In Ohio Race, Lee Fisher’s Woes Continue Unabated
As if Rob Portman’s nine to one money advantage was not enough trouble for Lee Fisher in Ohio’s senatorial campaign, now Fisher’s press secretary, John Collins, is moving over to join the Senate campaign of Jack Conway, who is running against Rand Paul in Kentucky.
Kentucky, of course, is Ohio’s southern neighbor, and Portman’s communications director, Jeff Sadosky, used that to get in a clever dig about all the jobs Ohio has lost: “Just like over a thousand others, this is one more job that’s moved south to Kentucky on Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher’s watch.” I
Although it may be true, as Fisher’s campaign manager Lynne Bowman said, that “Ohioans aren’t the least bit concerned about campaign staffing,” the optics of this are not good — and they are made even worse by the fact that Bowman herself joined Fisher’s staff only a month ago after Fisher’s second campaign manager, Jay Howser, left. Yes, Howser was Fisher’s second campaign manager; he replaced Gen Prado, who was the first. And there have been other departures as well. Fisher apparently has a reputation for being difficult to work with — but whatever the reason, this is a very high staff turnover rate, and it has Democratic Party leaders worried.
Time for Barack Obama to come to the rescue — and he is, indeed, going to be in Ohio next month to help with fundraising efforts and talk to Ohioans about the economy. Here’s what’s a bit odd, though: The advance press notice coming out of the White House about Pres. Obama’s upcoming trip doesn’t mention Lee Fisher at all. The visit seems to be mostly focused on raising money for the Democratic Party, and on helping Gov. Ted Strickland in his own reelection campaign. Here is how CNN’s Political Ticker blog puts it:
President Obama will lend a hand to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s re-election campaign next month.Strickland’s campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith confirmed the visit Tuesday after it was reported in the Columbus Dispatch.
Obama plans to deliver a speech on the economy in Columbus on August 18, followed by a fundraiser for Strickland and the Ohio Democratic Party.
Vice President Biden has already traveled to Ohio to help Strickland, who is facing Republican John Kasich in a closely contested campaign.
Maybe the Democratic strategy is to focus time and money on the top state race, in the hope it will have a coattail effect.
Sphere: Related ContentAdmission of guilt
Yesterday I wrote a piece giving the NAACP a fair share of blame for the Sherrod debacle. The NAACP screwed up. I believe that Sherrod would not have been forced out if it had not been for the fact that the NAACP condemned her as well. I stand by that statement, I dismissed the right wing spin machine’s involvement as just part of it’s nature. For that, I apologize. The right wing media should not be given a free pass because it is what is expected of them. This is the same as not blaming health insurers for being heartless and greedy because we have come to expect it from them. In both cases there is a choice that can be made for them to be better, and there is a willful choice not to be.
Since the Sherrod circus started, the NAACP and USDA have worked to correct their initial mistakes. In the modern American political sphere, it is a sad fact that admitting when your wrong is as commendable as it is, but it is and they have done that.
However the right wing hasn’t done that. Instead they have pivoted the story attacking the NAACP and Obama administration for believing their story and moving against Sherrod so quickly. Breitbart is trying to dig himself out by throwing out any argument that can stick, from claiming that the story was about the NAACP from the beginning, to claiming to be as much of a victim as Sherrod, to going after the farmer that exonerated her as a fruad. There has been no self examination, no apology, completely ignoring the facts of the situation. The right wing media needs to be held accountable. Unfortunately they are not willing to do it themselves, and anyone left of far right (such as David Frum) is branded as a left wing ideologue and ignored.
Sadly I don’t see thing getting better.
Sphere: Related ContentDavid Frum: “The central fact of the Sherrod story has been edited out of the conservative narrative”
Lots of great stuff has been posted by various commentators in response to Andrew Breitbart’s shameless, defamatory hit-piece on former low-ranking USDA official (and, as per TOTALLY NOT RACIST Tea Party Express spokesdouche Mark Williams, Colored Person) Shirley Sherrod.
But apostate neocon and former Bush 43 speechwriter David Frum of all people makes one of the sharpest points in a no-holds-barred attack on “the cynical machinations of conservative media”:
On the phone on the evening of July 20, a friend asked me: “Can Breitbart possibly survive?” I could only laugh incredulously. I answered: “Of course he’ll survive, and undamaged. The incident won’t matter at all.”
There will be no apology or statement of regret for distributing a doctored tape to defame and destroy someone. There will be not even a flutter of interest among conservatives in discussing Breitbart’s role. By the morning of July 21, the Fox & Friends morning show could devote a segment to the Sherrod case without so much as a mention of Breitbart’s role. The central fact of the Sherrod story has been edited out of the conservative narrative, just as it was edited out of the tape itself.
When people talk of the “closing of the conservative mind” this is what they mean: not that conservatives are more narrow-minded than other people — everybody can be narrow minded — but that conservatives have a unique capacity to ignore unwelcome fact.
When Dan Rather succumbed to the forged Bush war record hoax in 2004, CBS forced him into retirement. Breitbart is the conservative Dan Rather, but there will be no discredit, no resignation for him.
By not being held to accountability nor ever facing subsequent consequences (Joshua Green of The Atlantic wonders how Breitbart’s advertisers will respond to his disingenuous race-baiting, while Turley and Greenwald mull Sherrod’s legal options) there is no incentive for bottom-feeding rhetorical organ grinders like Breitbart and his racist (yes, racist) right-wing ilk to reconsider outright libel, cruel slander and brazen defamation as legitimate tactics.
Especially not when the corporate media, government and advocacy organizations all keep dancing to Outer Wingnuttia’s dissonant tune with simian reliability and grace.
Update: Gibbs apologizes to Sherrod on behalf of the White House (h/t Ta-Nehisi)
Update 2: Fox News anchor Shep Smith provides a succinct lesson in basic journalistic ethics (h/t The Joshua Blog)
Update 3: Cosign with Conason (also, fuck you, Clark Hoyt):
Real justice, as I suspect Sherrod would agree, also requires due process for Andrew Breitbart, the Internet impresario who framed her on his Big Government website. In these circumstances, that means a fair, thorough and tough examination of the media fraud that launched his operation last year: the ACORN tapes, whose misuse by Breitbart closely parallels his behavior in the Sherrod affair.
Recalling Breitbart from his days as eager lackey to Matt Drudge, Iwarned from the beginning that nothing he produced would resemble journalism. More than once since then, I’ve mentioned theaccumulating evidence of deception by O’Keefe and Breitbart in creating and then publicizing the ACORN tale. It was a “scandal” that became a national story only after wildly biased coverage on Fox News Channel, followed by sloppy, scared reporting in mainstream outlets, notably the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the national TV networks (some of whom flagellated themselves for failing to publicize this canard sooner!).
Investigations by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, among others, have served to exonerate ACORN of the most outrageous charges of criminality (while still criticizing ACORN employees and leadership). More important, from the perspective of journalistic ethics, those investigations revealed that the videotapes released and promoted by Breitbart’s website were selectively and deceptively edited to serve as propaganda, not news.
As they say, read the whole damn thing.
Sphere: Related ContentRasmussen Poll Shows Portman With A Six-Point Lead in Ohio
The Ohio race to fill Sen. George Voinovich’s seat in the U.S. Senate continues to be a close one. Rasmussen reports today that Portman has a six-point lead, but that is essentially the same lead he had at the end of June:
Sphere: Related ContentIt Is Now Safe to Fish in Louisiana…
The state of Louisiana, on a recommendation from the state’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, has reopened a majority of state-controlled waters to recreational fishing. This includes sport fishing, shrimping, and crabbing. The recommendation came when “approximately 500 samples of fish, crabs, oysters and shrimp from near shore indicated that they posed no health threat.”
And it looks like the cap that BP put in place is holding, which is some more good news. Many would interpret these events to mean that the worst is behind us, and they might be right. But in my opinion, while the Gulf begins the long return to ‘business as usual’, the damage has already been done.
Louisiana had a 2.4-billion dollar fishing industry: how much of that will remain in 10 years time? Yes, recreational fishermen and charter boat captains and bait fishermen get to go back to work this week, but what about the commercial fishermen? By the time the waters get re-opened to them, how many will still be around to go fishing? And I haven’t even started with the environmental effects of all this oil: in addition to the direct wildlife mortalities, the potential indirect consequences may not be felt for years.
The Gulf of Mexico will never be the same after this horrific event, and that is an important point to keep in mind. Right now, we need to deal with all this spilled oil, and all the lives and livelihoods that it has destroyed. But in the long run, we need to shift our perspective: rather than doing the same old thing until a tragedy like this happens, we NEED to be embracing new methods and technologies to better our world.
Right now, we are treating the symptoms, when we really need to be treating the ailment.
Sphere: Related ContentUSDA “Racism” Episode Shows Left/Right are Idiots
The moment I saw the Shirley Sherrod video, something seemed off to me. She seemed to be saying that she learned through the episode that the rich/poor divide was more of an issue than the rich/poor divide. However the right wing big and small media machine did not seem to care to think about this but went on a full offensive calling for her resignation, a call that was echoed by the NAACP of all places. The USDA called for her resignation, and the story ends.
But it doesn’t. CNN did something rare, particularly for CNN. The actually looked at the story and did actual journalism by tracking down those involved. It turns out that Ms. Sherrod actually helped the family that she was referring to, saving their farm and becoming friends with them. It as if someone ended a racial reconciliation movie just after the racial tensions were revealed, ignoring the entire point of the movie.
This episode seems to illustrate one of the massive failings that occur time after time in our society. I don’t think that it is a matter of people being intellectually lazy. This reactionary media and political storm mentality is caused by the fact that if people spend a day to try and due their due diligence on the story, there is a very good chance that the story will pass them by in the first place. That and it is assumed that with the easy access to basically any information, someone must have already done it, right?
I can understand the right wing media having done this, because lets face it, politically spun media is far more willing to run with a neat. However shame on the NAACP. If they had actually tried talking to her about what had happened, they would probably have ended up defending her. Instead feeling pressure from the recent “tea party has some racists in it”, they wanted to show that they were neutral players and jumped at the chance. They have since walked back from what happened and accused Fox News of hoodwinking them. So the good folks at the NAACP are now believing what Fox News is saying without actually doing their own research? Turns out there is one thing that both sides of the partisan divide can do together, and that is be reactionary and dumb.
Sphere: Related ContentTea House Party
In my first week of college, I attended my very first house party. It was pretty crazy. While the party at one point had to be have organized by someone, once things got going it turned into a force of nature itself. There were a couple of people opening every can of food in the kitchen and throwing it into a giant bubbling over pot, there were two people fighting with found rods in the living room, someone had thrown up on the staircase (not to mention every sink and toilet in the house, and god knows where else), and there were at least two people having a very good and loud time in the bathroom. In the middle of my beer and whiskey fueled haze I remember having a moment of clarity asking myself “what kind of person would let animals like us do this in their house”.
Hearing about the Rep Bachman’s formation of a Tea Party caucus within the house of representatives brought me back to that lesson I learned, never lose control of the party. The Tea Party is not a party like the Democratic Party or the GOP, but the political version of that party during orientation. There is no leadership behind it, there are a bunch of people who have a control of small groups only as long as they push it in the direction it is going. Most of the people claiming to lead the Tea Party seem to spend more time trying to stay ahead of where it is going than actually directing it. This leaderless structure has allowed for several powerful rhetorical tools. It has allowed the movement to stand for very obscure principals such as “the constitution” and “the economy”. Without any actual leaders to represent it, the media has no one to actually question about what that means in more definite policy terms.
Another advantage of this unstructured structure is that it allows easy deniability of extremists within their midst. Anytime a (self appointed) “high ranking” Tea Party (unofficial) “representative” says something that confirms the fears of mainstream America about the extreme right wing nature of the tea party, it is easy for the movement to simply eject them and roll on. We saw this happen with Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams after he published a blog post asking Lincoln to re enslave the “coloreds”. Because there is no official leadership of the movement, it is easy to whitewash his acts as non representative of the tea party.
The Teflon nature of the tea party exists because of it’s unofficial status, and will remain as long as it remains a leaderless swarm of right wing anger. However with the GOP who are trying to cash in both fiscally and politically from it by allowing it representation within it’s party will not have the tea party immunities transferred to it. The Republicans are still a traditional party, and any crazed tea partier that speaks the ultra crazy as a GOP surrogate may not be easily cast aside. While it may seem like smart short term politics to try and gain resources from the Tea Party by letting them in, they must be careful. They are not changing into a new movement and gaining the quasi grass roots invulnerability of the Tea Party. They are simply opening up their homes to a bunch of crazy political revelers. It does not matter to the tea party if they make a mess in the GOP, it isn’t their house after all. However the Republicans may have to live with the broken furniture, burn marks, vomit, and love stains in their party for years to come when this party dies down and everyone goes home to sleep off what could be the worst intellectual hangover in modern American history.
