Primaries and Caucuses

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      It’s a Long Leap From Sports Team Owner to U.S. Senator

      by

      Alex Lasry, son of a majority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, learned there’s a difference between making fans happy and appealing to voters.MILWAUKEE — When Alex Lasry dropped out of the Democratic primary for Senate in Wisconsin on Wednesday, he said “there was no path to victory,” something no owner of a sports franchise ever wants to admit. He said he had concluded he could not beat Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and urged voters to rally behind Barnes to defeat the Republican incumbent, Senator Ron Johnson, in November.Lasry, 35, is a son of a billionaire owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, and has an ownership stake of his own valued at more than $50 million. He made the team, the 2021 N.B.A. champion, the centerpiece of his campaign by playing up the work he had done as a Bucks executive to help build Fiserv Forum and deliver higher wages to union workers. He frequently donned Bucks quarter zips, vests and other gear. He even traveled around the state with the N.B.A. trophy, drawing criticism for using it as a campaign prop.There are plenty of former athletes and coaches who have made the jump from the playing field or the sideline to Capitol Hill: Bill Bradley, J.C. Watts, Tom Osborne and, more recently, Tommy Tuberville.But it is much less common for the owners of sports franchises, whose faces are not so familiar, to inspire the same level of electoral fandom.Lasry’s wife, Lauren, held their daughter, Eleanor, as he spoke with a fairgoer. A native of Manhattan, he moved to Milwaukee in 2014 to work as a Bucks executive.Sara Stathas for The New York TimesSome owners have had a hard time keeping sports out of the conversation. During his unsuccessful Republican primary campaign for Senate in Ohio, Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians, was lambasted by former President Donald J. Trump over the team’s decision to change its name from the Indians, which Trump mocked as a sop to the politically correct.And in Georgia, Kelly Loeffler attacked the Black Lives Matter movement, so incensing members of the W.N.B.A. team she owned at the time, the Atlanta Dream, that they campaigned against her. She lost her Senate seat to Raphael Warnock, whose 2022 opponent is Herschel Walker, the former N.F.L. running back.Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, a previous owner of the Bucks, was a rare team owner who made it to Washington. But he was already a known quantity through his family’s grocery and department stores and as chair of the state Democratic Party.“Herb Kohl put in the legwork,” said State Senator Chris Larson, a Milwaukee County Democrat who dropped out of the primary last August and endorsed Barnes. “Lasry and his family were just trying to come in and buy that.”Alex Lasry grew up in Manhattan as a son of Marc Lasry, a hedge fund manager and Democratic fund-raiser. A star point guard for his high school team who continues to play pickup basketball regularly, Alex Lasry moved to Milwaukee in 2014, after his father was part of a group that purchased the Bucks that year from Kohl for $550 million.Marc Lasry, center, celebrated after the Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns to win the 2021 N.B.A. championship at Fiserv Forum.Jonathan Daniel/Getty ImagesWhen he began his Senate candidacy in February 2021, Alex Lasry had to overcome skepticism that his résumé was light on accomplishments and heavy on nepotism. By late June, he had surged to a clear second in a crowded field of longtime politicians, according to a Marquette Law School survey. He had also lined up an impressive roster of supporters — including Cavalier Johnson, the mayor of Milwaukee — as well as labor leaders who credited him with being a strong community presence.“I find him very easy to talk to, very down to earth,” said Daniel Bukiewicz, president of the Milwaukee Building & Construction Trades Council.Lasry largely self-funded his campaign, pouring $12.3 million into it even though he initially said he would depend on grass-roots support. In the second quarter of 2022, his campaign spent $6.7 million — or more than his Democratic rivals combined.He also had some notable donors from the sports world, like Jerry Reinsdorf and Michael Reinsdorf of the Chicago Bulls, who were beaten by the Bucks in the playoffs this year, and Stephen Pagliuca and David Bonderman, owners of the Boston Celtics, the team that bounced the Bucks from the playoffs. Other contributors were Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner; Jason Kidd, the Bucks coach when Lasry arrived in Milwaukee; Casey Close, a prominent sports agent; and Rachel Nichols, a former ESPN broadcaster.Alex Lasry, left, celebrated with Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee, in March 2019 after the announcement that the Democratic National Convention would be held at Fiserv Forum. Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, via Associated PressOn his Senate disclosure form, filed in August 2021, Lasry listed $100 million to $273 million in assets. One investment was his partnership in Sazes Partners, a family holding company, records show.Through Sazes, Lasry reported owning $5 million to $25 million of Sessa Capital, a private equity fund. John Petry, the founder of Sessa Capital, has played in charity poker tournaments with Marc Lasry to benefit Education Reform Now, a nonprofit advocacy group.The Lasry family’s ties to Sazes did not become public before he quit the race, but they might have caused a stir if they had. Sessa is the fourth-biggest shareholder in Chemours, a manufacturer of PFAS, which have been linked to cancer and are often called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in water. Chemours is among the companies being sued for environmental contamination — including, last week, by Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul of Wisconsin.Asked last week about Lasry’s substantial family stake in a major Chemours shareholder, Christina Freundlich, a campaign spokeswoman, said that Lasry applauded the efforts of Evers and Kaul “holding any and all polluters accountable” and that he has urged Congress to establish PFAS regulations.No matter. By Wednesday it was game over. At a news conference in front of the Fiserv Forum, Barnes praised Lasry’s campaign, saying he departs without having made any new enemies.That’s a notable achievement for a politician or a sports owner.Kitty Bennett More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Alex Lasry Ends His Senate Bid in Wisconsin

