April 14, 2012
June 10, 2010
December 29, 2009
November 11, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Dirty Dozen Political Quiz Edition
Think you were paying attention during the long 2008 election campaign? Grab a pen and paper and take the test below (and no cheating with the Google):
1. Hillary Clinton used it and lost. John McCain used it and lost. What was it?
2. Did John McCain actually have any casual, free-for-all talks with reporters on his ‘Straight Talk’ campaign jet as he did on his bus?
3. Obama confessed during the campaign to loving two white women in his life. Who were they?
4. According to news reports, what was McCain’s favorite breakfast?
5. Who said “there is absolutely no diva in me”?
a. Hillary Clinton
b. Sarah Palin
c. Michelle Obama
d. Cindy McCain
6. After Obama’s landslide, which famous former broadcast network anchorman continued to declare this was a ‘center-right’ country?
7. Which McCain campaign aide told the media that they wouldn’t be allowed to interview Sarah Palin unless they were properly respectful?
8. What special award did Sarah Palin win at the Miss Alaska beauty contest?
9. What did Obama promise his two daughters he’d do if he became president?
10. From the items below, pick one that wasn’t an issue for Sarah Palin in the 2008 campaign:
a. Misusing her state expense account.
b. Abusing her power in attempting to fire a state trooper.
c. Overspending her McCain campaign clothing allowance.
d. Visiting a remote Aleutian island to ‘see Russia.’
e. Her involvement with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.
f. Insulting members of the Alaska legislature on a radio show.
g. The crazy pastor at her Wasilla church.
h. Her close friendship with corrupt Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
i. The ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that she accepted federal money to build.
j. Campaigning for the Reform Party presidential candidate in the 2000 election.
11. Was Sarah Palin ever asked by the media what the initials NAFTA stood for, or to name any countries in Africa?
12. Who said in April 2008: “I’m as healthy as the economy”?
a. John McCain
b. George W. Bush
c. Henry Paulson
d. Joe Biden
e. Alan Greenspan
f. Rush Limbaugh
Answers below the fold.
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November 9, 2008
The Tattlesnake – More Zippity-Doo-Dah From the Fading Right Edition
In the anguished ‘why we lost’ analyses in the days to come from the Fox News-Karl Rove-Bill Kristol neocons and their compadres in the Big Media, still discombobulated over Obama’s landslide victory in what they think is a ‘center-right’ conservative nation – the ‘liberal socialist’ Obama of November 3rd even magically transforming into a ‘fiscal conservative’ 24 hours later to preserve this incredible myth — you’ll read much about how the economic meltdown in late September killed McCain’s chances after he had pulled even or ahead in the polls. Horse pucky. McCain and Palin’s sour performance in the debates, the GOP’s over-the-top negative ads, a miserably run campaign, Palin’s exposure as an ignorant nitwit, plus the general public disgust with the Bush Republican Party had as much to do with his loss as the financial crisis. Also underestimated are Obama’s superior organization, discipline, massive GOTV efforts in most of the fifty states, and that the country, already centrist-liberal except in name, has been trending more to the left for many years.
McCain got an expected uptick in the poll numbers following the Republican Convention, which is commonplace after any major party convention, but he was receding even before the banks and markets hit bottom in late September. In fact, except for McCain’s brief post-convention bounce, the individual poll margins had remained consistent since summer with Obama in the lead, as this chart shows:
CNN 6/26-6/29: Obama 50%, McCain 45%
CNN 7/27-7/29: Obama 51%, McCain 44%
CBS 7/7/-7/14: Obama 45%, McCain 39%
CBS 7/31-8/5: Obama 45%, McCain 39%
Ipsos 6/5-6/11: Obama 50%, McCain 43%
Ipsos 7/31-8/4: Obama 48%, McCain 42%
Time 6/19-6/25: Obama 47%, McCain 43%
Time 7/31-8/4: Obama 46%, McCain 41%
Pew 6/18-6/29: Obama 48%, McCain 40%
Pew 7/23-7/27: Obama 47%, McCain 42%
NBC/Wall Street Journal 6/6-6/9: Obama 47%, McCain 41%
NBC/Wall Street Journal 7/18-7/21: Obama 47%, McCain 41%
(Hat tip to Rich Gallagher of Fishkill, NY, who compiled and posted these numbers at Altercation, Aug. 8, 2008.)
Obama-Biden popular vote percentage: 52.3%
McCain-Palin popular vote percentage: 46.2%
Obama-Biden electoral vote total: 365
McCain-Palin electoral vote total: 173
(Final numbers from FiveThirtyEight.com.)
