The Primaries GOP Song Remains The Same

Some of the updated news this weekend about the ongoing march towards the 2016 Presidential Election:

• Mitt Romney decided not to run for a third try.  He may have noted two things against him: the establishment wing of the Republicans had their boy Jeb Bush already, and the social conservative wing had their boy Huckabee (who could have pummeled Mitt as THE Not-Mitt candidate in 2012).
• Lindsey Graham decided to put his name out there.  Which elicited about three mild "yays" from his Beltway fanbase and a shrug from everyone else out there.

I was wondering when a politician like Graham was going to make the gesture.  The primary field for the Republicans right now skews to two types of candidate: the economic-minded and the evangelical/social-minded.  Until Graham popped up, they really didn't have anybody covering the third: foreign policy issues.

While the Republican Party as a whole is social conservative, some candidates are more dedicated than others.  Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister, for God's sake.  Santorum campaigns hard on an anti-gay, pro-fetus platform.  Carson pretty much only has his public devotions/social agenda to back his campaign.  Of the remaining professional elected officials, Jindal leans more on the God's Party ideology than on their economic or managerial work as governor.

And while the Republican Party as a whole is totally dedicated to cutting corporate taxes for the uber-rich and deregulating everything into privatized markets, some are more tax-cut and spending-cut than others.  This is where the "establishment" type candidates harken, such as Jeb and Christie and Rand Paul and Perry and Walker.  This is where the likes of Carly Fiorina would run their campaigns, as business-savvy leaders of industry and masters of finance (which, all things considered, they are not).

That leaves out the other foundation of the modern GOP, the foreign policy wonkery.  Ever since the Cold War, there's been a faction of the Republicans obsessed more with international relations (do as we say) and handling foreign threats (nuke 'em from orbit) than with domestic issues.  Ever since Nixon in 1968, there's been at least one candidate who presented themselves as "the serious adult" in the room when it came time to deal with Soviet Russia.  That was Bush the Elder in both 1980 (losing to Reagan's more social-conservative platform) and 1988 (beating out Dukakis who couldn't pull off that idiotic look of him driving a tank) and 1992 (losing to Clinton who ran on the economy).  In 1996, there was Richard Lugar, who lost out to Dole who still commanded some foreign policy cred as a long-standing Senate leader: this was against a field of Social candidates (Buchanan, Dornan) and Economic (Alexander, Gramm, Forbes).  In 2000, Dubya was clearly running on social ("compassionate conservatism") and economic platforms alongside Keyes (he may have been an ambassador as a career but his topics were clearly about God, God, and more God) and Forbes (tax cuts, obviously), leaving the foreign policy issues mostly to McCain.

By 2008, the Republicans had lost their reputation on foreign policy dealings having alienated our allies and wasted lives and money on two unfunded and unpopular wars.  Yet McCain was one of the front-runners that open season exactly because of his foreign policy creds.  Everyone else was either social con (Huckabee, Keyes, Hunter) or the tax-cut business con (Romney, Ron Paul).  Giuliani might have counted as a foreign policy candidate except his experience stopped at being mayor of New York, which left him with domestic policy (law and order) and tax-cutting stances: his only foreign policy stance was "9/11".

To note, 2012 was a screwy election cycle: the real platform for the Republicans that year was "Who was more Anti-Obama"?  That primary was out-of-whack in that nobody could really step up as a foreign policy candidate: nearly everybody tripped over themselves trying to present themselves as the uber-religious candidate (Santorum and Bachmann in particular) or the uber-tax-cut candidate (Romney, Paul, Perry, Cain, Johnson).  The only candidate with any serious foreign creds was Hunstman, and he didn't last long or gained much support.

Lindsey Graham is going to find the same problem.  After the disastrous Bush the Lesser presidency where the dark day of 9/11 led to a prolonged invasion/occupation of Afghanistan and an unnecessary and wasteful invasion/occupation of Iraq, the entire nation seems burned out when it comes to foreign affairs.  Obama's handling of Libya, Syria, Egypt and the rest of the Middle East is a prime example: he's avoided commitment of ground troops or peacekeeper efforts, using diplomatic efforts to try and minimize the ongoing bloodshed of the civil wars dotting that region and relying on local military forces - the Kurds against ISIL, local allies elsewhere - to avoid further entanglements.  It hasn't been pretty - the Syrian war in particular has become a nightmare of refugees, extremist strife, and unending terror - but there's little else the American public will support.

