Politics and Government

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey Confirms He Will Not Run for Senate

      by

      Senator Mitch McConnell had been trying to recruit Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona to run, but former President Donald J. Trump had warned him against it.Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona reaffirmed his decision Thursday not to run for the Senate this year, dealing a blow to Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, while delighting former President Donald J. Trump, who for months had warned Mr. Ducey to stay out of the race.Mr. Ducey, who is term-limited as governor, was one of the most sought-after Republicans that Mr. McConnell had been trying to recruit. In a letter to donors, Mr. Ducey seemed to allude to Mr. Trump’s hectoring, saying: “These days, if you’re going to run for public office, you have to really want the job.”Angry that Mr. Ducey would not overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow 2020 victory in the state, Mr. Trump has rampaged for over a year, complaining about Mr. Ducey’s certification of the electoral results and threatening him about the Senate race.“Right now I have the job I want,” Mr. Ducey wrote, “and my intention is to close my years of service to Arizona with a very productive final legislative session and to help elect Republican governors across the country in my role as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.”Mr. Ducey’s decision was long expected. For months, he had told both reporters pressing him and Republicans courting him that he had little appetite to challenge Senator Mark Kelly, a first-term Democrat.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.Governors’ 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.That did not stop Mr. McConnell, whose attempts to recruit two other Republican governors, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Larry Hogan of Maryland, into Senate races were also rebuffed.Taken together, the rejections illustrate the difficulty Senate Republicans are having in trying to lure mainstream conservative governors to serve in a party still shadowed by Mr. Trump and in a polarized capital that can offer less policymaking opportunity than statehouses. Moreover, many of the state executives are more interested in the presidency than the Senate.“By nature and by training I’m an executive,” wrote Mr. Ducey, who in an interview last month mused that senators seem only to “tweet all day, do a 5 p.m. news hit and go out for the rest of the night.”His candidacy, which would have tested Mr. Trump’s influence in a pivotal state, effectively hands Mr. Trump a victory without contest, the sort of win the former president’s intraparty antagonists are hoping to deny in a series of primaries this year.Given President Biden’s declining approval ratings and Arizona’s center-right tilt, Republicans might still be able to reclaim Mr. Kelly’s seat, which was previously held by Senator John McCain.It’s not clear which of the Republicans in the remaining field would be best-positioned to defeat Mr. Kelly, who began the year with $18 million in campaign cash. Attorney General Mark Brnovich has led a handful of lesser-known Republicans in some polls ahead of the August primary, but the race has been frozen as G.O.P. officials implored Mr. Ducey to run.A parade of prominent Republican leaders, including former President George W. Bush and Karl Rove as well as Mr. McConnell and his lieutenants, lobbied the Arizona governor, some sharing polling that indicated Mr. Trump’s declining influence in primaries.Gov. Doug Ducey with former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. Mr. Trump has complained about Mr. Ducey’s certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow victory in the state.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe array of anti-Trump Republicans believed Mr. Ducey, a popular two-term governor and former chief of Cold Stone Creamery, would be their party’s strongest candidate and would also send a message about what they believe is Mr. Trump’s diminishing clout.“MAGA will never accept RINO Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona running for the U.S. Senate,” Mr. Trump said in a statement last month after a Times article detailed the wooing of the governor. “So save your time, money, and energy, Mitch!”In Mr. Ducey’s letter on Thursday, which was first reported by The Arizona Republic, he made no direct mention of Mr. Trump. But the governor did make a point to single out Mr. McConnell, who had been his most ardent pursuer.“The only downside about any of this is that it would be an honor to serve with Senator Mitch McConnell,” he wrote. “I consider him an historic figure and one of the Titans of the Senate, and I am supportive of everything he’s doing to elect Republican senators and wrest back control from Chuck Schumer.”Mr. Ducey, who became close to Mr. McConnell when the two collaborated on who would be appointed to fill Mr. McCain’s seat after his death in 2018, also indicated in the letter that he was considering “perhaps weighing in” with an endorsement in the Senate primary.For his part, Mr. Trump has not formally intervened in the primary — at least not in support of a candidate. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      President Biden Never Saw War In Ukraine Coming

