WHY IS HALEY STEVENS USING HILLARY CLINTON'S 2008 PLAYBOOK?

Here's how Haley Stevens is running against Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate primary:

"Cool kids on the Internet. They're doing the cool kid chatter. Some of 'em might be the coastal elites, making fun of how I talk. But let's be real. They're making fun of Michigan. They're thinking they're better than us. Their jokes, their criticism, only make me fight harder." -- Haley Stevens

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— Howard Mortman (@howardmortman.bsky.social) July 25, 2026 at 1:14 PM

Remind you of anything?

After this campaign moment in 2007, Politico's Roger Simon wrote:

When I saw a video of Hillary Clinton downing a shot of Crown Royal whiskey in Bronko’s Restaurant and Lounge in Crown Point, Ind., on Saturday night, I was delighted to see that she has finally learned what campaigning for president is all about.

Last week, Barack Obama went to a private fundraiser in San Francisco and made some semi-coherent remarks about how people in small towns “get bitter” and “cling” to “guns or religion.”

Clinton blasted Obama for being “elitist and out of touch.”

“I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Sen. Obama made about people in small-town America,” Clinton said.

Clinton began campaigning this way when Obama was close to clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, and it didn't change the outcome. Stevens is campaigning this way in a race that could go either way.

Stevens is the candidate of Chuck Schumer, James Clyburn, and other aging establishmentarians. I know what they're thinking: that moderate candidates like Stevens are more broadly appealing than progressives like El-Sayed, that progressive candidates alienate moderates but moderate candidates don't alienate progressives.

Progressive voters might rally around moderate candidates in states where there aren't a lot of alternatives -- progressives will probably vote for Roy Cooper in North Carolina or Mary Peltola in Alaska. But in part that's because those moderates aren't showing active disrespect for a progressives. In Michigan, a moderate candidate should recognize that attacking a progressive candidate and his supporters means attacking part of the base you'll need to win the general election, as well as poisoning moderates' minds against a progressive who might be the general election candidate.

That's the nature of bitter primaries, which is why it's a bad idea to maximize the bitterness. Clinton's attacks on Obama (as, in effect, the candidate of the "cool kids") didn't cost him in 2008, but he was an extraordinary political talent running against a reviled Republican Party after years of a despised war, followed by a financial collapse. When the ideological pressure went the other way, in 2016, it's quite likely that that the Bernie Sanders campaign helped alienate enough progressive voters to cost Clinton the election.

Hillary Clinton wasn't an Obama-level campaigner. Neither is Stevens -- as the clip above makes clear. I hope 2026 is as difficult a year for the GOP as 2008 was. But if Republican Mike Rogers is competitive in Michigan, Stevens is making it easier for him to win.