      by

      Alex Lasry, a Milwaukee Bucks executive who largely self-funded a Senate campaign in Wisconsin, dropped out of the Democratic primary on Wednesday, leaving Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes as the favorite for the nomination to face Senator Ron Johnson.Mr. Lasry, 35, whose billionaire father is a co-owner of the Milwaukee N.B.A. franchise, spent more than $12 million on his primary campaign but never eclipsed Mr. Barnes in polling. With less than two weeks to go before the state’s Aug. 9 primary, Mr. Lasry concluded he could not win the race.“It’s become clear in the last few weeks that Wisconsin voters have decided they want Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes to be our Democratic nominee,” Mr. Lasry said on Wednesday. Mr. Lasry formally endorsed Mr. Barnes at an event outside the Bucks’ arena in downtown Milwaukee on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Lasry’s decision was first reported by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Another candidate, Tom Nelson, the Outagamie County executive, who ran a spirited but underfunded campaign, dropped out on Monday and endorsed Mr. Barnes. Mr. Lasry was Mr. Barnes’s chief rival for the nomination, though Sarah Godlewski, the state treasurer, and several other candidates remain in the race.The primary was a relatively tame affair, with few negative attacks and little animosity between the candidates as they vied to face Mr. Johnson, a Republican loathed by the Democratic base for his amplification of false theories about the coronavirus pandemic and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.But Mr. Barnes, 35, has ample political vulnerabilities of his own. He has been cited for paying his property taxes late and has taken a variety of positions on immigration, at one point holding an “abolish ICE” shirt and more recently opposing the Biden administration’s proposal to end Title 42, a Trump-era policy that was introduced during the pandemic and was used to turn away migrants at the Mexican border. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Class Divisions Harden Into Battle Lines in Arizona’s Republican Primary