      by

      As Joe Biden campaigned for the White House in 2020, he knew that the next president of the United States would govern under circumstances significantly more daunting than those that most faced.As he took the oath of office in 2021, he could see very clearly — in the tally of Covid-related deaths, in the economic and social devastation of the pandemic, in the country’s vicious partisanship — the immense scope and immeasurable difficulty of the work ahead.But he surely never expected this.Never expected war in Europe. Never expected a confrontation with Vladimir Putin of such urgency and unpredictable proportions. Never expected that his stack of challenges would grow this much taller, in this particularly terrifying way.He delivered his first formal State of the Union address on Tuesday night as both a leader and a lesson: Few who have taken a seat at the Resolute Desk end up reading from anything like the script they had first imagined for themselves — or that others had imagined for them. Presidents plan. History laughs.Or weeps or screams — those seem the more appropriate verbs now. Whatever the language, I look at Biden and I not only examine someone in what the journalist John Dickerson, in the title of his 2020 book, calls “The Hardest Job in the World.” I also behold someone in history’s crucible, learning or relearning what every candidate should know and what every voter should factor into his or her calculations, which is how quickly events jag and how suddenly they judder.Biden is in many ways a propitious fit for current events. It’s useful, at this fearful juncture, to have a decidedly even-tempered president with his broad perspective, which has thus far prevented a potentially catastrophic overreaction to Putin’s saber-rattling.It’s useful to have a president with his regard for institutions and NATO specifically. The Western alliance has been more united than Putin or just about anybody else wagered it would be, and Biden gets some credit for that. As John Avlon, the author of the new book “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace,” told me, “This is reflecting his experience and at least some of his intended strengths.”But Avlon agreed that Biden belongs to a long line of presidents tugged far off script. Avlon reminded me that President Woodrow Wilson had once famously said, “It would be an irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs.” Well, fate went full-throttle ironic in the form of the First World War.“It’s almost always foreign affairs,” Avlon, a senior political analyst and anchor for CNN, said, “because the process of campaigning is almost always about domestic affairs.”President George W. Bush, in his bid for the White House, questioned “nation building” in foreign lands, sounded somewhat isolationist at times and emphasized aspects of his persona that complemented a relatively prosperous, peaceful chapter of American life. Then came the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.President Jimmy Carter, whose appeal was largely as an ethical correction after President Richard Nixon, found himself dealing with stagflation at home and the Iranian hostage crisis abroad.We elect presidents — or should — not just for the moment but for any moment, because the moment changes in the blink of an autocrat’s ego. It did for Biden.“No president had delivered his State of the Union address with such a large-scale and consequential land war underway in Europe since 1945,” Peter Baker wrote in The Times, describing just how unusual Biden’s situation suddenly is.Also in The Times, David Sanger weighed in: “Eastern Europe was not the battlefield Mr. Biden had in mind when he raised the idea last year that the battle of ‘autocracy versus democracy’ would be the defining foreign policy principle of his administration.” No, the scheming of Donald Trump, not Putin, was undoubtedly front of mind.Dickerson, the “Hardest Job” author and the chief political analyst for CBS News, told me that when Biden took office, Afghanistan and “trying to orient the West’s focus — his focus — toward China” were top priorities. “Land war in Europe was not on that agenda,” he noted.“Having said that, all the planning that he’s done in his career, the building of alliances, the team he put together: Implicit in their approach to the world is that the presidency surprises you with things all the time,” he added. “This is a job of surprises.”For the Love of SentencesPeter Bocklandt / Getty ImagesSeems fitting to begin with Russia and Ukraine. So we shall.David Brooks, in The Times, cast Ukrainians’ lot as emblematic and metaphoric of “a global struggle against authoritarianism,” and he stressed “the need to defeat the mini-Putins now found across the Western democracies. These are the demagogues who lie with Putinesque brazenness, who shred democratic institutions with Putinesque bravado, who strut the world’s stage with Putin’s amoral schoolboy machismo while pretending to represent all that is traditional and holy.” (Thanks to Karen Coe, from Seattle, for nominating this.)In The Washington Post, Sally Jenkins endorsed a particular punishment of the Russian president, writing that there’s “nothing trivial about wiping Vladimir Putin’s musky perspirations from the international sports stage.” She continued: “His brand of shirtless belligerent patriotism — his macho nationalism — has been a long con, and it’s no small thing to knock him off medal podiums and expose the lifts in his shoes, or to rip off his judo belt and show the softening of his belly.” (Phil Carlsen, South Portland, Maine)And in The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wrote this about Putin’s big going-to-war speech: “It had the wound-up particularity of the local grocer when he talks about his 30-year feud with the butcher down the street.” (Steve DeCherney, Chapel Hill, N.C.)Leaving Ukraine but sticking with foreign figures and affairs, here’s Henry Mance, in The Financial Times, on Prince Andrew’s botched spin of his onetime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein: “Still, Andrew went on TV, and said that he didn’t regret his friendship with Epstein because of ‘the opportunities that I was given to learn, either by him or because of him.’ Yes, say what you will about Hannibal Lecter, he threw very original dinner parties. Andrew is so tin-eared that he could sell mining rights to his own head.” (Chris Durban, Paris)And here’s Andrew Cohen, in The Globe and Mail of Toronto, on the much smaller Canadian city of Ottawa: “In one enterprise after another, Ottawa falls short. It is easily satisfied with mediocrity. As New York was said to be a town without foreplay, Ottawa is a city without climax.” (Bill Weaver Dresden, Ontario)Now to matters gustatory. On his website, Garrison Keillor reflected on fine music and his anticipation of an imminent breakfast, noting that “this bagel is turning into the high point of my day, the bagel of all bagels, the bagel Hegel would’ve finagled with Puccini’s cream cheese and scallions that win medallions from Italians.” (Tom Sigafoos, County Donegal, Ireland)And in The Times, Margaret Renkl pondered food and Lent: “During their midlife years of creeping weight gain, my mother and father would announce that they were losing 10 pounds for Lent, a goal I always found hilarious. As a Lenten resolution, it did bear some resemblance to the fasting and sackcloth of the early days of Christianity, if not for an entirely spiritual reason. I’m no theologian, but I feel sure that Jesus did not spend 40 days and 40 nights in the desert so he could fit into his old jeans.” (Tom Powell, Vestavia Hills, Ala., and Andrea Ondak, Newtown, Conn.)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here, and please include your name and place of residence.What I’m Reading (and Doing)I thought I knew a thing or two about the history of food writing, but my knowledge went back only so far. In “What We Write About When We Write About Food,” in The Times’s T Magazine, Ligaya Mishan travels all the way to ancient Greece and a glutton named Archestratos. She explains that these days he’d be labeled a food writer, “kin to those specialists of our own time, the literary-minded cooks who know that every recipe comes with a story; the memoirists who recall each meal as half debauchery, half revelation; the journalists who stake out tailgates and backyard barbecues; and the critics who skulk into restaurants in disguise, brandishing words like knives.” (Thanks to Marcia Lewis of Cohasset, Mass., for recommending that I showcase this.)While news organizations and readers are rightly riveted by what’s happening in Ukraine, what’s happening in Afghanistan remains important and heartbreaking, and in The New Yorker recently, Jon Lee Anderson took fascinating measure of the Taliban’s rule.I’ll admit to reading this review in The Times of my just-published book, “The Beauty of Dusk,” more than once. OK, more than twice. When you put a book, especially such a personal one, out into the world, you take a deep, deep breath, and I thank the reviewer, Min Jin Lee, not only for letting me exhale but also for describing the scope and intent of the book so well.Over recent days, I talked about the book on CBS Mornings, chatted with Seth Meyers on his late-night show, was interviewed by Ari Shapiro for NPR’s “All Things Considered” and had a Zoom conversation with John Molner for Katie Couric Media.On a Personal (By Which I Mean Regan) NoteThere is or was or will be a squirrel in this tree. With Regan, you never know.Frank BruniThe skeptical read on those of us with dogs is that we’re gluttons for guaranteed affection. We’re after easy, unconditional love.Not so with me and Regan — and I think we’re more representative than exceptional. When I welcomed her into my life three years ago, I felt an urge to give unconditional love.That tug was inextricably tied to my suddenly compromised and imperiled eyesight. With my physical powers in question, I wanted to flex my emotional might. I also wanted to avoid the traps of self-pity in particular and self-indulgence in general, and I could be only so concerned with my own welfare when I had to lavish thought and energy on hers. Just as my heart needed more bounce in it, my head needed less Frank in it. Regan did double duty in that regard (and thus gets a significant role in “The Beauty of Dusk”). She was the catalyst for a generosity that was at odds with, and offset, any sense of enfeeblement.From the very start, I was much more focused on how well I was serving her than on how well she was serving me, and I couldn’t have predicted how satisfying it would be to figure out the riddle of which healthy foods might suit her sometimes finicky appetite; to whisk her to the vet when she was ill and make her better; to find a hiking trail that invigorated her more than other paths had; to see her sleeping peacefully for hours on end in a dog bed that I had chosen wisely and put in the right place.Before Regan, I’d puzzled over how gaga some people could be about dogs who displayed all sorts of problems and unpleasantness, but that was because I’d misjudged those relationships, which weren’t about what surefire, ready-made bundles of joy dogs were. No, dogs were acts of devotion.I don’t have any science on this, but I bet we’re flooded with more serotonin or dopamine or endorphins or all of the above when we say “I love you” than when we hear it. And we’re healthier people when we’ve made commitments beyond ourselves. We’re better still when we’ve kept them.I vowed that Regan would never lack for exercise, and she hasn’t, not even during a four-day period about two years ago when a skin infection turned the lower part of my right leg into a badly inflamed, insanely tender slab of misery. Morning and night, I took her into Central Park regardless, and I limped and winced, winced and limped, laughing inwardly at the joke and spectacle of me, a man whose left half functioned perfectly well but whose right half — bum eye, bum leg — was a disaster.I vowed that I wouldn’t travel excessively for work or pleasure and that when I did need to leave her, I’d forge arrangements that minimized the disruption. I followed through on that as well.I vowed that she’d get plenty of time with other dogs and with people in addition to me, so that her world wasn’t a small one. That, too, has come to pass.Schooled in the limits of my control over my own life, I have exercised my control over hers with all the diligence I can muster. Her tail wags and my spirits do a jig. Mercy comes in many forms, some of them four-legged. More

