Keep It Simple, Nancy

Ask anyone old enough to have lived through the 1992 presidential campaign and they can still tell you the pithy four word message the Clinton campaign used to win the White House - “It’s The Economy, Stupid.” 

There is something to be said for the sound bite. Republicans have been far more successful in their messaging over the years than Democrats - lower taxes, smaller government, a strong military. It is simple and easy to understand. Whether it’s true or not (much less fair or not), the reality is that simplicity sells. So, let me give Nancy Pelosi some unsolicited advice - keep it simple.

There is an understandable temptation to launch a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry into every nook and cranny of Trump’s unethical, immoral, and probably illegal activity. The tax fraud, the Stormy Daniels payoff, the emoluments, and on and on and on. But doing so would both bog down the inquiry and leave it open to criticism as being overreach, dragging on for months on end not unlike the Mueller investigation, regardless of the outcome.

Instead, a focused, narrow, impeachment inquiry into the whistleblower complaint that, at a minimum, suggests Trump leaned on a foreign nation to gin up bogus charges of wrongdoing by Joe Biden’s son (and maybe Biden himself) that may or may not have used hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance as a carrot/stick to get the Ukrainians to do it. 

It is a simple scandal to understand and explain. It goes to the heart of a non-partisan ideal we have in our country - that Presidents should not solicit the assistance of foreign nations to attack his political enemies - and could be investigated quickly. Trump will retain the support of Republican voters, but the people Democrats should be speaking to, and particularly leaning into the patriotism argument, are the sliver of independents who, if they turn on Trump next year, will sink his battleship. Oh, and the side benefit of having wall-to-wall cable news cannot be overstated. 

This really should not take too long. There is a discrete universe of witnesses - the whistleblower him or herself, the inspector general who reviewed the complaint, Rudy, Mick Mulvaney, other White House staffers who may have been involved in withholding the funds, and (perhaps?) John Bolton. The document request would also be modest - the whistleblower’s complaint and responsive documents from the White House and State Department, any transcripts or recordings that exist, and that is about it. 

If this was a criminal trial, it could be done in a few days. Of course, the Trump team will try to throw sand in the gears, challenging subpoenas and all the rest, but that underscores even more the importance of keeping this to the limited issues I discussed above. Wrap it all up as quickly as possible and either introduce article of impeachment or move on. Democrats should resist the temptation to try and investigate everything, especially because this one thing is more than enough to impeach Trump.

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