Sphere: Related ContentKeystone Kaos: Introduction
Quick disclaimer: I’ m not American.
Techically I’m North American, born and currently residing in the sector commonly referred to as Soviet Canuckistan. But, thanks to the tubular miracle that is the Information Superhighway (huzzah!), it is now possible for a lowly Canadian boy, stuck in the wilds of the Great White North, to intimately follow the ins and outs of a US Senate race — specifically, the fierce battle in Pennsylvania currently raging between Democratic candidate Joe Sestak and Republican Pat Toomey.
That’s right, true believers: expect gaffes galore, gloves randomly coming off and on and off again, a series of whiplash-inducing game changers – to the victor goes the morning!
Um, yeah.
Fuck that noise.
Like Kathleen Hanna said, “turn the song down, turn the static up.”
Within the static is an all-too faint signal, fighting to be received amid the superficial interference of shallow horserace sportscasting masquerading as campaign journalism [sic]. Working people, talking issues that don’t necessarily send a thrill up Tweety’s leg but are of vital importance to the residents of the Keystone State (and, thus, ideally, to the respective Senatorial candidates). Perhaps with the help of a little Wild Turkey, coupled with the magic of The Googles, we can boost the output a little and drown out some of the corporate media drone.
Or, at the very least, lob a series of cheap-yet-(self)satisfying potshots at those blowing the Beltway vuvuzelas.
Yep.
Nothing pops a redmeat-starved progressive poli-nerd audience like flaying the rice paper-thin flesh of mainstream US punditry.
Next week: Surveying the political and economic landscape in Pennsylvania. Also, Wild Turkey.
Sphere: Related ContentLeaked Republican Policy Memo
In a WaPo piece, Karen Tamulty and Paul Kane write how the Republican party is split on whether they should put forward a set of policy ideas to show how they will govern. After extensive research we at CFLF have actually found a leaked copy a GOP memo containing what their 2010 policy highlights will be, and in many cases, who will be spearheading them. Here are some excerpts.
On business regulations
For too long have small and large businesses been subjugated by a tyranny of regulations. Therefore we that know both freedom and the constitution mandate congress to not only freeze any new regulations for the next year, but in fact remove all regulations all together. Also in this spirit, we believe that corporations should not be limited in how much they pay their employees and that no one should be paid minimum wage. Therefore we will be removing the national minimum wage.
On taxes
The GOP stands firmly against discrimination of any kind, be it based on someone’s race, religion, or financial means. No group should suffer at the hands of the government because of who they are. With this spirit against bigotry and discrimination we plan on extending and expanding the Bush tax cuts for those making $200 000 or more. Why should someone have to pay more taxes simply because they make more money? That is the definition of discrimination. We also plan on removing the death tax. The democrats believe in forcing the dead to pay taxes, but the last time we checked, the dead are not allowed to vote. Opposition to taxation without representation is a core principal of this nation, and until the democrats allow voting by our dear departed family members, we will stand against this ugly tax. Continuing to tax the dead could only lead to one thing: a zombie tax revolt. A zombie apocalypse is what we will get if the we allow the democrats to maintain this unjust tax policy, and the GOP does not want to see any American citizen have their brains eaten by zombies.
On BP
We support Joe Barton’s honorable apology to BP over the government shakedown of this good corporation. At no other point in American history has a company been forced to clean up public land, or provide welfare to the unemployed. This slush fund is a travesty, and we believe that it is both fair and necessary for the federal government to return the money to BP plus interest. We will also send fruit baskets to Tony Hayword and Doug Suttles as a sign that we understand the persecution the have felt and our hopes that they will still continue to do business in the United States. To help repair the damage that has already been done, Joe Barton will be appointed to head a truth and reconciliation committee to look into the corporate rights violations against BP by the federal government during this dark time in American history
On Abortion
The GOP has always claimed that abortion is at it’s core an abuse of women. To this end, we believe that no one understands such abuse more than someone who has been convicted of domestic abuse. Therefore the house leadership will form a non partisan blue ribbon commission of experts on domestic abuse with real world experience to look into abortion. The chair of this committee will be David Vitter’s former aide Brent Furer who will bring his understanding of both Washington and domestic abuse to this important issue of human rights.
