This week's Democratic primary election for Philadelphia district attorney could presage outcomes in the 2022 and 2024 elections, but not in the way the winner would like.
Foreigners are often surprised that Americans elect most of their local prosecutors -- and that these prosecutors can become major forces in public force. But we do and they can.
Thomas Dewey, as a 38-year-old Manhattan district attorney, was a major presidential candidate in 1940 and was the Republican nominee in the following two elections. Pat Brown got his political start as San Francisco DA, and he and his son, Jerry, were governors of California for 24 of the 60 years from 1958 to 2018. Vice President Kamala Harris' first electoral office was also San Francisco DA.
In Philadelphia, Arlen Specter switched to the Republican Party to be elected DA in 1965 and reelected in 1969, and a young assistant DA he hired, Ed Rendell, in 1977 defeated the man who beat him in 1973. Their careers as senator, mayor and governor lasted until 2010.
Politically upwardly mobile DAs have typically been tough on crime. That's not the case -- just the opposite -- for Larry Krasner, the incumbent Philadelphia DA who was renominated Tuesday, and for the other "reform" prosecutors backed by billionaire George Soros, who have been elected in Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston.
Krasner, a longtime criminal defense lawyer, replaced almost the entire staff, promised never to seek the death penalty, decriminalized prostitution and theft under $500, and reduced charges in controversial homicide and domestic abuse cases.
As for Philadelphia's huge increase in homicides -- 499 were killed in 2020, the most since 1990 -- Krasner blames them on COVID-19 and shutdowns. He doesn't seem to connect that with the "mostly peaceful" protests and Black Lives Matter demands for defunding the police that began after George Floyd died last May.
Sympathetic media and academe take the same view. A January New York Times article looking back on the 2020 crime spike never mentions BLM or the protests in its 1,983 words. A Princeton sociologist interviewed in The Atlantic avoids mentioning BLM and, while admitting police withdrawal from "dominating public spaces" was followed by an upsurge in crime, nevertheless denies that "protests cause violence."
Evidently, most Philadelphia Democratic voters -- or those who showed up on Tuesday -- agreed. In figures available at this writing, Krasner defeated challenger Carlos Vega by a 65% to 35% margin. But reported turnout was only about 164,000, far under the 743,000 in November 2020, when Philadelphia voted 81% to 18% for Joe Biden.
The result possibly would have been closer, or different, with a larger turnout. Another Soros-backed "reform" prosecutor, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, had more difficulty running for reelection in 2020, after abruptly dropping charges against hate-hoaxing actor Jussie Smollett in 2019.
Foxx won renomination with just 50.2% over three opponents last March and won reelection over a Republican in November, with just 54%, far below Joe Biden's 74% the same day and the 72% she won in 2016. That's with presidential-year turnouts of 892,000 and 2.2 million, respectively.
Other Soros-backed "reform" prosecutors may face political backlash. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner faces misconduct charges in her case against former Gov. Eric Greitens, and there has been talk of recalling San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon.
But the real political peril may come to national Democrats. Their kente cloth-clad congressional leaders took a knee for Black Lives Matter in June 2020 and then suffered unexpected House seat losses in November. "The Republican attacks against the 'defund the police' movement," a recent post-mortem concluded, "proved more potent than Democrats ever anticipated."
Soros-backed "reform" prosecutors have won in jurisdictions dominated by central cities with large black or Hispanic populations and whose white liberal college-graduate voters, as The New York Times' Thomas Edsall has noted, are more "anti-racist" than blacks.
Almost entirely absent in these cities and counties are the white ethnic non-college-graduate homeowners who cast crucial votes against soft-on-crime mayors and prosecutors in the high-crime years of 1975 to 1995. Staten Island and Queens made Rudy Giuliani mayor of New York in 1993, and blue-collar Delaware suburbs with Philly TV prompted Joe Biden to sponsor the crime bill in 1994.
But most such voters in "reform" prosecutor constituencies have died or moved to Florida or Texas or far-out exurbs. Where they still linger, in downscale Cook County suburbs, they've voted anti-"reform."
The problem for Democrats is that there are many more like-minded voters beyond these heavily Democratic cities and counties, and that poll after poll after poll shows support dwindling for Black Lives Matter and defunding the police -- even, as their increased support for Donald Trump in 2020 suggests, among some Hispanics and blacks.
For just as liberal voters tend to vastly overestimate police violence against blacks, so Soros' "reform" prosecutors seem to underestimate the number of offenders capable of repeated vicious violence. Unfortunately, there are some people who are genuinely vicious and unpredictably violent, from whom the larger public deserves and demands protection. If the body count goes on, Soros' "reform" prosecutors may hang on, but a lot of Democrats across the country may not.
Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
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23 comments:
Soros owns the largest auto dealer group in Mississippi.
And he's the one behind Marxist BLM and the Defund the Police rioters and Left Wing Activists and leftist candidates here.
