Poor John Cornyn

According to Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, my senator, John “Box Turtle” Cornyn had himself the worst week in Washington this past week. Now considering what we know about all the bad news being handed Republicans this week as the national economy seems to be picking up steam again, much to their consternation, this came as somewhat of a surprise to me. What, I asked myself, had he done?

Well, it’s not so much what he did, but what was done to him. His job, as the National Republican Senatorial Committee leader just became harder. In 2010 Cornyn cruised in a downhill run picking up six senate seats and closing the door on the progress of any decent legislation in the senate. He had done his job. But in retrospect, in 2010 a 2 year old could have done a pretty decent job.

This year all eyes will be on Cornyn to close the deal and regain the senate majority. And what the heck, with 23 Democratic senators up for re-election compared to a mere 10 Republicans, Cornyn must have been feeling pretty good about his chances of becoming the next Republican hero.

Then came Olympia Snowe’s sandbag job. Just a few hours before announcing that she would not be running for re-election in her fairly liberal state, Snowe informed Cornyn of this. Now New Hampshire, which went for Obama by 58% in 2008, will most certainly go back to the Democratic side of the aisle. Then, Cornyn was rubbing his hands together over the retirement of Nebraska’s Senator Ben Nelson. Nebraska is as red as can be and this was going to be an easy pick up. But then former senator Bob Kerrey announced he was going to try and get his old seat back. Kerry is most likely the only Democrat in the state with a fighting chance to win says Cillizza.

In short, in the space of just a couple of days, Cornyn got two pretty bad pieces of news over what he was seeing as two easy races.

And the icing on the cake is that they both came about because of all the crazy rightwing rhetoric coming out that is literally chasing centrists and moderates back to the private sector.

My advice to the senator would be for him to read his Bible more often. Here’s one I like:

“He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.”

Proverbs 11-29.