On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, moderator Chuck Todd displayed a chart labeled “ads on impeachment aired, December 1-7.?
“GOP affiliated, 4,265,” said the chart, attributed to NBC News. “Dem affiliated, 1.”
Todd turned to panelist Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic campaign strategist. “I know that Democrats didn’t want to look like they were politicizing this,” he said, “but we’re at this public-opinion paralysis. … Republicans have done a paid media campaign, and it’s at least worked to get it to where we are.”
“Where we are” is close to evenly split as a nation and hardened in our positions. Two respected poll-aggregation sites, FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, show support and opposition levels for the House impeachment inquiry into Republican President Donald Trump basically where they were in early October, well before the House Intelligence Committee hearings that featured witness after witness testifying to Trump’s abuses of power.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the FiveThirtyEight average of polls showed 47.7% support for impeachment, and 45.0% opposition. The RealClearPolitics average of polls asking about impeachment and removal has support at 47.7%, opposition at 47.0%. Such narrow margins aren’t nearly enough to generate the sort of groundswell that would be necessary to prompt Republican lawmakers to renounce their support of the president.
“Democrats are running ads,” said Cutter when she got around to addressing Todd’s implicit question. “But they’re running ads on things like getting prescription drugs done or reforming the health care system.”
Impeachment, she said a moment later, is about “abuse of power and breaking the public trust. That’s serious. That’s not something you put on Facebook ads. … And Democrats will get credit for that.”
Charming! As if we lived in a nation where people disdained noise, spin and propaganda, and tuned out political ads in order to answer weighty questions for themselves. As if voters have shown any inclination whatsoever in recent years to reward issue-oriented high-mindedness.
What’s really going on is that Democrats are bringing a spork to a gunfight.
The Washington Post reported over the weekend that, in the last month, “independent big-money groups boosting Republicans have launched roughly $10 million in ads aimed at Democrats in districts that President Trump won in 2016,” while the Democrats patty-caked back with a two-week, $1.5 million campaign in support of their vulnerable candidates.
On Facebook, Republican ad spending has tripled Democratic spending, and “none of the 30 Democrats who are being targeted by national GOP groups ran Facebook ads in the past month to counter the attacks.”
Yes, impeachment in the House and a trial in the Senate ought to be dignified, truth-seeking, evidence-based procedures free from partisan cant and inflammatory histrionics. We all ought to weigh the facts against the demands of the Constitution and reach an independent judgment about whether the president has so grossly violated his oath of office that he should no longer serve.
But this is all taking place in the real world.
I have no doubt that the Democrats have made a solid case for impeachment. Yet I have no hope that, absent blockbuster new evidence, even a massive ad blitz would move the Republican-controlled Senate to muster the 67 votes in that chamber needed to convict and remove Trump.
That’s not the point of the call for more advertising. The point is that 31 Democratic members of the House are on the list of those who occupy seats in districts won by Trump in 2016 and thought to be particularly vulnerable in the 2020 election less than 11 months from now. That list includes Rep. Lauren Underwood of Naperville and Rep. Cheri Bustos of Moline. And if Republicans win back a little more than half of those seats, they’ll regain control of the House, which would be an epic disaster if the autocratically inclined Trump is reelected.
An effective campaign to counter the Republican campaign could help save the vulnerable members. Yes, the articles of impeachment presented Tuesday are strong. But bills of particulars don’t rile up the masses. A combination of images, music and thunderous narration in a barrage of TV commercials would be a far stronger way to persuade swing voters in these swing districts and elsewhere that the evidence against Trump is serious and persuasive enough for a person of principle to demand a trial in the Senate.
I’d suggest starting with spots attacking Trump for his cowardice — his fear of testifying under oath or allowing those in his inner circle to testify under oath about the White House’s dealings with Ukraine.
Tagline: What are they hiding?
Follow that with 30- and 60-second explanations of the damning timeline of events — how Trump released congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine only after he learned that someone had blown the whistle on his attempt to use that aid to coerce the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation into his U.S. political rival. Then a spot debunking the notion that Trump had genuine concerns about corruption and nepotism, including dripping allusions to how unclean his own hands are in this area.
Tagline: Trump is just the sort of president the Founders were afraid of.
The battle for the Republican Senate to convict appears hopelessly lost. But the battle for the approval of the voters who will shape the next four years has just begun. Jump in, Democrats!
Twitter @EricZorn
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