      by

      PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. — As Shardé Walter’s family cut back on everything from camping trips to Eggo waffles to balance their inflation-strained budget this summer, she became more and more fed up with the Republicans who have governed Arizona for more than a decade.“You’ve got those hoity-toity Republicans, and then you’ve got ones like me — just trying to live,” Ms. Walter, 36, said as she waited for former President Donald J. Trump to arrive at a rally on Friday for his slate of candidates in Arizona’s bitterly fought Republican primaries.“We’re busting our asses off,” she continued, “but we’re broke for no reason.”The Aug. 2 Republican primary in Arizona has been cast as a party-defining contest between traditional Republicans and Trump loyalists, with the power to reshape a political battleground at the heart of fights over voting rights and fair elections. Several leading Republican candidates in Arizona for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and U.S. Senate have made lies about the “stolen” 2020 election a centerpiece of their campaigns.But the choice between traditional conservatives and Trump-backed firebrands is also tapping into working-class conservatives’ frustrations with a state economic and political system firmly controlled by Republicans, highlighting the gap between voters who have profited from Arizona’s rising home values and tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy, and those who feel left out and are eager to punish the Republican establishment at the ballot box.“It’s like ‘The Great Gatsby’ — old versus new,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research with the polling firm OH Predictive Insights, which is based in Phoenix. “It’s a very telling moment for the G.O.P. Are they going the way of MAGA, or the McCain-Goldwater conservative way that gave them dominance over the state?”Supporters watched Mr. Trump speak on an outdoor screen at the Findlay Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, Ariz.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesSeveral leading Republican candidates in Arizona for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and U.S. Senate have made lies about the “stolen” 2020 election a centerpiece of their campaigns.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesNational surveys of Republicans show that voters’ views of Mr. Trump and the 2020 election are fracturing along lines of education.A New York Times/Siena College poll released this month found that 64 percent of Republican primary voters without a college degree believed that Mr. Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. Forty-four percent of Republican voters with a bachelor’s degree or more said Mr. Trump was the winner.Mr. Trump was still a clear favorite for Republican voters with a high school degree or less, with 62 percent saying they would vote for him in the 2024 Republican presidential primary if the election were held today. Less than 30 percent of Republican primary voters with college degrees said they would vote for Mr. Trump.In Arizona’s race for governor, the Republican establishment has coalesced around Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy real estate developer pitching herself as a competent leader who has been reliably conservative ever since her days as a staff member in the Reagan White House.The Trump wing of the party is locked in behind Kari Lake, a Trump-endorsed former news anchor who has stoked an anti-establishment rebellion fueled by falsehoods about the 2020 election and provocations like vowing to bomb smuggling tunnels on the southern border.Ms. Robson has cut into Ms. Lake’s early lead in the polls, but recent surveys suggest that Ms. Lake is still ahead.Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 6The state of the midterms. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Liz Holtzman Wants Another Crack at Congress, 50 Years Later