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November 3, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Final Election Prediction Edition
Note: The figure following the state name indicates its number of electoral votes.
First off, let’s stipulate that McCain-Palin should carry Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Nebraska (5), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Utah (5), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3) for a total of 49 electoral votes.
Obama-Biden should win Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New Jersey (15), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington D.C. (3) for a total of 110 electoral votes.
Here’s a breakdown of the remaining states:
Alabama (9): McCain. In the tank for McPalin, but some Congressional districts could switch to the D column.
Alaska (3): McCain, barely. Palin’s stomping ground will probably tip to McCain, but GOP Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young will be on the outs.
Arizona (10): Obama by a fingertip. Amazingly, Obama is only one point behind on McCain’s home turf and surging. A quarter of the state’s population are people who have arrived since McCain last ran for office in 2004, and most aren’t voting Republican. I’m giving this one to Obama in the upset of the night.
Arkansas (6): McCain. It’s something in the water down there, which will soon be owned by billionaire T. Boone Pickens, if they aren’t careful.
California (55): Obama. Gov. Musclehead notwithstanding, this is a state as deep indigo as a new pair of blue jeans; the only question is if Obama wins by more than a 20-point margin. Look for some GOP congress-critters to bite the dust, including David Dreier, Mary Bono and Satan’s Apprentice Darrell Issa.
Colorado (9): Obama. The home of the USAF Academy and countless right-wing evangelical churches, also features a large contingent of retired celebrities, progressive libs, Rocky Mountain high guys, and Hispanics. The state’s been trending cerulean; this year it will go the whole route.
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November 2, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Obama’s Not Black Anymore Edition
In my informal surveys of John and Jane Q. Public-Sixpack over the years (and usually conducted near a six-pack), I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon – the more well-known and admired a black person is, the less black they become in the mind of the average honky mo-fo.
Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, et al – their skin color faded to neutral as their popularity with whites increased. Oprah Winfrey’s audience is comprised mainly of white women – do they think of her as black? No, she’s just ‘Oprah,’ girlfriend. Caucasian-Americans have embraced Michael Jordan, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, and scores of black sports stars as one of their own without regard to skin shade – what white sports nut wouldn’t rather hang out with Jordan than some mediocre ofay B-Ball player? And the Super Bowl a couple of years ago between the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts was played by teams with black head coaches. No big whup.
In the music world, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, James Brown, B.B. King, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix and others have all transcended race and now have more white fans than black. The pop music of every generation since the beginning of the 20th century, true American music – blues, jazz, soul, rock, and even much of country – all originated with black musicians in the South. Generations of white children have been conceived to the colorless ballads of Barry White, Lionel Ritchie and Isaac Hayes.
Let me put it this way, Barack Obama has been part of the national public consciousness for about two years now and he’s generally perceived by white America as an affable, intelligent, calm, non-threatening man, and he’s world famous, so his color has become immaterial.
November 1, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Electoral Enigmas and Other Wacky Weirdness Edition
Laugh-a-bull: McCain’s top pollster Bill McInturff appeared on MSNBC with Chuck “Not Related to Crazy Ashley” Todd on Halloween. To put it politely, McInturff was pissing up a rope trying to sell some bizarre notion that this election is somehow similar to 1984 and 1996 and is tightening up to the point that McPalin can pull off a win. Hell-o, Bill – both those years featured a popular incumbent peacetime president and an economy that wasn’t crashing to the ground and taking a devastated middle class with it. He also blabbered on inanely about armies of older, rural white voters crawling to the polls to catapult Wrinkles and the Winker into the Oval Office. This is big-box absurd – the majority of Americans, some 80 percent, live in or near a city – there aren’t enough rural voters, even if every single one voted for Mac and Cheesy, to elect him as president. Todd can be commended for keeping a straight face during McInturff’s lunatic raving, no doubt designed to buck up the flagging morale of the depressed Republican base. (Hey, Bill, poll this: Obama’s a point behind McCain in his home state of Arizona four days before the election.)
Laugh-a-bull Two: What if the polls showed Bush the Junior suddenly popular with independent and undecided voters? McCain would be rushing to the nearest microphone, “My friends, I’d like to remind you that I voted with President Bush 92 percent of the time and Governor Palin and I embrace all of his wonderful policies! Why, I’m just like him!” with the High-Heeled Sneaker nodding in agreement, “Oh, you betcha! President Bush is the original maverick all right!”
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October 30, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Obama Infomercial Seals the Deal Edition
While the Tattler doesn’t usually like the kind of wan-music-in-the-background soft emotional porn of the ‘Oprah-ized’ infomercial, Obama’s half-hour spot Wednesday night avoided most of the worst aggravations of this TV cliché, especially the forlorn solo piano music sound track with flourishes of swelling strings redolent of tacky video matchmaking and cancer treatment center ads.