The Republican candidates running on foreign policy as a primary topic will confront the same disconnect from voters.  Most of the party's base is angered up on more localized matters: immigration, abortion, taxes, gutting Obamacare, guns, and hating Obama forever and ever.  Mostly the same agenda the GOP supported in 2012.  If there's any foreign policy issue they'll discuss, it's BENGHAZIGATE, which after three separate congressional investigations is still the same non-scandal it's been since 2012.  Worrying about wars overseas means little to a GOP Tea Party base that wants Obamacare nuked and the Mexican border turned into the barbed-wire trenches of WWI.

Graham's not going to go very far if he thinks he can win on foreign policy.  This isn't 2008 when the legacy of the Bush/Cheney wars was on the line, or 1988 when warming up relations between the US and USSR was a really big deal.  This is 2016, same as 2012 and pretty much the same as 2008 and 2000 and 1996: the primaries platform is Hate Clinton Obama (which in 2016 may well be Hate Clinton again).

If I had to do a brief bio on Graham it'd be this:

Lindsey Graham - Senator, South Carolina
Positives: One of the leaders of the Senate for the Republicans for a long time.  Won in a hard-core conservative state on a regular basis despite the reputation of being a RINO, which proves decent campaign skill.  Has name recognition.  Resides in a key early primary state (South Carolina)
Negatives: He's not considered as far right on a lot of issues as the party base would like.  Has no national warchest to fund a major campaign (unlike Jeb, who's probably getting the keys to the Koch Brothers' billionaire storage closet as I type this).  He's been unusually bipartisan working in the Senate with Democrats, which really angers up the Tea Party base (this would be a Positive under normal circumstances but it's a huge Negative in these partisan primaries).  And just type in a Google search on "Lindsey Graham rumors": anybody who gets to be over 50 without getting married (or even having one questionable child out of wedlock) is gonna get labeled as "gay" whether they are or not.
Chances: Slim. If he's smart he's using this as an opportunity to put him out there as a Veep ticket balancer with the "foreign policy creds" to a candidate who's most likely winning on a social or domestic economic reputation.  As for his personal life - or lack of one - it's going to get investigated in a big way if he heads to a national stage.  Even if the rumors are wrong - it's entirely possible Graham is asexual or disinterested, or else very discreet with the whole hooker/mistress thing - he's not Mr. Popular with the Tea Partiers.
Character Chart: The thing that throws me is Graham's reputation for bipartisan work.  While he's coming to the table with clearly Republican (i.e., bad) positions he's at least trying to get Democrats to bring their ideas (i.e., weak) into the bills (that end up going nowhere).  He's not as pure an Active-Positive as possible - because his foreign policy aims still lean towards aggressive bombing and pray for divine intervention - but in this field of Active-Negatives in the GOP he's the closest they got.
And the voting base doesn't want Active-Positive...

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Thus Ends 2014

It wasn't the best of times, although there were good moments to enjoy.

2014 was more CRAZY than anything, and tragic with the scale of death and war both here and abroad.

The coming year doesn't hold much promise.  With the Republicans in full control of Congress, there's the dread of them delving further into the wingnut hate against Obama, with all the risks (for them and for our nation) that entails.  We haven't resolved our issue of out-of-control police, and while the fighting has officially ended in Afghanistan it really hasn't, while Syria remains in Year Four (FIVE?) of its civil war with ISIL leveling carnage in there and in Iraq, with Libya's civil war stewing and due to get worse.  There's still the Ukraine/Russia standoff, the Greek debt crisis (alongside the ongoing EU recession), and the ebola crisis in West Africa.

One can hope that sanity for 2015 is on its way, that it can't stay this crazy forever.  But the social and political and natural forces are out of control right now.  Just hang on tight to the roller coaster safety bar and pray for a safe ride.

On a personal note: I am invested in getting a novel written soon soon very soon, to keep up with all the epublishing I've been doing lately.  For this political blog, I am looking at doing something I really shouldn't do: diving into the 2016 primary madness and using Professor James David Barber's Presidential Character traits to map out the major candidates to determine which ones are Active-Positive (yay) and which ones are Active-Negative (ack) and which ones are Passive-Positive (meh).  Passive-Negatives are so rare it's unlikely.  Anyhoo, that's my projects for next year.