      by

      She shattered glass ceilings, voted to impeach Nixon and helped chase out Nazis. But can Ms. Holtzman overcome one more political hurdle: her age?Elizabeth Holtzman has heard the doubters, the skeptics and the New Yorkers who were mildly surprised that she is still alive, let alone up to the challenge of running for Congress at age 80, half a century after she became one of the youngest women ever to serve there.“The 1980s wants its candidate back,” quipped Chris Coffey, a Democratic political strategist, recalling his first reaction when he heard that the pathbreaking former congresswoman, feminist and New York City official had launched a comeback bid.To all of that, Ms. Holtzman, a Democrat, says that she is not only happily among the living, but ready to prove that she is every bit as pugnacious as when she left electoral politics some three decades ago.So on a recent July evening, she stepped into a green kayak and paddled laps somewhere between Brooklyn and Manhattan, pointing a reporter toward the Statue of Liberty, the crumbling Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and a lifetime of fights that she regrets are urgently new again.“I was really angry,” Ms. Holtzman, an avid kayaker, said back on dry land, explaining how the leak predicting the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had driven her out of a long political retirement and into an improbable campaign for New York’s newly reconfigured 10th District.“I was angry at the result, but the so-called reasoning was even scarier because it made women second-class citizens, bound by the thinking of people who were misogynist in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,” she said. “So, I decided to run.”The Aug. 23 Democratic primary for a rare open seat in the heart of liberal New York City has attracted no shortage of head-turning candidates, including a sitting congressman from Westchester County; an architect of Donald J. Trump’s impeachment; a Tiananmen Square protester; and rising stars in their 30s, and until recently, a former mayor of New York City.But the race’s most surprising twist may be the re-emergence of Ms. Holtzman, who, in a summer of intense Democratic anxiety, is asking voters to set aside pressing concerns about aging leadership in Washington and return a storied fighter to the arena who first made her name during the Nixon era.Ms. Holtzman during an unsuccessful bid in the Democratic Senate primary in 1993.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesIf she pulls off an upset, the candidate who was once the youngest woman elected to Congress could set another record — as the oldest known nonincumbent in the House of Representatives’ long history (surpassing James B. Bowler of Illinois, 78, and Will Neal of West Virginia, 81) after she turns 81 next month.That possibility has left longtime admirers, former foes and a whole generation of voters who have scarcely heard of her at least a little baffled, particularly in a summer when questions about President Biden’s age (79) are front-page news and Senator Dianne Feinstein has shown the perils of taxpayer-funded senescence.Her opponents make a broader argument: For all her experience and evident mental acuity, Ms. Holtzman is simply out of step with the challenges facing New Yorkers trying to make it today in an increasingly unaffordable city. And if she won, they grumble, she would block an important steppingstone for a new generation of New York leaders.“The problems that need to be solved in this country would benefit from voices that have lived and experienced them,” said Carlina Rivera, 38, a City Council member from Manhattan who is considered a leading contender in the race.“For many people in their 40s or younger, they’ve only ever experienced more transience than a sense of security in their jobs, their benefits, their housing and their education,” she added. “I fit into that category.”Ms. Holtzman uses the same logic, only in reverse.It is her own experiences — working in the Civil Rights-era South, fighting for abortion rights in the 1970s and challenging a Republican president undermining democratic norms (Richard M. Nixon) — along with a sense of national backsliding that she says persuaded her to re-enter electoral politics. Otherwise, she would most likely be spending summer weekends kayaking her beloved Peconic River on Long Island instead of zipping around the city to crowded candidate forums and paddling with reporters.“I’m not a person who sits on the sidelines,” she said in an interview at a cafe near her Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, home after the boating outing. “I’ve taken on the right wing, I’ve taken on presidents, and I can stand up to them.”Ms. Holtzman knows that her campaign is a long shot, but she has been here before. At the age of 31, she became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 1972, decades before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed the title, by defeating a 50-year Brooklyn incumbent, Emanuel Celler and the Democratic Party machine. She was the first (and only) woman to serve as district attorney in Brooklyn and as New York City comptroller.A legal mind with a prodigious work ethic, Ms. Holtzman was hardly an average backbencher. As a House freshman, she battled Nixon to the Supreme Court over war powers and later used her perch to help track down and deport Nazi war criminals from the United States and fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. Then as district attorney, she pushed the courts to curb the use of peremptory challenges to keep African Americans off juries because of their skin color.There were also bitter disappointments. She came within a percentage point of being New York’s first female senator in 1980, badly lost a Senate primary in 1992 and then, a year later, was ousted after a single term as comptroller amid a banking-related scandal that undercut her ethical record.Elizabeth Holtzman, on a recent kayaking jaunt off the Brooklyn shore, said she knows she needs to overcome “preconceptions about people my age.”Mary Inhea Kang for The New York TimesIn the interview, Ms. Holtzman likened questions about her age to arguments that a woman was not fit to serve as district attorney and drew a distinction between herself and Celler, whom, decades earlier, she had portrayed as tired and out of touch.“There are obviously some preconceptions about people my age. Can they do the job?” she said. “I feel I have something unique to offer. And I’m not tired. That’s the whole point.”Unsurprisingly, many of Ms. Holtzman’s defenders are older. But some of them are unexpected.“Biden’s decline has made it more difficult for those who are older,” said Alfonse M. D’Amato, 84, the former Republican senator who defeated Ms. Holtzman in 1980. “But that doesn’t mean that every person who is older can’t do the job. Maybe the experience that life has given them makes them as capable or more so.”Ms. Holtzman’s allies argue that her boundary-pushing style, which helped win a generation of admirers (many of whom still vote), has the potential to offset concerns about her advanced age among younger, progressive voters hungry for authenticity.It also makes Ms. Holtzman something of an appealing safe harbor for some older voters who say now is not the time to take a chance on a promising but less seasoned politician, like Ms. Rivera or Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, 39.“She is kind of a dream candidate for me,” said Eileen Clancy, an activist in Manhattan who recalled as a child watching Ms. Holtzman participate in the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate hearings.“I’m probably much more aligned with Yuh-Line’s policies,” Ms. Clancy said. “But I have to say, considering the country is in an uproar now and the questions at hand, I think Holtzman is uniquely capable. She could add a gravitas to Congress, and she has the backbone and nothing to lose.”With a dozen candidates in the race and a highly abbreviated campaign timeline, any winning candidate probably only needs a small slice of the vote. A pair of recent polls of likely primary voters by progressive groups showed Ms. Holtzman in the middle of the pack, neck and neck with Representative Mondaire Jones and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon.But the challenge for Ms. Holtzman may be reaching and turning out potential supporters who do not realize she is running.Though she has stayed active in private legal practice and on federal commissions and has written books, her political network thinned long ago: Gloria Steinem, a feminist contemporary, is her only recognizable endorser. As of Friday, her campaign Instagram account (run by hired consultants) has only 25 followers — a dozen more than her Facebook page.And when other candidates showed up with colorful signs and volunteers to march in Brooklyn’s Pride parade in June, Ms. Holtzman walked alone with little indicating she was running for anything.Her fund-raising operation? “It’s rusty,” Ms. Holtzman said just before her campaign reported raising $122,000, about one-tenth of the amount raised by Daniel Goldman, another Democrat in the race. “Getting it geared up and functioning like a lubricated machine, it’s not happening yet.”So far, Ms. Holtzman has sent out a single glossy mailer that touts her record and her “guts” — but could also serve to surface questions about her age. “Sometimes a picture’s worth 1,000 words,” she said, describing a photograph it features of her with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal Supreme Court justice who died at age 87.Bill Knapp, a veteran political ad maker who got his start working for Ms. Holtzman in 1980 and is working on this year’s race, conceded the race was “no layup,” but argued that Ms. Holtzman had a lane, particularly in the shadow of the abortion decision.“There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical,” he said. “But when you take a measure of the person and the times, this is possible.” More

    • 100 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Wes Moore Wins Democratic Primary for Maryland Governor

      by

      Wes Moore, a celebrity author and former nonprofit executive who campaigned as a political outsider, has won the Democratic primary for governor of Maryland.Three days after voting concluded, The Associated Press declared Mr. Moore the winner late Friday over Tom Perez, a former labor secretary and Democratic National Committee chairman; Peter Franchot, the state comptroller; and six other candidates.Mr. Moore, a best-selling author who for a time hosted a show on Oprah Winfrey’s cable network, cast himself as a dynamic newcomer in a race in which his top rivals were all veterans of Maryland or national politics. In addition to an endorsement from Ms. Winfrey, he had the backing of the Democratic leaders of both chambers of the Maryland legislature and three members of the state’s congressional delegation — a strong showing for a first-time candidate.Mr. Moore, who would become Maryland’s first Black governor if he wins, will be a heavy favorite in the general election against Dan Cox, a Republican state legislator who was endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Cox has amplified an array of election conspiracy theories, and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, he called Vice President Mike Pence “a traitor.”Democrats are seeking to retake the Maryland governor’s office after eight years in which it was occupied by Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican who is among the nation’s most popular governors.Mr. Hogan, who endorsed Mr. Cox’s rival in the G.O.P. primary, is prohibited by state law from seeking a third term. Despite his popularity, he was unable to transfer his support to Kelly Schulz, a longtime ally who served in his cabinet for seven years. Mr. Hogan said Wednesday that he would not support Mr. Cox.Results from Maryland’s Democratic primary for governor, along with a number of other key races, were delayed because state law prohibits absentee ballots returned through the mail or in drop boxes from being counted for two days after Election Day.On Thursday, election officials across the state gathered to begin the laborious process of inspecting and opening absentee ballots, allowing campaigns to review ballots that prompted any questions, and feeding the ballots through voting machines.Mr. Moore prevailed in the primary despite questions about the veracity of the biography he has presented. He is not a Baltimore native, as he has claimed, and his tenure as a nonprofit executive in New York was marked by an episode in which his assistant was fired after a dispute regarding overtime pay for personal work she was doing for Mr. Moore.Unlike a host of recent Democratic primaries, the party’s contest for Maryland governor didn’t turn on sharp ideological differences between the candidates. Instead the race centered on which candidate could build coalitions across ideologies. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Baltimore Prosecutor Defeated in Democratic Primary Amid Legal Woes

