It's Gonna Be a Trump Convention. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (w/ Update to the Update)

(Update 7/5/16: Hello again Crooks and Liars readers visiting via Mike's Blog Round-Up, and thanks again to Batocchio from Vagabond Scholar who always treats me well! Please check out all the other posts on my blog, this one article was part of a four-for-Fourth I did for the 4th of July!)

As cometh the month of July, so too does both of the major party conventions for the Presidential nominations (they're doing it a little earlier than usual because of the Rio Olympics starting at the end of the month).

The Republicans are going first starting July 18 through July 21, in the Great Lakes city of Cleveland OH. They should have scheduled prime-time speakers on each evening, with Tuesday night being the big delegate count to confirm the winner, Wednesday night the Vice-Presidential nominee's speech along with a major guest speaker, with Thursday night being the winning nominee giving the big speech to accept the party's nomination and send everybody home with a go-get-em mood.

That's about all we can say about it right now. I'm serious.

The GOP convention may be less than two weeks away, but there's still a ton of confusion and mayhem tied into it.

There's still buzz about the delegates trying to revolt against putting their votes in for Donald Trump (I really don't wanna link to that site, but when the arch-conservative websites are worried...), the guy who won the Primaries and yet is the most unliked, unwelcomed figure in the party's entire history to be getting the nom.

The number of corporate sponsors have dwindled to where the convention will not be as swank or well-funded a get-together as previous conventions have been.

The number of people willing to show up - and we're talking the party elites, the lobbyists, the deep-pocket funders - keeps dropping, as though nobody wants to be caught on film or camera being anywhere near the city of Cleveland. ...Well, okay, granted, that's normal for Cleveland but still this is supposed to be a major shindig where EVERYBODY who's supposed to be ANYBODY within the Republican ranks has to be seen.

Trump promised a full list of speakers some time last week, but then held off until this week, suggesting problems finalizing the invites. Rumor has it five of the main slots of speakers' appearances will get filled by Trump family, not exactly a good sign.

And then there's the party platform. This is a minor, almost routine part of the nominating convention where the elites get together and hammer out a set of issues and political stances that the Presidential candidate - and the the party as a whole - will campaign on for the General Election.

It's looking like the Republicans won't even make one. Per Ed Kilgore at New York:

For a political party known until quite recently for its virtually unanimous support for the dictates of conservative ideology, the GOP has got some shockingly large divisions on issues today, thanks to Donald Trump. His speech earlier this week on trade is an example: There is no way to identify a single inch of common ground between Trump's attacks on globalization as the source of all evil and the views of the Republican-leaning U.S. business community... Slightly less heated but still important are Trump-GOP differences over social security and Medicare... Immigration, of course, has created its own well-known intra-party fault lines. And there's trouble all over the national-security landscape...

...All these divisions make the drafting and adoption of a party platform — normally a chore so routine and boring you don't even hear about it beyond marginal arguments over the precise language of planks on abortion or guns — perilous...

How to avoid trouble? Well, two distinguished conservatives (one the president of Hillsdale College, the other a member of the actual platform committee) writing at the Washington Examiner have an idea: Make the platform so abstract and brief that none of the divisions even appear...

Essentially, make the platform so vague that people can see what they want to see in it - even if there's no there there - and come away satisfied.

The platform will likely claim to uphold the Declaration and the Constitution and mom and apple pie, throw in a call for less federal control and more states rights without anything more specific, and just leave it at that.

THAT still runs the risk of Trump seeing it as an opportunity to scrawl his own design on that blank slate - screeching all about his latest Twitter war -
which will come across to an audience eager for any details as the party's real platform.

The Republican party, basically, is setting themselves up to fail in whole new ways.

Granted, the RNC and the convention organizers are bound to force Trump to stick to some kind of scripted speech, something vetted and spellchecked to appeal to the masses without alienating the base, but on the biggest stage yet there's every likelihood Trump's gonna ad-lib in some way. There's still the possibility the scripted speech isn't going to be the sop to the general electorate the Republican Establishment hopes it will be, because those guys really are tone-deaf.

So, here comes the oncoming train wreck.

What could possibly go wrong...?

Added: Oh, and I totally forgot this part, but they still don't know who the Veep nominee is. Trump is "vetting" three suckers candidates right now with Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence at the top of the list. Although don't be surprised if Trump "goes rogue" at the last moment and selects someone not getting talked about. Thing is, given the poor quality of the party's Primary candidates, it should be a given that the Vice President selection is going to be a dead fish for the general electorate...

Revision to the Addendum with the Update: There is a final list of guest speakers available now, and it's actually quite respectable with known party figures like Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan. Thing is, I think those guys are OBLIGATED to show up. Some of the more interesting highlights are that four spots are taken by Trump's kids - usually just one or two speak - and there's not a lot of up-and-comer figures on the list (likely that's going to be Oklahoma governor Fallin, who's building up a intraparty fanbase).

What's interesting is the party's schedule: They are planning even prime-time around set themes, and the themes are BENGHAZI, Bill Clinton's sex scandals, and Jaywalking.

So, basically, they're taking the "Eastwood Rants At Empty Chair" spectacle and multiplying it by INFINITY.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG...?

Will The Republican Party Really Split?

There's been some talk about the modern Republican Party.

About how it's on the verge of utter collapse.

Oh, I wrote earlier that for all intents the Republican Party as we knew it was dead. It was no longer a party of serious conservative thought having replaced all that with reckless fearmongering and race-baiting, that it had kicked out its moderate and progressive elements ages ago, and was now essentially the Southern Slaveholder Party of 1865 Reborn in all but name.

I am not the only one claiming that, by the by.

It's now so common-place a thought within the mainstream/conventional wisdom that there are actual questions as to HOW the potential break-up of the Republicans is going to be like. The Washington Post is taking it serious and even asking serious historians like Eric Foner about it:

FONER: Well, it depends what you mean by a "fracture." If you mean events that totally destroyed a major party and created a new one, the last time that happened would have been in the 1850s. Before that, the country had two major political parties: the Democrats and the Whigs. Since then, we have had basically two major parties -- the Democratic and Republican Parties -- with some short-lived breakaway and one-election-cycle movements that sometimes deeply influenced election outcomes. But we have not seen an actual party die or a new one born and continue since 1854...

...Well there are actually quite a few of these moments in American history. We have generally had a two-party system, even though there's nothing requiring that in the Constitution. But we've certainly seen splinters. Then, those third parties have merged or fallen apart again and again...

On the one hand, like Foner I'm not a firm believer in certainties when it comes to predicting the future. Anything can happen, something could conceivably force the factions within the GOP to re-unite. Who knows, maybe sheer spite of the tree-hugging dirty hippie libruls might do it. If only both sides can agree on who's not coddling said libruls when the other side's not looking.

On the other hand, this dynamic clearly can no longer exist. The people in control of the Republican Party - the financial donors, the seasoned consultants, the elected veterans of too many Congressional terms - are no longer in sync with their actual voting base of low-education poor White Males. It turns out all the fearmongering and Establishment-bashing the party elites kept telling their followers via the Far Right news channels and websites made those followers fear and hate their own self-entitled party bosses. It's all leading up to the near certainty of a thin-skinned, narcissistic con artist pitching the basest form of race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by the name of Trump winning enough delegates this week to clinch a commanding lead for the Republican nomination for President.

This is the kind of personal betrayal in a relationship that ends up with both sides in tears.

This isn't like a relationship breakup though. We're not talking about the uber-rich power brokers of the Establishment getting to keep the beach house in the Bahamas while the Populists hold onto the condo in Manhattan. We're talking about who gets to retain the controls of a national political party at all levels of government.

There's been other talk about how the Establishment now has two choices: deny Trump the nomination at the July convention and risk him fleeing to a Third Party run that kills their chances at the White House, or flee themselves from the GOP - taking all their billionaire backers with them - and try their own Third Party bid... which still kills their chances at the White House. Either move can risk their down-ticket races for the Senate and some state-level elections as well (it's unlikely the House is at risk due to massive gerrymandering).

There is, of course, a third option: openly embrace the Dark Side, accept Trump's campaign of immigrant-bashing that appeals to their loudest and angriest voting base, and hope that they've got enough voter suppression efforts in enough states to diminish the anti-Trump vote and eke out a corrupt win in November. But that move would essentially kill the lie the party has been telling itself that it's never really this racist and hateful. It would certainly kill off any hope the Republicans have of surviving the coming demographic change in the next decade, which is real and inevitable.

There are not a lot of smart options for the Republicans right now, at least for the ones who care about being smart. The ones who are willfully ignorant, they're likely thrilled they're finally playing this game the way they want to.

