Caught Between the Electorally Disastrous and the Morally Monstrous
The great drama of politics is that no one knows the outcome of an election until the votes are cast. But some things about elections are pretty easy to predict—such as Republicans attacking Democrats on crime. Yet Democrats seem to have no answer to the attacks being lobbed at them in the final weeks of the midterm campaign, just as they are only now awakening to the fact that it might be wise to have an economic message for voters.
Crime is a devilish problem. Its causes are hard to understand and harder to influence. The trends run in long cycles, and although policy changes can alter the trends, they don’t do so quickly or simply. Expecting any candidate, or any party, to have a genuine answer to crime would be absurd. But crime is also politically potent, as Republicans grasp, and is thus fertile ground for attacks both fair and demagogic. (Just because you don’t have a simple, quick answer doesn’t mean you can’t claim you do.) In key races, Republicans have accused Democrats of being soft and ineffective on crime. They’ve attacked incumbents for over rising violence and for having cuts in police spending. In a Chicago apartment far from his farm as a way to spotlight crime.