    • 163 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak Is Accosted by Man Who Threatens to Hang Him

      by

      The governor was dining with his wife and daughter at a Las Vegas restaurant when a man asked him for a photo together before going into a profanity-laced rant.Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada was accosted at a Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas on Sunday by a man who recorded the confrontation in a video in which he threatens to “string you up by a lamppost.”In the video, the man asks Mr. Sisolak, a Democrat, for a photo together. The governor agrees, and the man puts his arm around him before going into a profanity-laced rant and calling the governor a “new world order traitor.”The governor and his wife begin to leave the restaurant, and the man follows him out.“Where’s your security at, punk?” the man says in the video. “We should string you up by a lamppost right now.”The man follows the governor and his wife into the parking lot of the restaurant, accusing Mr. Sisolak of treason and working for China. The governor’s wife, Kathy Sisolak, who was born in Nevada, is of Chinese descent, according to the governor’s website.“You’re lucky I’m a law-abiding citizen,” the man says.The governor and his wife are then joined near their vehicle by their daughter, who had been dining with them, at which point the man in the video leaves them alone.The encounter comes at a time when threats against public officials — both Republicans and Democrats — have surged, according to a recent New York Times review of more than 75 indictments of people charged with threatening lawmakers since 2016.A statement from the governor’s office on Monday said that Mr. Sisolak was “deeply disappointed in how this incident unfolded, particularly with the language used to talk about First Lady Kathy Sisolak’s heritage.”The statement continued: “We can disagree about the issues, but the personal attacks and threats are unwarranted, unwelcome and unbecoming behavior for Nevadans. The governor works on behalf of all Nevadans — even those who disagree with him — and he will continue to do so.”The governor’s office said the confrontation was being investigated, but it did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Mr. Sisolak would press charges.The man, Justin Andersch, held a news conference on Tuesday in Las Vegas, during which he said he would not apologize to the governor.“I will not apologize for speaking out and expressing two years of frustration,” Mr. Andersch said. “I will not apologize for holding public officials responsible for their choices.”Mr. Andersch said he had lost his job and his medical benefits because of Mr. Sisolak’s “desire to follow obediently in line with the other overreaching authoritarian measures” that he said had been implemented by public officials in the interest of public health.“We’ve endured for two full years of authoritarian overreach that is guided by the constant shifting of the scientific goal posts,” Mr. Andersch said. “Our nation has reached a point where many of us feel faceless and nameless against the ruling elite that appear to live by a different set of rules and the rest of us.”Mr. Sisolak recently lifted Nevada’s statewide mask mandate. However, like several other elected officials across the country, he faced backlash from some constituents throughout the pandemic over public health measures such as mask mandates and shutdowns. He is running for re-election this November.Mr. Andersch founded a podcast called “Cannabis and Combat,” which is described on its website as a show that is “shining a light on the darkest corners of modern culture.”“Get comfortable being uncomfortable because that’s what it’s going to take to bring the truth to the masses,” the show’s website says. “Thanks to our amazing supporters, we’re able to fight this battle every day. Evil never takes a day and neither do we.” More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      At NY Republican Convention, G.O.P. Tests Attacks on Democrats