All said and done though, I doubt the GOP really blows apart. Neither side of this potential break-up will last long outside of the existing organizational charts. Starting up your own Third Party is too much trouble... and the rules - especially when it comes to winning elections - are stacked against you. There's a reason - as Foner himself notes - why most Third Parties throughout history - most of them just vanity projects to begin with - don't last past two election cycles before getting consumed by the duolithic tag-team of Jeffersonian/Jacksonian Democrats and Federalists/Whigs/Know-Nothings/Republicans. There's a reason why the deep-pocket extremists like the Koch Brothers decided to get rich and buy the GOP instead of building their own political machine.

This won't be the Van Halen/David Lee Roth split. It's not like they'll be two parties in 2018 running as "The Real Republicans" and "The Really Real Republicans, We Mean It" against the Democrats.

What will likely happen is what usually happens to a political party that got too reflexive and stubborn for its own good: a massive realignment of who runs Bartertown uh the party itself.

There's a real likelihood with Trump as the candidate that the Republicans lose - and lose big - to Hillary and the Democrats this November. When/IF that happens, the denialists within their ranks are going to have to face reality that Trump's message and the hard drum beats of racial demagoguery just aren't working anymore. There would be a real push to fix the message delivery, which means Roger Ailes - the guy at Fox Not News who allowed all this to happen - to face a very brutal retirement push out the door. It could well signal a loss of prestige and power among the leaders of the Far Right Noise Machine - hi, Rush! - to where they get the boot as well (Limbaugh in particular has become a very expensive albatross to his media company). There could be additional - and genuine - reforms by the deep-pocket backers sick of throwing money into a pit that gives them little return on investment.

The risk is that Trump wins - more out of terrible turnout by the Democrats (either intentional voter suppression or self-inflicted spite to not vote) than by Trump's salesmanship - in which case the opposite happens: the denialists get full control up and down the party command... and implode on their own due to their failure to handle the real world, in which case the Republicans have to clean out the rot anyway. But this way will be messier and more likely to take a lot of innocent lives with the effort.

As I said earlier, the Republican Party as we knew it is dead. It's more the Party of John C. Calhoun than of Lincoln or Teddy or Ike or even Reagan.

The question is, what kind of Party will rise to take its place?

It all depends on how brutal Hillary beats Trump in November. Personally, I'm hoping for 45 states plus DC going for Hillary at 59 percent of the popular vote, but that's just wishful thinking. It's really wishful thinking, because we all have to f-cking get out the vote and stop Trump from winning, period. Even a 51-49 percent win for Hillary with 272 of the Electoral College will suffice.

All that matters is stopping Trump, and getting the Republicans to wake the hell up and fix themselves.

Early Voting Florida - Primary 2016

I have neglected a duty as a Florida blogger to report that Early Voting for the 2016 Presidential campaigns is already underway. We're coming up to the weekend part of the Early Voting where the single Sunday the polls will be open to vote before the official day of March 15.

Your county Supervisors of Elections should have listings of the nearest Early Voting polls. As I am in Polk County I will list ours.

Remember, Florida is one of the repressive states, so they'll need Photo ID as well as your Voter ID (and maybe DNA samples so bring a vial of blood just in case).

Florida is also a Closed Primary: you gotta be with a Party hosting a ballot to vote for it. So if you're like me - NPA No Party Affiliate - you've got nobody for the Presidential race to vote for. HOWEVER, be aware some cities and towns will host local votes for their own officials during this (most others will do so April 15th, so stay tuned for that) vote, so pay attention! Local elections matter too (Bartow in particular has one candidate who keeps running every election because he wants to go in and close every city office - from Parks to Libraries to Fire Department - down).

On the Primary day itself - March 15th! - be prepared to find your local precinct to vote, because the rules are strict about it: you gotta poll where they tell you to poll (Early Voting and Absentee Ballot Mail-Ins are exempt).

And so the seven readers of this blog are likely to ask "Gee Paul, I'm still kinda in the dark about who to vote for, so what's the sane choices for each party?"

You're asking ME (always sober, never sane) for tips? Aheh. I know up front the Republican/Conservative readers trolling this blog - hi, older brother! - will call me out on my hyperbolic conniption over how bad the remaining GOP field is, and I also know I'll get critics from the Democratic/Liberal readers if I don't back their horse 100 percent. Still, I will try to explain my arguments as clear and effective as possible.

For the Democratic ballot, there's the choice between Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley (he had filed before dropping out). So there's always a possibility of an O'Malley upset (stop hitting me). Seriously, there is a choice here between the Centrist Hillary and the Socialist Bernie. The fighting between the two factions backing both have gotten heated, so I'm bound to offend when I say: If I had to, I would vote for Hillary.

My arguments for Hillary come around to these points. She is experienced as both a legislator - twice elected Senator - and as administrator - serving as Secretary of State. For all the horror stories and hatred she receives - regarding her secrecy, her ambitions for higher office - I think her years of service have mellowed her. While I've cataloged her as an Active-Negative personality, that Aggressive side of her world-view to get things done may be key to breaking any Congressional opposition if the Republicans retain control of that branch (Obama's greatest flaw has been - until this last year when he no longer needs to deal - too sincere a need to get bipartisan work done, which allowed far too much obstruction to stall our public sector).

The Bernie backers - if any show up here - are likely going to rip me apart for ignoring Sanders' True Leftist bona fides. Please remember, I view myself at heart a Moderate: my Progressive leanings only lean so far. I respect Sanders' arguments against the Big Banks and I know damn well income inequality is a serious problem. And I know Universal Health Care is where our nation needs to go for our basic health care spending and costs to be better controlled. However, I worry about Sanders' numbers regarding his health care proposal: the math isn't working. There's every likelihood implementing such a massive shift in policy and costs will raise taxes higher than most Americans are willing to pay. And a sudden shift from one system to another will be difficult to pull off, creating more costs and damage to the health care infrastructure our nation can't afford at the moment. We just started ObamaCare, and need to give it a few more years of reducing the costs and increasing insured enrollees - and getting Red States to swallow their pride and accept Medicaid funding - to show that a regulated market system can be effective and expanded upon.

I know there's one big argument against Hillary: her controversies. A good number of Bernie supporters - and far too many fence-sitters - are worried about Hillary being a big target for scandals that could hurt her in the general election. Here's the thing: many of those "scandals" are mythical BS stories that have been dumped on her for 20-plus years by a proven faction of Far Right wingnuts who fear her more than even her husband Bill (and he's been President). Even the current "big" scandals surrounding Benghazi and her private email server... are turning out to be overblown, manufactured affairs.

Here's the thing: that damn Far Right Noise Machine is going to screech and throw fits at the Democratic nominee no matter who it is: Look at how they shredded John Kerry with BS stories. The wingnuts are going to attack Bernie for being a Secret Commie traitor as much as they'll go after Hillary for being a witch (NI!). I don't even count the possibility of a breaking scandal to hit or hurt Hillary in any way. Hell, I view it as a plus now: If Hillary has truly been this evil, this manipulative, all these years with a body count to rival Stalin's... and her attackers STILL haven't found any evidence that will stick in a court of law, then she's got the competency and Machiavellian skills to lead our nation.

Now, to the other side.

For the Republican ballot, it's still stuffed with the names of most of the candidates from January, meaning a lot of dropped candidates to disregard. Unless, if you like, you want to vote for Lindsey Graham bwhahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. :) Ahem. Okay. As of right now, the serious names to consider are Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump (Ben Carson has suspended his campaign but not officially ended it, but he's pretty much done).

I admit I am not a fan of any of them. My apostasy for the current mindset of the Republicans has me in a foul mood towards the whole party, so I know I'd be making a bad decision no matter what. If I had a choice on the ballot I'd fill in None of the Above on a blank space. If you put a gun to my head and demanded I make a choice... I still wouldn't, because you're making me choose either a quick death or slow death.

There are degrees of unlikable factors for me regarding each candidate.

Topping the list is Trump. I've got it as a Label hashtag: Trump Is a Con Artist. Of the remaining candidates, he is the one lacking any elective or political experience at all. To me as a Moderate that alone is a disqualifier: I want someone with experience and competency. Making him even worse has been his blatant racism against Mexicans, Muslims, Mandarins, and other Minorities. His statements are disprovable to the point of being lies. His attitude and willful ignorance are horrifying to see in someone positioning himself to represent this nation to the rest of the world. He's a bankrupting opportunist who cuts and runs the second he's not making any money on anything. Trump IS a con artist, whose con is selling himself and nothing else. In all seriousness, for the Love of God, DO NOT VOTE TRUMP.

The next scarier candidate for me is Rubio, in that he's the hometown "favorite son". Florida is his home base - as it was for Jeb? - and Rubio has got to be counting a lot on the local voters keen on having a Florida boy win the nomination. I know my brother - having lost Christie to support - was in a toss-up between Jeb and Marco a few weeks ago and with Jeb dropped out it likely means my kin is voting Rubio.

I wouldn't. Not on sentiment, and certainly not on Rubio's (lack of a) resume.

Whatever charm Rubio has to make the Beltway mainstream media treat him like a winner, he doesn't have it when it comes time to impress voters. He's flat, bland, or at worst robotic: Getting caught mimicking his speech cues as debate answers was a devastating blow to him. There's a reason Rubio is THIRD PLACE, people...