It featured battleground-state stereotypes – a laid-off white male Ford Motors worker, a Latina woman trying to make ends meet, an elderly black couple hampered by chronic illness and worried about the future, et al — struggling with life in Bush’s downsized economy, but at least the people were real and their stories didn’t sink into cheesy Lifetime-channel melodrama; Obama’s interspersions in office surroundings reminiscent of Camp David were obviously intended to make the Low-and-Slow-Information-Voters of Middle America, awaiting the ballgame, feel comfortable with him as president, which was the main point of this smart $4 million investment.
October 26, 2008
YEAH MEEEEEEE!!!!!
Palin’s ‘going rogue,’ McCain aide says
From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King
CNN
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) — With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say. Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin “going rogue.”A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to “bust free” of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls — recorded messages often used to attack a candidate’s opponent — “irritating” even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign’s decision to pull out of Michigan. 
Watch why the campaign is fighting »
A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
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October 25, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Campaigning on the Bizarre B-Side Edition
Was Ashley Todd’s Imaginary Attack a Desperate Rovian Dirty Trick?
Not to be callous, but your slow-on-the-draw Tattler admits that when he first heard, partially awake, on the radio that someone named Ashley Todd was assaulted by a tall black man in Pittsburgh because she had a McCain sticker on her car, and the added fillip that the alleged attacker had ‘carved a B on her cheek,’ I thought the announcer was talking about the insect, as in, ‘he inscribed a BEE on her cheek,’ and a surreal mental scenario followed that featured an angry tattoo artist yelling, “Hey, c’mon you, hold still while I finish this wing!”
The story seemed a little suspicious from the git-go and Thom Hartmann noted on his radio show Friday that the ‘B’ was backwards, the way someone not-too-bright and looking in a mirror would sketch a ‘B’ on her cheek.
Later in the day, after John McCain and Sarah Palin had rushed to the phones to offer their condolences to the 20-year-old Texas Republican, Ashley confessed that she had invented the whole lurid tale – it was a tasteless hoax, apparently designed to make Obama supporters, and particularly those of the large black male variety, look bad.
Aside from the hideous Susan Smith aspect to the false charge, and the chance that the Pittsburgh police might have commenced a wholesale harassment of black men to find the nonexistent perpetrator, McCain and Palin’s haste to involve themselves in the incident bespeaks two things: a.) They were trying to make political hay out of this young woman’s misfortune, which calls into question their judgment or b.) The McCain campaign was somehow in on the deal, which paints them as over-the-edge con artists.
Todd had worked for the College Republican National Committee in New York, and recently moved to Pennsylvania to act as a full-time McCain-Palin volunteer on behalf of the group. (The College Republicans are the same organization that spawned such upstanding GOP choirboys as Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove and Ralph Reed.)
As yet, there is no evidence that the McCain campaign was directly involved, but it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the impact that the ugly tableau of a fiendish black male sexually attacking a young white lady might have on rural Caucasians in Pennsylvania, a state McCain must win in order to have any shot at the presidency. Joe the Plumber move over, here comes the Scary Obama-Supporting Black Sexual Predator.
Under-the-radar rumors of creepy McCainiacs trying to goad Obama voters into violence while media cameras are present have been floating around recently, the invective particularly aimed at inciting dark-skinned Obamaites, but not much has come of it up to now except some of the demented Starboard Side of the Blogosphere typically and perversely whining about those mean lefties trying to smack down Republicans who wave around McCain-Palin signs in public. (Yep – from the same crowd that counts among its ‘base’ tolerant sophisticates who shout “Kill him!” and “Traitor!” at McPalin academic retreats.)
As the always effervescent-with-bile Michelle Malkin elucidates: “The Obamedia diaper-wetters are gripped with fear over a few over-the-line catcalls at McCain-Palin rallies.”
Uh, it’s not just a ‘few over-the-line catcalls’ at the downhome Bund affairs; it’s a river of right-wing effluvium oozing endlessly from the TV screen, computer monitor and radio speaker, as well. (And Michelle herself could use a mirror.)