      by

      The Republican State Convention is giving party leaders a chance to test messages about crime, inflation and Democratic leadership.GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — Four months after Republicans scored upset victories around the country and in local races across New York, the state’s party leaders gathered at a plush hotel in a Long Island village this week, painting a bleak picture of life under Democratic rule.Gas prices are spiking, and groceries are pricey. Concerns around crime are reordering politics in major cities at home, and Americans are shaken by images of war abroad. Debates around mask mandates and curriculum have turned school board meetings into political battlegrounds.“People are very, very unhappy,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and one of a number of Republican candidates who unexpectedly defeated Democrats in races across Long Island last fall. “That usually bodes very poorly for the party in power.”Across the nation, Republicans are clearly preparing to test how deep into liberal territory they can push in the midterm campaigns, at an exceptionally challenging moment for President Biden and his party.If they can make real inroads in New York after years in the political wilderness, the thinking goes, that will offer a clear indication of a political wave underway.Republicans overtly and implicitly embraced that imagery at their state convention that began on Monday — a surfboard was even displayed outside the convention hall. Inside, party leaders endorsed candidates for major offices and road-tested messages about crime and rampant inflation while offering broader indictments of Democratic leadership.“You could have people getting buried that don’t think they have a race today,” Nicholas A. Langworthy, the chairman of the New York Republican State Committee, said in an interview. “This is a hurricane coming at our back. People are really pissed off.”A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Attorney General’s Race: Whether Ken Paxton can survive the G.O.P. primary may be the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s continued power over voters.A Changing Landscape: Issues like abortion and immigration are driving Hispanic voters in Democratic strongholds to switch parties and prompting liberal candidates to shift tactics.A Deepening Divide: Competitive districts are being systemically erased across the country. Texas is an especially extreme example.New Voting Law: Officials have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on new requirements, an alarming jump ahead of the primary.Just where the high-water mark for Republicans reaches remains to be seen. A Republican has not won a statewide race in New York since George E. Pataki secured a third term as governor in 2002, a now-distant era of consensus politics.In the years since, Democrats have amassed a more than two-to-one advantage in party registration, fueled in part by antipathy toward former President Donald J. Trump, and have locked-in congressional and legislative districts that could fortify them this fall.Republicans have struggled to attract viable candidates in key races for Senate and attorney general. And many of their contenders face the difficult balancing act of first appealing to a primary electorate that embraces Mr. Trump, and then to a broader electorate that has firmly rejected the former president.“Republicans are spending time creating false narratives to blame Democrats for these problems, but I think people are going to vote for the party that is working to find and enact solutions,” said Jay S. Jacobs, the chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee. “It’s March. We’ve got till November. And today’s reality is not going to be tomorrow’s.”Republicans say they are riding a wave of voter discontent with Democratic incumbents.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesBut at the Republican State Convention and in interviews with party officials, candidates and strategists, Republicans made it plain that they see opportunities not only to compete in the governor’s race but also to outperform expectations in congressional and state legislative districts from Long Island to Rochester that usually favor Democrats.Their plan for races in Democratic-leaning areas goes like this: Keep the focus on matters of public safety, cost of living, education and in some cases coronavirus-related mandates. Make the midterms a referendum on Democratic leadership in Washington and Albany. Engage constituencies, including Asian American and Latino voters, that have been receptive to Republicans. And capitalize at every turn on a brutal political environment for the Democrats.A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found that Mr. Biden’s national approval rating was at 37 percent. Even in New York, Mr. Biden’s favorability rating was the same as his negative rating — 48 percent — his lowest levels since taking office and a striking result in one of the most heavily Democratic states in the country, according to a recent Siena College poll of registered voters in New York.The Republican convention unfolded against the backdrop of devastating images from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a preview of how they may move to nationalize down-ballot races this year, several speakers made the war in Europe a central piece of their messaging and sought to paint national Democratic leadership as weak and feckless, though Mr. Trump has put Republicans in a bind by lavishing praise on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.“We need a change in Washington,” Mr. Pataki said on Monday, ripping into the Biden administration’s stewardship of the crisis in Ukraine. “We need a Republican Congress to hold this president accountable, we need a Republican Senate to hold this leader accountable, and to get the United States headed in the right direction.”Some of Mr. Pataki’s allies had hoped he would head back toward Albany with another run for governor. Mr. Pataki, 76, did not firmly rule out such an idea on Monday, but he did tell reporters he expected one of four contenders to emerge as the nominee: Representative Lee Zeldin of Long Island; Harry Wilson, a businessman; Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive; or Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.The race appears to be in flux, with the recent Siena poll showing Mr. Zeldin, who has been named the presumptive nominee by party leaders, and Mr. Astorino as largely unknown quantities. Mr. Giuliani, perhaps because of his famous last name, was more polarizing, with a favorable rating of 47 percent among Republicans but a matching unfavorable rating among voters overall.He significantly trails Mr. Zeldin and Mr. Astorino in fund-raising, according to the last campaign finance disclosure, but he cited his favorability ratings among Republicans as evidence of his ability to connect with voters.Mr. Giuliani said in an interview that his father, whose zealous efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have made him a pariah among many New Yorkers, would campaign for him in coming weeks.Mr. Zeldin is favored to receive his party’s endorsement on Tuesday. But Mr. Wilson’s late entry into the race last week and the effort to draft Mr. Pataki to attempt a comeback point to some discontent around Mr. Zeldin, who has a long legislative track record in Albany and Washington that includes voting to overturn the 2020 elections results.That could be a major liability in a general election against Gov. Kathy Hochul, the likely Democratic nominee and a relative moderate who some Republicans believe will be harder to beat than her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace, would have been.Ms. Hochul is “a refreshing change from all of the nonsense that people were subjected to,” said former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, a Republican who said he has not yet decided how he will vote. “That’s going to be much tougher for Republicans, notwithstanding that the congressman, Lee Zeldin, is a very fine person, he’s done a good job. I think the Trump business, though, is going to hurt him.”Asked about those dynamics, Mr. Zeldin argued that voters are animated by other issues and said he was focused on “reversing the attacks on wallets, safety, freedom and our kids’ education.”But there is no question that Mr. Trump will be a factor both in the coming months of the primary and in the general election.Mr. Wilson, who has pledged to spend roughly $10 million of his own money in the race, is viewed privately by some Democrats as a stronger general election contender, but it has often been difficult for candidates who did not support Mr. Trump to make it through Republican primaries. Mr. Wilson voted for him in 2016 but wrote in Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, in 2020, he said.Mr. Wilson, the party’s 2010 nominee for comptroller, is casting himself as an outsider with a record of turning around companies and a focus on matters of public safety, the economy and quality of life. He and Mr. Zeldin have both started spending on airtime.“We desperately need capable, rational leadership in Albany,” he said.Representative Tom Reed, a Republican in the state’s Southern Tier who is set to retire this year, said he was concerned that his party was headed for a messy primary that could undercut its chances in a race for governor that is already an “uphill battle.”“My hope is that it’s not bloody, that it’s not negative and we get through it as quickly as possible and unite,” said Mr. Reed, who was contemplating his own bid for governor before he was accused of inappropriately touching a lobbyist. “Because we all know winning the governor’s office in New York is a very, very difficult path to traverse for a Republican, even in a wave year.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      ‘I’ll Stand on the Side of Russia’: Pro-Putin Sentiment Spreads Online