As for his record, his state legislative history is one of a hard-core Far Right Republican with little of a moderating, bipartisan stance. He won the Senate seat in a three-way race where the Democrat and Independent knocked each other out instead of him. And as a Senator, he did more grandstanding than he did any actual work. The one piece of legislation he IS known for - trying to set an Immigration Reform package that his own party quickly scuttled because their own wingnut base HATED IT - is one he dropped like a hot potato and fled from in horror, which doesn't impress a damn soul. He lacked the courage of any conviction there, save for his own future plans to run for President.

Anyone who thinks Rubio can appeal to a general electorate is overlooking the facts that Rubio has no solid record that moderates would respect, that Rubio is fully on-board with a Republican platform that is far more extreme Right than anything pitched since 2000 2004 2008 2012, and that Rubio's speeches cover a lot of talk about revamping the Constitution itself by purging the amendments most Americans view as vital to our civil liberties.

If any thought comforts me, it's the knowledge that if Rubio can't win Florida - which is Winner-Take-All - he's doomed to lose the delegate count. The polling tells us Rubio is almost half the percentages behind Trump, which is good except for the fact that Trump is leading WHICH IS BAD.

And then there's Ted Cruz.

No. Just. No. THAT. Should not happen.

That leaves Kasich as the fourth and final option, and pretty much the only one I would - if I really really really REALLY had to - check on the ballot. And this is me damning him with the faintest praise I can muster.

Where Kasich impresses me is the fact he has the solid resume of experience across the board: years in Congress as well as serving as Governor of a large state of Ohio. He has shown signs of brain activity. Of the remaining Republican candidates, he's the one most likely to actually respect the Federalist system of national governance with its checks and balances, and one who might - maybe - pursue a bipartisan approach to his administration if he ever gets to the White House. Essentially, he's the least-scary guy on the GOP hit list.

This doesn't excuse the scary things about him, though. Kasich is openly anti-abortion, a stance which centrists/moderates view with dismay. He's anti-Union to the point where you can't trust him to push a Jobs Bill agenda this nation STILL sorely needs. And he's still a full backer of the Republican platform of cutting taxes, cutting regulations, and cutting everybody off at the knees who's not already in the One-Percent Club.

So, there's my suggestions for the Closed Primary balloting. Hillary for the Democrats, Kasich for the Republicans, a night-time supply of crafted microbrews for everyone else watching the election results on the eve of March 15th. Oy.

Before Super Tuesday 2016, Some Notes

In the Primary schedule, there's a big block of states that all Primary/Caucus the same Tuesday, most of them for both parties. It creates a pretty big hurdle day where if one candidate dominates most of the states, it pretty much ends the race and drives all the has-beens from the field even if a lot of other states - hi, California! - haven't chimed in yet.

It is called Super Tuesday. It is the next Primary on the calendar, this March 1.

These are the things you'll need to know:

For the Democratic race, Super Tuesday is the likely point where Bernie Sanders drops out.

Last night's South Carolina Primary for the Dems turned into a metaphorical bloodbath where Hillary Clinton garnered about 74 percent of the turnout to Sanders' 26 percent. While Hillary was poised to win, the scale of it was mind-blowing. Hillary cleaned up two key blocs - women and Blacks - in such a way that went against Sanders' aggressive pandering in those communities.

Hillary's (soft) delegate count is around 530 or so with Bernie around 83, where the needed delegate count to win the nomination is over 2300. Even in the hard delegate count, Hillary's leading. After this Tuesday, if Hillary wins the states she's expected to carry -  Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas (!), and Virginia - and garners wins in places that are toss-ups - Colorado, maybe Minnesota, Oklahoma - that is 9 states out of 11. Only Vermont is a lock for Sanders, and while Massachusetts was seen as a Sanders lock that's been turned into a toss-up as well (don't forget, Hillary won Massachusetts in 2008 despite Obama's support in MA).

Bernie has to win over Massachusetts, Colorado and Minnesota to have any conceivable chance to continue into May or June. He might not even get a chance to challenge the March 15 Primaries where five major states - Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, Missouri - plug in nearly a quarter of available delegates into the math. And Ohio is the closest one he's got: Hillary is just stomping him across most of the Primary states.

And now to the Republican side of the aisle...

The weekend has mostly been the noise buzzing about Trump starting to receive endorsements within the ranks of the Republican Party itself. The party elite had been desperately anointing others like Jeb and Rubio with those pats on the back, but Trump still cruised along to big Primary wins without them.

Now, with the likes of Chris Christie openly advocating for Trump, we're seeing a shift in the back-room struggle by the Establishment to try and maintain a semblance of sanity in the nominating process. With Christie - and various Congresspersons, and just recently Maine governor LePage - providing political cover, we're going to see more and more influential insiders telling each other the delusion of "ya know, we can deal with Trump, he's not that bad..."

Because this same weekend saw Trump getting endorsed by Klu Klux Klansman David Duke... and when asked about it Trump refused to denounce the KKK support.

Considering how the Republicans keep marching out there saying "oh we're not really racist" and then have a well-known racist organization like the KKK back your banner-carrier... well, at this point I doubt there are any desks left in one piece at the RNC headquarters after all the headdesking that's been happening since June 2015.

This coming Super Tuesday vote will be yet another test, but this time a test of Republican Establishment fortitude. All things being equal this election cycle, anything Trump has done that's been controversial and horrifying has done NOTHING to stop him at the primary ballot box.

The Republican voting will take place in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Vermont.

Of these states, Ted Cruz has a lead in Texas, Arkansas, and that's it. Marco Rubio leads in Minnesota. Carson leads in Colorado (!). Trump is leading everywhere else, especially in states that should know better (I'm glaring at you Georgia, dammit how's a boy gonna defend his birth-state when you being this stupid? It's not crazy, it's STUPID. VOTE KASICH YOU IDIOTS...).

There may yet be a quick change in the votes among undecided or remaining party moderates offended by Trump's open bid for Klan votes, but that's unlikely (outrage does not kill Trump). What we should look at are the results and see if Trump gains any on the 35 percent or so average he has within Republican ranks. With Jeb out of the race and the Establishment trying to rally to Rubio, we ought to be seeing a three-man race between Trump, Cruz and Rubio balancing between the 30-to-35 percent ranges. But if Rubio is still wobbling around 18-to-20, and Cruz is wobbling around 20-to-25, and yet Trump is still around 35 percent... that's good news because that will be proof that Trump has a support ceiling, that he's capped out. Granted, it won't be good news that Rubio can't garner more support to beat Trump, and that Cruz is still able to justify staying in the race. But this means that Trump's Unfavorable numbers are legit, and that in a general election Trump is gonna get his ass kicked.

However, if Trump's numbers go up... if Trump clears the 40-to-45 percent hurdle, if he even wins a state outright getting 50 percent or more... that means he can shrug off his Unfavorables. Stopping Trump in the Republican Primary is a tall order, and growing unlikely in the face of the RNC's ineptitude. If Trump can win over support well enough into the moderate bloc of voters... Ohhhhhhh SHHHHHHHIIIIIIII------

(psst, for the love of God don't vote Trump (as well as don't vote Republican in the Senate and Congressional races, and state races, and...)

I'll be busy at a library conference this March 1st. I will try to check in, but no guarantees. P.S. SUPPORT YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

It's Cheap, It's Easy, It's Winners And Losers the 2012 Elections Edition

What can I say?  I'm swamped with getting more NaNoWriMo done...

Losers: I mentioned them in an earlier post.  The elite pundit class - especially the conservative ones who came to power during the Reagan administration 30 years ago - really got their butts kicked for publicly anointing their preferred candidate Romney when the stats said otherwise, and even going out of their way to mock the statisticians who focused more on polling results and provable trends.

Winners: Nate Silver and every other statistician who worked on the numbers, stuck to the arithmetic, and proved themselves far more accurate than the pundits who preferred "narrative" and "gut instinct" over facts.  Arithmetic, bitches.

Next, the guy making xkcd will chart with unnerving accuracy the flow of Karl Rove's tears.

Winner: the Word of the Year, thanks to Bill Clinton and Nate Silver.  Arithmetic.

Loser: Karl Rove. The "genius" for the Republicans, the man responsible for coming up with a winning strategy to get George W. into the White House, exposed by his own network on Election Night being completely out-of-touch YET AGAIN. Why Rove keeps getting treated as a genius is beyond me: his game-plan of playing to the base and do just the bare minimum to get enough independent voters to side with you (the "50-plus-one" plan) is half-lazy, half-reckless, and it relies too much on luck and a broken electoral system. Outside of 2004, when Rove tricked the Democratic leadership to back a weak candidate in Kerry (vulnerable to attacks on his military record and pro-Iraq War vote), this guy really didn't win anything (if it weren't for the Butterfly Ballot in Palm Beach County, Gore would have won Florida and the 2000 election). Rove's one true skill seems to be bluffing. Too bad Obama's a better game-player than Rove, eh?