October 24, 2008
The Tattlesnake – The Worms Turn On the Wormy Edition
Plus: Palin Prop Blames the Hired Help, the Rove-Rezko Connection, and the GOP Fear of Michael Moore
Well, you know it’s really hit the fan when all McCain can do is babble on vacuously about Joe the Plumber while Sarah the Terror veers off the reservation with an eye to her own future political career and the Backstage Crew, Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis’ crack squad of Rove-inspired GOP intelligentsia who have managed to mount one of the worst and most negative political campaigns in modern history, are eviscerating each other anonymously in the pages of The New York Times magazine. The End is Near, but not in Palin’s ecumenical concept of that notion, as the Solons of Scat have realized they simply can’t chisel and cheat enough and in a sufficient number of states to overwhelm the Obama juggernaut. With a dozen days to go and the Dem ahead by as much as 10 points in rock-ribbed Republican Indiana, the game is up. Expect resumes to be sailing out of McCain’s HQ any day now, if they haven’t been already. Meantime, The Tattler will stick to his earlier prediction: If Indiana goes to Obama, the rest of the Rust Belt Midwest, from Iowa to PA, will follow and it will be an early night and a landslide of over 300 electoral votes for BHO.
The barely mentioned saving grace this time around is that Rove’s nasty tactics aren’t working for McPalin, just as they didn’t work in 2006, nor in the subsequent special Congressional elections in GOP districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi, all won by Dems.
Thankfully, we are seeing the final death of this horrific negative-campaign monster — created by Nixon’s dirty tricksters, perfected by Lee Atwater, and adopted with a few new kinks by Rove — played out in the Palin-McCain fiasco, a proof of that Euripides quote: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Is there any doubt that what is destroying McPalin at this point is their own insanity?
When asked by David Shuster on MSNBC, Oct. 23, 2008, to explain ‘non-elitist’ regular-gal Sarah Palin’s expensive taste in clothes and accessories, ‘Republican Strategist’ Jennifer Millerwise-Dyck fell back on the time-tested and threadbare GOP excuse – blame the underlings. She basically said that Caribou-Slayer Mom was too busy herding her kids and mucking-up campaign appearances to do her own shopping, so it was all the fault of her clueless staff forcing her to wear those pricey duds from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus. Yes, Sarah really wanted to go to ‘Tar-Zhey’ but her damn staff fouled up! Do you laugh at the ludicrous flop-sweat desperation or moan at the pathetic lack of imagination? The Palin-McCain crack-up is like watching a limbo contest – how low will they go?
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October 23, 2008
McCAIN’S MOOSEMAMA BARBIE!!!
Palin Outfits Cost RNC* $150K
McCain opted for public financing. Now all the poor Republicans can see where their tax dollars are going.
* Public financing means that all tax payers Democrats and Republicans contributed to Sarah Palin’s wardrobe, jewelry, hair and makeup as well as for Mr. Mom Dude and baby!
By Juliet Eilperin
The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 on clothing, accessories and makeup for GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her relatives since John McCain selected her as his running mate, according to federal election records.
October 22, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Lipstick on a Pygmalion Edition
Plus a Ray of Light on McCain’s Silly Phillie Charge and Other Diversions
“If your actions speak louder than words, you’re not yelling loud enough.”
– Stephen Colbert, October 20, 2008.
What’s up with God’s Own Hockey Mom, that plain small-town Wasilla girl we’ve all grown to know and love, dropping $150,000 bucks of RNC cash on clothes and jewelry from such snooty elitist shops as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus? Say it ain’t so, Joe – has Alaska’s neo-secessionist pitbull become a pampered poodle, corrupted by her trip to the lower 48? (Perhaps it was associating with all those liberal socialists on Saturday Night Live is what did it, the same way as Obama meeting Bill Ayers turned him into a 1960s domestic terrorist by osmosis.) Jeepers, next we’ll find out she doesn’t know what the Vice President’s job is, according to the Constitution.
Speaking of Mrs. Bent Mooseburger, why isn’t the following a bigger story among the Big Media bobbleheadery? McCain’s Bullwinkle-Killer spent Alaska taxpayer money to drag the whole fam damily along with her to various events, paying out $21,000 for daughters Piper, Willow and Bristol to travel and hotel in luxury at the public’s expense. Worse, she lied when she claimed that the kid’s were invited to these events and, worst of all, altered the expense accounts after the fact. Alaska law is clear: Gov. Palin’s expense account is to be used only for official state business, period. This used to be the kind of Enormous No-No that got state executives and those playing executives on TV fired, yet the BM has hardly peeped about it. C’mon, Beemers, step up to the plate here.
Speaking of stepping up to the plate (in the head), Cap’n McCrash is indulging in yet another head-scratcher by using Obama’s innocuous political hat-tip to both World Series contenders, The Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays, as some kind of example of BHO’s horrible hypocrisy. This is interesting since the Ol’ Straight-Talker himself, appearing on Pittsburgh TV station KDKA last July, recited his usual anecdote about telling his North Vietnamese captors way-back-when that some of the officers in his squadron were the starting offensive line of the Green Bay Packers, but for purposes of political pandering, changed the Packers to the defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers, even though the story was in his friggin’ book!
