Ad Tries to Turn Blue Dot Cavanaugh Red

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Check with Jip. Brought to you by Operation
Blue dot Red, turning the second District Blue dot Red,
one podcast at a time. I'm trying to figure out
how the recent misdirection project aimed at John Cavanaugh might
relate to Operation Blue Dot Red. First, a disclosure. John

(00:20):
Cavanaugh and I are cousins in law. He's married to
my cousin. I shook his hand at the wedding nearly
twenty years ago, and so I'm at a gathering of
my cousin's family maybe a decade ago. That's my only
contact with him. I've had more contact with his father
and uncles. I've had dealings in political and philanthropic circles

(00:41):
with John the elder, former congressman and senior statesman of
the local Democratic Party. I got to know Douglas County
Commissioner Jim Cavanaugh when he was a lobbyist and I
was a state senator. The late Tom Cavanaugh, long time
Douglas County clerk, was one of the few people in
county government who would give me the time of day

(01:01):
when I was a Douglas County commissioner pushing for city
county merger. Young John is likely to be the Democratic
nominee for the congressional seat his father once held. There
are a half dozen Democratic candidates in the primary, which
I think secures it for Kavanaugh. He has his solid
corps of support. The others will divide up what remains.

(01:22):
He could win the primary with as little as a
third of the vote. Even in a smaller field. He
would be the likely winner and a formidable force in
the general election with his pedigree as a state senator
and the built in strength of the family political legacy.
That must be why a conservative group went after him

(01:44):
with a superficially congratulatory message that is meant to hurt
him in the Democratic primary. A campaign flier praised Kavanaugh
for embracing the Trump Maga agenda by supporting the effort
to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime. If you haven't
seen them yet, there are Kavanaugh campaign signs popping up

(02:06):
around town saying standing up to Trump. The thank you
ad from the Trump Maga Wright is intended to take
the wind out of that sale and ruin Kavanaugh's stature
as a Democratic leader ready to stand up to Trump.
I experienced something similar in the twenty sixteen Republican congressional

(02:27):
primary against Don Bacon. Don had the support of the local,
state and national Republican Party. I was the feisty Tea
Party MAGA conservative. In the home stretch of that campaign,
an organization aligned with the Democratic Party made a huge
advertising buy to run a campaign ad supposedly criticizing Don

(02:49):
and me, but really meant to undermine Don and promote me.
It criticized Don for being too centrist and me for
being too conservative. In primaries where only the party hardcore
tend to turn out, candidates often run to those hardcore voters,
to the liberals on the left in a Democratic primary,

(03:11):
to the conservatives on the right in a Republican primary,
and then the candidate's reverse course back toward the middle
in the general election. To criticize me for being too
conservative was supposed to be a signal to Republican primary
voters that they should rally to me. The Democrats apparently

(03:32):
believed Don would be the harder candidate to beat in
the general election, so they wanted to tip the scale
in my favor in the primary. I say apparently because
I had nothing to do with it. When I first
heard that a left wing organization had spent nearly half
a million dollars on an ad by attacking me, I

(03:54):
braced for the worst. I think it backfired. Most voters
saw through it. The Omaha rol Herald did a story
about the ad trying to trick GOP voters with a
quote unquote dog whistle, luring them to Maxwell. I had
Republicans coming up to me after campaign events saying I
love your message, but how can I trust you when

(04:17):
you are conspiring with Democrats to win the primary. It
ended up being a big mess for me and probably
helped Don if it had any impact at all. I
suspect the same will be true here with Kavanaugh. The
veil has been pulled back on the subterfuge, his base
of support will be unaffected. If I were Kavanaugh, I

(04:39):
would save the ad and use it in the general election. Yes,
it's true. I will reach across the aisle and support
a Trump policy if it's good for our district and America.
I'm not a scorched to earth extremist. I thank this
conservative group for recognizing that I am a reasonable leader,
willing to work with anyone for the good of the nation.

(05:00):
So I conclude that this misdirection effort might make it
more difficult to turn the blue dot red, but probably
won't have much impact. The key to turning the blue
dot red will be convincing voters in the general election
that Kavanaugh or any Democratic nominee will be a reliable
vote for a pro abortion, pro illegal immigration, pro socialist,

(05:25):
pro sexual anarchy agenda. More on that to come. That's
check with Chip. I'm Chip Maxwell. Thank you for listening.