Losers: The vote suppressors. In battleground states where the Republicans held control of the state legislatures and governorships, there were clear and open attempts to suppress minority, poor, and college-age voters in a blatant and coordinated effort to weaken the turnout of Obama's voting base.  Like Pennsylvania.  Like Ohio, repeatedly by a Sec of State John Husted who kept defying the demands of the courts (if anyone needs to see jail time over this, it's Husted).  Like Florida, where Rick "Yes, I HATE This Guy" Scott tried to slash the voter rolls claiming non-existent fraud, and cut back on early voting days in an effort to cut back voter turnout in key counties like Dade and Broward.  Good news is, it looks post-election that their efforts were for naught.  In fact, by pushing so hard so publicly to disenfranchise voters across the nation, it seemed to have the effect of getting even more minority voters and college-age voters out to vote... more voters 2012 than there were in 2008.

Winners: Obama's ground game crew.  Every volunteer, every campaign office organizer, every person who manned the phones and canvassed the neighborhoods and registered the voters.  This was the antidote to the vote suppression efforts.  If the Republicans wanted to suppress the vote: make sure there were enough registered voters to overwhelm any suppression.  If the Republicans wanted to cut back on voting hours and early voting days: get more people to vote with absentee ballots that get around the restrictions.  If long lines were gonna form up at the precincts: make sure the voters know that they have the right to stay in line even past closing hours.  It worked.

Losers: Every Republican candidate who wanted to ban abortion and dismissed rape as an issue, especially the Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock.  They got their asses handed to them and kept the Senate safe for the Democratic Party.  As a side observation, a major Florida amendment ballot tried to limit abortion access to where the only exception allowed was "the health of the mother".  Yes, the ballot DID NOT have an exception to rape/incest, which happen to be very popular exceptions for a vast majority of Americans (even the ones who profess being pro-life: even they know how serious the problem rape and incest are).  Result: the ballot went down to defeat by a solid majority.  Lesson to the GOP: DO NOT DISMISS RAPE AS A SERIOUS ISSUE.

Losers: Rick Scott.  Thanks to his voter suppression efforts, our state was even more ill-prepared for the election turnout than in 2000, making us more a laughing stock than we were back then.  Also, 8 of the 11 amendment ballots he and his legislative buddies pushed onto the election suffered major rejections, especially the amendment that tried to Court-Pack the state judicial system to make it more partisan (the amendments that passed were three tax exemption ballots for veterans, widows of veterans and first responders, and low-income seniors: I argued against them mainly because of their origins, the revenue cuts may prove minor given how these changes benefit a slight minority of the populus).  Better still, the effort to get three State Court Justices voted off the bench - a clear attempt at forcing vacancies that Scott could fill with cronies - came back with all three judges getting 3/4ths of the vote to RETAIN, a huge slap in the face to Scott.
In short: BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
The big talk I'm hearing right now is how to kick Scott out of office in 2014 when he comes up for re-election.  If the state Republicans had any sense, they'd look at Scott's poor polling and run a viable primary candidate to kick him out before the whole state does...

Winners: Marriage equality advocates and Pot Legalization advocates.  Two states (almost three, I think one state is still counting ballots) voted in FAVOR of gay marriage rights, while one more state voted down a ballot that would have overturned a legislative pro-gay law.  Two states voted to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, a huge salvo in the fight to end a broken and ineffective War on Drugs.

Winners: Women.  Women candidates won elective office in huge numbers across the nation at both the state and federal level.  Lemme double check, but I think nine women won Senate seats this election, a huge uptick in gender representation in the Upper House of Congress.  Guess what, pundits?  There was a War on Women, and the women fought back.

Losers: Senate Republicans.  Not only did they fail dramatically to garner a slim hold of that wing of Congress - which would have combined with their solid hold of the House - but they lost major leadership from either retirement (Kyl, indy Senator Lieberman) or losing to more liberal Democratic candidates (Scott Brown losing to Elizabeth Warren).  The incoming Democratic Senate make-up is going to be more liberal than ever before, and more than likely to weaken if not eliminate the Cloture rule (and by extension the filibuster), the biggest weapon the Senate GOP had in obstructing Obama's policy agendas.

Winner: Me.  The blog traffic to my site bounced from single-digits to the hundreds thanks to my article on the Florida 2012 amendment ballots.  Especially a huge crowd of viewers conducting search terms from Japan.  Wow.  Now, if I can get you new viewers to consider the fine possibility of buying my ebooks...  wait, don't go!  Sniff, it gets so lonely here...

Loser: Well, yeah, had to mention him sooner or later.  Hi, Mitt.

Winner: Barack Obama.

And now, with his Anger Translator Luther:

Luther: "“I mean, you know how much money they spent trying to get rid of this? Millions, son! I said millions!"

Losers: Speaking of those millions, the billionaires who shipped tens of not hundreds of millions of dollars into unregulated SuperPACs in an effort to make Obama a One-Termer.  What you all get for your value, dawgs?  NOTHING!  ALL THAT MONEY WASTED BWHAHAHAHA!

Instead of being afraid of how Citizens United may make it easier for the wealthy to win elections - which 2012 proved the opposite - there needs to be a genuine investigation into what happened with all that money that got funneled into Karl Rove's and others' SuperPACs.  There seems to be a lot of waste happening there: not many ads made, almost no ground game like how Obama organized, a great number of reports of how the people "managing" the SuperPACs walked off with huge salaries and bonuses they paid themselves...  I'm serious.  Campaigning has turned into a BILLION-DOLLAR industry and there's little oversight: it's the perfect scam for con artists...

Winners: every person in Dade and Broward Counties who stood in line for 7,8, God love 'em probably 10 hours on Election Night.  The Obama campaign made sure the word got out that the law ensures any person standing in line at the Closing time (7 pm EST) had the right to stay in line and get their vote in, no matter how late it got past that.  This is democracy in action.  While it was a damn shame they had to wait so long, God Bless Them for doing so.  And next time, let's make it easier on them to get their votes in and counted.

Did I miss anyone?

In the Aftermath of Yet Another Political Debacle

...where the Republicans win through attrition and voters-with-short-attention-spans and the Democrats lose despite a hefty majority in both Houses all because they have no party discipline at all and tend to jump at their own shadows.

A whole year of political warfare, fighting over health care reform that the Democrats should have had signed and ready by last March, having had 20 no make that 60 YEARS of knowing what needed to be done and STILL wasting this year bickering over the details.  And while they bickered, no interest or exertion paid towards the more growing issues of job losses, growing unemployment, insanely criminal CEO bonuses, anything else that would be bothering the 67 million to 250 million Americans still bearing the pains and paying the bills of our current Great Recession (Dear Talking Heads: IT'S STILL A RECESSION).

More to say later, mostly on the economic problems this nation faces.

Just a Friendly Reminder for this New Year 2010

Just to remind all seven people who've read this blog over the last three years, considering this is a Congressional midterms election (2010 midterms):

The Republican Party were the ones in charge from 2000 to 2006 in Congress alongside eight years 2000 to 2008 in charge of the White House under Bush the Lesser, and during those six years their financial and budgetary performance was one of the worst in American History. The Republicans spent and borrowed like drunken teenagers with their parents' credit cards, wasting money on two wars (billions lost and unaccounted for), wasting money on an unfunded Medicare / Big Pharma payout (still one of the biggest under-reported scandals of the last decade!), and creating massive unjustifiable tax cuts that never 'trickled down' or 'paid for themselves' but instead creating massive deficits THAT DO MATTER. The Republicans do not have the right to call themselves 'Fiscally Responsible' for the next ten generations... and yet here they come in 2010, claiming the banners of "Let's Worry About Deficits Now" and "Let's Tighten Spending" simply because they no longer control the purse strings.
Try to remember people, when the Republicans controlled the purse strings they didn't worry about deficits and they were worse with spending than the Democrats have been since LBJ. And try to note this: the maniacs currently in charge of the Republican Party WANT TO GO BACK TO WHAT THEY WERE DOING FROM 2000 to 2006! They want, if they get back in charge of Congress, they want to CUT MORE TAXES! They want to CUT MORE REGULATIONS IN FINANCE AND BUSINESS where previous times of deregulation (SEE: 2002 and 2008) nearly killed the entire planet's economy! They want to START MORE WARS in the Middle East (Bomb Iran! Bomb Yemen (well, worse than we already are now)! Bomb Iraq some more!) Okay? Do you get it, America? Can you wake up for a moment and take a good look at the current GOP? THEY THINK THEIR IDEOLOGY WAS WORKING IN THE LAST DECADE, THEY DIDN'T CARE THE ECONOMY WAS IN THE CRAPPER AND THEY DIDN'T CARE THE WAR ON TERROR WAS MISMANAGED ALL TO HELL, ALL UNDER THEIR WATCH. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE THE REPUBLICANS BACK INTO POWER! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY!

If you seriously think the Democrats today after one year in power are far worse than how the Republicans were (and still are) from 2000 on, and that we need to go back to the GOP leadership that nearly bankrupted this country, there is something seriously wrong with you.

This message has been brought to you by a disgruntled ex-GOP Moderate who's putting in membership for the Modern Whigs. So there.

Catching Up and Falling Behind

As we round the calendar year into the final month (December 2009), there are a few points of contention and observations to discuss:

• It's been pretty much one year... and it's been pretty much SIXTY YEARS of the Democrats trying for something even close to universal health care to pass through Congress, and here we STILL ARE DEBATING THE DAMN THING. In a more sane political system - no filibusters, no Holds, no bullsh-tting Senators with egos the size of Jupiter - this would have passed MONTHS AGO.
• It's been one full year of unemployment for me this month. Job hunting has been full of fits and starts, I'm finishing up my A+ Cert studies at PHCC this week, I've got the CompTIA exam in two weeks, and my brain still can't warp itself around TCP/IP stuff. Grrr Argh.
• Sarah Palin's 'biography' is so full of lies, half-truths, and non-researched crap that someone (not me, as I haven't wasted money on it) ought to sue the publisher for fraud. As a librarian, I don't trust any supposed non-fiction book that does NOT have a bibliography (sign of research) or an index (sign of subject checking: lack of an index also shows the book was rushed to print). I'm surprised as hell that NO ONE mentioned in her book in an unfavorable way - which is basically anyone outside her family circle - hasn't started rounding up lawyers for a libel or slander case.
• Obama's recent announcements to quickly send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in a Surge-esque attempt to push back the Taliban / Al Qaeda forces to justify a 2011 staged withdrawal is, once you take a longer look at it, the least worst choice out of a set of really bad choices. After all, what else could he do?
  Obvious choice: full and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. Begin a six-month phased exit of troops from the ground, finishing up around key cities and transit points to try and ensure the nation doesn't fall into complete chaos. The problem there isn't so much the far right wingnuts screaming for impeachment (they'd do that anyways), but the reasonable fact that the current regime - corrupt and unable to handle infrastructural needs - would be immediately overrun with the Taliban claiming victory (they'd do that anyways), reclaiming the nation and returning it to a massive hellhole.
  Other obvious choice: keep up the current situation, try to force the Afghani government to fix itself, and just hope to outlast the Taliban's insurgency efforts. The problem there is, without a deadline of sorts, there's little incentive for the Afghani government to steady itself: it'll just keep relying on us and our allies to keep them propped up. We'll also be unable to establish any kind of excuse or reason to force an exit strategy ourselves, meaning we'll be tied down for as long as the Taliban remains a threat. And the Taliban and Al Qaeda jerks want that to be forever (to justify their argument that we're empire building, a Western Christian nation yet again beating up on poor faithful Muslims). Oh, the far right wingnuts will continue to claim that Obama's not doing enough for the troops, he doesn't want victory, yadda yadda.
  That left this choice: commit more troops to "flood the zone" and push the Taliban out of key locations. Commit to a deadline to show other Muslim nations we're not in it for the empire building. That deadline also pressures the military to create results (hopefully not sloppy bloody results, but tangible ones that don't involve hundreds of dead civilians). And while critics complain that deadline gives the Taliban an objective to keep messing with us to where we'd have to break said deadline, that overlooks the fact the Taliban would have kept messing with us anyway. The argument that the Taliban can just lay low until the deadline and we leave to strike back is also faulty: if the Taliban lays low, it gives Karzai's government a chance to stabilize well enough to stand on their own.
  This is, of course, all academic. We can only know for sure after 2011 if this all works out right. It REALLY depends on if everyone involved - The U.S., our allies, Karzai's government, et al - makes good faith efforts to fix things well enough that we can bring the troops home...
  
• The big news for the Republicans - other than Palin being a bane to her own fans - has been the recent tragic shooting of four police officers in Washington State... in that the cop killer was a violent parolee from Arkansas who had his long sentence commuted to a shorter time. That shorter time allowed for an early parole, which the guy violated, but his second stint was quickly annulled because of a screw-up with the prosecutors' office not pursuing the matter properly. The governor who commuted the sentence? Mike Huckabee. That noise you just heard was the air let out of his 2012 Primary balloon.
  See, here's the problem: it's not that Huckabee could have forseen the guy was going to become a cop killer. It's not even Huckabee's fault that the prosecutors' didn't handle the guy's parole violation. But this is the second time that a Huckabee parolee had gone violent after release: there are questions now about how many other prisoners that were granted leniency through his office returned to lives of violence (for what I know, there's a third one that's lesser known. So far).
  This incident brings to question Huckabee's decision making. Which has been proven elsewhere, but highlighted by this case, to be a faith-based system. The stories are getting around now of how Huckabee listened to ministers and preachers - instead of prosecutors and victims - regarding whom to show mercy. Stories about how prisoners in Arkansas quickly expressed conversions to faith as a means to lessen their jail times. And while it's great for a man, any person, to have a solid faith system in their personal lives, this is just one more proof that religion and secular matters - the law, politics, people's lives - should not mix.
  If Dukakis got derailed by Willie Horton, having a cop killer like Clemmons as your personal albatross should guarantee you won't even start a Presidential campaign... so who does that leave for the Republicans in 2012? Palin. Romney. Pawlenty from Minnesota has to be drooling right about now.
  
• I need 25,000 - 50,000 more words for a decent book to come out of the NaNoWriMo effort. Hence the need to keep writing elsewhere than this blog. Sorry. I'll probably post a Io Saturnalia request before the Pagan Eggnog and Gift-Sharing and Tree-Decorating Day, but that's about it. Unless Congress does something really stupid before then. Sigh.

Observations from the 2009 Off-Cycle Elections

By off-cycle I mean the national-level 2-year cycle of Congressional elections/4-year cycle of Presidential elections. Anything going on here will be either state and local elections of import (Governorships of Virginia and New Jersey), special ballot initiatives (gay marriage in Maine and Washington State), or special Congressional elections to fill seat vacancies (New York and California).
There was especially some crazy stuff involving NY-23, so this year was more special than most. So let's head to the observations (I will come back later to edit in links, I'm currently juggling between this and my A+ class studies):

1) Every other pundit or blogger pontificating about the results - other than ME - will get the results completely WRONG. Heh.

2) The real consequence of these elections for Governor and/or Congress isn't about who's in the White House: it's about the actual candidates and how the state and voting districts liked/hated them.

3) The result in Virginia - Republican beating Democrat - wasn't about Obama: it was about the fact that the Democrat ran a mis-managed campaign from the get-go and that Virginia is one of those borderline states that shifts regularly between Republican and Democrat.

4) The result in New Jersey - Republican challenger overthrowing incumbent Democrat - wasn't about Obama: it was about how unliked the incumbent was. That the race itself came down to the wire - before the results came in with a solid victory for the Republican - was due to the fact the Republican was swimming upstream against a lot of anti-GOP sentiment and personal issues of his own.
In fact, there was polling for the VA and NJ elections where the exit polls specifically asked "Was Obama part of your decision-making on your vote?" Solid majorities in both states said Obama wasn't a consideration. So how do those results honestly reflect on Obama? Answer: they don't. It's just the Far Right wants to attack Obama on EVERYTHING so every GOP victory is a referendum that VOTERS HATE OBAMA and every GOP defeat is a referendum that VOTERS ARE REALLY CONSERVATIVE EVEN THOUGH THEY VOTED AGAINST US, OH AND THEY HATE OBAMA. /Headthump

5) The result in New York - A Democrat narrowly winning in a district/region that hadn't gone Democrat since the Grant administration! - was about Obama only as far as the outside agitators who hijacked the election from the established GOP candidate wanted it to be. Oh, but it's still about the VOTERS HATING OBAMA. /Headthump

6) Once again, a moderate Republican candidate stepped up to represent in a state/region where moderates are key to victory, only to have the Far Right Wingnuts from outside charge in, disrupt everything with their own extremist choice, and end up tossing the district/state to the Democrats. The Kos guy just sent the Club for Greed a big "Thank You" card.
And for some Godforsaken reason, the Far Right still thinks this is GOOD FOR REPUBLICANS to have their representation drop to levels that will make the party an ineffective minority party for now and the forseeable future. At what point will the Republican leadership look around and say "Hey? Club for Greed? STOP KNEE-CAPPING US! Our whole party is now small enough to fit in a Denny's banquet room!"

7) The Bucs unofficially have the first overall draft pick for next April, and they REALLY need to look at the BEST AVAILABLE DT coming out of college. I mean, sign him up in February for God's sake... oh wait, that's my football observation, my bad...