“When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressures, physical pressures on me, I named the starting lineup, defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates.”
– John McCain on KDKA-TV, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 2008.
“Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron.”
– John McCain, from his book, “Faith of My Fathers” (1999).
“Imagine if Al Gore or John Kerry had changed the facts of a story they told forever in order to appeal to whatever swing state they were speaking in? … Also, the famous Steelers defensive line that McCain was trying to refer to (Mean Joe, L.C. etc.) didn’t become famous until after McCain was out of Vietnam.”
– Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro, MSNBC First Read, July 11, 2008.
Keep digging, Johnny!
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October 21, 2008
The Tattlesnake – The True Meaning of Powell’s Obama Endorsement Edition
On Meet the Press October 19th, Colin Powell took out a very thin, very sharp stiletto and carved up John McCain without ever raising his voice or uttering an angry or blatantly demeaning word, culminating with his endorsement of Barack Obama for president.
Powell has been on a crusade to resurrect his lost integrity and honor since he submitted a noxious pack of lies to the United Nations Security Council in support of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He knows his performance was the clincher that ended the debate for many Americans – if the reasonable and straightforward Powell was behind it, it must be true.
This is the final stage of Powell’s reclamation of his character and veracity – rejecting the aggression and insanity of McCain’s more-war stance in favor of the kind of diplomacy he advocated before he served the interests of BushCo at the UN in 2003.
While his endorsement is unlikely to move many civilian voters, former Joint Chiefs of Staff head Powell is still respected in the military and his nod to Obama will signal to many in the armed forces, including the top brass, that it’s safe to support the Democrat this election.
Beyond that, it’s also a sign of the deep fissure in the Republican Party between the Old Guard secular conservatives, such as Powell’s former boss George H.W. Bush, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, and the emergent power of the Christopublicans, embodied by the elevation of the inexperienced but devout Sarah Palin to vice presidential nominee.
October 20, 2008
The Tattlesnake – All Up in the News Edition
What if the Big Media told the truth, part 2,964?
BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Let’s go to NBC’s Chuck Todd at a McCain rally in Bent Fork, South Carolina. Chuck, I see Gov. Palin just finished speaking; what was the crowd reaction?”
CHUCK TODD: “Well, Brian, once again Sarah Palin has stirred up the crazy white-trash rabble into a lather of raw hatred against liberals, Democrats and, particularly, Barack ‘Hussein’ Obama. She’s managed to attract every drooling yokel, theocratic imbecile and racist thug on the GOP wingnut fringe here and stoked the flames of bigotry to the point where news organizations can’t even send African-Americans to cover her rallies anymore out of fear they might be attacked by her supporters.”
BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Whoa, that’s quite an indictment, Chuck. It looks like Sen. McCain is about to speak; let’s listen in.”
CHUCK TODD: “Don’t bother, Brian. Most of the crowd is leaving as they always do after they’re done gawking at Palin, and McCain never says anything worth hearing – just the same attack-the-opponent, no-new-taxes mumbo-jumbo and embarrassing distortions of the truth he usually spouts. You’d be better off reading the label on a Viagra bottle or sticking needles in your eyes as listening to one of this old crank’s speeches – they’re that tedious and boring.”
BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Well, thanks for that report, Chuck. Now let’s go to Andrea Mitchell with the Obama campaign in Indianapolis, Indiana, where the Democratic Party candidate is about to give a major speech on the economy. Andrea, I understand you’re the filthy rich wife of Alan Greenspan, one of the principal architects of our current financial disaster?”
ANDREA MITCHELL: “That I am, Brian.”
BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Then just how in hell are you going to do an unbiased report on this major Obama speech on economic policy?”
ANDREA MITCHELL: “Brian, I am what you might call a ‘tripartite schizophrenic’ – one part member in good standing of the wealthy elite, one part wife of a powerful neoconservative whose policies ruined our economy, and one part hard-nosed journalist. Don’t worry, I’ll have on my hard-nosed journalist’s cap for this speech.”
BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Why don’t you just recuse yourself from covering Obama altogether?”
ANDREA MITCHELL: “Oh, Brian, you poor idiot – Republicans never recuse themselves in any conflict of interest, don’t you know that? I guess you weren’t paying attention during that Supreme Court ruling that put Bush in office in 2000.”
BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Uh, we’ll be back after these messages.”
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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.