The Tone and Tenor of Political Discourse in Washington

Steve Adubato sits down with Mike DuHaime, Republican Strategist, and Partner, Mercury LLC, to discuss the tone and tenor of political discourse in Washington and his thoughts on Governor Murphy’s leadership.

12/7/2019 #327

Excerpt:

"We're pleased to be joined by Mike DuHaime, Republican strategist and Partner at Mercury. Good to see you Mike. Hi Steve. How are you? Good. A lot of stuff to talk about. We're taping on the 12th of November. Big picture first. We have no idea how this inquiry, this impeachment inquiry, is going to play out. What do you think the biggest challenge facing the president in this White House is right now? I think regardless of the outcome of the impeachment, if there's a vote, and if it goes to the Senate, I think this is... it looks bad in terms of the politics of this. It looks like he tried to gain some sort of political advantage through what happened there. So regardless of the outcome... With Ukraine? And the call? With Ukraine. Sorry, with Ukraine and the investigation into the Biden family. Even if it's not impeachable, it obviously is dominating the headlines. It looks like it was not done necessarily for the country's best interests. And he's certainly not talking about the economy or tax cuts or anything else that might be positive for his campaign. So it's just dominating the news in a way that never lets the president get out any type of positive message. Mike, you've managed presidential campaigns for Republicans. You were very close to Governor Christie. A very important advisor. How tough is it for Republicans these days with Trump as the president in terms of, if they do disagree or have something they want to say, whether they say it privately, publicly, or not at all? It's very difficult, because the president is very popular with the base of the Republican Party. He's still 80-90 percent extreme popularity with the base of the party. But at least in New Jersey and many other states in the Northeast, unpopular with independent voters. So it's very difficult to straddle that line. We saw that last week in the legislative elections in New Jersey. For the first time, really, since Trump became president, the Republicans were able to separate themselves a little bit and have some success, folks like Jon Bramnick and others in the suburbs being able to distinguish themselves a bit from the national party. It's interesting, and we're... by the way, if you're listening on the audio side or our podcast, this is Mike DuHaime, a longtime Republican strategist, managed statewide national campaigns, and the head of Mercury, one of the top agencies in the state. A question about Jon Bramnick. Yeah. He's coming in today. Bramnick is the leader of the Republican Party in the Assembly. A moderate, independent thinker. He's been on this set, Mike. Been critical of the president. Yeah. But he's also very critical of Governor Murphy, in his race which..."