Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Next year's elections are going to be a farce to be reckoned with.  What other conclusion can one come to when the GOP's efforts are already a comedy of errors?

Harry Reid's one of the most vulnerable Senators ever.  Well, perhaps I should say, was one of the most vulnerable:

Not every Republican is running away from Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) as revelations about his love triangle with two former staffers threatens to tank his career.

Sue Lowden, among a field of Republicans hoping to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, had some warm words for Ensign over the weekend.

Lowden told the newspaper in Elko she wants Ensign to campaign for her:

She also said Friday she stood by her comments that she hopes to see Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., campaigning for Republicans in Nevada. Democrats criticized her earlier for saying she didn't think Ensign should resign after he confessed to an affair with a staffer. Ensign is under fire against this week over new disclosures related to the affair.

Needless to say, the DSCC is overjoyed.  Can't say as I blame them.  It's always a delight watching opponents shoot themselves in the foot.

And when the Con running for governor in Georgia decides to say something completely outrageous, well, that makes an opponent's life ever so much easier:

One of the most frequent targets in the Georgia GOP gubenatorial primary has been undocumented immigrants. Candidates have repeatedly harped on the threat of undocumented immigrants voting in Georgia’s elections, and have even used dirty tactics to unfairly disenfranchise legal voters — the overwhelmingly majority of whom were racial minorities, according to the Department of Justice — in the name of stopping the undocumented from voting. This scare-mongering climbed to new, dangerously racially-tinged heights this past Saturday when gubenatorial candidate Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) cited complaints about “ghetto grandmothers” as the reasoning behind proof-of-citizenship legislation he is supporting:

DEAL: We got all the complaints of the ghetto grandmothers who didn’t have birth certificates and all that. We wrote some very liberal language as to how you can verify it. My mother was born in 1906 and she didn’t have a birth certificate. They didn’t give birth certificates back then. But we got her one, because you can do it under the proper procedures of your state.

Expect to hear a lot more about, and likely from, these "ghetto grannies."

In other gubernatorial news, guess who might attempt to become Gov of MN? 

Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), who lost to Democrat Al Franken in the heavily-disputed 2008 Minnesota Senate race, is still keeping the door open on a possible run for Governor of Minnesota in 2010.

Coleman told Minnesota Public Radio: "I'm doing what I want to do right now but sometime early next year I will reflect on [a gubernatorial run] and if it makes sense for Minnesota, if it makes sense for me and my family then I can move in that direction. But I have deliberately not put a lot of thought into it."

You didn't think Norm Coleman would let a little thing like a humiliating loss to Al Franken get him down, now, didja?  I'm sure this race will be just as entertaining as the last one.  I hope the Dems find another Minnesota Dem who's a former comedian and policy wonk to run against him.  That would be awesome.

In further gubernatorial news, McDonnell's thesis didn't do him any favors, but neither are his donors:

At a recent rally for Republican Bob McDonnell, who’s running against Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia’s gubernatorial election, BET co-founder and major McDonnell donor Sheila Johnson went after Deeds’ tendency to stutter and stammer when he’s speaking. Johnson pretended to stutter and said that it showed Deeds was “not articulate” and couldn’t communicate effectively:

JOHNSON: We need someone who can really communicate, and Bob McDonnell can communicate. The other people I talk to, and especially his op-p-p-p-ponent (INAUDIBLE). He could not articulate what needed to be done. So communication is hugely important.

Why yes, yes, it is.  It's also hugely important not to communicate contempt for speech-impaired folks when you're trashing your candidate's opponent.  It makes you and your candidate look like total assholes.

Would that be truth in advertising?  I suspect so.

Furthermore, it's probably a good idea for GOP candidates for governor not to donate to Dems.  Meg Whitman apparently didn't get that memo.

But that's all small change compared to the embarrassment the Cons shall suffer over this Senate candidate:

Peter Schiff, a financial commentator and one of the many Republican Senate candidates seeking to oppose Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) in 2010, has an interesting analogy for his new pursuit of politics -- comparing it to a soldier going off to fight the Nazis in World War II.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Schiff explained how he was leaving his true career in the private sector to go into politics.

