u/Horus_walking

>French MEP and presidential hopeful Raphaël Glucksmann’s attempt to shed his elitist image is at risk after an internal campaign document recommended limiting efforts to court working-class voters.

>The memo, branded “confidential” but seen by POLITICO, aims to identify potential voter bases for Glucksmann ahead of his likely bid to replace term-limited President Emmanuel Macron. The 46-year-old European lawmaker is expected to soon join the crowded field of candidates in next year’s presidential election, and polling currently shows him within striking distance of making the runoff against far-right candidates Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.

• It says that the voters most likely to back Glucksmann — a more moderate social democrat who bucks his leftist peers on pension reform but is staunchly pro-Europe — are well-off, white-collar workers older than 50 or retired who identify with the Socialist Party or lean left-of-center.
• The document advises avoiding “for now” voters ages 18 to 25, single parents and those with lower incomes, all of whom are deemed “more difficult to mobilize.”
• It also recommends not trying too hard to woo voters from poorer, multicultural suburbs surrounding major French cities with strong immigrant populations, who are likely to support hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He announced his campaign earlier this month.

>Those internal findings risk reinforcing the image of Glucksmann, the romantic partner of one of France’s most famous journalists and the son of a prominent philosopher, as a member of high society who is out of touch with the middle class.

>But Glucksmann’s team downplayed the memo’s significance and stressed that it was merely a “working document.” Campaign strategist Mathieu Lefèvre-Marton, who drafted the memo, said that Glucksmann himself rejected the conclusions about which voters should be avoided, stressing the importance of “speaking to everyone,” including “those who don’t vote for the left.”

>Polls show that Glucksmann and Mélenchon are currently the strongest left-wing candidates in the field, though a lot can change between now and the election next spring.

>TRUMP: He’s central casting. You couldn’t find a guy like him. Even his physical features, you know. He’s tall, very tall. And especially for this country, because they tend to be a little bit shorter. You look at the military. I mean, the military today was incredible. That military marching was incredible. But no, if you went to Hollywood, you would not find that. You aren’t going to find a guy to play the role who’s good.

🤦

>Netanyahu reached for Garrett’s phone and held it up, saying, “Because it’s this — this is yours, right? You’re not immune either, because you can penetrate this machine, you can penetrate this little instrument, and you can say anything about Major Garrett that you want, and I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.”

"Penetrate"

>During a private discussion on Saturday that included Democratic House members from Virginia and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, the lawmakers vented anger at their defeat at the Virginia Supreme Court, spoke about a collective determination to flip two or three Republican-held seats under the existing map and discussed a bank-shot proposal to redraw the congressional lines anyway, according to three people who participated in the call and two others who were briefed on it.

>The conversation reflected the desperation and fury that have gripped the party after the state Supreme Court struck down a favorable map that had been ratified by voters. The most dramatic idea they discussed — which would involve an unusual gambit to replace the entire state Supreme Court, with a goal of reinstating their gerrymandered map — drew mixed reactions on the call, said the people, and it was not clear that it would even be viable, or palatable to Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly.

The Plan:

• One key to the plan would be having Democrats in Richmond lower the mandatory retirement age for state Supreme Court justices, an idea that began circulating among state lawmakers and members of Congress after a column proposing a version of the idea was published on Friday night in The Downballot, a progressive newsletter.
• Ms. Spanberger would have to sign off on any legislation that lowered the judicial retirement age. She has not been briefed on the proposal, the people involved in the discussion or briefed on it said. Her spokeswoman, Libby Wiet, declined to comment.
• The first step in the process, as discussed on the delegation’s call, would be to invoke a January ruling by a circuit court judge in Tazewell County, Va., that said the 2026 constitutional amendment effort to redraw the maps was invalid because county officials did not post notice of it at courthouses and other public locations three months before a general election.
• Democrats would aim to use that ruling to seek to invalidate the earlier constitutional amendment that created the state’s independent redistricting commission by arguing that courthouses across the state did not post notice of it at the time. That would give the legislature the authority to enact a map of its choosing.
• Ensuring the plan proceeds would involve the General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, lowering the mandatory retirement age for Virginia’s Supreme Court from 75 to 54, the age of the youngest current justice, or less. Virginia judges are appointed by the General Assembly, where Democrats hold majorities in both chambers and could then fill vacancies on the court with sympathetic Democratic lawyers.

>Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina are jumping into the ongoing gerrymandering battle between Republicans and Democrats ahead of the November midterm elections, with all three states poised to try to eliminate Democratic Party-held House seats.

Fox News chief legal correspondent Shannon Bream:

> Additional states, including Alabama, where demonstrations repeatedly disrupted the proceedings, Louisiana, and South Carolina are considering or are in the process of attempting to redistrict their maps in a way that would also benefit Republicans. And breaking this evening: Alabama Republicans have just filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to lift a lower court ruling that stands in the way of their redistricting plans.

>Now, if Republicans succeed in all the proposals currently underway and the new maps pass legal muster, they can actually stand to net anywhere from four to thirteen new seats before the midterm spread.