And Tater Et Al wholeheartedly endorsed Jeff Bezos's acquisitions here in Desoto and Madison County. Swallowed it with pride.
Remember come buying a new car time and election time.
If you want to play the political pantomime and pretend the two parties are different, then fo right ahead. I prefer to live in reality. The truth is that both political parties serve the only the global central banking families. The politicians merely serve as the overseers of the slave plantation. This is why nothing ever truly changes and we either have a slow (democrats) or slight slower (republicans) march to tyranny.
What’s with all the MSM drivel that’s been posted recently?
So the DA’s crime is not blaming a spike in Philadelphia murders on BLM?? That’s hardly the support for or link with BLM this “author” is trying to convey.
And making Soros the boogeyman? That’s such a tired play. This article presents a nothing-burger and reeks of desperation.
See you in 2022.
@12:28
You are correct.
The overseers job is pull the strings for make the town slaves conspire with the field slaves against the house slaves so that they all fight and never rise up against the plantation master or the overseers.
@1:07
Shills gonna shill. Kingfish is a shill for the rootless cosmopolitans.
Next month he will be posting Ted Turner’s unironic musings on global population reduction and Richard Branson’s observations on the authenticity of the third world lifestyle.
Soon he will give us his personal review of The Iceman Inheritance by Michael Bradley.
@12:28 gets it. Until we overthrow our masters, we will forever be at each others' throats while the elite live it up in their paradise.
I'm re-evaluating some things. I picked up three national columnists and am trying them out for a while. One of them, Dan Berger, writes about wine. Such a topic um, caters to my audience and judging by the traffic, y'all read it.
I've also added Michael Barone and Salena Zito, two veteran political reporters and columnists. I like columnists in the Bob Novak or Jack Anderson vein. Guys who aren't just spouting opinions but dig for some facts as well.
2:09 PM
No shame in expanding horizons KF. I mean as much horseshittery that happens in Jackson Metro Area there is a limit to interesting stuff happening day to day.
Michael Barone is one of the best political writers and commentators around. Read and watched him on McLaughlin Group and other shows for years. The ill informed Goobers who attack him have no clue about how respected he is. Keep Barone.
Writing for the WE and you call him a reporter. Give it a break Fish this is pure propaganda.
Mr. Fish:
Have you considered Charlie Cook's "The Cook Political Report?"
Excellent writing and appears to be an astute analyst and not partisan.
Although I voted for Mr. Trump (twice, but not in the same election) I occasionally like to peruse old numbers of the "I.F. Stone Weekly," last published in 1971. Such good writing. Our "journalism" sector could use some modern day Izzy Stones.
P.S. Was too young (by just a couple of years) for Vietnam and too old for everything else.
Kingfish,
Please find someone who writes about Mississippi like an edgy Walt Grayson. I want to read historical stories about Natchez Trace Highwaymen and Vicksburg brothels. Also, Jackson Wildcatters and Meridian Train Robbers. I have heard these stories as local legends in various county seats for years.
Aw hell, I may have to just write it myself.
This clown is probably regurgitating whatever the Koch brothers want printed. Funny how they never get mentioned around here, but Soros is blamed for every tooth ache and pothole in the western hemisphere.
4:03 PM
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....
Oh and you must not have seen KF's posts about that.
https://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2015/10/soros-drops-nearly-400000-in.html
https://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2019/08/soros-drops-500000-on-da-race.html
12:24. Soros is a very sick individual!
Better not go to sleep guys, the big bad scary Soros is gonna get you and turn you into a transgendered communist.
@8:53 - does he haunt you in your dreams too?
10:45 absolutely! Sad thing is that he has sons that will probably take over when he is dead and gone!
3:55: Easier said than done.
One upon a time, there were numerous newspapers around the state. The Clarion-Ledger would publish a collection of their editorials or columns every Sunday. However, many of them have died off or are aging out. Who are writing columns today? Rick Cleveland, Sid Salter, Bill Crawford, Robert St. John, and a few others. Notice something in common? They are all 60 or older. There really isn't anyone younger coming up through the ranks who is syndicated. Bryan Perry used to write a weekly until he went to work for Thad and then Andy. The Clarion-Ledger rarely publishes editorials. James Tulp wrote a pretty good column and you guys read it. He usually got more traffic than Salter and Crawford combined. I've thought about writing one but I don't want to trap myself into having to crank one out because I'm supposed to every week.
Gee...
How could Soros or the Kochs be the boogeymen of this country?
That could only happen if the voters were stupid and gullible and blindly partisan enough to allow shallow ads/promotions and paid "talking heads" to influence them when checking facts and studying the issues most important to a voter would be the wise alternative.
Any validity of this piece is erased by the obvious effort to fear monger with a "boogeyman". That calls ethics and intellectual honesty into question.
Always amusing that soooooo many anonymous people are so quick and ready to tell this independent business owner Kingfish how to run his publication.
Charlie Cook misses the side of the barn far more often than he hits it.
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