influence the election. But the officials also said that the plot had been foiled before any politicians or parties knew about it, and that foreign interference efforts had targeted both parties in the past.Mr. Morrison and his coalition are nonetheless seeking to make voters skeptical of Mr. Albanese, who has little international experience, and focus on their own efforts to counter China — including a partnership with Britain and the United States for nuclear submarines.The Morrison-Dutton pitch arrives at a moment of deep unease, with Russia invading Ukraine after announcing a closer partnership with Beijing. (This week, the prime minister accused China of abetting the bloodshed through its “chilling silence.”) And it builds on polls showing that Australians’ distrust of China has increasingly blurred the line between the Chinese government and anyone with links to the country.Australians in recent years have — often unfairly — blamed Chinese investors for rising property prices. And after Covid first spread from China, racist abuse against Asian Australians followed.In Melbourne, the men and women from the kung fu group told of receiving cold stares from strangers. Others who hadn’t personally had negative experiences pointed to stories from friends and in the media. They worried that the government’s heated language could embolden those who are not interested in distinguishing between the Chinese Communist Party and anyone who looks Chinese.Sally Sitou, second from right, a Labor candidate, meeting with local councillors and residents in Wentworth Point.Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesIn Sydney, too, Chinese Australians said they saw perceptions change, hurting their sense of belonging.Sally Sitou, 39, a Labor candidate who is running for the federal Parliament, said that when Mr. Dutton and Mr. Morrison linked her party to Chinese Communists, her greatest fears about running for office had come to life.She was heartbroken again when conservative media outlets started attacking Mr. Albanese with a video of him at an event in 2018 speaking a few words of Mandarin, a language she wishes she spoke better and wants her young son to respect and learn.“It made me realize the depths to which they’re willing to go,” she said, “and how nasty this campaign is likely to get.”Craig Chung, a former Sydney city councilor and Liberal Party member whose family moved to Australia from China in 1882, said it had been “a difficult couple of years” for Chinese Australians. What people often forget, he added, is that “there’s a difference between sticking it to the Chinese people and sticking it to the Chinese government.”Mr. Dutton and Mr. Morrison have at times tried to make that distinction clear. About 5 percent of Australia’s population — 1.2 million people — claim Chinese heritage, and it’s a diverse group. It includes those who fled China after Tiananmen Square, others from Hong Kong, Taiwan or Vietnam, along with recent arrivals who came to Australia for college.But as Australia has challenged China and it has responded with punishing tariffs on Australian products including coal and wine, that complexity has been ironed flat.Jason Yat-sen Li, 50, a Labor candidate for the New South Wales state legislature, said his campaign saw the impact firsthand in his by-election victory last month. Volunteers for his Liberal Party opponent were overheard telling voters to question his loyalty to Australia even though he’d been born and educated in Sydney.“It wasn’t overt. It was done quietly,” Mr. Li said. “They were picking who they thought would be receptive to that message, and they would whisper things like ‘If you vote for Jason, you might be voting for the Chinese government.’”Chinese Australians say they have seen perceptions change in Sydney, hurting their sense of belonging.Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesCriticism of the government’s tone extends beyond the political opposition.Dennis Richardson, a retired intelligence official who led several federal departments, said in an interview that by falsely suggesting that Labor favored appeasement, the government had crossed a “red line.”“China would like to see division, and it’s important that we not have that division,” he said.Whether the effort will work at the polls, no one yet knows.In the Melbourne kung fu group, some thought the situation might improve under a new government, but others worried that the ugly language could be dredged up again if either side needed help in the polls.Ms. Pang recalled the hostility she experienced when her family migrated to Australia from Taiwan in 1970, an era when policies that had restricted nonwhite immigration for decades were ending. Australia has become much more multicultural since then, but recently, she said, it has started to feel as if it is slipping backward.“I thought the times of the 1970s was gone in terms of racial discrimination,” she said. “But now I can see it quite vividly.”Yan Zhuang reported from Melbourne, and Damien Cave from Sydney. Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Sydney. More