8) The gay marriage state referenda mostly split, with Maine narrowly shooting it down but Washington State passing their gay rights (everything up to marriage rights) package. Thing is, sooner rather than later this is gonna get to be a moot point... gays will get the right to marry. All it takes is keeping the pressure up, and recognizing the fact that the opposition to gay rights is a overly paranoid, overly selective reading of the Old Testament that won't stand up to scrutiny (ask the anti-gay people if they uphold EVERYTHING in Leviticus or anything else deemed Abomination in the Bible, and I guarantee you half of them won't even answer you).

9) What does this all mean? I'm going go against Conventional Wisdom of the Beltway and say it's ALL GOOD FOR OBAMA! IT'S ALWAYS GOOD FOR OBAMA! What? It can't be GOOD FOR REPUBLICANS all the time...

Three Things That Will Happen With NY-23

Since the previous post, the 'official' Republican candidate - Scozzafava - that had to drop out because the 'unofficial' Conservative candidate - Hoffman - was getting all the national Republican support made her official statement to her followers on whom they should support in the coming election.

The Republican told them to go vote for the Democrat.

Let's be blunt: this is unheard of. A candidate from one of the established parties just simply doesn't support the opposition candidate. There would only be one reason for this to happen: The usurping candidate is just so damn unpalatable that "Better the Devil You Know/Respect" Rule comes into play (the fact that Owens' response to Scozzafava's drop-out was respectful whereas Hoffman's was pretty much a self-satisfied "Ha-Ha!" kinda sealed the deal).

How will this actually play out come election time? Pollsters still think Hoffman secures the edge because as the Conservative (and now unofficial Republican) candidate he'll get enough of the self-ID'd Republican voters who vote GOP out of habit. But there was a reason Hoffman wasn't the original candidate in the first place (he's not local, and he's too far to the Right for the actual community). There's also the revenge factor: Scozzafava's supporters don't hate Owens, they'll hate Hoffman, and people tend to vote AGAINST someone, not FOR. There's also the Parochial factor: the local NY voters can't be too thrilled that their election got hijacked by the national players (Palin, national GOP figures, the wingnut media crazies like Malkin) who are essentially pushing on them a candidate (Hoffman) that's NOT of their district and who's more representative of Southern (basically anything south of the state border with Pennsylvania) values.

This is, beforehand, a pretty unpredictable election coming up. 'Course, afterwards we'll all be slapping our foreheads and going "Oh, we knew that was going to happen!" But not really.

All we can tell is that the result will go one of three ways:

1) Hoffman wins. Regardless of the lead or actual results, if it's a blow-out (unlikely) or if he wins by one vote. What will happen is that the Far Right Wingnut machine will celebrate like it's New Year's Eve 1984, that it will ABSOLUTELY VINDICATE EVERYTHING they believe, that the election is a referendum on HOW UNPOPULAR OBAMA IS, NOBODY REALLY LIKES HIM, HE CHEATED AND ALL BECAUSE HE'S NOT REALLY BORN HERE, that TRUE AMERICANS are terrified that OBAMA IS DESTROYING AMERICA, etc. It will justify the Club for Greed's efforts to purge moderate candidates and officials from elected office, and will accelerate their efforts across the nation. Moderates from seemingly safe states like Maine will either flee the party a'la Specter or fearfully line up lockstep to receive their marching orders.

2) Owens wins by a reasonable margin, within 5 percent over Hoffman's results, or in a squeaker with just one vote. Democrats will celebrate with smug satisfaction that once again it proves that the GOP is destroying itself with this intraparty sniping, but that would be about it. The mainstream national-level Republicans will shrug this off as a close race and ignore it within one news cycle, or focus instead on how they easily won in Virginia. There will also be a slight chance that New Jersey's governorship will go their way, so they could celebrate that. The Club for Greed and their wingnut allies will still crow that they hold the upper hand within the party structure, that moderates still have to fear their power to knee-cap them in primary challenges.

3) Owens wins in a blowout (anything 60 percent and over is a blowout). The Demorats will still be overly smug about the victory, but that'll be about all they'll get out of it. The real fireworks will be on the other side of the aisle. If the Democrat does get that many votes in what is a safe Republican district, it will obviously be because the moderates and independents who backed Scozzafava virulently opposed the Conservative Hoffman. The Club for Greed and their ilk will still crow about the RINO scalp they earned (simply because they never learn, and Everything Is Good For (ultra-Right Wing) Republicans in their POV), but a humiliating defeat like this is going to scare the rest (AKA the rational few) of the Republican Party. Newt Gingrich will be justified and have ammo to take to the Sunday Talk Shows about how right he was to support moderate candidates like Scozzafava in places like New York and the Northeast. Regional GOP leaders (at the state levels) will start balking against having their efforts getting hijacked the way this one was. There's a good possibility the financial backers of the Club for Greed will take a step back and review just what exactly they are getting out of their money (clues: The Club for Greed removes moderate Republicans who could be their kind of pro-business allies and ends up getting Democrats who aren't favorable to their business interests elected to office instead. Sooner and sooner all that knee-capping kills your own interests...), which is actually very little at all. Given how defensive the wingnuts get (after all, they're always the victims even when they're the ones committing the crimes), they may even feel justified in going after MORE RINO scalps because Scozzafava openly 'betrayed' the GOP by getting her supporters to vote for the Democrat (even though Scozzafava and her people were ALREADY betrayed by the wingnuts' hatred of moderates. So there).
In this scenario, the intraparty civil war will get worse for Republicans because it won't get lopsided the way a Hoffman win would: it will embolden moderates into proving they have enough power to decide elections and that they can keep the party afloat. And the wingnuts, always on the defensive, will refuse to see reason and fight harder to make the Republicans their purity party.

Of the three scenarios, Option 3 is less likely: electoral blowouts don't happen outside of ridiculously gerrymandered safe districts. Option 2 (Owens win close) is my personal preferred, because I'm a moderate who has no love for the Club for Greed anyway. I dread Option 1 (Hoffman wins), only because it will make the Far Right go even crazier than they already are, which is honestly frightening.
There are some who feel that if Hoffman does win it will only accelerate the self-immolation of the GOP because it will drive all the moderates Indy or Dem. Just look at the current polling numbers, and try to imagine the GOP getting smaller because of their purity efforts because that's the ONLY response you will get. The wingnuts think their purification will actually ATTRACT more voters who will be drawn towards how shiny and sparkly their ideology is: in truth all it really does is scare away anyone with enough brains cells to have, you know, actual doubts about things... Look at the Independent numbers. I have NEVER seen polling that had more Independents than both Democrats or Republicans. All those Indys HAVE to be moderates fleeing the GOP, because look at how level the Democratic numbers have remained (near about 35 percent)... and when do national parties shrink BELOW 30 percent of the voting population (GOP at 20-21 percent)?

I hate nail-biters. They distract me from my homework and NaNoWriMo efforts. Phoeey.

UPDATE: Just spotted a pre-election commentary by Nate Silver at 538. As always, he's got great access to the polling numbers and a better way of evaluating just how crazy the whole election thing gets. Key points: Owens is in a better position because of Scozzafava's endorsement; Hoffman will benefit from an active conservative turnout; while a Hoffman win won't change the intraparty dynamics for the GOP, the Democrats would be better served by a close Owens win that would leave conservatives (read: Club for Greed) empowered enough to sabotage moderate efforts in major elections like the Florida 2010 Senate seat (an Owens blowout would embolden the likes of Crist who will be able to convince voters that the national-level wingnuts don't know what they're doing and don't care).

Night of the Undead Greedheads

Any Moderates interested in starting a Third Party? We can call the Swedes, see if we can get the franchise rights for the U.S. market from the Pirate Party...

Reason why I'm saying this is that today - Halloween, very appropriate day to do so - the official Republican candidate for the special election in New York 23rd District bowed to pressure to let the unofficial Far Right Wingnut candidate finish the race: (text bolded by me)

In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be. The reality that I’ve come to accept is that in today’s political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money—and as I’ve been outspent on both sides, I’ve been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record. But as I’ve said from the start of this campaign, this election is not about me, it’s about the people of this District. And, as always, today I will do what I believe serves their interests best. It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so.

I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my Party will emerge stronger and our District and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations. On Election Day my name will appear on the ballot, but victory is unlikely. To those who support me – and to those who choose not to – I offer my sincerest thanks.

The official candidate - Scozzafava - had been chosen by the local party figures to fill a vacancy caused by the 23rd's Republican Congressman getting tabbed by Obama to become Secretary of the Army. For a while there the campaign was going her way. But the Far Right conservatives took one look at her - Scozzafava was as solid a Moderate Republican you can find in the Northeastern states, pro-choice and pro-gay marriage - and became revolting (yes, I pun). They pushed a more hard-line Republican, Hoffman, to run for the district on the Conservative ticket (New York politics is damn close to unique: small region parties have the power to nominate shared candidates, for one thing; for another, those regional parties have enough oomph coming from a wealthy media-rich state to campaign rather effectively for these kinds of elections).

End result: The Democrats sat pretty with their candidate Owens while the Republicans tore themselves to shreds over whom to back - Scozzafava or Hoffman.