      by

      After marinating in conspiracy theories and Donald J. Trump’s Russia stance, some online discourse about Vladimir Putin has grown more complimentary.The day before Russia invaded Ukraine, former President Donald J. Trump called the wartime strategy of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “pretty smart.” His remarks were posted on YouTube, Twitter and the messaging app Telegram, where they were viewed more than 1.3 million times.Right-wing commentators including Candace Owens, Stew Peters and Joe Oltmann also jumped into the fray online with posts that were favorable to Mr. Putin and that rationalized his actions against Ukraine. “I’ll stand on the side of Russia right now,” Mr. Oltmann, a conservative podcaster, said on his show this week.And in Telegram groups like The Patriot Voice and Facebook groups including Texas for Donald Trump 2020, members criticized President Biden’s handling of the conflict and expressed support for Russia, with some saying they trusted Mr. Putin more than Mr. Biden.The online conversations reflect how pro-Russia sentiment has increasingly penetrated Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, right-wing podcasts, messaging apps like Telegram and some conservative media. As Russia attacked Ukraine this week, those views spread, infusing the online discourse over the war with sympathy — and even approval — for the aggressor.The positive Russia comments are an extension of the culture wars and grievance politics that have animated the right in the United States in the past few years. In some of these circles, Mr. Putin carries a strongman appeal, viewed as someone who gets his way and does not let political correctness stop him.“Putin embodies the strength that Trump pretended to have,” said Emerson T. Brooking, a resident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council who studies digital platforms. “For these individuals, Putin’s actions aren’t a tragedy — they’re a fantasy fulfilled.” Support for Mr. Putin and Russia is now being expressed online in a jumble of facts, observations and opinions, sometimes entwined with lies. In recent days, commenters have complimented Mr. Putin and falsely accused NATO of violating nonexistent territorial agreements with Russia, which they said justified the Russian president’s declaration of war on Ukraine, according to a review of posts by The New York Times.Others have spread convoluted conspiracy theories about the war that are tinged with a pro-Russia sheen. In one popular lie circulating online, Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump are working together on the war. Another falsehood involves the idea that the war is about taking down a cabal of global elites over sex trafficking.In all, pro-Russian narratives on English-language social media, cable TV, and print and online outlets soared 2,580 percent in the past week compared to the first week of February, according to an analysis by the media insights company Zignal Labs. Those mentions cropped up 5,740 times in the past week, up from 214 in the first week of February, Zignal said.The narratives have flourished in dozens of Telegram channels, Facebook groups and pages and thousands of tweets, according to The Times’s review. Some of the Telegram channels have more than 160,000 subscribers, while the Facebook groups and pages have up to 1.9 million followers.(It is difficult to be precise on the scope of pro-Russian narratives on social media and online forums because bots and organized campaigns make them difficult to track.)Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kyiv this week. The square was the center of Ukraine’s 2014 revolution.Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesThe pro-Russia sentiment is a stark departure from during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was viewed by many Americans as a foe. In recent years, that attitude shifted, partly helped along by interference from Russia. Before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Kremlin-backed groups used social networks like Facebook to inflame American voters, creating more divisions and resistance to political correctness.After Mr. Trump was elected, he often appeared favorable to — and even admiring of — Mr. Putin. That seeded a more positive view of Mr. Putin among Mr. Trump’s supporters, misinformation researchers said.“Putin has invested heavily in sowing discord” and found an ally in Mr. Trump, said Melissa Ryan, the chief executive of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that researches disinformation. “Anyone who studies disinformation or the far right has seen the influence of Putin’s investment take hold.”At the same time, conspiracy theories spread online that deeply polarized Americans. One was the QAnon movement, which falsely posits that Democrats are Satan-worshiping child traffickers who are part of an elite cabal trying to control the world.The Russia-Ukraine war is now being viewed by some Americans through the lens of conspiracy theories, misinformation researchers said. Roughly 41 million Americans believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to a survey released on Thursday from the Public Religion Research Institute. This week, some QAnon followers said online that Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was simply the next phase in a global war against the sex traffickers.Lisa Kaplan, the founder of Alethea Group, a company that helps fight online misinformation, said the pro-Russia statements were potentially harmful because it could “further legitimize false or misleading claims” about the Ukraine conflict “in the eyes of the American people.”Not all online discourse is pro-Russia, and Mr. Putin’s actions have been condemned by conservative social media users, mainstream commentators and Republican politicians, even as some have criticized how Mr. Biden has handled the conflict.“Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is reckless and evil,” Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday.On Tuesday, Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois who was censured recently by the Republican Party for participating in the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, criticized House Republicans for attacking Mr. Biden, tweeting that it “feeds into Putin’s narrative.”Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      CPAC: A Bacchanal of Right-Wing Pageantry, Passion and Grievance