On Afganistan
The warmongering Obama administration has led the nation to a war that it could not afford under false pretenses of already being engaged in a war there. The fact is, that the Obama administration planned PRIOR to the election to send tens of thousands of troops into Afghanistan. As chairman Steele has suggested, peace loving American’s everywhere must stand up to Obama and his democratic allies and vote for the party of peace, the GOP
On Ants
While leader Boehner has come under flack for comparing the financial collapse to ants, we stand by this statement and firmly believe that ants have been given far to much slack in these tough economic times. No more bailouts for ants. Period. Ants can carry their own weight, in fact they can carry many times their own weight. They do not need the US government to give them billions of dollars to build an anthill. Also on this note, we plan on setting aside several billion dollars for contractors to construct new anthills for the 21st century.
On Health Care
Our first goal will be mount an effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Our replacement plan is a strategy that will both fund health care and reinvigorate our agricultural sector. We plan on adopting Sue Lowden’s barter system of health care allowing for the exchange of agricultural products for medical service. Being that many in the country do not have a ready supply of such goods, the government will offer health care rebates in the form of chicken’s, government cheese, and corn surpluses to help those who are finding it difficult to pay for healthcare
On Sharron Angle
The GOP is and always has been the party of human decency. If the GOP gains the majority in 2010, we plan to quickly pass legislation to provide round the clock mental health treatments for Sharron Angle. We believe that it is the role of the government to help those who are not mentally fit to take care of themselves, We would also like to thank the family, friends, and republican primary voters of Nevada who have worked hard to help this poor delusional woman live her dream of running for Senate
As you can see, these are some pretty hard hitting policy positions, and once released, I doubt any republican will worry about running on them. I am unsure as to how the democrats will respond to these positions as they are fairly fortified intellectually. I guess we will have to wait, see, and hope.
Sphere: Related ContentShort memories, big lies
Steve Benen over at the Washington Monthly has written an interesting piece about some results of a Pew research report. The report writes:
Only about a third of Americans (34%) know that the government’s bailout of banks and financial institutions was enacted under the Bush administration. Nearly half (47%) incorrectly say that the Troubled Asset Relief Program — widely known as TARP — was signed into law by President Obama.
His conclusion is that the complete misunderstanding of recent history has led to the GOP have manipulated these misunderstandings
Is it any wonder Republican attack ads routinely try to exploit public confusion? The GOP assumes voters have short memories, and under the circumstances, that’s not a bad assumption.
However, I really think there is a causal relationship that is being ignored. For the most part, Americans are not dumb, so the question to ask is why do people not know such important recent history? For my money, it is that the republican propaganda effort has been to tie the Obama administration to the TARP bailout. The fact is, the GOP spin machine is as far ahead of the democrat’s as the democrat’s policy generators are ahead of the republican’s.
Sphere: Related ContentTesticular free strategy pays off
Do you want to know what would suck?
Questioning the manhood of a leader that you support on national radio for not being more aggressive against his opponent the day before polls come out showing across the board campaign successes. Well that is exactly what happened to Ed Shultz today. Yesterday, Schultz called Harry Reid ball-less for primarily using surrogates to attack Angle, while attempting to remain above the fray himself. I though Schultz’s initial attack somewhat misplaced, as the election is still over a hundred days away, and there would be a very good chance that a nonstop attack campaign starting now from Reid himself could have negative repercussions by election day. Better to save your hardcore negative ads for the last 6 weeks of the campaign, while using surrogates to soften her up before that. I figured I would wait a day or two to collect my thoughts on the issue and then write about why I support the current Reid strategy and completely disagree with Schultz on this one. Strangely enough, new Nevada numbers came out today showing Angle taking large hits across every demographic group.
With all respect to Ed Schultz, he is a great guy, but he is not a campaign strategist. A non stop attack campaign from the Reid campaign against Angle would be both easy and spiritually fulfilling (and oh so easy) but not necessarily the most effective. A non stop attack strategy could result in a micro example of the Sarah Palin syndrome; people and the media could eventually stop paying attention her wing-nut views simply because they are not much of a story. Covering water in the desert is a story, covering water in the ocean is not. So let’s give Reid a chance here, after all the guy is pretty a savvy politician. Let’s not forget that he managed to win to the first election in the 2010 cycle by running attack ads against Sue “chicken lady” Lowden to help ensure Sharon “she believes what?” Angle’s victory.