The Far Right, pushed by the likes of Malkin and Palin and Teabagging coordinator Armey, supported Hoffman and openly derided Scozzafava as being further to the left than the Democratic candidate. The more rational leaders of the GOP - led by Gingrich, who for all his criminal hypocrisy isn't stupid and knows damn well the Republicans can't survive at 20 percent voting numbers - backed Scozzafava, arguing that “...Local people picked a local candidate (Scozzafava came in first in the balloting at the district selection)... You should call and ask them and say what’s the purity test for the governor of California? Does anyone pass the purity test? I just want to know what the test is... You are talking about a region where we currently have 3 out 39 seats in the House. Why is it that? When I (Gingrich) was Speaker we had a substantial number of seats in the region..."

But in the last few weeks, Hoffman surged, raising more funds because he ended up getting the one true support that any Republican or Conservative candidate needs in this day and age: Hoffman won the backing of the Club for Greed, and it has become increasingly clear that whomever Club for Greed wants to back and drive into ruin, then Club for Greed gets it.

What does Scozzafava's dropping out mean?

Obviously, it means that from now on, anyone not in the Democratic party wanting to run for office better start kissing the boots and asses of the Club for Greed's leadership. Past that, well... read these guys.

Andrew Sullivan (two threads):

...No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who's supposed to be the reasonable center.

What we're seeing, I suspect, is an almost classic example of a political party becoming more ideological after its defeat at the polls. in order for that ideology to win, they will also have to portray the Obama administration as so far to the left that voters have no choice but to back the Poujadists waiting in the wings. And that, of course, is what they're doing. There is a method to the Ailes-Drudge-Cheney-Rove denialism. They create reality, remember?

From the mindset of an ideologically purist base - where a moderate Republican in New York state is a "radical leftist" - this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over. This blood in the water will bring on more and more and deadlier and deadlier sharks.

...Within the GOP whatever nerve anyone had to resist the imprimatur of Erickson, Malkin, RS McCain et al is surely gone now. If a moderate cannot survive even in up-state New York, it's over.

Balloon Juice:

...Think that this one taste of blood will satisfy the birthers, supremacists and Christianist extremists who fuel the teabagging movement? Wingnut, my friends, has not yet begun to peak.

Before moving on to something else, take a moment to sympathize with coalition builders like Newt and David Frum, no doubt tearing their hair out at the runaway success of Sarah Starbursts’ insurgent crusade.

Moderate Voice (to be fair, the person posting this is NeoMugWump, so it may seem like I'm overlapping the postees which is not my intent):

I guess the message from all this is pretty simple: if one deviates one bit from the current Republican “script” they are a RINO and must be driven out. Only the “pure” can be accepted.

The sad thing is that Hoffman doesn’t even know or care about issues affecting the district he is supposed represent should he win. Scozzafava knew her district,but because of her so-called liberal stances on gay marriage and abortion she is being drummed out of the party (My EDIT: well, she's not out of the Republicans. It's just she's not going to represent like she hoped).

How Scozzafava was treated makes me wonder how long I will keep the moniker of Republican. I consider myself a pragmatic conservative and will remain one. But I am increasingly finding it hard to stay in a party that does not want me even though I agree with them on more issues than I disagree with them.

The party is headed towards destruction. I don’t know if I want to be there for the end...

The reason why I have the title of this blog "Night of the Undead Greedheads" is because I'm going to finish up with a rant against the Club for Greed, which about only 7 people will ever see. Anyway.

Here's where we are in 2009 for the Republican Party: they've just finished most of the Aught Decade (2000-2010) mostly in control of all three branches of the Federal government. They had the Gingrich/DeLay/Armey faction in charge of Congress from 1994 to 2006. They had Cheney/Bush in the White House between 2000-2008. They had a 5-4 advantage in the Supreme Court.

They spent - literally in most cases - most of their decade in power tossing money about like drunken teenagers with their parents' credit cards, racking up huge debt and deficits by adhering to a strict massive-tax-cut policy that crimped the government's ability to, you know, actually afford all Teh Crazy Sh-t they wanted to buy. Billions of dollars to the Big Pharma under the guise of Medicare reform! Billions upon billions for two wars and nation-building occupations that became quagmires far deeper and more unstable than Vietnam! Lax regulation of federal oversight of our financial institutions allowing for massive toxic funds to clog the economy! More and more Government revenue lost to such deep tax cuts that when the time came for the Feds to try and handle a massive economic collapse caused by said toxic funds there wasn't enough wriggle room to pull off anything to truly re-stabilize the nation's economy (oh, sure the banks are safe, but try telling the 27 million UNEMPLOYED that we're out of the Bush Recession).

And why was that? Why did the Republican Party, once in power, acted so irresponsible with fiscal and business policies during their rule?

Because of the likes of the Club for Growth Greed. They're not the only Far Right advocates of massive tax cuts, but they're the most noticeable. They're the ones who came up with the term RINO. They're the ones who highlight officials they call 'comrades' (ahh, that old SOCIALIST smear campaign crap) for attempting any policy or program that tries to provide public aid for people in need. They're the ones who back primary challenges against moderates or any Republican who yes raises taxes in attempts to balance the budgets and keep governments solvent, and they're the ones who prefer they LOSE the elections in order to ensure THEY remain in power among the GOP ranks, even as the Republican Party itself loses any actual voice, leadership, or effectiveness within the halls of Congress.

The Club for Greed is adamantly opposed to raising taxes, and tax hikes, ostensibly under the libertarian ideology that "government is the problem" and that people (read: Corporations) know better what to do with their hard-earned money than the government does. They're the ones who worship at the foot of the Laffer Curve: a simple Bell Curve claiming that the higher the tax rate, the less actual revenue it generates (without any actual numbers or stats to have backed it up) for the government. Of course, that Laffer Curve also demonstrated that the lower the tax rate, it also generates less revenue as well (in a perfect world according to the Laffer, the tax rate should be 50 percent!), but the Clubbers seem convinced that at the 30-35 percent tax rate we're basically at now, we're still on the HIGH end of that Curve (we're NOT).

The Club for Greed also opposed any government regulation of corporations, of the industries of high finance and banking at what not. Because, gosh, the United States always did so well when businesses were free of interference and oversight and allowed GREED to overrun our economies like in the 1920s and the 2000s. Yeah, I was in SARCASM mode that last sentence.

You would think, just getting out from under a massive economic collapse that even made Greenspan apologize, that the Club for Greed would have lost face, lost prestige, lost whatever access or connections to those in power granted them. We are right now living in a time where the Federal government is the one sure anchor we've got: 1/10 of the nation is unemployed, states are fighting to keep their budgets afloat, no one is hiring, people are on edge worried we're going to have another economic disaster around the corner because the banks and financial overlords responsible for last year's collapse are still around and getting more brazen with their tricks. This is, as any honest student of history will tell you, a time where Keynesiansim and not Randianism should be prevalent in economic/political thought. We simply can't afford to let the financial behemoths run ragged and smash everything again: We do need to raise revenue to be able to pay for the government programs that are needed to reset the engines of industry and business.

And yet, here's the tax-cutters claiming a RINO scalp that now gives the Democrats a respectable shot at securing yet another Congressional seat. The Greedhead Zombies rise from the dead.

In fact, the Club for Greed won't - CAN'T - die. For starters, they still have all the money: their deregulation/tax-cut advocacy still gets their coffers filled by those who profit literally from their defense of GREED. For another, there are enough foot soldiers within their ranks who are geniunely terrified of Socialism... despite the fact that such a threat is ludicrious (And also if they think FDR's New Deal was Socialist (they do) that shows how WRONG they are (The New Deal SAVED Capitalism: without it, the real Socialists or worse yet the Facsists would have taken over)). Such devoted, whacked-out devotees assures the Club for Greed won't fall until they themselves push their own destruction (it's called PRIDE, you GREEDHEADS, and it does come before a fall)...

So, this is what I learned a good long time ago. It's one of the reasons I gave up on the Republicans and left the Party that had already left me. It's why I still post comments on Sanders' NeoMugWump blog, wondering if he'll ever get the hint and find solace in independent voterhood.

