美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Is Sticking To His Playbook To Win The Midterms

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The Republican Party heading into this fall has a president who loves to campaign. President Trump¹ is holding a lot of big rallies, and he does have a larger playbook to follow that his advisers² think can keep the GOP in power. Here's NPR's Mara Liasson.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE³: Every midterm is a referendum on the party that controls Congress. And if that party also has the White House, it's a referendum on the president too, says Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: For Democrats⁴, Donald Trump's name functionally⁵ is on the ballot⁶. Those voters are fired up and motivated to turn out against the president. But it remains⁷ to be seen if Republicans match that enthusiasm on their side with Donald Trump not up for election this year.

LIASSON: This is the same problem that previous presidents have faced. Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all lost control of one or both houses of Congress in midterm elections. I asked Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager, who still advises the president, what Trump thinks this midterm is all about.

COREY LEWANDOWSKI: It's a very simple question - are you and your family better off today than you were two years ago? The indicators⁸ say that if the midterm elections are about the direction of the country, Donald Trump wins.

LIASSON: Donald Trump wins. Actually, Donald Trump is not on the ballot, but as Lewandowski suggests, the president takes this midterm personally. And although Trump has famously discarded a lot of political traditions, he's approaching the November election in a remarkably⁹ conventional way. Just like his predecessors¹⁰, when Trump is on the campaign trail, he tries to motivate his base.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And all of the great momentum¹¹ that we're having as a country on jobs, on safety, on security, on our military, it's all at stake in November.

LIASSON: He attacks his Democratic opponents.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: Nancy Pelosi and her gang...

(BOOING)

TRUMP: ...They've got to be voted out of office. They've got to be voted out of office.

LIASSON: But sometimes, he makes it all about him.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: But we have to keep the House because if you listen to Maxine Waters...

(BOOING)

TRUMP: ...She goes around saying, we will impeach¹² him, we will impeach him.

LIASSON: The threat of impeachment¹³, which Democrats are working hard not to run on, could actually be helping¹⁴ the president energize¹⁵ his core supporters. As the president's poll numbers rise and the big generic¹⁶ ballot advantage the Democrats once had shrinks, polls also show voters souring on the Russia investigation¹⁷, says Kristen Anderson.

ANDERSON: It's not just for Republicans. Even independents are now saying this investigation seems like it's gone on for a while. Let's wrap this up. Similarly, I think there's a reason why Republicans are much more eager to talk about the specter of impeachment. And it's because those voters in the middle, even if they are not in love with everything the president says or tweets, they don't want to see him thrown out of office.

LIASSON: But mostly voters don't care about the Russia investigation, and that's why Republicans say they'd prefer the president stick to the talking points about the economy and the Republican tax cuts. Corry Bliss¹⁸ runs the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican House leadership super PAC.

CORRY BLISS: Ensuring that the base turns out and motivating the base is very important. But the most important issue is always going to be jobs and the economy. So anything he can do to sell that is helpful to anything we can do.

LIASSON: But sometimes the president doesn't want to talk about tax cuts. At a tax reform event in West Virginia recently, he literally¹⁹ threw his prepared remarks on taxes up in the air.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: Now, I'm reading off the first paragraph. I said this is boring. Come on.

LIASSON: And sometimes, like at a fundraiser on Tuesday night, he goes way off message, even when he's joking.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: So your vote in 2018 is every bit as important as your vote in 2016, although I'm not sure I really believe that, but you know.

ANDERSON: Donald Trump makes things more complicated for Republicans because they want to focus on the extent to which people have seen personal benefits from tax reform. So it's tough for some of these candidates to find a way to cut through the noise.

LIASSON: If Republican candidates want the president to focus on the economy, the president's advisers want Republican candidates to focus on their races. White House political director Bill Stepien says the president plans to work his heart out raising money and campaigning for his party, just like a typical president in a midterm election. And the president wants to make sure Republican members of Congress understand they should be running as if their political lives depend on it.

BILL STEPIEN: The president does, and he hopes others in his party do - you really don't understand how hard a midterm election is until you've been through it before. And a good many Republicans were elected in 2010 and 2014 when the opposite challenges were facing the party when in fact there weren't challenges at all.

LIASSON: This year, Republicans have plenty of challenges, although it's not clear yet how big a blue wave Republicans will face in November or how much President Trump will be able to do to shield them from the impact. Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 functionally   

adv.机能上地，官能地

参考例句：

• Objective To explore occlusion reconstruction by computer aided design (CAD) with functionally-generated pathway (FGP). 目的探索借助功能性？记录(functionally-generated pathway,FGP)技术进行口腔固定修复体计算机辅助设计(Computer aided Design,CAD)生理性建？的方法。 来自互联网
• In this respect, the proceeding was functionally similar to a comparative licensing adjudication. 在这一点上，手续在作用上即类似于比较许可证发放的裁断。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

6 ballot   

n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票

参考例句：

• The members have demanded a ballot.会员们要求投票表决。
• The union said they will ballot members on whether to strike.工会称他们将要求会员投票表决是否罢工。

7 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

8 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

9 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

10 predecessors   

n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身

参考例句：

• The new government set about dismantling their predecessors' legislation. 新政府正着手废除其前任所制定的法律。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Will new plan be any more acceptable than its predecessors? 新计划比原先的计划更能令人满意吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

12 impeach   

v.弹劾；检举

参考例句：

• We must impeach the judge for taking bribes.我们一定要检举法官收受贿赂。
• The committee decided to impeach the President.委员会决定弹劾总统。

13 impeachment   

n.弹劾；控告；怀疑

参考例句：

• Impeachment is considered a drastic measure in the United States.在美国，弹劾被视为一种非常激烈的措施。
• The verdict resulting from his impeachment destroyed his political career.他遭弹劾后得到的判决毁了他的政治生涯。

14 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

15 energize   

vt.给予(某人或某物)精力、能量

参考例句：

• It is used to energize the city.它的作用是为城市供给能量。
• This is a great way to energize yourself and give yourself more power!这种方法非常棒，可以激活你的能量，让你有更多的活力！

16 generic   

adj.一般的，普通的，共有的

参考例句：

• I usually buy generic clothes instead of name brands.我通常买普通的衣服，不买名牌。
• The generic woman appears to have an extraordinary faculty for swallowing the individual.一般妇女在婚后似乎有特别突出的抑制个性的能力。

17 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

18 bliss   

n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福

参考例句：

• It's sheer bliss to be able to spend the day in bed.整天都可以躺在床上真是幸福。
• He's in bliss that he's won the Nobel Prize.他非常高兴，因为获得了诺贝尔奖金。

19 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。