Lisa Lerer Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics - New York Times

The New York Times
September 20, 2018 |  Evening Edition

Lisa Lerer Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host.
Katherine Kendall, one of the first women to accuse Harvey Weinstein, said she was unprepared for the way her story would be challenged.
Katherine Kendall, one of the first women to accuse Harvey Weinstein, said she was unprepared for the way her story would be challenged.  Emily Berl for The New York Times
On Sunday, Christine Blasey Ford was a lone voice telling her story.
Four days later, she might be the only person not telling her story.
Politics has a way of chewing people up and leaving their lives almost unrecognizable. But the speed and aggression by which both parties have transformed Dr. Blasey’s #MeToo story into a political football has been striking.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats are calling for an F.B.I. investigation. Republicans are rejecting that, and want to question her instead. As of Thursday night, they’re negotiating, with Dr. Blasey’s lawyer ruling out a Monday hearing but saying she’d be open to testify next week.
So far, Dr. Blasey has been silent, communicating only through her lawyers.
We know that Dr. Blasey understood that telling her story came with risks. She told the Washington Post that she held off going public because of concerns about what it would mean for her family.
Katherine Kendall, one of the first women to come forward with accusations against Harvey Weinstein, told me that she was unprepared for the onslaught of media attention and the way her story would be challenged.
“There were people who were like, ’Why are you doing this?’ Like rocking the boat of Hollywood was my mission in life. And it really wasn’t,” she said. “All I did was tell the truth. I wasn’t trying to start something.”

Ms. Kendall attended private school in Washington around the same time as Dr. Blasey, and she said that while they didn’t know each other, their worlds were likely very similar.
“Part of the culture was like, ‘Don’t speak out,’” Ms. Kendall said. “I was definitely taught that it wouldn’t be well received and you would be the one that gets hurt. And now we’re seeing that is exactly what happens.”

The scrutiny on Dr. Blasey is more intense than what Ms. Kendall faced, because it involves not just power and money but politics, too. The stakes are enormous: The outcome of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing will set the direction of the Supreme Court for a generation.
And yet, there’s something deeply familiar about her experience, particularly in the Trump era. The president has used his platform (and frequently his Twitter account) to insult private citizens, typically those who oppose him, in a way that’s largely unprecedented in recent national politics.
So, where does all this leave Dr. Blasey? We don’t know yet. Her lawyers say that since she went public, she’s faced death threats, had her email hacked and had to leave her home.
As for her life after all this is done? Well, that might be the one thing in this whole mess that is clear: For Dr. Blasey, nothing will ever be the same.
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Fleg’s four questions for Texas
There’s a Senate race in Texas this year — it’s pretty close, perhaps you’ve read about it? On Friday, at last, Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke are meeting for their first debate. Matt Flegenheimer, a Times political reporter who has covered this race (and Mr. Cruz’s 2016 run for president), has some questions:
1) Can “Beto-mania” translate off the stump?
Mr. O’Rourke’s skills as a campaigner are legitimate, premised on a gift for making even the generic sound inspirational. (“This is a time for us to be for something,” he thundered in Houston recently.) Debates are different. Can he afford to summon the same high-mindedness when Mr. Cruz batters him from a few feet away as an out-of-touch liberal?
2) Can Cruz channel his inner debate champ?
Mr. Cruz was an accomplished debater in college. This can cut both ways. In 2016, he had some highly effective moments — slashing, funny, quick on his feet — setting traps for President Trump and his rivals. But Mr. Cruz could also occasionally come off as litigious, pestering moderators and getting lost in the weeds. Can he strike a balance on Friday? Because …
3) Will Cruz be “likable” enough?
Mr. Cruz has his fans; you don’t finish second in a presidential primary by accident. But he also has a reputation. Mr. Cruz is acutely aware of the perception, telling a debate audience in 2016 that “if you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy.” He asked voters, instead, to make him America’s designated driver. (Really, this was his pitch! It was actually refreshing candor.)
4) Can O’Rourke make Cruz pay for Trump-whiplash?
Memories are short in politics, but Mr. Cruz has tested the limits of selective amnesia. First he embraced Mr. Trump during the 2016 primaries. Then he attacked him as a pathological liar and unrivaled narcissist. Then he wouldn’t endorse. Then he did. Does any of that matter anymore? Does anything?
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Nate’s number

We’ve asked Nate Cohn, elections and polling reporter at The Upshot, to check in with On Politics from time to time with a number that’s on his mind. For his first installment, Nate sent us this:
Midterm elections are usually a referendum on the party in power, and the president’s approval rating might be the best single measure of whether the national political environment augurs well for a so-called “wave” election.
Today, the president’s rating is around 40 percent. That’s about the same as it was for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama before their parties lost control of Congress in 1994, 2006 and 2010.
One reason the president’s approval rating is so useful: It synthesizes everything that voters consider.
Take the economy. One might wonder whether strong economic growth could help the Republicans this year. It could, but if the economy isn’t good enough to lift the president’s approval rating, it probably isn’t good enough to lift the G.O.P.’s fortunes, either.
That’s how it seems to be playing out in our polls of top battleground districts. This week, we’re asking voters about taxes, tariffs, and whether people think the president’s policies have helped their own economic situation.
The results aren’t final, but so far the Republicans are doing all right on economic issues. Voters are split on the tax reform bill, 45 to 46 percent, and they’re also split on the question on the president’s policies, with 47 percent saying they have helped them or their families personally.
Yet the same voters disapprove of the president’s performance, by a 40 to 55 percent margin, and they want Democrats to take control of the House, 50 to 43 percent.
If you haven’t seen The Upshot’s Live Polls yet, check it out. The Times is polling voters in 50 races and posting the results in real time, helping readers understand how polling works — and why it sometimes doesn’t.
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Want to feel smarter?
• In late August, a team of New York Times journalists visited a small town in southeast Puerto Rico, near where Hurricane Maria made landfall, to document the damage that remains. See that story here.
• Pinterest is challenging what it takes to build a successful company in Silicon Valley. Its first users weren’t teenagers, but women in the Midwest. It also seems to be one of the few social media services Russians haven’t cracked into. Read about it here.
• The way our country talks about obesity is both medically and personally destructive, this article in HuffPost argues. In reality, the “epidemic” is nuanced, heartbreaking and empowering. Read the story.
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… Seriously
According to The Post and Courier, Representative Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina, opened an election debate on Thursday with a joke about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Abraham Lincoln and sexual assault. Really.
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Isabella Grullón Paz and Margaret Kramer contributed to this newsletter.
Thanks for reading. Politics is more than what goes on inside the White House. On Politics brings you the people, issues and ideas reshaping our world.
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