It's also why I opened up this blog asking if anyone can help form a viable Third Party for true Moderates. Because I do geniunely think the Republicans are reflecting the path of self-destruction once mirrored by the Federalists and the Whigs. We're going to need another Party to fill the void when all the Club for Greed has left for their knee-capping efforts is 5 Senators and 29 Congressmen (no women) from Southern states... So let us now look to forming a Moderate Party, one dedicated to true political reform, sensible efforts to balance budgets including targeted tax hikes to afford needed government programs (like the military, natural disaster emergencies, public transit, effective interstate commerce, job safety, and funding of state-level programs such as education, law enforcement, and health care), and a respect for the Constitution (including recognizing the No Religious Test requirement as a means to ensure equal protection of ALL true faiths). All we really need is a Moderate with at least $300 million to spend... anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

"Just One More Thing, Sir," as Columbo pulled from his trench coat a copy of the Roberts Rules of Order

Some further notes on Rep. Joe Wilson:

• Far be it to defer to Daily Kos diarists writing that we should focus more on the fact that Rep. Wilson lied. Oh, c'mon, guys, this is pure schadenfreude over here. Let's just enjoy the moment for what it is: watching a political douche blowhard twist slowly in the wind...
• Speaking of Joe Wilson being the liar, he gets nailed for it by my favorite political critique source Politifact.com. Wilson is insisting that Obama and the Democrats are pushing to provide health care to illegal immigrants: is still now insisting it, when he 'apologized' in the media for his outburst he still claimed the health care bills were providing coverage for illegals. But read that Politifact link: that 'coverage' is not found on the pages the chain emails and astroturf talking points claim it's on. Politifact can't find anything supporting the claim illegals will get anything from the health care bills at all.
  Here's the deal on Politifact: it's managed by the St. Pete Times, a respectable paper that wins it's fair share of Pulitzers (one for Politifact!) for investigative reportings. I grew up in the Tampa Bay area and I've read the Times. I trust this publication more than any other media source (plus, any media corporation that p-sses of Bill O'Reilly has to be doing something right).
• And an interesting side note: Politifact's research has 11.9 million illegals living in the U.S. at the moment and 6.8 million are uninsured. Wait: there's 5.1 million illegals who ARE insured??? How the hell did THAT happen?
• There's been some blogger discussion about how the British Parliament - the closest democratic institution to our own - has a solid history and even a tradition of back-bench heckling, and that if the Brits can heckle, why not the U.S.?
  Andrew Sullivan discusses this, and almost immediately points out that even with the heckling there's one unbreakable rule: You can't call someone a liar: "...Once the opposition starts yelling "You lie!" they have essentially abandoned the deliberative process, by questioning the good faith of a speaker. Without an assumption of good faith or a factual rebuttal, just calling someone a liar abolishes the integrity of the debating process..." So Rep. Wilson wouldn't even get away with it in Parliament.
• As for Wilson's Democratic opponent Miller getting truckloads of campaign funds from just five seconds of Wilson's faux pas? According to the Kos people who track this stuff: Miller has raised $170,000 within the last 24 hours just on the ActBlue fundraiser itself. Political observer Charlie Cook now considers this a race: while he considers it unlikely Wilson will pay at the polls another year away from this, Miller now has the funds to make this a decent fight.

Edit: Oh, yeah, one more thing:

• If that little amendment idea about lies not being protected speech I've been pushing the past few years had made it into law, Wilson would be toast by now...

Famous Last Words: Sept. 9th Edition

From what I posted yesterday:

They still have Obama's health care speech before Congress tonight to whine about.

From Congressman Joe Wilson (R-South "Yeah Like We Needed More A-Hole Politicians Screwing Up In Public" Carolina) during last night's Obama-Health Care speech before a join session of Congress:

You Lie!

Congratulations, Rep. Wilson (no relation to other Joe Wilsons out there)! You've just earned our Employee Jerkass of the Month Award!

Just some of the prizes you'll be taking home:

• You've just won the immediate recognition from the entire world (well, outside of RedState and related blogs) for being a loudmouth douche!
• You've just given your Democratic opponent Rob Miller in the 2010 midterms a major boost in fundraising ($150,000 by 8 am this morning)! Not to mention that your outburst, Mr. Wilson, can be used in all mudslinging campaign efforts by Mr. Miller cleanly and effectively. He doesn't have to hire a fake actor or edit your words out of context to make you look bad. You already made yourself look bad!
• You've made the phrase 'faux pas' one of the most popular Google Search Terms ever this week! Well, other than Bunny+Lesbian+Fruit Salad+Porn.
• You got your good colleague Charles Boustany (R-Louisiana) off the hook from trying to give a memorable official rebuttal to Obama's speech: no one else is even talking about it this morning! No stress for Boustany today!
  
• You also get this nice dog whistle which you were supposed to use instead of the bullhorn you went with.

Seriously, what Wilson did last night was to take another boring rah-rah "This Is What I Want To Do" Presidential pep talk to Congress and turn it into a "OMG Do Not Go There Girlfriend" moment. Per Washington Monthly:

But the damage has been done. Indeed, Wilson's outburst is an almost perfect summation of 2009 -- President Obama appears big, Republicans appear small. Democrat show class, Republicans act like children. One side is serious, one side is shrill. The White House says something true, Republicans lash out with falsehoods.

The whole month of August with the town halls exploding with pre-planned outrage now appears like a bad dream - all storm and rage, all sound and fury - washed away by this one night. Everything the Republicans have been doing since Inauguration to tear Obama down - the refusal of the stimulus, the fight over Sotomayor, the health care debacle - has now been funneled into this one outburst - "You lie!" - that may seem so simple and yet is that one wafer thin mint puking the entire GOP effort into the trashbin.

Here's the thing. Wilson didn't have to shout out what he did when and where he did. Wilson could well have waited after the speech and make comments to the media accusing Obama of lying (and maybe not even those words, but dog-whistle phrases to clue in those listening for them): when done then, and to that audience, it's not that big of a deal. It actually happens a lot between politicians accusing each other of this thing or that act or those fruit salads. Also, if you listened to Obama's speech, despite what Steve Benen writes in that Washington Monthly article, you'd notice Obama did point that Republicans - in general, no names were named but you could see him point at Sarah Palin and others - were themselves lying about "death panels" and that illegals would get health care. Which is why Wilson shouted his response.

Wilson's problem is that he 1) openly called Obama a liar right in the middle of a speech, and 2) right there on the floor of Congress. Even though Obama was challenging the Republicans' statements and was effectively calling them liars in the process, it was by the rules of Oratory fair game for him to do so in a formal speech: go read Cicero, especially his Cataline orations. But what Wilson did was inexcusable. There's a reason Wilson's fellow Republicans in government (not the bloggers) aren't going out of their way to defend Wilson, and why Wilson immediately apologized afterward: HE VIOLATED DECORUM.

Remember Dick Cheney (oh yeah, like we're forgetting his criminal ass any time soon)? For all the violations of law, for all his endorsement of torture, for all his rule-breaking, the one thing he did that really got Congress in an uproar was that he privately told an opposing Senator to "Go F-ck Yourself" on the floor of the Senate. There was an honest-to-God debate over whether ethics charges could be filed against Cheney for what he said.

There are rules of behavior for Congress, and for all their clowning and incompetence the one thing that matters to them (well, the other thing that matters is their own job security, damn incumbents) is that they behave according to the rules. Wilson's outburst went against that. There are ways during a speech for members of the opposition party to act out: refusing to applaud at key moments, for example. But anything along the lines of, say, booing the speaker while acceptable at certain public events (if a stand-up comedian goes off the rails) is practically verboten at formal events such as Presidential speeches (Edit: see next paragraph).

It's disrespectful of the office. Even if you're opposed to the man, common decency insists that you Respect the Office. Which is why the likes of George W. Bush never received any of this disrespect even when the Democrats took over in 2007 and at a time when Dubya's polling numbers were lower than Truman's (which was the previous record holder for unpopularity: Nixon was reaching Truman's post-1950 numbers over Watergate when he resigned). Edit: Democrats did boo Dubya during the 2005 State of the Union, hence the strikethru. There is no question that was boorish behavior on the part of the Dems. The problem there is that unlike Joe Wilson there isn't one person to highlight being a douche, so the Dems get away with it due to sheer numbers.

Even when Clinton was in office and the GOP was in charge of Congress, you never heard this level of disrespect on the public floor. Even the impeachment trial over BLOWJOBS was done with some decorum (some).

And this had been the Republicans' biggest problem all this year: their animosity towards Obama - questioning his birth origin, comparing him to Hitler AND Fascists AND Communists AND a Secret Undercover Muslim, claiming he was ruining an already-wrecked economy - was getting so personal that they were disrespecting the duties and requirements of the Presidency itself. Why else was there a noticeable backlash in the media - after months of accepting some of the craziest conspiracy crap since Vince Foster - over the Republicans' "outrage" of Obama speaking to school kids to study hard?

Wilson's "You Lie" is in some respects overshadowing Obama's actual intent from last night. Obama was trying to claim a leadership position on the health care debate to get Congress to pass reform legislation before the year ends. Instead, all the blogs are aflame about Wilson's faux pas and half the mainstream media is chewing it up and spitting it out like they do all overblown outrages. But let's be very clear about this: Wilson's statement will do a far better job of rallying the Democrats to respond with their health care package and waking them up to how boorish their Republican colleagues have behaved all year than it will keeping the Republicans on message. Just look at their immediate responses: Democrats are sending truckloads of cash to Wilson's opponent and talking about censuring Wilson; Republicans are reeling and on the defensive in a way they haven't been since 2005.

Makes all that talk about Republican gains in next year's midterms seem foolish and uncertain now.