      by

      While U.S. leaders are dealing with war in Europe and disruption of the global order, the leading lights of MAGA America are in central Florida this week for that annual bacchanal of right-wing pageantry and passion known as the Conservative Political Action Conference.With all the serious challenges the nation has faced of late, now seems like a perfect moment for serious conservative thinkers and activists to come together in pursuit of serious solutions. That, alas, is not what happens at CPAC.Put on annually by the American Conservative Union, whose name pretty much explains its aim, the confab may once have been about ideology or actual policy. But for years, the gathering has been better known as a multiday fringe fest featuring some of the most outrageous players on the political right.This time, it promises to be largely a celebration of former President Donald Trump and his angry MAGA vision for the nation — which makes it less distinct from the broader Republican Party than it once was. But such is the debased state of modern conservatism, and — for those who have the stomach for it — this circus can tell you a lot about the state of American politics.For most of its nearly five decades, CPAC was held in the Washington, D.C., area, the better to lure Very Important Politicos to the festivities. Last year, the Covid pandemic drove it out of the region — way too many local mandates for this freedom-loving crowd — and the event landed in Florida, the adopted home of one Donald J. Trump. But even if the former president were not a Florida Man, there is arguably no place more conducive to letting one’s freak flag fly than the Sunshine State. And providing a safe space to fly those flags has long been at the heart of CPAC.Damon Winter/The New York TimesThis year’s lineup provides the same caliber of thought-provoking offerings that the conference’s fans and foes alike have come to expect. Among the scheduled panel discussions are “The Moron in Chief” and the more baroquely titled “Put Him to Bed, Lock Her Up and Send Her to the Border.” The latter session will feature crack analysis by Jack Posobiec, the conspiracymonger known for scampering down the rabbit holes of crank theories such as Pizzagate.Asinine titles aside, the presentations offer a glimpse into what is obsessing the G.O.P.’s activist base. Among this year’s hot topics is clearly the threat of wokeness, inspiring multiple offerings, including “Awake Not Woke,” “Woke Inc.” and “Fighting Woke Inc.” A legal chat about “defending the canceled” seems to fit the theme as well.There are several presentations related to schools, including “School Boards for Dummies,” “Domestic Terrorists Unite: Lessons From Virginia Parents” and a town hall on the fittingly misspelled “Pupil Propoganda.”Mock if you will, but Republicans will wrap these culture war issues around Democrats’ necks in the coming midterms. CPAC is a prime venue for test-driving their material.Some offerings are more incendiary than others. Take “The Truth About Jan. 6: A Conversation With Julie Kelly,” who wrote the book “January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right.”Then there’s “Lock Her Up, for Real,” featuring the former representative and enduring Trumper Devin Nunes; Kash Patel, a Nunes aide turned controversial Pentagon staff member; and Lee Smith, the author of a book purporting to show how Mr. Nunes uncovered the secret deep state plot to bring down Mr. Trump. So. Much. Fun.The conference set list includes some classics as well. “Obamacare Still Kills” should provide a warm dose of nostalgia. Ditto “I Escaped From Communist North Korea.” The enduring menace of Communism is always a crowd-pleaser at CPAC.The gathering’s educational component should not be pooh-poohed. Attendees tired of all the pandemic hubbub will want to catch the Saturday morning breakout session “Lock Downs and Mandates: Now Do You Understand Why We Have a Second Amendment.” And aspiring public servants surely learned a lot from the session “Are You Ready to Be Called a Racist: The Courage to Run for Office.”A couple of the presentation titles go so far as to name-check individuals who really rile up conservatives, so it is illuminating to see who rises to that level of distinction. This year’s honorees are the CNN host Don Lemon (“Don Lemon Is a Dinosaur: The New Way to Get Your News”) and Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia (“Sorry Stacey, You Are Not the Governor”).The lineup of speakers is as telling as the panels and town halls. Who’s in? Who’s out? Who’s got the loser time slots? This year features appearances by conference old-timers like Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s longtime frontman, as well as rising MAGA stars like Donald Trump Jr., who scored the closing speech, and his fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, an infamously high-octane orator. (One word for her: decaf.)An array of presumed presidential hopefuls/Trump lickspittles are having have their moments as well. Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are all on the program. Former Vice President Mike Pence is not, having declined his invitation.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is generating the most buzz, mostly because the chattering class is giddy at the prospect of spotting even a hint of friction between Team DeSantis and Trumpworld. Mr. DeSantis is considered a top — maybe the top — 2024 presidential contender.Unlike some 2024 hopefuls, he has not pledged to sit the race out if Mr. Trump runs. This has not gone over well in Trumpworld. It is perhaps unsurprising then that the governor was given a not-so-great speaking slot this week: early on the opening afternoon, wedged in between a presentation by Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, and a speech by Florida’s lieutenant governor.Mr. Trump will speak at 7 on Saturday evening, serving as basically the keynote of the gathering.As the convention unfolds, look for breathless updates on the dynamic between the governor and the former president — especially as the time draws nigh to announce the results of the annual straw poll on who should be the next president.Last year, Mr. DeSantis was the solid winner when Mr. Trump was not among the options. This year’s results are likely to get more scrutiny than President Biden’s upcoming Supreme Court pick (OK, maybe not quite so much). That said, it’s worth remembering that, in the pre-Trump age, Senator Rand Paul won the poll three years running — 2013, 2014 and 2015 — with a Cruz win in 2016. So it’s best not to get too wrapped up in the predictive power of these things.Until recently, it was best not to take CPAC in general that seriously as a political barometer. But with the G.O.P. eaten alive by Trumpism, there isn’t much left of the party beyond its raging MAGA base. Which makes this four-day spectacle as representative of Republican politics as any event.Just one more thing to keep you up worrying at night.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

