The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
GOP shifts focus to House Dem ‘squad’ in 2020 campaign attacks
Move over, Nancy Pelosi. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the “squad” of freshmen women of color are emerging as new stars of Republican attacks against Democrats running for Congress.
The tone is being set from the top as President Donald Trump bashes the four squad members with a strategy Republicans are quick to mimic, modeled on his own rise to the White House. Trump set a new standard in 2016, making some Republicans uneasy, by taunting rivals and branding them with exaggerated nicknames intended to make them unelectable.
The GOP is embracing the tactic for 2020.
A first test will be a Sept. 10 special election in North Carolina, the state where Trump sparked the “send her back!” rally chant. The Trump-endorsed Republican, Dan Bishop, is portraying Marine veteran Dan McCready and other Democrats as “crazies,” “clowns” and “socialist.”
“These crazy liberal clowns ... They’re not funny,” Bishop says in one ad that features images of McCready, Pelosi and squad members to a soundtrack of circus music. “They’re downright scary.”
Yet it remains to be seen whether this line of attack will work. For years, Republicans relied on attacks depicting Pelosi, the House speaker, as an outof-touch San Francisco liberal as they tried to snap GOP voters to attention.
But singling out a new generation of female leaders is risky when Republicans are trying to prevent an exodus of suburban women and independent voters.
The attacks are especially fraught because two of the women — Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — are the first Muslim women elected to Congress, part of the historic freshmen class with more women and minorities than ever. The other two members of the self-described squad are OcasioCortez, of New York, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, DMass. Michael Fauntroy, an associate professor of political science at Howard University, said Republicans down the ballot are taking Trump’s cue with thinly veiled attacks on race and religion.
“Beating up on Pelosi isn’t such a big deal because she’s been around forever,” he said. “This ‘squad’ is perceived as a new threat and it’s this perfect collection of religion, race and policy position, all tied up in a neat little bow, if you will.”
It’s not just the North Carolina election where Republican candidates are running against the squad.
A Minnesota Republican warned voters off the squad and its home-state representative, Omar, who wears a headscarf, as he launched his campaign to unseat Democratic Sen. Tina Smith. And Republican strategists are trying to link other Democrats to the group’s liberal agenda by branding it “socialist,” even if the candidates have not signed on to the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and other liberal proposals favored by the four freshmen lawmakers.
“We will make every Democrat own de facto Speaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist agenda,” said Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “And if a member isn’t for it, what are they doing to stop it?”
Republican strategists believe the squad, like Pelosi, will provide a powerful focal point for attacks. Ocasio-Cortez is a recognizable name among voters — higher than some presidential candidates — and not all favorable, they say. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the main outside group aligned with House Republicans, is calling out freshmen Democratic lawmakers they say are “as woke” as Ocasio-Cortez and “palling around” with the New Yorker widely known as AOC. The NRCC routinely assigns Democratic candidates Trump-style nicknames.