See you on the other side of the calendar.

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A Winter Grayer Than Before

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
 "For hate is strong,
 And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
- "Christmas Bells," Longfellow

Thing about Christmastime, of December and the coming of winter.  It's a season of falling into the Gray Mood.  They call it the Winter Blues but it's really all Gray: the sky is gray, the ground is dead, the people are dour and burdened while the pressure builds to be festive and light-ful.

This year feels grayer than before.

Part of it is due to witnessing yet another disastrous midterm election.  Getting stuck in a state full of partisan morans voting that damn MEDICARE FRAUD back into the governor's office.  Banging my head against the desktop as voter turnout dropped to its lowest level since World War II.

Part of it is watching any semblance of justice in my own nation - land of the free and home of the brave - get flushed down a toilet as violent cops get let off for shooting unarmed teens and using illegal choke holds on guys whose only crime was not submitting to another round of public humiliation.

Part of it is realizing that the current political and economic landscape is about to get darker and nastier.  There's been buzz about a shutdown over Obama's attempts to reform immigration policy via his executive order powers.  There's concerns of a shutdown if there's a fight over a budget proposal that's top-heavy with corporate tax cuts and public sector spending cuts.

There's the growing realization that no matter the injustice of it, the insanity of it, the criminality of it... the Republicans will not rule even if they have the political power, they will ruin all.  They will twist the laws of the states they control to make it harder to vote, harder to complain, harder to stop them commit acts of graft and corruption.  Why listen to the critics or even the experts when there's no accountability for the sins they commit?

It's gray outside right now.  It's going to get darker, and I worry we won't see the sunshine any time soon.

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Forget It Jake It's Florida

So there's kinda four things going on here in Florida to pass along, some of which you seven blog followers might have seen already...

• In the good news category, the second trial over Michael Dunn's shooting of Jordan Davis ended with Dunn found guilty of first-degree murder.
• In the bad news category, a grandmother checking on her daughter and grandkids getting arrested - for a minor probation violation -  ends up getting tasered in the back by the arresting officer.  Who then handcuffs the unconscious woman for "resisting arrest" because apparently after nearly killing someone with 50,000 volts the cop is required to be a total dick.  "Resisting arrest" has become, has always been really, a lousy excuse by cops to arrest anybody...
• In the Finally Happened category, the city of Waldo finally did something about the nationally-infamous speed trap by voting to close down the city's police department altogether.  The official reason is that the city could no longer afford the costs - there's a current investigation into the outdated equipment and reckless poor storage of documents and evidence - but let's be blunt: the Waldo police has been a long-term embarrassment to the area due to that speed trap they enforce (there's a second investigation into the department using an illegal ticket quota).
  Ever driven through there (between Gainesville and Jacksonville)?  You're driving at a decent 55 MPH on County Rd 24 heading north until you get about three feet inside Waldo city limits.  All of a sudden the traffic sign says 35 MPH and then fifty feet later just as the road's turning you get a 15 MPH sign and when the road turns further into this little township you're facing a School Zone crossing that's "strictly enforced."  Guess how many people get tagged for speeding?  Lemme tell ya, the ability to slow down from 55 MPH to 15 MPH within a 1/10 of a mile's distance is harder than it looks without killing your brakes.  Heading south on US 301 to get to CR 24 for Gainesville is just as bad.
  I've known people living in Gainesville who go out of the way to take I-75 to I-10 in order to get to Jacksonville just to avoid this.  AAA Road service listed Waldo as one of only two speed traps in the whole nation (another Florida city just up US 301 was the other)!
  If you're wondering, the Alachua County sheriff's office will take over in Waldo.  There's a rather pleasant flea market there.  Might drive back there some day...
• In the INDUCING RAGE category, the College Republicans came out with a pro-Rick Scott ad (yes, inducing Level 1 Rage right there) that tries to sell to young women voters (a major problem for the GOP has been the loss of women voters) by comparing the candidates like wedding dresses (da fuq?) with "The Rick Scott brand" (That's that standard GOP problem of thinking it's all "branding", here's me at Level 2 Rage now) being the prettiest of them all (Level 3 Rage now and spitting out my morning tea).
  The amount of stupid in this ad boggles the mind.  It seems to take for granted that women are impressed by "pretty" images, that a pretty young woman so entranced by the "Rick Scott brand" means other young women should be entranced as well.  It attacks the "Crist brand" as frumpier and more expensive using the same un-researched attacks the Republicans always aim at Democratic opponents.  This ad seems to take the whole "Disney Princesses Are Popular With Girls" idea and runs with it in the worst way possible.
  It's already been tagged as the "most sexist ad" of the 2014 midterms.

So, there's that today.  Gotta get some writing done on this day off...

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In The "You Can't Make This Sh-t Up" Department of Crazy-Ass Primarying

Over at the TNC Horde, we'd save this for a Tuesday, but hell it's Friday and we might as well get this out of the way (link via Talking Points Memo):

On Tuesday, Timothy Ray Murray (pictured) challenged longtime incumbent Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) for the Republican nomination in Oklahoma's 3rd Congressional district. Murray lost, but he did manage to pull in 3,442 votes, good for 5.2 percent of the total. Now Murray says he will contest the outcome of the election. Because, he says, Lucas is dead and has been replaced by a "look alike."

Wasn't this an episode of The X-Files? No, wait, it was Nowhere Man, starring Bruce "Enlist in Starfleet" Greenwood...

"The election for U.S. House for Oklahoma’s 3rd District will be contested by the Candidate, Timothy Ray Murray," Murray wrote in a press release posted on his campaign website. "I will be stating that his votes are switched with Rep. Lucas votes, because it is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike."

Widely known? This is the first any of us are hearing about this!

On the website, Murray claims that Lucas and "a few other Oklahoma and other States’ Congressional Members," were executed "on or about" Jan. 11, 2011 in southern Ukraine.

What were Oklahoma politicians doing in southern Ukraine in January 2011?!

"On television they were depicted as being executed by the hanging about the neck until death on a white stage and in front of witnesses," the website claims. "Other now current Members of Congress have shared those facts on television also. We know that it is possible to use look alike artificial or manmade replacements, however Rep. Lucas was not eligible to serve as a Congressional Member after that time."

I dunno, there's been a few Congressmen still serving office well past their zombiefication...

The bizarre charge was first reported by KFOR TV in Oklahoma City. The station reported that while Oklahoma election board officials had also received Murray's press release, Murray had yet to file a formal petition to contest the election. The station also sought comment from Lucas, who said that he had never been to Ukraine.

Well, that's what you'd expect the Life Model Decoy of Congress-Podperson Lucas to say!

“Many things have been said about me, said to me during course of my campaigns," Lucas told KFOR. "This is the first time I’ve ever been accused of being a body double or a robot."

There was that time he was accused of being one of the original singers for Milli Vanilli, but the evidence never panned out...

Murray, who previously challenged Lucas in 2012 while running as a Democrat, ran on a pledge to "help bring U.S. House leadership back to traditional values and defend and serve the voice of The People." Federal Election Commission records show that Murray raised and spent just $50 on his campaign. His campaign website's "issues" page called for balancing the budget, creating incentives for job growth in "all tiers" of the job market, protection for small businesses and banks, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and tax reform. He also pledged to "never use a look alike to replace my (The Office’s) message to you or to anyone else, as both the other Republican Challengers have."

Murray did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPM on Friday.

Here's the thing that's bothering me: what if Murray is telling the truth, and there's been an elaborate sham perpetrated by the Pentagon and the global media to cover up the shocking assassination of American politicians on foreign soil? What if Lucas is a plant, a stealth agent for HYDRA, just waiting for the opportunity to abuse the 25th Amendment to his own diabolical need?  What if this is some massive conspiracy dating all the way back to Operation: Paperclip to destabilize the U.S. government out of some twisted need for revenge by the still-living brain of Adolf Hitler?! What if, man, what if! YOU GOTTA START THINKING LIKE THE CIA DOES, MAN! ROSWELL! ROSWELL!

...

Just to note, Murray originally ran as the Democrat candidate back in 2012 against Lucas.  Didn't exactly see the reports on this back then, you know...