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      As French Elections Loom, Macron Tries to Strike a Balance

      by

      The news media calls the French president “Jupiter,” the king of the gods, but he is trying to show a more human face. Will it soften his image?PARIS — Rarely has a modern French leader embraced the powers of the presidency as forcefully as Emmanuel Macron. From his earliest days in office, Mr. Macron was called “Jupiter” by the news media, the king of the gods who ruled by hurling down lightning bolts.But if that image has helped Mr. Macon push through his agenda, it has also made him a special focus of anger among his opponents in a way extraordinary, even by the standards of a country where the power of the presidency has little equivalent in other Western democracies. “Death to the king” has been a frequent cry in recent years during street protests, along with makeshift guillotines.As elections approach in April, that image has also become a political liability and left Mr. Macron struggling to strike the right balance between quasi king and electoral candidate in a political culture that swings between an attachment to monarchy and a penchant for regicide.“I’m someone who’s rather emotional, but who hides it,” the president said, lowering his eyes in the gilded ballroom of the Élysée Palace, during a recent two-hour television interview. “I’m someone who’s rather very human, I believe,” he said.Mr. Macron, the Le Monde newspaper wrote, sought to “symbolically kill Jupiter.”Still, Mr. Macron has taken full advantage of presidential prerogatives to so far avoid even declaring his candidacy for a second term — though it is considered a foregone conclusion. That has allowed him to delay descending from the throne of the “republican monarch,” as the presidency is sometimes called, to engage in early battle with his opponents.Mr. Macron on a screen outside the Louvre in Paris in May 2017, the month he became president. He rejected his two predecessors’ attempts to modernize the institution of the presidency.Francois Mori/Associated PressInstead, to increasing criticism, he has run a stealth campaign for months, reaching out to voters and leaving his challengers to squabble among themselves.“His goal is to show that he’s a good-natured monarch, a human monarch, but with authority,” said Jean Garrigues, a leading historian on France’s political culture. “His challengers’ goal is to show Macron as a helpless monarch, someone who has the powers of a monarch, but who’s incapable of putting them to use.”“That’s the great French paradox,” Mr. Garrigues added. “A people permanently in search of participatory democracy who, at the same time, expects everything of their monarch.”France’s president as a “republican monarch” was the product of the father of the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle. The wartime hero and peacetime leader, through a disputed national referendum in 1962, turned the presidency into a personalized, popularly elected office, an all-powerful providential figure.“You have power around one man who is the politician with the most power in his system of all Western nations,” said Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science at the University of Nice and an expert on leadership in democracies. “There is no equivalent of the power of the president of the republic, with checks that are so weak.”Under Mr. Macron, the national assembly has become even less of a counterweight. His party, La République en Marche, was a vehicle he created for his candidacy; many of its lawmakers, who hold a majority in the national assembly, are neophytes beholden to him.Campaign posters for Mr. Macron’s political party on a wall in Paris in January, carrying the slogan, “Avec vous,” or “With you.”Benoit Tessier/ReutersMr. Macron, experts say, chose two weak prime ministers in a bid to exercise direct control over the government, even replacing his first prime minister after he became too popular. At the same time, as president, Mr. Macron is not held accountable by Parliament, unlike prime ministers.“We shouldn’t mix the roles of the president and the prime minister,” said Philippe Bas, a center-right senator who served as secretary general under President Jacques Chirac in the Élysée Palace. “What Macron has done is to absorb the function of the prime minister, which is a problem because he can’t appear in Parliament to defend his draft laws.”That imbalance has allowed Mr. Macron to push economic reforms through Parliament, sometimes with little consultation — or no vote, in the case of an overhaul of the French pension system that had provoked weeks of strikes and street protests, but was ultimately put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.Mr. Macron oversaw a crackdown on Yellow Vest protesters that raised the issue of police violence to a national level. His pandemic measures were adopted behind the closed doors of a “defense council,” and included a state of emergency and one of the strictest lockdowns among democracies. He has not fulfilled an earlier pledge to empower Parliament by introducing proportional representation.Mr. Macron’s full embrace of presidential prerogatives and his image of aloofness combined to expose the limits of France’s democratic institutions, Mr. Martigny said. Protesters have directed their anger at Mr. Macron, he added, because the increasingly weak Parliament and other government institutions are incapable of addressing their concerns.“Doubts about the institution of the presidency have come to the fore much more during Macron’s five years in office, especially during the Yellow Vest crisis, which showed there was a real problem with the system,” Mr. Martigny said.A rally to protest Covid-19 restrictions, including a health pass, in Paris in September. Mr. Macron’s pandemic measures have been adopted behind the closed doors of a “defense council.”Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesHe added that Mr. Macron tried to work around the institutional limits with democratic experiments. He defused the Yellow Vest protests, which were set off by a rise in the gasoline tax, by single-handedly engaging in marathon town hall events for two months in a “great debate.” And he announced the creation of a citizens panel to draw up proposals on climate change.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

    • 75 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      ‘Dark Money’ Suddenly Dominates Australia’s Election

