Making the click-through worthwhile: an eye-popping anecdote about how congresswoman Ilhan Omar won her first political race and a look at whether any of the three most controversial freshman Democrats could end up being one-and-done; one of the dumbest and most offensive statements from any local elected official ever; the ominous outlook for the National Rifle Association in the coming year; and an observation about Ronald Reagan the youngster.
How Likely Is It that AOC, Omar, and Tlaib Get Knocked Out in 2020 House Primaries?
Amy Holmes, writing at the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche, offers an eye-opening account of about Ilhan Omar’s primary victory in the Minnesota state legislature in 2014 over Phyllis Kahn, the longest serving woman in American electoral politics.
Kahn, the child of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, is not surprised by Omar’s outbursts. She warned in 2016 that she suspected Omar harbors anti-Semitic impulses. Kahn recounts an incident at a Minneapolis polling station during the 2014 local election where a Somali-American election judge was allegedly instructing voters in Somali that one voting line was for “our Somali brother” and the other for “the old Jewish lady,” meaning Kahn. The Star Tribune reported at the time that a Somali-American Kahn supporter submitted an affidavit accusing Omar — then, a city council aide — of “shouting instructions” to the election judge at the polling station. Kahn’s campaign filed a formal complaint. Omar denied the allegations.
Holmes also reports that there are Somali-Americans in Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District who aren’t pleased with how Omar is representing them on the national stage, and looking for options to replace her.
Back home in Minnesota, Kahn reveals to Die Weltwoche that, “There are a couple of Somali guys who keep calling me and want my help in helping get rid of her.” According to Kahn, they are searching for a candidate to field against Omar in Minnesota’s 2020 Democratic primaries. “They don’t like what she’s doing to their reputations” as Muslim Americans.
A successful primary challenge is a tall order; no Minnesota Democratic member of Congress has ever been unseated after just one term. But then again, few freshman members of Congress generate the controversy that Omar has.
Earlier this year, at least one not-yet-identified congressional Democrat urged the New York delegation to find a challenger to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “make her a one-term congresswoman.” What might make Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional career more complicated a bit further down the road is the 2020 census and redistricting. New York state is expected to lose a congressional seat after the next census, and Ocasio-Cortez may find herself facing off with another incumbent Democratic member of Congress. Because of her name recognition, ability to raise funds, and general approval rating, she would not be easy to knock off in any Democratic primary. But there is lingering voter discontent about Amazon’s decision to not open a new headquarters in New York City, which might give a primary rival a useful issue to emphasize.
The high-profile freshman Democrat who might have the most to worry about is Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. When John Conyers stepped down after sexual-harassment allegations, the district’s Democrats held two primaries for the same seat on the same day — a special election to serve the eight weeks remaining in Conyers’s term, and a regular primary to be the district’s representative in January. Tlaib narrowly lost the special-election primary to Detroit City Council president Brenda Jones but Tlaib won the general election one — by just 900 votes. In an interview in January, Jones said, “People have asked me to run for Congress again . . . Right now, I’m concentrating on the job that I’m doing as Detroit City Council president.”
Not a Lot of Nazis Are Named Shapiro or Run Delicatessens, You Know?
Speaking of Democratic lawmakers and accusations of anti-Semitism, my friend Tony Katz called my attention to this controversy about a Jewish deli owner getting accused of “feeding Nazis” by an Indianapolis city councilman.
As the National Rifle Association’s members arrived in Indianapolis, local eatery Shapiro’s Deli offered a message on Twitter welcoming NRA members, and urging them to eat there, as Donald Trump had in 2016.
Indianapolis City-County Councilor Zach Adamson criticized the restaurant for welcoming NRA members and declared on Facebook, “This is about bragging that you feed Nazis and then being shocked with (sic) all the locals avoid you.”
As you may have guessed, Brian Shapiro, the owner of the deli, is Jewish. Shapiro’s great-grandmother, fled Russia in the late 19th century because of pogroms, violent anti-Jewish riots.
First, NRA members are not Nazis, and the city councilman damages understanding of history when he makes knee-jerk accusations of people of being Nazis just because he disagrees with them on gun control. We can choke on the historical irony of Adamson labeling his political foes the name of a regime that banned the possession of firearms for any group they deemed a potential threat to their power and confiscated those firearms.
Second, it is not the job of local elected officials to denounce local eateries for “feeding Nazis.” Your job is to help your community thrive, not attempt to shut down businesses whose owners have the audacity to disagree with you.
The Most Dramatic NRA Convention in Decades, With Big Consequences for 2020
If you missed my coverage of the big surprises at the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meeting this weekend, read here and here. By the end of the day, the organization’s leadership could look completely different than a week ago, although my reading of the organization’s bylaws is that today can only start the ball rolling on sweeping changes. There might be a real push to replace Wayne LaPierre, the face of the organization and its longtime executive vice president, but I think the process of ousting him would take at least 15 days and require a hearing.
Even if you don’t care that much about who’s running the organization, what’s happening at the NRA leadership right now could have big consequences for the 2020 elections. It’s tough to say, “The NRA got President Trump elected,” but it was a close race and any one factor could have been the one that put Trump over the top in those key states. The NRA put a lot of financial resources into targeting women voters in those upper Midwest/Rust Belt states in 2016, and judging by Trump’s victories there, it worked.
Now the organization faces an intense investigation by New York state attorney general Letitia James, who has already called the organization a “terrorist group.” Ordinarily, the NRA’s best defense would be to point to James’s incendiary denunciations and call the investigation a politically motivated witch hunt, and LaPierre said as much at the convention Saturday morning.
But both LaPierre and North have traded letters accusing the other of impropriety and financial mismanagement, and recent investigations by The New Yorker quoted former employees of the NRA and its primary public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen, painting an ugly portrait of self-dealing and runaway spending. James might be pursuing a political vendetta, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing substantive to investigate. Nonprofits have to abide by certain laws and regulations, and if the NRA has violated them, James will no doubt pursue the most severe punishment possible.
One other point about the NRA’s messaging effort in 2016: It started early. President Trump needs the NRA to be cooking with all four burners as early in the cycle as possible . . . and it’s hard to see the current allegations and controversies sorting themselves out quickly.
ADDENDUM: With 76-year-old Joe Biden and 77-year-old Bernie Sanders competing for the right to take on 72-year-old Donald Trump, Jay Nordlinger reminds us that much was made of Ronald Reagan’s age in 1980 . . . when he was 69 years old.