I'm not going Tag this with a Republicans Are Insane label, since this is pretty much just this one Murray fellah jumping off the cliffs of sanity here, and he's someone party-jumping for some personal need for attention.  But... Seriously, guys?  Both parties - Republican and Democrat - need to do a better job screening their candidates with psych evaluations before letting them do any fundraiser campaigning.  Seriously.

Meanwhile... in an abandoned warehouse outside of Floyd, Texas... (insert ominous musical sting here)

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Executive's Order, Speaker's Chaos

I had about five other things I wanted to write about - after long weeks of having little to discuss that could be resolved in a simple, "what the hell?" retort - but I spotted this halfway through the day and felt compelled to lead off with this.

Speaker John Boehner is seriously reviewing his options on pursuing a lawsuit against Barack Obama's use of Executive Orders.  To wit (via the Washington Post):

Reports today indicate that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is planning a lawsuit over Barack Obama's use of executive orders. These orders have long been a focal point of right-wing anger, particularly since January of this year when Obama announced he'd be using more of them to bypass a gridlocked and dysfunctional Congress.

After the immediate round of laughing my ass off, I had to consider the actual seriousness of what Boehner's hoping to accomplish.

With regards to EOs (abbrev. Executive Order, natch), there has been a long history of Presidents issuing such things ever since the first one under the Constitution, George Washington himself.  The argument for them stems from the interpretation of Article II, Section 1 Clause 1 that grants Presidents the power to "faithfully execute the laws": in order to execute - or perform duties - under such laws the President has to establish the who, how, where and when those laws have to be enforced (the "why" of the laws fall under judicial review set by the Supreme Court).  The only noticeable time Executive Orders were even considered by SCOTUS, it was when they overturned an EO issued by Truman because it "attempted to make law" rather than enforce one.

Ever since that, Presidents made the effort to relate their EOs to congressional laws.  Legal scholars, however, still consider Executive Orders in a kind of gray zone where their actual constitutionality might or might not exist.  It's in the gray zone that Boehner wants to attack Obama's efforts to use EOs this year to work around GOP Congressional obstruction.

Thing is, Boehner's case is weak to begin with.  Obama's case history of issuing EOs demonstrate he's not the great offender Boehner and the Far Right make him out to be:

That Post chart tells the facts: compared to modern Presidents, Obama's issued the fewest EOs in decades.  For the most part of the 19th Century, you'll note the lack of executive activity... up until Teddy Roosevelt, that bundle of energy who defined the modern Presidency with his progressive activism.  It calmed down by the time of Eisenhower, and even then the EO average hadn't been reached since the days of Jimmy Carter.

And while the modern conservative wingnut faction of the GOP are screaming about Obama's "overreach", his 175 (as of March 2014) EO count in six years comes nowhere near sainted Ronald Reagan's 381 total (Obama would have to double his EO count in the next two years to even come close).

Despite what Boehner claims, this whole thing smells of setting up for cause to impeach.  They couldn't impeach over the birth certificate, they couldn't impeach over Solyndra, they couldn't impeach over ObamaCare, and the Far Right are finding out they don't have much to impeach with over Benghazi, the IRS SuperPAC investigation, Benghazi, the prisoner exchange for the sole POW we had in Afghanistan, Benghazi, Obama's method of shoelace tying, and BENGHAZI.

So they're going after Executive Orders.  The plan looks to be simple:

1) Get the courts to establish that Executive Orders in general are not allowed under the Constitution: that it's executive law-making, conflicting with the Legislative power to make laws.
2) Argue that considering Obama used EOs throughout his tenure, he was committing impeachable acts all along.
3) IMPEACH.

Which brings up the unpleasant reality that EVERY President - save William Henry Harrison (I died in 30 days!) - would have to be retroactively impeached.  Not to mention the fact that any future President coming out of the Republican ranks (if that ever happens again, considering how f-cked the party's becoming at the national level) is suddenly going to have no executive power of his/her own to wield if Boehner and the Far Right succeed at this.

This obsession with stopping Obama at all costs is both ridiculous and dangerous.  Ridiculous in that the GOP's efforts are going against decades if not centuries of effective government traditions.  Dangerous in that if any of these efforts succeed we could see the end of the system of checks and balances that made our federal republic work all those centuries.