      by

      Marilyn Mosby, who rose to national prominence for her handling of the death of Freddie Gray, was indicted in January on charges of perjury and financial misconduct.Marilyn Mosby lost her bid for a third term as Baltimore’s top prosecutor on Friday, ending a tenure that had thrust her into the national spotlight but was marred by legal difficulties.Ms. Mosby, 42, was defeated in a Democratic primary race by Ivan Bates, a defense lawyer. The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Bates on Friday evening, three days after the election.When Ms. Mosby became state’s attorney for the City of Baltimore in 2015, she was 34 years old, the youngest top prosecutor in any major American city. Several months into her first term, she drew national attention when she announced that she would prosecute six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who died in police custody after suffering a spinal injury.The officers faced charges including manslaughter and murder, but none were ultimately convicted. Three were acquitted by a judge, who said there was insufficient evidence, and Ms. Mosby dropped the remaining charges against the three others, a divisive decision in the closely watched case.In 2018, Ms. Mosby easily won a second term, running against the same primary challengers as in this year’s race: Mr. Bates and Thiru Vignarajah, a former prosecutor.Then in January, she was indicted on charges that she had perjured herself to obtain money from a retirement fund and had made false statements on two loan applications to buy vacation homes in Florida.According to the indictment, Ms. Mosby filed two requests in 2020 through the CARES Act to withdraw about $90,000 from her city retirement account, claiming that the pandemic had caused her financial difficulties, even though she was gainfully employed and making nearly $250,000 a year. She used the money for down payments on homes in Kissimmee and Longboat Key, prosecutors said.She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.A spokesperson for Ms. Mosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.Mr. Bates, a managing partner at a Baltimore law firm, served as an assistant state’s attorney for the City of Baltimore from 1996 to 2002. He said that if elected, addressing crime in the city would be one of his top priorities.“I’m very humbled,” Mr. Bates, 53, said in an interview after his victory, adding: “We have a beautiful, amazing city. And right now, we’re a little bruised.”Baltimore is on track to record more than 300 homicides for an eighth straight year, along with increases in carjackings, robberies and other serious crimes. Concerns about police misconduct in the city have not evaporated seven years after the death of Mr. Gray ignited protests and rioting, but persistent violent crime has pushed voters’ tolerance to the breaking point.Mr. Bates will face Roya Hanna, a former prosecutor who is running as an independent, in the general election. There are no Republican candidates in the race. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Gail Collins: I Was Wrong About Mitt Romney (and His Dog)

