A Motto for Senate Democrats
Posted on September 3, 2014
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"Great Seal of the United States (obverse)" by U.S. Government - Extracted from PDF version of Our Flag, available here (direct PDF URL here.). Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
(This originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal's Think Tank)
E Pluribus Unum is the Latin motto on the Great Seal of the United States of America.
Out of many, one.
The motto for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this election cycle should be: “Extremis malis, extrema remedia.”
Extreme maladies require extreme remedies. Or as we usually say it: “Desperate times require desperate measures.”
And for Senate Democrats, this is the most desperate of times.
In Alaska, incumbent Democrat Mark Begich accused his Republican challenger, Dan Sullivan, of inappropriately releasing a sex offender during his time as the state attorney general. That sex offender went on to abuse a young girl and murder her grandparents. Mr. Begich was forced to pull the ad after the family of the victims forcefully complained.
In Arkansas, incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor accused his challenger, Rep. Tom Cotton, of making it easier for Ebola to spread to the U.S. PolitiFact rated this attack mostly false, pointing out that Mr. Cotton voted for the legislation in question that was eventually sent to the president.
And then there was this nugget from the New York Times over the weekend: “With their Senate majority imperiled, Democrats are trying to mobilize African-Americans outraged by the shooting in Ferguson, Mo., to help them retain control of at least one chamber of Congress for President Obama’s final two years in office.”
It really doesn’t get any more desperate than trying to turn the tragedy in Ferguson into a political winner.
But then again, extremis malis, extrema remedia.