The courts already established clear limits on EOs: banning them outright can restrict a President's ability to enact any law not without instructions spelled out by Congress to the letter.  And considering how some laws may conflict with others, it'd end up to the courts clearing that chaos which could take years to resolve, which a smartly-worded EO would otherwise straighten out.  We've been doing this for decades, as history shows us: even during the questionable periods of civil war and world wars, overall this system worked.

Now, just to deny Obama anything, Boehner and his congressional allies want to wipe that all out.

"This is about faithfully executing the laws of our country," says Boehner.

Problem with that, Mr. Boehner, when you were asked which laws weren't being executed, you couldn't provide a single example.

If you were serious about this, Mr. Boehner, you'd have a violation on hand, you'd have an excuse, before coming to the cameras to make your threat known.

The Speaker of the House is inviting chaos into our system of checks and balances.  This is what we've come to.

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They Did WHAT To the House Majority Leader?

I was going to write about the increase in gun violence putting lie to the NRA's obsession to turn the Second Amendment into a License to Kill, but then I got home to the current news coming out of Virginia:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is losing his primary to a virtual unknown Far Right challenger.

This is part Schadenfreude, the part where I laugh my moderate RINO ass off as a solid conservative party leader is getting creamed because he wasn't Far Right enough for his own district.

Cantor's positions are - well were is the operative word now that we're talking past tense - very much anti-abortion, anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-gay, anti-matter, anti-ante, auntie-anti, anti-Audi, pretty much anti-Obama across the board.  And he still lost his base.  BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Enjoy the Purity Purge now, boys!

Cantor's the Majority Leader, pretty much the Second-in-Command of the House behind Speaker Boehner, essentially one of the key players who was keeping Boehner's ass protected by the wingnuts decrying Boehner's unwillingness to pursue a more hardened "Impeach Obama With Any Excuse" (for all his opposition and obstruction, Boehner genuinely wanted to get things done: after all, a Speaker's reputation stands on the things done under his/her watch).

That's the public stance, by the way.  Cantor's also one of the backroom players who keeps, uh kept, stoking the grumbling ire of the Far Right back-benchers as part of a long game towards making himself Speaker whenever Boehner falls.  It seems as though Cantor's falling first...

Cantor's losing tonight, by the by, because he wasn't hard enough being anti-immigration.  His opponent Dave Brat (I'm a minor self-published writer, even I don't go out of my way to name my characters so blatantly... somewhere Charles Dickens is spinning in his tomb) went after Cantor's occasional attempts to push an immigration reform bill that included "amnesty" - a wingnut no-no - as a sign of Cantor's failure to represent true Republican dogma.  As Joan Walsh notes:

...In a GOP primary season where the big story had been the GOP establishment beating back the Tea Party, the story turned on a dime with Cantor’s stunning defeat. He is the first majority leader in history to lose in a primary in his own party since 1899...

This is a huge victory for anti-immigration extremists, including Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, Laura Ingraham and Mickey Kaus... Brat had accused Cantor of shoving immigration reform down the party’s throat – why is the right obsessed with things being forced down their throats? – and with recent news about children crossing the border from Mexico vainly hoping for congressional sanity in the form of an immigration deal, the issue had new heat...

...But it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. Cantor is another conscience-free Republican leader who courted the Tea Party when it seemed politically advantageous and then tried to run from it when it was clear it was going to bite him in the ass...

The chatter about a GOP Civil War is bound to go major coverage on the blogs and political talk shows for the next few days.  Deal is, it's not really much of a Civil War as it is a shift between the Establishment Republicans who want to wield their political might for their own ends and the Radical (Tea Party) Republicans who want to use that political power to truly achieve their destructive "kill the government" agenda.  Either way, the conservatives - and their deep-pocket uber-rich overlords - win because they share the same true agenda - massive tax cuts and the shredding of the social safety net - that remains on the table.

What's really happening here is the increase in the voting base outrage and anger - some of which is expressed through the scary increase in gun violence the last few weeks - which is not getting mollified or controlled by a party leadership starting to show signs of losing touch with its own base.

