Have the wheels come off in Michigan for Democrats?
With the Left now openly pushing propaganda that might have made Leni Riefenstahl blush, it certainly looks that way. Party leaders have gone on record advising voters to leave the Senate ballot blank rather than vote for Abdul El-Sayed. Jews in Michigan have begun to shift away from the Democrats, as have black voters in this contest. And now one of the most prominent fundraisers for Michigan's other Senate Democrat has endorsed Mike Rogers.
David Kramer told Jewish Insider that he can't bring himself to "support" Rogers, but he's by far the better alternative. And that's a change in his position:
David Kramer, a prominent Michigan Democratic fundraiser who served as the chair of Rep. Haley Stevens’ (D-MI) Senate campaign, told Jewish Insider on Monday in an interview and written statement that, despite reservations, he plans to support Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in next week’s Michigan Senate election.
Kramer, who also previously served as finance chair of Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-MI) Senate campaign, said he had been wrestling with whether to vote for Rogers or leave the Senate race on his ballot blank, but that Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s recent rhetoric provided a final push.
“As we get closer and closer to the general [election], it’s become clearer to me that Abdul is certainly not moderating at all, and I think really becoming more extreme and more dangerous and less responsive to the Jewish community,” Kramer told JI, while emphasizing that he remains a “proud Democrat” working to elect other Democrats on the ballot next week.
He said that he ultimately felt that it was more impactful to vote for Rogers than to leave the Senate race blank, and to publicize his decision to do so.
Kramer went well beyond his position last week. Kramer and former state party chair Lon Johnson argued in the Detroit Free Press that leaving the slot blank was sufficient to impede El-Sayed's ability to win the Senate seat:
Supporting a nominee after a hard-fought primary is an act of party unity, not a surrender of principle. Democrats asked to set aside their differences for U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed had every right to expect something in return: a commitment to earn their trust, address legitimate concerns and unite a party whose nomination he won with less than 50% of the vote.
He has failed that test. As a result, we will not vote for Abdul El-Sayed. Some may then conclude we, or other loyal Democrats, need to vote for a different party, but for many of us, leaving the ballot blank is an act of dignity.
That's quite a shift in "dignity" in just eight days. Why has Kramer gone from abstention to Team Rogers in the intervening time? El-Sayed's insistence that Israel was no ally and Iran was no enemy finally pushed Kramer across the aisle, at least in this one race:
Kramer said that El-Sayed’s recent comments arguing that Israel is not a friend or ally of the United States and is instead a threat to it, in his view, went beyond even the candidate’s previous rhetoric and were a “bridge too far.”
But he characterized it as the culmination of a consistent pattern of “this blood libel of ‘the Jews are to blame for everything’” from El-Sayed’s campaign.
“[El-Sayed] has repeatedly linked America’s problems to Israel, and by extension to Jews. Abdul strongly implies that Jews are to blame for higher prices and that … the middle class [has failed] to get ahead because Jews (AIPAC, Netanyahu, etc.) have strong-armed the American government into sending billions of dollars to Israel in aid and into fighting an unnecessary war in Iran,” Kramer explained in his statement.
Bear in mind that El-Sayed and his allies aren't even bothering with "dog whistles" any longer. They are openly campaigning on Jew-hatred and "free Palestine," espousing Marxist ideology and policies, and cheering for Iran over Israel. What else was Kramer to conclude from this campaign other than El-Sayed being a danger to Jewish people in Michigan and everywhere else?
The timing is interesting, too. El-Sayed got Barack Obama to appear this weekend in Detroit in a last-ditch attempt to shore up the Democrat base, especially among black voters. It didn't take Kramer long after Obama's self-serving appearance – and his sneering comments about middle-class tastes and the Cheesecake Factory – for Kramer to move from abstention to a vote for Rogers. One has to wonder how many other Michigan Democrats made that same decision after this weekend's flop and the Rebellion PAC ad that went even further in corroborating Kramer's view of El-Sayed's radical campaign.
The wheels may be coming off, and not just for El-Sayed. When will Jocelyn Benson speak up about that ad?