Republican Superstar Losers
Is Trump just like Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams?
by Daniel J. Flynn
December 9, 2022, 12:10 AM
Do Republicans also suffer from a “Superstar Losers” phenomenon?
Jacob Stern of the Atlantic slapped that moniker upon Stacey Abrams and Beto O’Rourke even before their most recent political setbacks in November.
“American politics doesn’t have anyone quite like Haru Urara,” Jacob Stern wrote of the 0–113 Japanese racehorse in the Atlantic. “But it does have Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams. The two Democrats are among the country’s best-known political figures, better known than almost any sitting governor or U.S. senator. And they have become so well known not by winning big elections but by losing them.”
Republicans can see clearly why O’Rourke and Abrams both appealed to Democrats nationwide and why they lost, repeatedly, in their respective states. They both pushed hot-button issues that appeal to the base of their parties but alienate the majority of voters in Texas and Georgia.
Several Republican candidates adopted the same formula for fundraising and name-recognition success, but Election Day failure this cycle. The same ideological blinders that allowed Democrats to throw hundreds of millions of dollars down O’Rourke and Abrams’ perforated coffers obstruct conservatives from seeing that the candidates who often appeal most intensely to them grate most annoyingly to the mass of voters.
Kari Lake looks like the most obvious Republican example. She ran as though in a deep-red state despite needing votes in purple Arizona to win. She exuded charisma and provided, a la Donald Trump, catharsis to conservatives in using journalists as a punching bag. This 30-second clip showcases both Lake’s considerable gifts and poor judgment. Periodic media interactions like it made people who already loved her love her more and people in the middle view her as too combative and ideological. While elections sometimes act as a kind of massive group therapy, the purpose remains winning a majority of votes, not catharsis. If donors in Texas and Alabama could have voted in Arizona, then “Governor-elect” rather than “Ms.” would preface Lake’s name. Instead, like another Superstar Loser in 2018, she refuses to concede the very winnable gubernatorial race that she lost.
more
https://spectator.org/republican-superstar-losers/
