Top Democrats apparently still see direct threats of impeachment as a losing strategy.

A Politico report published Wednesday has some insight into how Democratic House leadership coached their members to respond to Michael Cohen's guilty plea:



Speaking to members back home in their districts, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team Tuesday cautioned lawmakers to frame Cohen's plea deal as further evidence of a corrupt administration that needs a Democratic check in Congress, they said. Or, play up Hill Republicans’ apathy in the face of Trump’s endless scandals, they encouraged.



While that's a wise midterm campaign strategy, it's probably not honest. Democrats may not want to talk about impeachment, but Republicans should press them to answer questions about how they would actually vote on the matter. If Democrats win back the House, the likelihood there will be an impeachment vote is higher than they seem to want to admit. Remember impeachment legislation was introduced long before Cohen implicated President Trump in a campaign finance violation (one allegedly meant to cover up accusations of extramarital affairs).

On the other hand, Pelosi's #CultureofCorruption messaging strategy was given some legitimacy this week.

Democrats are caught between their base and the task of winning over voters who supported Trump in 2016. Why did so many of those people pull the lever for Trump over Hillary Clinton? To keep a candidate they saw as "corrupt" out of the White House. That gives Democrats something to work with. But the challenge is still to seem like the adults in the room, and the reasonable alternative. That's why Pelosi wants to turn down the volume on her party's impeachment chatter, and it's why Republicans will want to turn it up.

[Trump: Impeach me and the market crashes]