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June 10, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Primary Post-Mortem Edition

“Dear Lord Jesus, I do not often speak with you and ask for things, but now, I really must insist that you help me win the election tomorrow because I deserve it and Paul Metzler doesn’t, as you well know. … I’m asking that you go that one last mile and make sure to put me in office where I belong so that I may carry out your will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.”
– Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) from the film classic “Election” (1999).

A quick rundown of the five most prominent primaries last Tuesday:

The DOA GOP

California:

US Senate: Creepy Republican Carly Fiorina is such a dimwit that Dem Sen. Barbara Boxer shouldn’t have much problem with her. All Barb has to do is run ads revealing that Carly’s idea of improving the American economy is shipping 13,000 jobs overseas, her record as one of the 20 worst CEOs in the country when she ran Hewlett-Packard, her flip-flop on cap and trade, and that squirrelly flub she made when supporting McCain for president in 2008 by saying (truthfully) that neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin were qualified to run a US corporation. Meanwhile, word is Carly’s gearing up ads to brand Boxer as a – gasp! – liberal Democrat, as if California voters didn’t already know that. Ms. Fiorina can be counted on to make at least one thoroughly ridiculous, out-of-touch, mind-numbingly dumb statement at some time during the campaign – she can’t help herself – and that will seal her fate. (She’s already fired some opening shots in that direction by carping about Barbara Boxer’s hairstyle as if she were in a high school catfight, and dumping on fellow CA Republican Meg Whitman for appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News laugh-a-thon.) Prediction: Bet on Boxer by a KO.

“There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation.”
Carly Fiorina in 2004, telling American workers they should work for less, except herself, of course – she got a $20 million pay-off for resigning from HP after reducing the worth of their stock by half.

Governor: Speaking of Ms. Whitman, here’s what I know about eBay – three separate people I’ve met, unconnected to one another, have all had very bad experiences selling or buying items on eBay and will never use them again, and they were all enraged at the negligent treatment they received from the company in settling their complaints. That doesn’t augur well for any business and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman was in charge when these events happened. Meg just spent a record $80+ million to seize the Republican nomination for governor in the Golden State, which seems like an egregious waste of money since she’s bound to be the GOP sacrifice to Dem Jerry Brown. After years of the Republican Guffernator, whose poll numbers are now lower than Gray Davis’ when he was recalled, it seems Kalifornyuns are plumb tuckered out from the big business-small government-low taxes hoohah that has been Ahnuld Schwarzenfluffer’s theme song and that Whitman is now peddling. It’s worked so well that CA is an economic basket case, suffocating in massive debt and cutting needed services. Time for a change from the regressive buncombe. Prediction: Easy victory for Brown.

“We can’t impede progress in the name of environmental action that yields little for the environment and even less for our people … and we should look at the environment as an economic opportunity.”
Meg Whitman. Yes, what an ‘economic opportunity’ the Gulf of Mexico has become thanks to lax ‘environmental action.’

(Side Note: What is it about these Republican women politicians? They all talk and act like none-too-bright Century 21 reps at a sales seminar. Could it be that all of the smart, accomplished women become Dems and the shiny-eyed Tracy Flicks go GOP? Certainly seems that way.)

Nevada:

US Senate: Okay, there’s no denying Dem Sen. Harry Reid is a horse’s ass, but he’s at least a generally rational horse’s ass, which cannot be said of his newly-minted Republican opponent and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle.

Angle has hit all the Stations of the Cross in Wingnut Wackadelphia: She wants to get rid of Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare; advocated for more offshore oil drilling and further deregulation even after the BP Gulf disaster; drools to eliminate the EPA, the Dept. of Education, and get out of the U.N.; and she’s even revisited the reactionary-fringe past by opining that booze be banned along with the fluoridation of water. Angle is now desperately trying to play down how many nuts are in her fruitcake, but Reid should have a field day letting her own dopey words drag her to defeat. As lame as Reid may be, Nevadans are sick of Republican shenanigans and corruption – Gov. Jim Gibbons and Sen. John Ensign come to mind, to name just two – and they don’t need another glaring embarrassment like Angle in Washington, competing with Michele Bachmann for the Goofball of the Week prize. Prediction: Reid will coast to victory next November.

“We have oil reserves and petroleum reserves that we should tap into. And that’s a policy that we really need to look at as a nation. How do we deregulate enough to invite our industries to come back into the United States and quit outsourcing their business?”
– Sharron Angle on May 26, 2010, more than a month after the BP Gulf oil disaster began, as quoted by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line.