      by

      Sean DongI’ve been thinking about columns I’ve come to regret over the years. Hmm, lots of potential there. But let me go back to Mitt Romney.When Romney was running for president, I tried to see how many times I could find a way to mention that the candidate once drove to Canada with a dog strapped to the roof of his car.The result was sort of epic. People wound up counting and I used the story more than 80 times. Which was … kind of a lot.In my defense, I was supposed to be writing diverting columns about the 2012 presidential race, which featured Romney versus then-incumbent Barack Obama. Romney had gotten national attention as the Massachusetts moderate who pushed through a breakthrough state public health care plan that became a prelude to Obamacare, but he suddenly lost interest in that kind of thing and began referring to himself as “a severely conservative Republican governor.”This will give you an idea of both his politics and his verbal dexterity. Those of us who were around then also won’t forget his claim that as governor he pressed for more sexual balance in staff hiring and got himself “binders full of women.”Anyhow, those little breaks were few and far between. The campaign was extremely boring, and I really did have to stretch to find some fun ways to approach it. Obama was deeply, deeply offended when I hunted down an old Chicago associate who revealed he was a mediocre poker player.But Romney was the real challenge. The story about the dog on the roof came from a Boston Globe profile in which his son told a reporter about the time their pet pooped from his perch and messed up the car’s rear window.It was supposed to be an example of Romney’s sense of organization. Got that car and dog hosed down at a nearby service station.I’d probably have stopped mentioning it if Romney, when asked about the story, had said something like: “Yeah, it was back when my sons were little — nobody could possibly drive from Massachusetts to Canada with five boys and an Irish setter hopping around the back. And you know, he was in a really safe crate.”But no, he just bristled and retorted, “The dog likes fresh air.”The campaign progressed. And I was getting kind of desperate. I’m sure you’ve long since blocked it out of your memory banks, but Romney was a truly sleep-inducing candidate. It was sort of a high point when he mentioned that he cared desperately about “Americans” except, um, not “the very poor.”This was after a big primary win in Florida when he added that “there’s no question it’s not good being poor.”OK, that was a very long time ago. Since then, Donald Trump got elected president and those of us who make fun of politicians for a living moved into a land of perpetual opportunity. During which I got to point out nine million times that in an earlier stage of his career, Trump had sent me a copy of one of my columns, scribbling “a dog with the face of a pig” next to my picture and also managing to misspell the word “too.”He’s not president now, of course, but Trump is running still, claiming the election was stolen, dancing a happy dance for the N.R.A. conventioneers, bragging that on his watch Putin “would never, ever have gone into Ukraine.” Romney is now in the Senate, where he was the only Republican who voted to remove Trump from office during both of his impeachments and, recently, was the only Republican to vote against repealing Joe Biden’s mask mandate.He also, of course, supports Mitch McConnell and his party’s agenda. If you don’t agree with that, it’s hard to get all that nostalgic about what might have been. But the one lesson I take away from my Seamus period is that there are some things that are way worse than boring.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 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      How Dan Cox Won the Republican Race for Maryland Governor

