Liberals’ Doug Hoffman Problem

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Three elections scheduled for Tuesday—the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races and the special House election in New York’s 23rd district—have garnered national attention in recent weeks. Now it seems possible, and perhaps likely, that Democrats will lose all three contests. Creigh Deeds looks dead in the water in Virginia, John Corzine could easily lose in New Jersey, and the conservative party candidate, Doug Hoffman, looks set to win in NY-23. The actual impact of losing all three races would not be nearly as large as the perceived impact. But in Washington, perception often morphs into reality. 

A Republican sweep of the races the media has chosen to focus on (there’s another House special in California that Dems are almost certain to win) will doubtless be spun as a rebuke of President Barack Obama and his “liberal” governing agenda. If Hoffman wins in NY-23, it will hammer home that narrative—with support from national Republicans, Hoffman pushed a moderate Republican, Dede Scozzafava, out of the race. Scozzafava has since endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens, who is actually more conservative than she is on some social issues. Andrew Sullivan says a Hoffman win would eventually be bad news for the GOP:

From the mindset of an ideologically purist base – where a moderate Republican in New York state is a “radical leftist” – this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over.

Perhaps. Scozzafava’s destriction has certainly emboldened conservatives to think that they’ll be able to deny another moderate, Charlie Crist, the Republican nomination for Senate in Florida.

But I think Hoffman’s success, especially among independents (he leads them 52-30 in PPP’s latest poll) signals a different, deeper problem for liberals. As the recent WSJ/NBC poll highlighted, Americans really don’t trust government. Much of that, I suspect, is the result of the bank bailouts—as Neil Barofsky, TARP’s inspector general, pointed out last month, the bailouts did immense, lasting damage to the public’s faith in their elected officials. “This cannot be seen as just a Wall Street bailout,” Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chair of the House banking committee, famously warned when Hank Paulson came asking for $700 billion last year. But that’s exactly what happened.

Even though Paulson and George W. Bush asked for the bailout money, it’s liberals who will pay the price in the long run. Liberalism is based on the idea that government offers solutions to people’s problems. When you don’t trust the government, Doug Hoffman’s argument that there should be less of it seems awfully appealing.

This is why liberals’ biggest priority should be restoring people’s faith in government. Part of that requires actually solving people’s problems. That means fixing the economy. It would also help to if Democrats avoided bailing out any more widely reviled industries, and maybe regulated some stuff. But even if Democrats can’t fix things right away, they can still institute  reforms that go to the heart of why people don’t trust their representatives—including, crucially, public financing of elections. The public sees politicians—almost all of them—as bought and paid for. Public financing would go a long way towards fixing that.

UPDATE: Jim Newell somewhat sarcastically summarizes here.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate