Watching Congresswoman Haley Stevens attempt to explain her 11th-hour endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers over her fellow Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Tuesday’s election to become the next United States Senator from Michigan, my primary feeling was one of relief. Thank God this person didn’t beat El-Sayed in the primary, despite outspending him in a landslide. Thank God this person isn’t eligible for higher office, now putting her unfitness to serve on full display. Thank God this person won’t be on our television screens much longer.
Stevens appeared on CNN Sunday night for an excruciating 15-minute conversation with Anderson Cooper, who remained calm and quietly incredulous in his line of questioning. Cooper zeroed in on an allegation by Stevens’ fellow Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, the elder stateswoman of the Michigan delegation, that Stevens had assured Dingell a cross-party endorsement was not forthcoming mere hours before appearing alongside Rogers at a Detroit church. What changed between that phone call and the next morning? What was the deciding factor in Stevens’ about-face?
Stevens proved unable to answer these simple, direct questions. (Dingell herself called the segment “one of the most painful interviews I have ever watched” mere minutes later on the very same program.) Stevens’ demeanor, all-important in television appearances since Richard Nixon’s famous debate meltdown in 1960, was the opposite of assured. Reflexively beginning each answer with “Look…” before failing to make a coherent point, Stevens blinked, scowled and furrowed her brow through a series of evasive non-answers. One of her favored talking points was a non-specific complaint about El-Sayed’s supposed anger, but it wasn’t El-Sayed whose evident ire toward their primary opponent was on full display.
Cooper largely allowed Stevens the rope with which to enthusiastically end her own political career. As Stevens repeatedly insisted how much she loves the Democratic Party, Cooper refrained from pointing out that her public refusal to vote for a Democrat was the whole premise of their conversation. As Stevens brought up the former Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo and sexual assault allegations, Cooper didn’t ask what alleged actions of El-Sayed’s rose anywhere near that level. He simply bore down on the narrow, yet apparently impossible question at hand: why were Stevens’ issues with El-Sayed — like campaigning with Hasan Piker, or an ad linking Israel to high prices produced by an outside group unaffiliated with the campaign — surmountable in one moment, yet worth a public defection at a critical moment for a high-stakes midterm the next?
Stevens also sought to downplay the significance of her decision (“I’m an independent woman”), an odd posture for a woman seizing on the attention it’s won her with a national TV appearance to take. This irony Cooper could not resist calling out, since it’s too much to take. Stevens could have confined her support of Rogers to the privacy of the voting booth, a shameful yet private concession to personal animus over political principle. Instead, Stevens chose to self-immolate, then double down on her own worst instincts with an exchange that clarified nothing except the eminent wisdom of Michigan Democrats in refusing to make her their party’s chosen standard-bearer.
Then again, you can’t quite blame Stevens for basking in a highly concentrated and rapidly fading spotlight. Many of her staff has quit, as was evident in her lack of preparation for Cooper’s easily predictable queries; as Stevens herself admitted to Cooper, she’s a lame duck who won’t be serving in the House in just a few months. By throwing in her lot with Rogers and earning the public praise of Donald Trump, Stevens has guaranteed both her temporary relevance and the fact that said relevance will be vanishingly brief. The stammering, evasive person on CNN clearly wasn’t ready for primetime, ironically demonstrated in actual primetime. As disgraceful as her conduct may be, the American public can breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve dodged at least one bullet.
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