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      Onstage, the French Election Is a Landslide Win for Cynicism

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      As the presidential vote approaches, theaters and comedy venues are addressing the campaign. Many shows reach a similar conclusion: Don’t trust politicians.PARIS — If elections are spectacles, France’s presidential campaign, caught between voter apathy and war in Europe, has so far struggled to connect with its audience. Yet on French stages, a number of artists are making hay out of the upcoming vote — and the picture is hardly flattering.Across comedy and drama, performers and directors of varied backgrounds seem to agree on one thing: The country’s politicians are uniformly terrible and their performances a little too close to theater to be trusted.Not that the political calendar is headline material in every playhouse. While many prestigious French theaters that receive public funding pride themselves on staging political works, they tend to refer to current events only obliquely. For highbrow theatergoers here, a lack of intellectual distance suggests a lack of taste. Shows actually addressing the presidential campaign are mostly found elsewhere, in smaller venues that rely on box-office revenues.Two of them, the Café de la Gare and the Théâtre des Deux Ânes, are comedy venues. On the nights I attended, they drew large, albeit different, crowds. While visitors to the Café de la Gare skewed younger, the silver-haired audience at the Théâtre des Deux Ânes, in the Pigalle district of Paris, appeared to include many regulars, who cheered for several comedians as soon as they appeared onstage.The jokes were dissimilar, too. At the Deux Ânes, the show “Elect Us” strings together five comic and musical acts, ranging from witty (Florence Brunold’s parody of a history lesson, with “Macron the First” as a Jupiterian king) to downright misogynistic. Every female politician mentioned throughout the performance was described as either an airhead or physically unattractive. Some of their male peers, on the other hand, were more gratifyingly characterized as “too smart” (Macron) or as a Casanova (the far-right candidate Éric Zemmour).Guillaume Meurice in “Meurice 2022” at the Café de la Gare.MagaliThe shows on offer at the Café de la Gare, on the other hand, tried to turn these tropes on their head. “We’ve Reached That Point!,” written by Jérémy Manesse and directed by Odile Huleux, envisions a television debate between two fictional contenders during the next presidential election, in 2027. One of them is a woman, well played by the deadpan Florence Savignat, who maintains a purposely bland persona to avoid personal attacks. In another show at the venue, “Meurice 2022,” the well-known comic Guillaume Meurice — a daily presence on a popular radio station, France Inter — plays a presidential candidate whose patronizing rhetoric is ultimately undermined by the feminist manager in charge of running his events, played by Julie Duquenoy.Still, despite their contrasting values, all these shows portray the French political class as far removed from the audience and its concerns. The historical left-right divide, which has been in flux since Macron won office as a centrist and far-right figures started gaining ground, often gave way onstage to an “us versus them” dynamic, with acts that riffed on the public’s perceived disdain for every presidential candidate.Meurice’s cartoonishly out-of-touch character, for instance, isn’t affiliated with any party. One recurring gag is that every time he mentions another politician, he describes that person as “a personal friend,” from far-left figures to Macron and Zemmour — the implication being that they all belong to the same social group. By way of parody, “Meurice 2022” also offers empty slogans like “The future is already tomorrow” and “Winning now.”From a comedy perspective, it works. Yet “Meurice 2022” speaks to a larger malaise in the country, which “We’ve Reached That Point!” makes even more explicit. The plot revolves around the improbable notion that the two 2027 contenders, unbeknown to them, have been given a newly discovered truth serum before the start of their live debate. When the serum kicks in, suddenly they find themselves blurting out their real feelings about the hot issues of the campaign.Manesse, a shrewd writer, inserts several coups de théâtre along the way, which makes for a genuinely entertaining play. Yet the premise remains that no politician could possibly be telling the truth.From left, Emmanuel Dechartre, Alexandra Ansidei, Christophe Barbier and Adrien Melin in “Elysée” at the Petit Montparnasse theater.Fabienne RappeneauWhen politicians are portrayed as liars, the age-old comparison between politics and theater is never far away — and in Paris, two plays about former French presidents are also leaning into it. “The Life and Death of J. Chirac, King of the French,” directed by Léo Cohen-Paperman, shows Jacques Chirac, the