Sphere: Related ContentLouisiana Campaign Tales #1 – Meet Charlie
I recently had the chance to listen in on a fundraiser for congressman Charlie Melancon, a democratic challenger to David Vitter’s senate seat in Louisiana. Charlie Melancon represents Louisiana’s 3rd district, a stretch of coast near New Orleans that is currently suffering from BP’s oil spill. Representative Melancon is a member of the blue dog caucus, a group of like minded centrist democrats who are long time proponents of fiscal responsibility within the house. As a moderate, he often does not vote along party lines, but instead upon his personal convictions and the desires of his district. It was clear from the stories that he told that as the representative of his district, he is not in DC to vote on behalf of the democrats, but to represent the will of the people Lousiana’s 3rd.
My personal impressions of him from his open Q&A (sadly I left my recorder off during this segment) is that Melencon is a man who passionately cares for his state. Earlier in the month during a hearing on the oil spill, the congressman broke down in tears. After meeting him, I find it hard to believe that this was anything but the genuine feelings of heartbreak by a man who has seen his district ravaged by two disasters of previously unheard scales on American soil in the past five years.
The congressman was gracious enough to give me some time to ask him some questions at the end of the event. One area of worry that many have had has been about the clean up in the gulf, specifically about the dispersants being used to break up the oil. Many have criticized their use due to their toxic nature and their long term effects on the fisheries.
Melancon compared the dispersants to chemotherapy in cancer treatments, saying that while the cure is almost as bad as the disease, but it at least gives you a chance to live. He added that this attention to toxins in the gulf is good, but long overdue. For years there have been aquatic deadzones in the gulf of areas of thousands of square miles due to agricultural chemicals and byproducts contaminating the rivers that feed into the Gulf of Mexico. He has been desperate for national media attention on the issue, and despite the attention on the region due to the the spill in the gulf, the non spill related deadzones are a story that has not been getting the coverage it deserves. These environmental issues are causing deep economic harm to the fisheries and fishery related industries in the region, and need to be addressed by Washington.
It came out earlier in the week that Rep. Melancom’s most likely opponent, incumbent Senator David Vitter’s aide, Brent Furer, who was working on women’s issues, had confessed to being involved in a domestic dispute where he stabbed his girlfriend. Vitter disputed this fact, saying that Furer was only a policy advisor on abortion. Considering that abortion involves issues of women’s health, counseling, adoption, sex education, and a host of other issues involving women’s physical and emotional well being, it is hard to take his denials as anything but a desperate attempt to deflect the story. I asked the congressman how these events reflected on Vitter’s platform regarding women.
Melancon said that he was amazed that Furer was not fired immediately after he told Vitter of his conviction. He questioned Vitter’s reasoning for not having a woman cover these issues in the first place, but could not fathom how out of touch Vitter must be to have a man who confessed to such a violent domestic abuse work on such a sensitive portfolio. He carried on noting how Vitter’s decision was consistant with hist history on respect for women. In 2007 Vitter was identified as a john by the D.C. Madam to which he admitted. Vitter sinned, lied, broke the law, and has been a hypocrite on the subject of family values.
Overall I was very impressed with the congressman. While I do not agree with some of his policy positions, I am sure that his votes come from careful thought and listening to the people of his district. He is not a democrat from the west coast or northeast, but a democrat from the south, and as such will have different views. The next three and a half months will be an uphill battle for his campaign. However, as the people of Louisiana get to know him, I am sure that the race will tighten.
Sphere: Related ContentMeet the Ohio Senate Candidates
Thanks to the retirement of Sen. George Voinovich after two terms as one of Ohio’s two U.S. Senators (the other — not up for reelection this year — is Sherrod Brown), Ohio will be one of the most closely watched senatorial elections in the upcoming midterms.
For Republicans, every race is an opportunity to inch closer to majority status again — although that is more likely to happen in the House than in the Senate. Democrats, of course, are biting their nails to the quick over the same possibility — which, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs warned, should not be taken lightly.
At this writing, the two candidates vying for Sen. Voinovich’s seat — Lee Fisher and Rob Portman, Democrat and Republican, respectively — are virtually in a dead heat. Portman, however, has a huge money advantage: As of June 30, almost $9 million is sitting in his campaign coffers. Fisher has a scant $1 million. So, even though their name recognition is similar (Fisher is Ohio’s Lieutenant-Governor; Portman represents Ohio’s second congressional district in the House of Representatives), Portman “has the resources to raise his profile, while Fisher has to sweat every nickel.”
Next week: Portman and Fisher on the issues.
Sphere: Related ContentKentucky Senate Update #2
Every week, the race in Kentucky seems more and more like the race in Nevada. By that I mean that it seems like a race that was the republicans to lose, and the candidate is working hard to do so. It seems that there is very little that Jack Conway can actually do to effect the outcome of the race other than not sticking his neck out, building a good voter turnout apparatus for election day, and most importantly letting Rand Paul self destruct.
The first time I actually heard Rand Paul was when he debated Rachel Maddow over the civil rights act. I actually got quite excited about him because for the first time ever I thought ‘here is a republican that actually says what I am pretty sure many of them think and can open up a respectful debate on issues that many conservatives still having lingering feelings about despite having been long resolved legally and embraced by the national main stream’. I had hoped that his candidacy would help air the issues and begin healing a nation divided, I had hoped that he was a man who cared more about policy than politics. I was wrong.
Since the last campaign update, Dr. Paul has gone off on some very bizarre tangents. He said that the poor in America had a high standard of living compared to the poor in other parts of the world, citing a decades old soviet propaganda film. Yes, for the most part those below the poverty line in the US are better off than the poor in most of Africa and even Russia, however that is an extremely low bar to set. I am sure he could ask any of the 17.4% of his state that lives below the poverty line.
In a different speech, he compared the United States to the end of the Roman Empire, citing the government’s use of feeding the masses and distracting them with the ‘circus’. Now, I don’t want to go off on a rant here, so I will keep this short, the causes of the fall of the Roman empire were due to internal forces causing a schism (*cough* republicans), population decentralization due to farmers moving to the fringes of the empire for more fertile land due to centuries of poor land management (the modern analogy of this would be the combination of an environmental disaster, and economic collapse, and a massive outsourcing of labor which is cough cough cough republican republican republican), lead based pipes (lack of EPA regulation perhaps… cough republican), and most importantly, incompetent insane leaders (cough GOP). So come to think of it, there are many common links between the US and the latter days of the Roman Empire, but I think the good doctor got the reasons wrong.
One glimmer of the Rand Paul that I actually like came through when he talked about cutting back the farm subsidies. The idea of this is political suicide in western Kentucky, where agriculture rules, but it is consistent with the libertarian ideology.
Last update i mentioned the ominous tweet Where is Jack? more coming. Well, we now know that the where is jack is a twitter attack slogan out of the Paul campaign. They outline a position or action of Obama’s that may not be popular in Kentucky, or is distorted to look bad, then ask where is Jack [Conway] on the issue. The tweets so far are
Obama is Not Serious on Illegal immigration — Where is Jack?
Obama Sneaks in Appointment of Extremist to Vital Health Care Post — Where is Jack?
See you next week
Sphere: Related ContentMeet the New Boss…
Following up on Amy’s post last week re: flip-floppin’ Tea Party blunderkind Sharron Angle, Jill Lawrence of Politics Daily provides seven examples of brazen GOP backpeddling.
Lawrence asks:
What accounts for the shifts? Evolving principles? Pressure from the right? Political Strategy 101, block Democrats and President Obama so they’ll fail and look bad? Maybe a slightly more subtle approach — find fatal flaws in a compromise that under other circumstances (say if a Republican president wanted it passed) you would support, on the theory that the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the halfway decent or the baby step forward? All of the above?
Beltway orthodoxy demands that Lawrence leave wide open the painfully obvious answer to her many guileless questions (ie, obstruction uber alles), and that she kick off her piece with a superflu0us swing at a well-battered Democratic pineata to ‘balance’ her critique.
Still, she’s compiled a handy list that makes crystal clear how Angle’s carefully cultivated outsider persona shouldn’t impede her penetration of the Republican mainstream (to say nothing of her fetus-fetishizing batshittery).
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