      by

      Maryland’s Republican contest for governor was the third election this year in which Democrats have effectively teamed up with Republicans loyal to former President Donald J. Trump to help a far-right candidate win a blue-state primary.Weeks ahead of Maryland’s Republican primary for governor, private Democratic polling showed the Trump-endorsed candidate, Dan Cox, with a slight lead over his establishment-backed rival, Kelly Schulz, a former cabinet secretary to Gov. Larry Hogan.But polls showed that once Republican voters were told Mr. Cox, who spent just $21,000 on TV and radio advertising, had been endorsed by Mr. Trump and held staunchly conservative views on abortion, his advantage ballooned.The Democratic Governors Association proceeded to spend more than $1.16 million on TV ads reminding Republican voters of Mr. Cox’s loyalty to Mr. Trump and endorsement from him.Mr. Cox won his race on Tuesday by double digits. He became the latest Republican primary winner to demonstrate both the power of the party’s far-right base in selecting G.O.P. nominees and the establishment wing’s inability to halt Democratic meddling in primaries.On Wednesday, Mr. Cox — who wrote on Twitter during the Capitol riot that Vice President Mike Pence was a “traitor” — dismissed the idea that he had been propped up by Democrats. They supported his primary bid in the belief that he cannot win the general election in Maryland, which Mr. Trump lost by 33 points in 2020.“The Democrats didn’t win this race,” Mr. Cox said in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” the morning program watched regularly by Mr. Trump. “The arguments of my opponent were replayed over and over again, smearing me.”The chief antagonist of Mr. Cox’s campaign was less any future Democratic opponent or even Ms. Schulz than it was Mr. Hogan, who won two terms as governor of an overwhelmingly Democratic state by focusing on Maryland’s economy while avoiding thorny social issues.Mr. Cox’s strategy of playing to the Trumpist base of the party won him a commanding primary victory, though tens of thousands of uncounted absentee ballots are likely to narrow his 16-point margin.Still, sowing division among Republicans and alienating moderate Democrats is the opposite of how Mr. Hogan won the last two elections. Mr. Cox is likely to face challenges broadening his support.Mr. Cox’s Democratic opponent is likely to be Wes Moore, a best-selling author and former nonprofit executive.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesIn the past, Mr. Cox has associated himself with followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory. He has tweeted the group’s hashtag, and in April he appeared at an event called Patriots Arise at a hotel in Gettysburg, Pa., that was organized by a right-wing social media influencer whose website has promoted a QAnon slogan.There, Mr. Cox promoted a similar brand of Christian nationalism that has animated the campaign of Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, who has endorsed Mr. Cox.“The Constitution does not give us our liberties. It merely protects those that were given by God,” Mr. Cox said at the event. “We have natural rights that supersede any governor, any government, any official, all of which is based upon the fact that we are created in his image.”Mr. Cox, in his Fox interview on Wednesday, played down the suggestion that he would not be able to build a winning coalition.But Mr. Hogan didn’t wait 24 hours before signaling that he would not vote for Mr. Cox. “The governor will not support the QAnon candidate,” said Mr. Hogan’s spokesman, Mike Ricci.Mr. Cox’s campaign manager, his daughter Patience Faith Cox, declined an interview request.The state’s business community, after eight years of being aggressively courted by Mr. Hogan, might soon turn to the Democrats.Rick Weldon, the president of the local chamber of commerce in Frederick, Md., said on Wednesday that he had better conversations about the needs of small businesses in the state with Wes Moore, who leads the still-uncalled Democratic primary, than with Mr. Cox, a state legislator from Frederick.“Mr. Cox is a crusader,” Mr. Weldon said. “Crusaders, once they get elected, make relatively ineffective elected officials.”Democrats’ backing of Mr. Cox was helped by Ms. Schulz’s minimal attempts to define him as unelectable. She never attacked him in television ads, hoping to employ the Hogan strategy of appealing to all manner of Republicans while also winning a substantial amount of Democratic votes in November.Kelly Schulz, Mr. Cox’s top rival, raised about $2.5 million through early July — about five times as much as he took in.Matt Roth for The New York TimesOfficials at the Democratic Governors Association bore no guilt about elevating a series of election-denying, Trump-loyal candidates who would seek to ban abortion, among a range of other measures, if they prevail in November.David Turner, a spokesman for the D.G.A., said his organization was focused on “winning these elections in November.” If giving a boost to far-right candidates increases the chances that Democrats will prevail, he said, it is worth the risk of placing in a governor’s mansion someone like Mr. Cox, Mr. Mastriano or Darren Bailey, an Illinois state senator who was the beneficiary of $35 million of Democratic advertising before winning his primary last month.“If the Republican Party had more leaders and less cowards at the top willing to speak truth to their voters, this lane wouldn’t even exist,” Mr. Turner said.Ms. Schulz had raised about $2.5 million through early July — about five times as much as Mr. Cox took in.But unlike Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia, who imported a host of ambitious Republicans looking to create some daylight between themselves and Mr. Trump with voters, Ms. Schulz never sought to make her contest a referendum on Trumpism.Campaigning with national Republican figures would have made an already difficult general election much harder, said Doug Mayer, Ms. Schulz’s senior adviser.“You don’t play to win the primary, you play to win the general,” Mr. Mayer said. “In Maryland, that is a very, very, very difficult line to walk.”Mr. Cox’s Democratic opponent is likely to be Mr. Moore, a best-selling author and former nonprofit executive. Mr. Moore holds a 35,000-vote lead over Tom Perez, a former Democratic National Committee chairman. At least 169,000 Democratic absentee votes remain to be counted, but the number could be more than 300,000: Ballots postmarked by Tuesday will count as long as they are received by July 29.On Thursday morning, election officials across Maryland will begin processing the absentee ballots received in the mail and in drop boxes. The counting is expected to take several days.Elizabeth Dias More