This is the scary part of tonight's results: the growing possibility that the Republicans are going to not only field more radical candidates coming out of the primaries this midterms, but also the now-certainty that the Republicans are going to pursue a radical Far Right agenda in order to appease that angry base regardless of being Establishment-types or Radicals themselves.  For the voters to willingly turn against an incumbent with massive political power - almost unheard of in this era of incumbency entrenchment - is a huge blow, a terrifying reminder to those other incumbents that their own political survival is at stake.  The talk right now is how the immigration reform efforts are dead in the water (again) and how the existing House leadership is going to outdo each other in the "Wingnut Purity" contests to keep their own asses safe (meaning the likelihood of seeing an Obama impeachment before the 4th of July).  "Bipartisanship" is now going to be a dirtier word than "Twerking".  ...what the hell is "twerking" anyway...

The other scary realization is how more dangerous the election results this November are going to get.  Like it or not, we're in an electoral process of a winner-take-all zero-sum system between two major parties (Rep or Dem).  Given the obscene gerrymandering of "safe" districts, the possibility of a crazed radical candidate - someone spouting a lot of anti-rape rhetoric for example - getting elected to an office where he/she can cause major damage is high.  In a Senate race where a whole state - which diminishes the strength of a radical voting base in a sea of more moderate voters - could get repelled by an uncaring or unthinking candidate (as we've seen with Todd Akin), the risk is less: in a House race where a radical voting base is in the majority, the risk is serious.

The only thing lessening the risk of a wingnut getting elected is the possibility - even in a hard Far Right district - that Brat will do something so offensive during his victory lap between now and November that even the Far Right voters will go "oh God, we voted for THAT idiot?"  Sadly, the only offensive thing I think Brat can do is say something stupid like this portion of the sentence has been filtered by the Decency Board, who would like to point out that what is being described here not only violates the Laws of God but also violates the Laws of Biology, Physics, and Field Hockey.

While there is a Democratic challenger Jack Trammel in that district - someone from the same college where Brat teaches - there is no certainty that Trammel can win over enough voters: the 7th District went heavily for Romney in 2012 and given the rancor the Republican voters are feeling in that district they're bound to keep that enthusiasm well into November.  It wouldn't hurt, and indeed might help, to send Trammel all the support that can get mustered: in some ways, this seat is up for grabs (losing the incumbent weakens the party's hold on it).

There are more primaries on the way: more possible challenges by Tea Party types versus Establishment Republicans now shaking in their faux cowboy boots.  The Peak Wingnut that John Cole worries about has yet to hit its limit.

God help us.

P.S. Don't Vote Republican.

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You Were Warned This Was Coming

With all due respect to my seven readers, you knew this day would come.  Just not this day.

In order to counter the growing talk of having Jeb "Yet Another" Bush being the prospective Republican nominee for 2016, I have decided to jump ahead of schedule and make my candidacy for President of the United States official.

Yes, I may be starting too early.  Yes, this goes against my constant argument for keeping all electioneering within the actual year of the election itself.  But if my throwing of the tinfoil hat into the ring has the effect of convincing Jeb Bush that Florida is MINE, it should stop this insidious crazy talk about his nomination once and for all.

Now, the process itself still requires a few things... such as filing paperwork in all 50 states I need the vote (plus DC), getting petitions signed and notarized, and oh about maybe $2.4 billion in loose change to pay for the whole damn thing.

I expect to raise most of that through merchandising, such as getting t-shirts and postcards printed out via CafePress.  A lot of money should be rolling in via my upcoming political biography Always Sober Never Sane. (due on the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month)

As the excerpt from my epic memoir makes clear:

These are the thymes that dry men's underwear. The summer hammock and the sunshine parrot will, in this crisis, shrink from too much drying on High heat; but he that strands by it know, deserves the love and thanks of that guy over there and a couple other hangers-on. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily tropified although the editing process on that site is easy; yet we have this constellation with us, that the harder the armpit, the more glorious the deodorant. What we obscure too cheap, we esteem too brightly: it is doe a dearness a female dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods, usually at a fair market rate depending on the Dow; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated by Moody or Standards & Poor.

I figure on getting a seven-figure deal from a major publisher for it. Hell, I'm hoping for the FILM RIGHTS. (with George Clooney as the beleaguered campaign manager, Alexandra Daddario as the Secret Service agent assigned to protect me, and myself played by a CGI-created Yog-Soggoth)

And so, to the easy part: getting 50 million Americans to vote for me.

Right?

Why is everyone pointing at the date stamp on this blog entry and laughing their asses off?

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