"I'm interrupting my career. It's not like I want my new career in politics," said Schiff. "But I'm willing to interrupt it the same way that somebody interrupted their career and joined World War II and went off to fight the Nazis. I don't think that I'm that heroic, and I don't think I'm risking as much as a soldier. But it's the same principle."

And that, my darlings, is what it looks like when Teabaggers run for office.  It's the (il)logical extension of their ridiculous rhetoric, after all.

The GOP's leading lights are apparently starting to realize that it's other leading lights are a big fat fucking liability to their electoral success, because the sniper rifles are out and in heavy use.  They're starting by trying to get Michael Steele to shut the fuck up:

In July, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele hosted a press conference to bash health care reform, and effectively read a strategy memo from Alex Castellanos. When asked by reporters about substantive details, Steele declared, "I don't do policy."

The problem, of course, is that Steele tries to do policy all the time, which has proven problematic. For one thing, he doesn't know what he's talking about. For another, he's not in a policymaking position, and can't pursue a substantive agenda, even if he wanted to.

Apparently, leading Republican officials, who actually have policy responsibilities, are getting a little tired of Steele's antics.

GOP leaders, in a private meeting last month, delivered a blunt and at times heated message to RNC Chairman Michael Steele: quit meddling in policy.

The plea was made during what was supposed to be a routine discussion about polling matters and other priorities in House Minority Leader John Boehner's office. But the session devolved into a heated discussion about the roles of congressional leadership and Steele, according to multiple people familiar with the meeting.

The congressional leaders were particularly miffed that Steele had in late August unveiled a seniors' "health care bill of rights" without consulting with them. The statement of health care principles, outlined in a Washington Post op-ed, began with a robust defense of Medicare that puzzled some in a party not known for its attachment to entitlements.

The comments reportedly came by way of Boehner, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and John Thune. In other words, pretty much the entire Republican leadership told the RNC chairman to focus on his job, not theirs.

Yeah, good luck with that.

And McCotter's going after the fuckwits right there in Congress with him:

Lee Fang flagged this gem from the weekend.

On Saturday, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) discussed the direction of the GOP in an address to the Republican Northeast Conference in Newport, RI. McCotter, who serves as the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee in the House, chided conservative "ideologues" for controlling the party. McCotter explained that these individuals want to "purge" opponents "all the time…because they're nuts." He then clarified that his remarks were directed at radical conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).

McCotter added, "As for the attitude of the Senator from South Carolina that it is better to have fewer friends than more, that's easier to say in South Carolina than Detroit."

Keep in mind, there are a handful of House Republicans one might consider relative "moderates," but McCotter isn't one of them. His voting record puts him in the middle of the House GOP caucus -- which makes him pretty darn conservative.

And even he's lamenting the "ideologues" running his party, and "nuts" like Jim DeMint.

Somebody pop the popcorn.  Looks like this is gonna get good.

And, finally, let's check in with once and future Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, who's spending him time between elected gigs shaking down his viewers:

Media Matters:

On two Fox News shows, Fox host Mike Huckabee directed viewers to "go to balancecutsave.com," urging them to sign a petition telling Congress to "balance the budget," "cut their spending," and "save American families"; however, balancecutsave.com redirects visitors to a web page soliciting donations for Huckabee's political action committee, which financially supports Republican candidates and also pays Huckabee's daughter's salary. Huckabee is the latest Fox News personality to ask viewers to visit PAC websites without disclosing the website's nature or whether they stand to gain financially from viewers' donations

Myabe the FTC can apply the same standards to these creeps as they do to bloggers. Huckabee should be required to disclose his own PAC to his viewers.

Classy.  Real classy.  What was that about conservative Christianity being the only valid source of morals and stuff again?

It's still vaguely possible the Cons will mount some sort of comeback, and convince enough gullible American voters that they're not a total bunch of fucktards.  But it's going to be a lot harder to do when they're spending the vast majority of their time demonstrating that, yes, they are indeed a total bunch of fucktards.