      by

      Chinese financing, unreported donations, payouts from coal barons: The new political season is shining an unaccustomed light on a culture of opacity.SYDNEY, Australia — When Dr. Ken Coghill served in the Victoria state legislature in the early 1980s, he joined a movement to reform Australia’s campaign finance system, which allowed donations to slosh through politics, with donors mostly able to hide their identities and contributions.Dr. Coghill, a Labor leader at the time, said he was outraged because the so-called dark money undermined the principle of all voters being equal, giving unidentified donors and their chosen candidates or parties “a very considerable advantage.”Nearly 40 years later, Dr. Coghill is still outraged, because little has changed. But now, that culture of cashed-up secrecy is suddenly defining the start of the federal election campaign that will determine whether the current conservative prime minister remains in power.With an election due by the end of May, Australians are not being treated to policy debates but rather accusations of shadowy Chinese financing, failures to report large donations, and payouts to climate-change warriors from coal barons.“The flow of money is increasing, but also the political culture is becoming eroded,” said Han Aulby, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. “There’s a sense that if you can get away with things, you do it.”Compared with the United States, Australia’s campaign season is shorter and less costly, as is the case for many countries with parliamentary democracies. But even among its peers, such as Canada and New Zealand, Australia is a laggard on campaign finance regulation. Research from the Center for Public Integrity shows that over the past two decades, the source of nearly $1 billion in party income has been hidden.Some scholars argue that Australia’s opacity reflects a distinct set of cultural idiosyncrasies: a belief that transparency is not an obvious social good and a sense that those in power should decide what the public needs to know.A view of the Sydney waterfront. A majority of Australians believe corruption in politics is a common occurrence.Isabella Moore for The New York Times“The prevailing view in Australia is still that the government owns the information — it is not held on behalf of the citizens — and if people want it, it should not be automatically available,” said Johan Lidberg, a media professor at Monash University. “That sits at the very core here. We haven’t shifted away from that yet.”The money fight this time follows a period of increased public concern about corruption.In a country far wealthier than it used to be, where infrastructure money has been known to flow toward political friends, and where government secrecy keeps expanding, polls show overwhelming support for an anti-corruption body at the federal level. A majority of Australians now believe corruption is a common occurrence.The center-right Liberal Party of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had promised to do something about that after winning the last election, in 2019, but never followed through. Now, with support for his government’s pandemic management in decline, he has begun using dark money as a theme on which to attack his political opponents.The effort started with accusations of money and support from China.This month, Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the country’s main domestic intelligence agency, warned in his annual threat assessment that the authorities had foiled a foreign interference plot involving a wealthy individual who “maintained direct and deep connections with a foreign government and its intelligence agencies.”Mr. Morrison at a campaign rally in Sydney during the last election in 2019. His campaign pledge to create a federal agency to crack down on corruption has so far gone unfulfilled.Mick Tsikas/EPA, via ShutterstockThe “puppeteer,” he said, had hired someone in Australia and set the person up with hundreds of thousands of dollars procured from an offshore bank account.Speculation immediately turned to Beijing. The next day, in Parliament, Australia’s defense minister, Peter Dutton, said the Chinese Communist Party had chosen to support Anthony Albanese, the Labor party leader, “as their pick.” Mr. Morrison followed up by calling Labor Party leaders “Manchurian candidates.”Critics called the remarks scaremongering. The Labor Party has said it did nothing wrong, and Mr. Burgess has pushed back against the partisan attacks.“Attempts at political interference are not confined to one side of politics,” he said last week.Nor are accusations about hidden money.Zali Steggall, a political independent who entered Parliament in 2019 after defeating Tony Abbott, a former prime minister, with a campaign focused on fighting climate change, has run into her own problems. An Australian Electoral Commission review found that she did not correctly report a $100,000 donation in 2019 from the family trust of a former coal company executive.The commission’s review found that the gift — the largest single donation she received — was not reported because after the check had been received, the money was split into eight separate contributions that were under the $13,800 disclosure threshold.Ms. Steggall called it “a rookie mistake.” She argued that previous investments in coal should not prevent someone from donating to candidates supporting a greener future, and insisted that she did not know the donation had been misreported. Corrected last year, it has come to light now as several independent candidates are threatening to unseat Liberal incumbents in part with money from centralized issue-oriented organizations.Zali Steggall, a political independent who is a member of Parliament, failed to correctly report a $100,000 donation in 2019 from the family trust of a former coal company executive.Lukas Coch/EPA, via ShutterstockThe Steggall campaign’s financial controller is now a director of one such group, Climate 200.“What this highlights is there are a lot of people who are happy to throw stones, but they’re often in glass houses,” Mr. Morrison said.What it actually shows, according to advocates for a more transparent approach, is how the current system has been encouraging a spiral of misbehavior.Disclosures of donations for federal elections are still released just once a year, in unsearchable scans of documents riddled with errors and omissions. Supporters of reform have called for real-time reporting and lower thresholds for reporting donations.“This is an issue that has bubbled along since the early 1970s,” said Dr. Coghill, who is a professor of government at Swinburne University of Technology, as well as a veterinarian.“In a way, that’s a reflection of Australia’s relative isolation,” he added. “We don’t have frequent contact with people in other countries that do have more rigorous regimes in place.”But Ms. Aulby, who founded the Center for Public Integrity in 2016, said that many Australians were starting to question what happens in the shadows where favors and financing intertwine.She said one of the most blatant tactics to hide money involved “associated entities” — essentially shell companies that distribute donations.Both major parties rely on them. Labor, for example, received 33 percent of its income from 1998 to 2021 from associated entities, for a total of more than $120 million.Campaign posters outside a polling station in Melbourne in 2019. Both major parties rely on shell companies to hide donation money.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York TimesThe Liberals brought in even more from their associated entities — about $140 million in the same period, according to the center, amounting to 42 percent of all the party’s reported income.“They do a lot of business, but I don’t know who their directors are or if they and their money are from the resource or banking industry,” Ms. Aulby said.The consequences of that approach, however, are becoming more visible. Last month, Transparency International recorded a drop for Australia in its annual corruption index, giving the country its lowest score since the organization adopted its current measurements in 2012.Polls in Australia also show growing alarm. That has become especially true after the current government assigned public funds to sports infrastructure projects in districts that it needed to win in the last election, even when no one applied for the grant money.In those cases, the Morrison government stonewalled and refused to release its final internal report on what happened with more than $70 million in grants. The minister in charge of them was demoted only temporarily.“Scandal after scandal is happening without any consequence,” Ms. Aulby said.But once the accusations begin, the cycle can be hard to stop. Last week, Mr. Morrison was busy attacking opponents and their supposed financiers; this week his own coalition partner was being dragged through the media for failing to disclose a payment of 1 million Australian dollars ($721,000) from an influential property owner in the capital, Canberra.“There needs to be some consequences — electoral consequences, because there aren’t other consequences happening,” Ms. Aulby said. “I hope that voters have that in mind in the upcoming election.” More