French head of state from 1995 to 2007, as a deeply theatrical figure, as does “Élysée,” a play about the relationship between Chirac and his predecessor, François Mitterrand, who was elected president in 1981.Audience members looking for policy analysis will be disappointed. “Elysée,” directed by Jean-Claude Idée at the Petit Montparnasse theater, is mostly uninterested in Chirac’s and Mitterrand’s politics. The playwright, Hervé Bentégéat, focuses on what they have in common: a wandering eye, for starters, in some cringe-inducing scenes with the only woman in the cast, and the fact that they are “good comedians.” Cue the unlikely bargain they reportedly struck in 1981 to help the left-wing Mitterrand get elected — a cynical long-term calculation for Chirac, a right-wing figure.Julien Campani as Jacques Chirac in “The Life and Death of J. Chirac, King of the French” at the Théâtre de Belleville.Simon Loiseau“The Life and Death of J. Chirac, King of the French,” at the Théâtre de Belleville, is the more compelling show, despite some inconsistencies. It is the first installment in a planned series of presidential portraits, “Eight Kings.” (The president-as-king metaphor has a life of its own in France.) In the opening scene, which manages to be brilliantly funny while recapping Chirac’s life, Julien Campani and Clovis Fouin play overenthusiastic Chirac fans who have created a zany 24-hour theater production about his life. Cohen-Paperman then segues into far more traditional vignettes drawn from Chirac’s youth and career.Campani is impressively convincing in the title role, but “The Life and Death of J. Chirac, King of the French” never really explores what Chirac achieved, or didn’t achieve, as a politician. Instead, it posits politics as a game of chess, with Chirac on the lookout for the next useful move.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

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      Cuomo? Oh No!

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      So, people, how would you feel about an Andrew Cuomo comeback?Hey, get back here.New York’s former governor has been in the news lately, running a TV ad that portrays him as a totally-not-guilty victim of “political attacks.” It reportedly cost him around $369,000. This from an old campaign fund that’s worth about $16 million. Can you imagine what it’ll be like if he antes up the rest? It’d make Burger King’s promotions seem like public service announcements.Cuomo also recently made a sparsely attended speech to a Black church congregation in Brooklyn, decrying the “cancel culture” that had messed up his life. Not entirely clear what he meant. That he had to resign from being governor after that sexual harassment scandal? That almost nobody wants him to run for anything again? That his brother, Chris, lost his CNN job after giving advice to Andrew’s top aides?Let’s deal with the Chris Cuomo issue first because it’s so very, very easy. He’d vowed, in his capacity as a news host, to keep clear of his brother’s battle to stay in office. But familial loyalty dragged him right in. At which point Andrew obviously should have drawn a line, forbidden anybody to talk with Chris behind the scenes. Told Baby Brother something like, “I love you, man — way too much to let you wreck your career just for me.”Yeah, didn’t happen. OK, another easy question: Who out there thinks it would be a good idea for Andrew Cuomo to run for a fourth term as governor?Tick … tick … tick. …How about running for something else?Tock … tock … tock. Wait, do I see a hand back there? City Council? Do you even know if he lives in the city? Cuomo’s official residence was the governor’s mansion for so long, he now seems to have no permanent dwelling place. Sort of like a little bat, flitting around into some mysterious recesses of the cave.The current governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, who used to be Cuomo’s lieutenant, is what New York City residents rather snottily refer to as an upstater. She’s only the second chief executive in New York history who was born and grew up in Buffalo.Which is the second-largest city in the state. How many of you knew that? OK, Buffalonians, stop jumping up and down.And while we’re at it, guess who the other Buffalo governor was. Yes! Grover Cleveland. I am bringing this up only because I love to talk about him.Grover was not what you’d call a Cuomoesque figure. He was pretty boring in public — a 300-pound former sheriff who once declared he deserved no credit for doing right because “I am never under any temptation to do wrong.”But Cleveland did run into a sex scandal — he was accused by a newspaper in Buffalo (!!!) of having fathered a child by an unmarried salesgirl. We could argue for a very long time about whether this was true. I think not and would be happy to discuss it at length if we’re ever, say, stuck on a train in a tunnel for several hours. But either way, Grover spent a very painful period being referred to by headlines like “Moral Monster.” So, really, Andrew, stop