The DOA Dems

Arkansas:

US Senate: Your Tattlesnake called Bill Halter in the runoff by 5 points and was, obviously, wrong. Of course, I didn’t count on most of the polling places in districts friendly to Halter being closed by election officials with ties to his opponent — such as only 2 open out of 36 in Garland County – so that may have affected the final tally. Be that as it may, sitting Blue Dog Dem Sen. Blanche Lincoln is headed for doom in November – her campaign and an anonymous senior idiot at the White House who sounds suspiciously like Rahm Emanuel managed to gratuitously insult unions sufficiently that they will sit out the Arkansas vote. With no massive GOTV ground game, few moderate Dems enthusiastic about her reelection, and unions and progressives turning their backs on her in droves, Blanche is fixing to be blanched by a boiling landslide. No great loss – the Democrats need to shed backstabbers like Lincoln.

“Voters must have faith in the electoral process for our democracy to succeed.”
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, apparently unconcerned about the AR primary runoff chicanery.

South Carolina:

Governor: Unless the lurid charges of hetero extramarital affairs and a lesbian tryst with, say, Wanda Sykes, turn out to be true, Republican Nikki Haley will be the next governor of SC. Maybe by the election cycle after that, the white-bread troglodytes who inhabit much of the state will learn how to read a calendar and realize it’s 2012 and not 1912. Still, a female governor of Sikh Indian ancestry, albeit one endorsed by McCain’s half-term wonder-thinker from Wasilla, is a slight improvement over most of the testicled louts that usually hold civic office in the steaming heap just south of the Tar Heel State, which may soon be known as the Tar Ball State, depending on the strength of the Loop Current from the Gulf.

No quote from Nikki Haley except to say that she agrees with her predecessor and endorser Gov. Mark Sanford’s neocon policies that have brought SC to the brink of ruin. Just guessing, but she probably doesn’t agree with him in the realm of personal conduct or trail hiking in the Appalachians.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

May 18, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Goodbye Specters of Doom Edition

A Brief Breakdown of Today’s Most Notable Primaries

Pennsylvania Democratic Primary: One of the best political ads I’ve seen in some time is Rep. Joe Sestak’s spot featuring Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter admitting he changed parties solely to get reelected. The old lizard practically hisses when he snarls the word “reelected” and you could easily imagine his desiccated Dorian-Gray-on-the-easel face asking Eve if she wanted a bite of his apple. Mr. Magic Bullet Theory has shown himself time and again to be a coldly calculating old-line politician at heart, and now it’s caught up with him. The last polls I saw had Sestak and Specter running even, but I don’t think it will be that close – the solons of the Big Media (BM) Punditsphere don’t seem to have noticed that Arlen has no real Democratic constituency in PA, unless it’s 80-year-old vipers, and, contrary to Dem Gov. Ed Rendell’s public support, the Edster is not about to exercise his state political muscle to shoehorn a creature like Specter into office again, especially after Obama and Biden politely flipped Arlen off. I call it Sestak by 10 points. (Tip to Dems: Follow Sestak’s lead and run ads showing your GOP opponent making an ass of him or herself in their own words. They work.)

Arkansas Democratic Primary: Once again the BM has managed to miss the story here, as they did in Connecticut when Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in the Dem primary. As in Specter’s case, what was Lieberman’s core base of support? Wealthy insurance company execs, AIPAC and Republicans. Why would the GOP back Quisling Joe? Because they knew he was a closet Republican with electable name recognition who would help with their issues and screw up the Dem majority in the Senate. But this won’t happen down in Clintonland – sitting Dem. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, like Lieberman, has very narrow Dem support and none of it particularly enthusiastic, and the GOP hates her. On the other side, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter has the same kind of avid progressive ground game Lamont had in CT. It may not even be close but, if it goes to a run-off, Halter will win the day: He’s got the eager troops; Blanche has the establishment Dem coffee klatch. Halter by 5 points.

Kentucky Republican Primary: Let’s keep it short and sweet: A Libertarian who believes in legalizing drugs and ending our wars overseas, Rep. Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul, is about to beat the pants off of the official GOP-endorsed candidate, Trey Grayson. This election may be a heads-up ‘game changer’ with a long shadow – GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell’s KY machine is dead and a Red State is heaving toward purplish Libertarianism rather than Mitch’s grisly Bush Neoconnery. The bonus is that the always-wrong and unfailingly unpopular (except to the BM Punditocracy) Dick Cheney has wholeheartedly endorsed Grayson, the sure kiss of death. Paul by at least 10 points and probably much more.

Update, May 19, 2010: Here’s how I did:

Pennsylvania: Sestak beat Specter, but I didn’t cover the spread – Sestak won by only 9 points instead of 10.

Arkansas: Headed for a run-off with Halter and Lincoln neck-and-neck. I’ll stick with Halter by 5 points in the run-off.

Kentucky: Rand Paul walloped Trey Grayson by more than 20 points. Although this election is being framed by the BM Punditburo as a victory for the Tea Partiers, do they mean the original Ron Paul Libertarian tea partiers or the astroturf Dick Armey-Glenn Beck corporate Teabaggers? Methinks it’s the latter, and the BM has it wrong again.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

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