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.

For Senate: Sanchez is Out Sadler is In

Politics in Texas is anything but boring. Not only do we have a primary election coming up that is completely fluid, where you may or may not be living in the district that you are filing for, we also have a fluid Senate race.

Fluid in the sense that you never know who is going to hang around for the finish.

Witness the fact that a couple of days ago former Army General Ric Sanchez announced he was not going to be in the primary, and that spurred former State Rep Paul Sadler to toss his hat into the ring.

Sanchez was a big name, they were telling me. And he had the creds as a conservative Democrat, someone that some people in the Democratic Party think might have a fighting chance against a Republican in Red Texas.

And he’s Hispanic.

But the campaign never caught fire, chiefly, I think, because the Democratic base failed to get really excited about the guy.

And then his house burned down.

So he got out.

Seeing his opportunity, Paul Sadler, again not a guy with statewide name recognition, stepped in. From East Texas, Sadler is known for his time chairing the Public Education Committee. He lost in a runoff bid for the Texas Senate in 2004 and has since been working in the field of alternative energy.

Sadler will face two others in the April 3^rd primary, Sean Hubbard and Daniel Boone. Yeah, I know, ol’ Dan’l won’t have a problem with name recognition, being one of the Heroes of the Alamo. I visited both of their campaign websites. Dan’l is a retired Air Force officer who has several businesses in and around Canyon Lake. Sean, who is about 12 years older than he looks, is actually qualified to run for Senate (I think) as the minimum age is 30 years.

So this should be an interesting one to watch, especially because we have a new guy with name recognition much like we had before with the perennial candidate from Universal City, Gene Kelly. You remember Gene Kelly. The candidate that Barbara Ann Radnofsky had to beat in a runoff election in 2006.

Coincidentally, Gene Kelly was also a retired Air Force officer.

Draft Wendy Davis for US Senate

There is a “Draft Wendy Davis” group now up on Facebook. You can find it here. You can join but you have to be approved. I just sent my request. I hope they let me in.

Here is why Wendy Davis would be a perfect choice to run against David Dewhurst or Dan Patrick, the two Republicans that are expected to duke it out for the nomination: her recent successful filibuster against a bad public education bill threw her into the limelight. When parents (who are also voters) go to the polls in November 2012 they will have had to live with what Dan Patrick and David Dewhurst supported and Wendy Davis opposed. They will be so ready to vote against these people who sold their children’s education down the river.

There is another reason, though. The guy who is being put out there as the Democratic nominee, General Sanchez, has a couple of problems following him around. One problem is called Abu, the other is called Graib.

Really? We want to see those photographs of stacks of naked Iraqis again on a Republican hit piece? You know that would be coming if Sanchez is the nominee. This is Texas after all.

And finally, it looks like the State Senate district boundaries are going to go against re-electing Senator Davis. We’d lose this very excellent and effective State Senator because of Republican gerrymandering. But the district’s loss would be Texas’ gain.

And now I see that there is a “Draft Wendy Davis” on Twitter. Google it. I don’t twit.

Abu Graib General Tapped for Senate?

Is it at all possible that Texas Democrats will be given a choice between electing another Republican or instead choosing the Abu Graib General to fill the empty senate chair that Kay Bailey Hutchison will leave next year?

It is if this article that appeared in the Star-Telegram on Friday is to be believed.

“Democrats appear to have recruited retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to run for the U.S. Senate in Texas, setting the stage for the party to field a well-known candidate in the 2012 race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.”

Sanchez is famously known for being in charge of the Iraqi prison Abu Graib during all of the prisoner abuse that went on. He was cleared of having anything to do with those abuses, saying that he knew nothing of the actions that took place at that time.

And this could all be true. Still, Sanchez admits that he left the military as a direct result of these events.

The article goes on and describes the general’s personal and political viewpoints and his upbringing in South Texas. It also mentions how Sanchez will surely draw Hispanic voters to the polls.

But I can’t get past Abu Graib. I can’t even count up the number of talking points that have been handed to any Republican candidate unless, of course, they plan on running the former commander of the Guantanamo prison facility.

But they won’t of course. First, it would look like they were just being copy cats. But mainly they won’t because running the former commander of a prison where torture and abuse were the rule rather than the exception is just not exactly the best idea.

John Kyl Not Factually Speaking

If you have been in a coma – or are a Teabagger – you are not aware of the great fun that Steve Colbert and Jon Stewart had with Arizona Senator John Kyl’s gargantuan “misspeaking” last week when he stated in no uncertain terms that 90% of what Planned Parenthood “does” is abortions.

Here is what Colbert did to this sad sack senator:

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

And now I hear that people are tweeting other statements that are not meant to be factual.

What fun.

I want in on the fun. Times are so bad now that a little fun might just be what the doctor (of what some of us are going to be settling for in the future – nurse practitioner) ordered.

First, please to note that the following are not meant to be factual statements.

Tom DeLay has a twin that he absorbed while he and she were in the womb. It’s in his shoulder which is why you never see him with his shirt off.

Rick Perry spends his evenings pulling the legs off of cockroaches, laughing uproariously as the try to run away.

Barack Obama actually was born in Kenya and what is more he still maintains a permanent residence in Nairobi.

Michele Bachmann got her degree from MIT and is actually a former NASA rocket scientist.

John Kyl gets all of his cocaine from his pastor.

Michelle Obama’s first words to Barack when they first met were “Me love you long time.”

And finally,

The goal of the Republican Party is to bring prosperity to the middle class by bringing back jobs that have been lost to other countries and cutting defense spending.

Ah. Cathartic.

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that the statements made above were not intended to be factual statements?

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Senator Tommy Lee Jones

When I first heard the rumor that some people wanted to draft Tommy Lee Jones, that’s the stage and screen actor Tommy Lee Jones, to run for the open seat being vacated by retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2012 I was incredulous.

Surely this is just someone’s idea of a joke, I told myself.

But no. having checked it out there actually is a Draft Tommy Lee Jones website out there.

It was created by a local political commentator who has a radio show on the local Pacifica station in Houston, Geoff Berg. Apparently this is Berg’s own brainchild. Here is the logic as posted at Berg’s website:

“Texas’ conservative voters aren’t about to send just any Democrat to the Senate in 2012. Hell, it’s been seventeen years since a Democrat has won any statewide race here. That’s quite a record – and one we’d like to see broken.”

“To do that, whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2012 better bring something awfully special to the race. Tommy Lee Jones is the only Democrat (or potential Democrat) who does. His name ID, near-universal popularity, fundraising ability, residence in and love for this state, his success as a cattle rancher, Spanish fluency, his image as a western tough guy and his impressive academic credentials would instantly make him the frontrunner, regardless of who the Republicans nominate.”

Well that makes some sense, I guess.

Even Democratic Congressman Gene Green thinks the idea has some merit.

And he was Al Gore’s roommate at Harvard.

And oh yeah, he went to Harvard.

Besides, if Minnesota can send Stuart Smalley to the Senate, why can’t Texas send Agent K?

Bush-41 Endorses Roger Williams for US Senate

Wow, what amazing news. George Herbert Walker Bush, aka Bush-41 or George the First, has endorsed popular music composer Roger Williams to be the next US Senator from Texas.

Williams is a prolific songwriter and accomplished pianist who is known as the “Pianist to the Presidents” having played for nine, count ‘em, nine Presidents, most recently at a luncheon hosted by former First Lady Laura Bush, Bush-41’s daughter-in-law. He composed "Born Free" among many, many other familiar icons of American popular music.

And while I wasn’t aware that Roger Williams even lived in Texas, or aware of what he would offer in terms of senatorial experience, this endorsement of a man of such elevated stature as Roger Williams, well it just makes me choke up a little.

OK, it’s either that or President Bush has endorsed a car dealer from Weatherford, Texas to be my next US Senator.

The other Roger Williams, you could say.

Yawn.

Never mind.

Kay Bailey Bails

So apparently if Kay Bailey Hutchison can’t be governor of Texas she doesn’t want to do any more public service. Kay, you see, announced yesterday that she wasn’t going to run for re-election to her US Senate seat in 2012.

Coming as this has on the heels of a most acrimonious primary challenge this past year, that is the only thing you can conclude. Hutchison was flip-flopping in the press on a weekly basis. First she was going to leave office early to run for governor, then she was going to leave office even if she wasn’t nominated in the primary, then she was going to stay in office. Now she is leaving the office when her term expires.

This had some bad effects on the Democratic side early last year because her early announcement affected Bill White’s campaign to run to replace her and he had to shift gears when that prospect dried up and run for governor, seriously affecting the Hank Gilbert campaign for governor, and Hank shifted to run for Ag Commish again.

This time her announcement has statewide Republican office holders all roiled up. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, widely known to covet a federal office, has announced that he fully intends “to explore running for US Senate,” which is politicalese for yes, he’s running.

But Dewhurst is but one who is interested. Railroad Commissioners Michael Williams and Elizabeth Ames Jones are both interested. Williams will be the Tea Party’s fave. Also former Texas SecState Roger Williams, who sells cars for a living, has a spot on the primary ballot all picked out.

Democrats are going to have a problem running for this office because unlike Republicans, Democrats have no statewide officeholders so getting someone with some name-recognition is going to be a problem in this huge state with 5 major media markets.. And from what I read at the Dallas Morning News, it looks like neither Bill White, nor Ron Kirk, two of the most likely Democratic candidates are even considering running for Senate.

But so far, no one is asking Kinky Friedman what he will do.

Geez, I wonder why.

Pennsylvania: Toomey Grabs Defeat Out of the Jaws of Victory

The Pennsylvania US Senate race is one that I have been watching with interest from clear on back to when outgoing Senator Arlen Specter ratted out on his Republican brethren and joined the ranks of the Democrats in the US Senate, giving Democrats, for one brief shining moment, a filibuster proof majority.

Specter wasn’t going to win in a head-to-head primary contest against Teabagger Pat Toomey, whose uber-conservative group, Club For Growth was once tagged by former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee the “Club For Greed.”

Specter only outpolled Toomey once in a Quinnipiac poll taken in February 2010.

So when Specter switched sides, he met with yet another primary challenger in retired Navy Admiral and present Congressman Joe Sestak. And Sestak cleaned his clock. Democrats don’t like voting for Republicans who say they are Democrats just for the convenience of job security.

Sestak, however, faced the same problems that Specter did in polling himself against Toomey. His numbers have always been slightly better than Specter’s ever were, but he has always trailed Toomey in any Pennsylvania poll.

Until the latest Hart Poll conducted between October 8 and October 10, a telephone poll of 604 likely voters. A poll with a 4% margin of error.

The Hart Poll has Joe Sestak leading Pat Toomey by 3%, 47% to 44%.

Now that is still within the margin of error, but the point is that this is the first time that we see Sestak’s numbers higher than Toomey’s. It shows a trend.

The trend is just this: people are starting to realize that the change that the Republicans are promising if they are elected is a change back to status quo ante. That is, Republicans promise to bring back everything that Bush and a Republican majority put in place between 2001 and 2006. Back to a kleptocracy. Back to Wall Street greed.

Back to the bad old days that inspired two successive Democratic victories.

Pat Toomey along with Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Christine O’Donnell, and Mike Buck are way out there on the political spectrum. When moderate Republicans and Independents start to realize that undeniable fact, they will see that they have little choice but to support Democratic candidates who, unlike their Republican opponents, haven’t completely lost their minds.

And when that happens, there goes a Republican majority in the Senate.

Republican House Leadership to Texas: Use It or Lose It

Back in September, September 14th to be specific, Texas’ junior senator, John Cornyn submitted Senate Bill 3774, a bill to extend the deadline – a fast approaching deadline – for expenditure of funds under the Social Services Block Grant of 2008. This was a small part of a huge bundle of bills rolled up into HR 2638 and was meant to provide funds for “health services (including mental health services), and for repair, renovation, and construction of health care facilities (including mental health facilities), child care centers, and other social services facilities” that were affected by major disasters (like Hurricane Ike).

But apparently it had one small problem. The deadline extension specified in Cornyn’s bill, September 30, 2012, was too long. So on September 29th, in a move to save his bill and get it passed, Cornyn introduced an amendment to move the deadline up one year, to September 30, 2011. He also inserted language to put his bill in compliance with the recently passed Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.

The amendment passed and Cornyn’s bill, specifically meant to keep unspent but allocated funds available for expenditure for another year, something to the tune of $40,000,000, was passed in the Senate by unanimous consent on that very day.

The Senate sent the bill to the House, and they asked for unanimous approval as well, I guess to speed it along. The deadline was that very day, September 30, 2010.

And it was there, in the House Appropriations Committee, that the bill was killed.

By Republicans.

Here is an account of this in the Houston Chronicle. In summary, it looks like “Republican leadership” decided that if Texas couldn’t spend its disaster money in two years it obviously didn’t need the money.

There was also a concern, one that we hear often repeated, that the bill was coming to them just before the recess and they didn’t have enough time to study it. My guess is that they were also a little miffed about the unanimous consent request, and probably had a feeling that someone was trying to pull something.

So they killed it.

Finger pointing ensued on Capitol Hill. No one was taking the blame for this. The only thing anyone agreed about was the suddenness of the bill’s appearance. And about the fact that it would only take one objection on the House floor to deny unanimous consent.

So they killed it.

And in so-doing, they added to Texas’ unemployment rolls when the dozens of social services agencies that were to be kept running if the bill passed started laying off their employees this past week.

John Cornyn and Pete Olson are apparently pretty steamed about this. People who had jobs and who were helping others now don’t and aren’t. So now maybe Olson and Cornyn might want to take another look at their same tired old complaint about not wanting to pass a bill before reading all 18,000 pages of it.

When Republicans do that, sometimes people lose their jobs.

Angle: Not My Job But It Is Reid’s Job

I give up. I’m still trying to parse through Sharron Angle’s public statements about who is responsible for Nevada’s 14% unemployment rate. Apparently according to these video clips courtesy of the Reid campaign, it is not the job of a US Senator to bring businesses to the state. It is not the job of a US Senator, in short, to find jobs for Nevadans. As a matter of fact, a US Senator has no culpability in the loss of jobs in Nevada.

On the other hand, Senator Harry Reid is being skewered in Nevada over the state’s disproportionately high unemployment rate, a full 5 percent over the national average. Here is a statement about Reid’s record on unemployment in Nevada, courtesy of Sharron Angle’s spokesman Jerry Stacey:

"Reid’s response reflects just how out of touch Harry Reid is with the plight of Nevada families. It is now clearer than ever that the Obama/Reid agenda of increased government spending, oppressive regulation of business and the uncertain effect of Obamacare and a massive tax increase when the 2001 tax cuts expire in 2011 is only adding fuel to the fire. We need proposals to help, not hinder, businesses from hiring new workers and give them certainty on taxes and regulation.”

So I take it from this, then, that while Sharron Angle, as a US Senator would not be responsible for bringing jobs to Nevada, but Harry Reid, as current US Senator, is.

How scary is that?

Harry Reid must live a charmed life.

Al Greene: Is It Voter Fraud?

Well it’s worse than I thought. Having an ignorant electorate nominate a virtual unknown to face Jim DeMint in the general election this fall is actually a better and more hopeful scenario than what appears to be unfolding in the post-election investigation that is now ongoing in South Carolina.

Vic Rawl, the populist Democrat who actually did have a chance to take out Jim DeMint in the fall – DeMint was going to be painted as a DC Insider – has three teams looking at the ballots that resulted in Al Greene’s nomination.

And they are finding some suspicious trends.

Trends like Al Greene actually receiving more votes in 25 precincts than there are registered voters in those precincts.

Shades of Texas.

Trends like Al Greene doing significantly better than Rawl on paperless/electronic ballots cast on Election Day, and Rawl doing significantly better than Greene on paper ballots cast by absentee voters.

Significantly better. From Politico:

“In Lancaster County, Rawl won absentee ballots over Greene by a staggering 84 percent to 16 percent margin; but Greene easily led among Election Day voters by 17 percentage points.

Trends like cast votes disappearing off the face of the earth:

“In only two of 88 precincts, do the number of votes Greene got plus the number we got equal the total cast.”

Trends like an unknown candidate receiving huge majorities:

“Greene also racked up a 75 percent or greater margin in one-seventh of all precincts statewide, a mark that Ludwig notes is even difficult for an incumbent to reach.”

Trouble is, what do you do about it? There were so many documented cases of voter fraud in the 2000 and 2004 elections, but nothing came of it. Nothing came of it except that, with electronic voting machines more common than ever, it is easier than ever to commit vote fraud at the polls.

Republican operatives were highly successful in 2000 and 2004 and got their people elected with ease in two close elections. In 2008 there were just too many votes out there and the fraud that I still believe was attempted was unsuccessful in getting the desired result. What I fear, though, is that this primary in South Carolina was just a trial balloon to see just what they can get away with – how extensive can voter fraud be before someone cries foul?

Voter Responsibility in Vetting Our Democratic Candidates

South Carolina has now joined an ever-widening circle of political districts whose voters are helplessly incompetent, because like TX-22, my congressional precinct, South Carolina Democratic voters have nominated a political disaster as their candidate of choice to run against Jim DeMint this fall.

Alvin M. Greene, unemployed, former soldier in the US Army, filed to run for the nomination for US Senate, paid a $10,400 filing fee, and apparently did nothing since that (no campaign, no website, no state convention).

His opponent on the ballot was Vic Rawl, a former judge who had a campaign website, campaign fundraisers and spent real money to get his name out there.

By the numbers, this is how it went down.

Alvin Greene 100,362 votes (58.96%) Vic Rawl 69,853 (41.04%). Voter turnout for the South Carolina primary: 24.08%. Total Democratic ballots cast: 197,380. Total votes cast in the Senate race 170,215. That is, 27,165 voters (or 13% of those who voted) did not vote in the senate race.

South Carolina has 46 counties, 42 of the 46 went for Greene.

Everybody asks this one question: how did he do it? Keith Olbermann asked it in a live TV interview last night and the answer came back: “good old fashioned campaigning” and “word of mouth.”

I beg to differ.

In March TX-22 Democrats nominated a batguano crazy LaRouche Democrat to run against Pete Olson this fall. In my county by county analysis of the vote the only clear trend that I could see was that where Kesha Rogers won, she was 1st listed on the ballot. Where Doug Blatt (the only real Democrat in the race) won, he was listed 1st.

And where do you think Alvin Greene’s name appeared on the South Carolina ballot?

Three guesses.

This took me almost 3 hours to discover today. Trying to log on to the South Carolina elections commission website to get that information was a trial that brought my PC’s web browser crashing down 3 times as apparently everyone in the country also wanted information from that website.

But when I finally verified that Greene’s name was indeed 1st it confirmed my suspicion that voters in South Carolina, rather than pass when they don’t know the candidates (like that 13% did) pick the first name on the list.

And it’s not just me, this guy thinks that’s what happened, too.

And there are those among us who think that Kesha Rogers won because black voters wanted to vote for a black person. The same theory has been offered about Greene with the postulation that white people spell the name Green and black people, spell it Greene.

I find all of that just a little offensive.

And the guy that I cited above doesn’t think that happened in the case of the Greene/Rawl race and has a graphic to back it up (cut and pasted below). That line of best fit shows a slight positive trend but I would want to see the correlation coefficient of that line because when you ignore the line all you see is a shotgun pattern.
Race was not a factor.

So I have a modest proposal. These days ballots are more and more electronic and less and less paper. In times past randomizing a candidate’s ballot position to solve this really awful voting trend was prohibitively expensive in terms of printing costs. Now, however, what is stopping us from randomizing a name on what is effectively a computer screen?

Because if just any guy with the filing fee can get on a ballot and win an election, just based on their ballot position, that makes it not an election. It isn’t even a beauty pageant.

It’s just insanity.

Carly Fiorina’s Open Mouth

How does Barbara Boxer do it? This woman is just about the luckiest politician I have ever seen or heard of.

In her 1992 contest to succeed Alan Cranston as US Senator from California, Boxer faced political commentator Bruce Herschensohn. Herschensohn, being a local TV personality that I remember well, had strong name recognition. Boxer had bupkis. But just days before the election Herschensohn was seen entertaining himself at a Hollywood strip club. A political operative embarrassed Herschenson with a sign at one of his campaign rallies advertising the strip club shouting the words “Should the voters of California elect someone who frequently travels the strip joints of Hollywood?”

Herschenson lost to Boxer by 4.9%.

In 1998 Boxer was again behind in the polls, even against a relatively unknown appointed State Treasurer, Matt Fong. But then Fong went on the offense and criticized Boxer for not condemning Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky affair, as she had in the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill story. An offense that blew up in his face when Clinton got a major Middle East peace accord signed and Boxer was caught on tape embracing President Clinton for this bold action.

Fong lost to Boxer by just under 10%.

In 2004 California Republicans nominated former Secretary of State Bill Jones to run against Boxer. The choice couldn’t have been worse. Jones was a lackluster campaigner who lost national Republican support over his endorsement of John McCain in 2000 over Dubya. Jones ran out of money before the election was over and had GOTV phone bankers calling for him, phone bankers who neglected to say the words “Bill” and “Jones.” That the state turned against the Bush/Cheney ticket in 2004 in a big way probably also had something to do with it.

Jones lost to Boxer by 17%.

So now, the day after Carly Fiorina won the Republican Party’s nomination to run against Boxer this year, Fiorina spends 4 minutes in conversation with an off camera TV journalist trash talking not only the new GOP nominee for California Governor, Meg Whitman, but also Fox’s Sean Hannity. Then, out of the blue she brings up Barbara Boxer’s “so yesterday” hairstyle.

Here are the 4 golden minutes.



See that at realization moment right at the end of the clip? It took her 4 minutes to realize that the mike was on and her words were being recorded.

I have often wondered how “Catty” Fiorina was run out of her top executive position at Hewlett-Packard. No one is talking. But maybe now we have an idea of just the kind of petty person she is.

Guaranteed that long after this event leaves the memory of most Americans the clip will be played and replayed in California up to Election Day.

Getting an Angle on Sharron

Well it looks like Harry Reid’s ship came in last night as Teabagger Sharron Angle took out Susan Lowden in the Nevada Republican primary. Amazing how one (or was it seven) little comment on bartering with your physician using chickens can really cook your goose.

Reid still has a battle ahead of him because for some reasons he is a hated man in his home state. But the past remarks of his opponent should help convince even moderate Republicans that they really have no alternative to Reid. Not this year.

Susan Lowden had her “chicken moment” and that brought her down. Sharron Angle’s past remarks makes Susan Lowden’s lame brain idea to solve the high cost of healthcare seem absolutely reasonable.

Sharron Angle has criticized the notion of adding fluoride into drinking water

Sharron Angle is in favor of outlawing the consumption of alcohol.

Sharron Angle, who is very anti-choice, once proposed a bill requiring doctors to inform potential abortion patients of the link between getting an abortion and getting breast cancer (a complete fabrication meant to discourage women from getting abortions.)

Sharron Angle doesn’t think it is right for parents to hold jobs simultaneously.

Sharron Angle entertains such third rail notions as dumping Social Security

Sharron Angle thinks the Department of Education should be eliminated.

But unlike Rand Paul, the Kentucky crackpot who went on record as being against civil rights after his primary win, it looks like Sharron Angle isn’t going to be opening up in front of the national media. It is going to be things like what she has said in the past as well as who goes on record to support her because of her views that will more likely of use to the Reid campaign.

But one can only hope that Katie Couric will be able to get an interview with Angle in the next 5 months and get her to speak (what passes for) her mind.

The June Primary is Here

To political wonks like me, today, June 8th, with primary elections in 11 states, it’s like Christmas. And just like on Christmas you get to find out what is inside that really bulky present under the tree, today you get to find out who actually wins and who loses.

I am keenly interested in the US Senatorial races for obvious reasons. The Democrats’ loss of the 60-votes in the Senate has put the skids on the Democratic agenda. Pundits promise that there will be further losses, although not a loss of the majority in the Senate. Still, what I want to know is how bad will it be. The primaries give you a preview of the possibles.

Everyone is watching Arkansas whose centrist senator Blanche Lincoln is going through a run off against Lt. Governor Bill Halter. I think that one is a toss-up. The trouble is middle of the road type voters generally don’t vote in primaries, letting those of us who are a little more politically aware decide who runs in the fall. Particularly when we are talking a run off election. Light turnout favors Halter, I think.

Chances are though, if nothing changes Arkansas will send a Republican to DC.

We’re also interested in the Nevada race. The Republican leader to face Harry Reid in the fall, Sue Lowden, has been paying a heavy price for her “chickens for healthcare” remark. Especially when she wouldn’t backpedal on it. So taking the lead in the polling for the Republican primary is the Teabagger Sharron Angle. Angle is being backed by the Club For Growth, the same group that got a Democrat elected to congress in New York by backing yet another Teabagger.

Her Libertarianesque views are extreme in nature, and are sure to give moderates and Independents pause in November.

Look for Angle to win tonight and then snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory come the fall. America is a crazy place to be sometimes, but the Teabagger Movement is still not mainstream - - - yet.

In California former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former congressman Tom Campbell have been slashing at each other with abandon. There is a third Republican in the race but he’s another Teabagger. California is not a TEA Party state - - - yet. The winner will face an amazing US Senator named Barbara Boxer.

Neither have a chance. But do this. If you want to send a little help Senator Boxer’s way go here and order yourself a pair of “Boxer Shorts.” What a clever idea.

Unconventional Wisdom and Blanche Lincoln (? - Arkansas)

I like Arkansas. I like politics in Arkansas especially, because it makes politics in Texas seem absolutely rational.

Here is the conventional wisdom on the primary challenger of Blanche Lincoln for the nomination as the Democratic candidate for US Senator from Arkansas: Bill Halter. Lincoln’s more liberal opponent might do more poorly against a Republican nominee in November because he is, by his own admission, in favor of the Democratic initiatives that Blanche Lincoln has gone on record as being against. Being against them, resulting in her vote with the Republican Grand Opposer Party.

You might think that Bill Halter would have a more difficult time against a Republican opponent than Lincoln would, because Republicans and Independents might have a tougher time distinguishing between them, and a less difficult time distinguishing between a genuine liberal, and a Southern Republican (by definition, the quintessential Republican these days).

And this might give you pause in supporting him for that reason. Half a loaf, after all, is better than none.

But in that you would be wrong and to thank for that I give you the typical Arkansas voters who were recently polled in a Daily KOS/Research 2000 poll.

Now here is the thing: Halter still trails Lincoln in a primary match up, where he is seen as losing the nomination by 12% (45% to 33% with 16% undecided).

But then, when you compare how Lincoln would fare against each of the five (yes, count ‘em, five) Republicans who are vying for the nomination your head starts spinning.

I put it in a table for ease of viewing:

Get it? While Halter is the less desirable Democrat among likely Democratic voters, in the entire voter pool, he is the one who is less likely to get trounced by a Republican.

The liberal does better against Southern Republicans than the right-leaning centrist.

I love Arkansas. It presents us with the enigma that saw the election of Scott Brown (R - MA) to Teddy Kennedy’s senate seat. Given the choice between the Republican who sides with the right, and Democrats, yes, they still lean to the right, but less so with the liberal in the mix.

But really, I am wondering how much of this is blowback from the now infamous ”Louisiana Purchase” during the healthcare reform debate and backroom dealing. The sweetheart deal that Lincoln cut for her state in exchange for her vote on healthcare reform. My guess is Independents were the ones most outraged by that deal, and that restores some sense to an otherwise senseless set of statistics.

Who does Scott Brown Have to Thank for His Victory?

Really. Who does Massachusetts Senator-Elect (and Teabagger) Scott Brown have to thank for giving him his victory last Tuesday?

Obama-voting Democrats, Republicans and Independents, that’s who.

But not all of them. The ones he needs to thank the most are those who are FOR a public option in a healthcare reform bill.

These are the ones he needs to thank, not Teabaggers or Republicans. These people are so irate over congress’s failure to pass a stronger healthcare bill that includes a public option that they were motivated to show up at a polling place in mid-January, in the snow, and cast their votes of protest.

A vote of protest to send a message to congress to get serious about healthcare.

A vote of protest that, ironically, practically guarantees either of two scenarios: 1) a rubberstamping of the bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve, or 2) no healthcare reform now or in the foreseeable future.

It’s ironic and it doesn’t make any sense at all, but I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it happen where Democratic voters vote for a Republican because they are upset that their Democratic incumbent hasn’t been Democratic enough. I’ve seen in happen where they just stay home or withhold their vote rather than vote for the Democratic incumbent because they are upset with his less than blue votes on key issues.

I’ve seen that.

So as nonsensical as it sounds, I actually believe the Research 2000 exit poll commissioned by Democracy for America, MoveOn, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Look at the numbers here.

Isolating the numbers by listing the votes of voters who voted for Obama in ’08 and for Scott Brown in ’10, the poll is revealing.

82% of all voters who voted for Obama and Scott Brown both, “favor…the national government offering everyone the choice of a government administered health insurance plan.”

46% of Democratic voters who voted for Obama and Scott Brown both “oppose the health care reform proposal recently passed by the U.S. Senate.”

And 49% of Democrats believe that the recently passed healthcare reform bill “doesn't go far enough.”

So OK, let’s do the numbers and keep it conservative (statistics-wise).

Total votes for Brown: 1,168,107

Total votes for Coakley: 1,058,682

Total votes for the Libertarian (who cares what his name is): 22,237

Total votes cast: 2,249,026

Now according to the poll, 18% of the voters who voted for Brown voted for Obama in ’08. That means that the total number of Obama voters who voted for Brown was about 210,000 (rounding down). Of these, 82% support a public option in any healthcare reform bill.

That’s 172,000 votes (rounding down)

Had those voters not decided to cast a protest vote and vote for the candidate who could keep the debate going between the House and Senate, keeping the 60th vote, Coakley would have won the election.

Coakley: 1,230,682 (54.72%), Brown: 996,107 (44.29%)

So yes, I can understand the protest vote. I am also one who hates what the Senate gave birth to last month. I wondered, in a previous post, whether it might be a mistake to sign this into law because it was a huge gift to the insurance industry. I still wonder about that.

But this was not about healthcare. It was about maintaining a filibuster-proof senate. So if that’s what these 170,000 voters were thinking in casting their votes for a teabagging, racist, sexist homophobe to dismantle a Democratic majority, then these voters need to do a reality check.

170,000 voters decided the fate of healthcare, and all subsequent legislation for the rest of the year.

Next time you hear someone say that their vote doesn’t count, remember this tale of woe. A tale of woe that saw 170,000 voters undo what 62,704,840 voters did in 2008.

That is, 0.27% undid what 62 million voters did.

That’s some serious undoing.

Republican Senators and Attorneys General Cry Foul

It’s all but a done deal in the Senate. The vote to halt debate and bring the healthcare reform bill to the senate floor for a final up or down vote is all but assured.

From CNSNews:

“‘It looks obvious that that's going to happen,’ conceded Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, after Democrats triumphed on the second of three 60-vote procedural tallies over unanimous GOP opposition”

So now we have senators, like my senator, Junior Senator John Cornyn blasting away at the special deal that Ben Nelson D-Nebraska cut for his state in exchange for getting his filibuster-breaking 60th vote.

From Businessweek:

“Democrats were ‘playing ‘The Price is Right’ by offering sweetheart deals’ to Nelson and other lawmakers to get their votes, Texas Republican John Cornyn told reporters yesterday. ‘The rest of us have to pay the price for these additional sweeteners.’”

Not if you don’t want to counters Nelson:

“‘It’s not a special deal for Nebraska, it is an opportunity to get rid of an under-funded mandate to all the states,’ Nelson said. ‘We’ve drawn a line in the sand and said this is unacceptable’ for all states, Nelson said.”

But this does nothing to quiet the whining in the Senate. As a matter of fact, now 7 state Attorneys General, Republicans all, are chiming in, declaring that this provision in the bill is “unconstitutional.”

Texas AG Greg Abbott being one of them. You know, Abbott, the state AG that crafted the constitutional amendment that outlawed marriage of any kind in the state of Texas?

This opinion on constitutionality, federal constitutionality no less, from this star student of constitutional issues is worth exactly what you’d think it’s worth.

Now I have perused the internet, I’ve Googled it, and frankly I cannot come up with which provision in the US Constitution forbids this kind of deal. And I think the reason I can’t find out what it is, is because the AGs themselves either don’t know themselves or won’t admit to which part of the constitution this runs up against.

I think the latter.

I think they must be referring to the limits on legislative power found in Article 1 Section 9. Where else could it be?

And this is the only thing there that even comes close:

“No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”

That’s pretty close. Taxing 49 states but not Nebraska is not in proportion to anything. Except for the fact that since passage of the 13th Amendment that established federal income tax, pretty much nullified any effects of that part of the constitution.

So it’s not a surprise that the Republican AGs pounce on this issue to prevent passage of the healthcare bill. Challenging the constitutionality of the “Nebraska Compromise,” as they call it, is tantamount to a challenge of the constitutionality of collection of federal income taxes.

Something that is near and dear to their hearts.

Teabaggers Protest Vote for Defense Bill

I’ve been around awhile and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen a time when Democrats in congress finally voted to end the Vietnam War by voting against funding it any further. This was a move that took Democrats years and years to live down. Conservatives blamed Democrats for losing the war for decades.

But now the tables have turned.

Witness two key events. The first was last week’s Republican filibuster to bring the Senate to a grinding halt before it could pass a $130 billion appropriation to fund both the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. Republicans, formerly and famously known as the rabid warmongers of that legislative body, preventing passage of a defense appropriations bill to support troops out there in harm’s way.

Giving lie to the bumper sticker that you see around this place all the time: “I support the troops.”

But the icing on the cake took place today at Kay Bailey Hutchison’s Austin senatorial office. Teabaggers, or more specifically, members of the group Common Sense Texans, an affiliate of the Texas Tea Party, protested the Senator’s vote to break the filibuster.

Ironically, the teabaggers held their protest because they were mad that in breaking the filibuster, the Senate was then able to proceed on to consider that little compromised-into-oblivion disaster they had there in HR 3590, the healthcare reform bill.

“We know that she is against the health care bill, but she could have slowed it down so we can spend more time talking about it and read it in the light of January.”

That last little bit, “in light of January” has to do with the stimulus bill that teabaggers all hate. You know, the one that Kay Bailey Hutchison voted for.

Hutchison cried foul, saying that she was for the filibuster before she was against it.

“‘When the votes were already there — the 60 were there, of course — then why would you walk away from having the support for the troops?’ Hutchison said Saturday during an interview with Fox News. ‘But had there not been 60 votes and we could have made this health care bill go over into next year, then we would ave certainly done the continuing resolution for the troops.’“

Diabolical.

What Senator Hutchison is saying, of course, is that the 60 Democrats who voted to break the filibuster were enablers. They enabled Kay Bailey to do the right thing and support the troops.

What the teabaggers are saying is that they hate the fact that the 60 votes to break the filibuster enabled the senior senator from Texas to vote to support the troops.

And this could all have gone away but for the fact that Hutchison is in it neck deep trying in vain to attract Republican primary votes. And Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, who actually has some Texas National Guard troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan took her to task over her vote as well.

Doubtless we will revisit this little caper again in 2010 in the gubernatorial race.

Rick Perry and Texas Teabaggers: the gift that keeps on giving.