complaining.Unlike Cuomo, Grover did not claim all his problems stemmed from being “old-fashioned and out of touch” with rules about, um, touching the women who work in your office. He mostly stayed silent and sullen, which worked pretty well, given that he later got elected president twice.Cuomo is good only at the sullen part.We’ve got a lot of weird political stuff coming up, New Yorkers. I know you’ll find that a change of pace, given that we spent a good chunk of the Covid season debating whether or not Mayor Eric Adams really lived in New Jersey. (Asked about Cuomo’s speech in Brooklyn, by the way, Adams said: “I was not aware of it. I was busy moving around the city, enjoying all aspects of the city.”)It’s gubernatorial election year, and the state Republicans just had a convention in which they backed a congressman from Long Island, Lee Zeldin, as their candidate to run against Hochul. But he’s apparently going to be primaried — by a couple of people you’ve never heard of and … Andrew Giuliani.Rudy Giuliani’s 36-year-old son got less than 1 percent of the convention vote, but obviously that’s not keeping this family down.“Screw the Republicans. A bunch of jerks,” said his dad, who decried the party’s failure to nominate a new generation Ronald Reagan “or a Trump, or a me.”People, who would you prefer to see as the next governor of New York?A. A Rudy or a Trump.B. Fourth-term Andrew.C. Someone from Buffalo.Rudy has defended Cuomo, arguing that he was a victim of “conviction by press conference.” And you could certainly call Giuliani an expert witness, given the fact that while he was mayor, he had an affair with a woman for whom he provided a police chauffeur and then held a press conference to announce he was getting a divorce without having let his wife know in advance.Just remember, things can always be worse on the governor front. We could have that guy from Florida who scolds kids who wear masks.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Who is Lee Jae Myung, the Liberal Candidate in South Korea’s Election?

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      South Korea’s leading liberal candidate, Lee Jae-myung, started his presidential bid with a speech that spoke squarely to the country’s simmering angst and its struggling middle class.“We’ve got to usher in a world where all can live well together, take care of the weak, and curb the vanity of the strong, who often resort to privilege and foul play,” Mr. Lee said in a video address last summer.But the greatest challenge for the labor-lawyer-turned-politician in this race, experts say, is his need to represent the ruling Democratic Party while also distinguishing himself from President Moon Jae-in.Though Mr. Moon has enjoyed high approval ratings compared to most South Korean presidents, the country has continued to suffer from runaway housing prices and a youth unemployment crisis under his watch.Born in 1964 in the small eastern town of Andong, in North Gyeongsang Province, Mr. Lee became known as the former “factory boy” and the son of a house cleaner who rose out of poverty to become a successful mayor and governor.One of seven children, he skipped middle school to work at various factories in the northwestern city of Seongnam, roughly 12.5 miles from Seoul. According to Mr. Lee, several workplace accidents — including one where his arm was caught in a press machine — left him legally disabled by his late teens, when South Korea exempted him from its mandatory military service.Mr. Lee then earned a high school equivalency degree and won a scholarship to Seoul’s Chung-Ang University. After graduating, he returned to the town he worked in as a child to open his own office as a labor lawyer.On the stump, he has long credited those experiences as his inspiration for entering politics. He was elected Seongnam’s mayor in 2010, a post he held for about eight years. During that time, he created a citywide social welfare program, introduced a modest universal basic income program for young adults, and provided free access to school uniforms and postnatal care.As the governor of Gyeonggi, South Korea’s most populous province, from 2018 to 2021, Mr. Lee impressed voters by swiftly addressing a series of issues that became hot political topics. Among them: He pushed for expanding the use of surveillance cameras in hospital operating rooms after the discovery that some doctors were assigning unlicensed staff to perform surgery. He also led successful efforts to provide residents with stimulus money during the Covid-19 pandemic.Unlike his main rival, the firebrand former chief prosecutor Yoon Suk-yeol, Mr. Lee has spoken in favor of economic cooperation with North Korea. He is the only candidate to have promised a universal basic income plan that would eventually distribute at least 1 million won (about $814) to all citizens per year.His plan would also scale up to offer a higher sum of 2 million won — at least $1,629 per year — to 19- to 29-year-olds annually, a demographic that both candidates are vigorously competing for. More