Month: November 2010

Kevin Drum defends it:

Thirty years ago, voting for individuals wasn't crazy. There were conservative Democrats and liberalish Republicans, and they sometimes helped the parties make deals in Congress that, perhaps, made the independent-minded folks happy. Nothing wrong with that.

But no longer.

We have, for all practical purposes, a parliamentary system these days, with strong party discipline and down-the-line voting. Almost no one crosses the aisle to vote for compromise measures anymore, and this means that it make a lot less sense to vote for personalities than it used to. Here in California, even some loyal Democrats might think that Barbara Boxer is not the greatest senator in the history of the Golden State, but so what? Given the current state of American politics, all that matters is that she'll vote for the Democratic agenda and Carly Fiorina will vote for the Republican one. That is all ye know, and and all ye need to know.

As he acknowledges, the argument only applies to Congressional races. "For statewide offices like governor, insurance commissioner, attorney general, and so forth, voting for individuals makes a little more sense."

Just hang in for the last few seconds, starting at around 1:00. Even she can't keep this spiel going with a straight face:

Then this closer:

"I suppose I could play their immature, unprofessional, waste-of-time game, too, by claiming these reporters and politicos are homophobe, child molesting, tax evading, anti-dentite, puppy-kicking, chain smoking porn producers … really, they are … I’ve seen it myself … but I’ll only give you the information off-the-record, on deep, deep background; attribute these ‘facts’ to an ‘anonymous source’ and I’ll give you more."

Anti-dentite? Was that a Seinfeld reference?

Enjoy.

Bask in the cognitive dissonance: 

Enjoy the fragile ego:

“Some within the establishment don’t like the fact that I won’t back down to a good-old-boys club. A lot of this has to do with control, power, money.”

Watch the paranoid bonding:

Just two years ago, Tom Tancredo was a veritable outcast of the Republican Party. Karl Rove was screaming at him, John McCain scoffed at him, GOP pollsters viewed him as a saboteur within their midst. Tancredo's one issue–a near-apocalyptic warning about immigrant-driven dilution of American culture–was seen as radioactive among the Republican elite.

Ed Morrissey manages to spin all this as shrewd:

This plays well for Palin.  She gets to once again distance herself from the GOP party establishment while also adding to her reputation for political pragmatism.  The Republican nominee, Dan Maes, is a disaster for Republicans, and most Republicans have already shifted support from Maes to Tancredo.

I never thought I'd say this, but we're lucky that the Saudis live next door. If only for some help with intelligence.

… it will have something to do with the attitude of this reader:

On the eve of the election here in CA, I feel quite sanguine about the prospects for Prop 19. Not because I feel it will likely pass. I honestly have no idea if it will pass. No, I'm not worried because I'm about to legally smoke a joint right now. It's called medical cannabis, and although it's nothing more than a scam for most of us, it's a really good scam!

I actually had a conversation with a friend yesterday, also an inveterate pot smoker, in which he maintained that he prefers Prop 19 not pass, because it will draw unwanted attention to the scam we've already got going on. So for me, wanting Prop 19 to pass is about society. It's bad for society to lock people up for something harmless. It's bad for society to create a massive class of scofflaws. It's bad for society to lose out on all that revenue. But it's not really all that bad for me.

Not typical, I'd wager, of almost all on the religious right, but a voice nonetheless. A reader writes:

Though I am a registered Republican and a theocon — indeed, in some ways precisely because I am a theocon — I am going to vote for Joe Sestak in the PA Senate race today. It's not because I believe in Sestak. It's partly because I know the House is going Republican, and I fear Mitch McConnell more than I fear Harry Reid. It's partly because I know Pat Toomey is a really smart and capable advocate for what he believes in, and is likely to be entrenched for a long time.

But it's mostly because I absolutely will not vote for Wall Street.

I know, both parties are in Wall Street's pocket, but you cannot get more Wall Street than the former president of the Club For Growth, which Toomey is.

I greatly regret that Sestak does not share my views on issues important to social conservatives, and Toomey does. But to me, the greater threat to the family and to the integrity and flourishing of this society is an economy (and a political economy) devoted to the interests of the very rich.

I have been to this rodeo before. At the end of the day, what the Republicans really care about is Wall Street; my kind are useful idiots. I wish the GOP had learned the lessons of the catastrophic Bush years, but I see no evidence that they have. The last national office for which I cast a vote for a Democrat was Michael Dukakis, but I was a college student, and an idiot. I cast a write-in vote for president in 2008, because I couldn't bring myself to vote for either McCain or Obama. Today, though, my 22-year streak of supporting Republicans exclusively for national office comes to an end.

Ron Brownstein checks in with President Cool. I suspect Obama was figuring out post-2010 strategy early last summer.

Flushing Township, Michigan is an early case study:

"Even communism looks good on paper," said Zimmerman, 55, who manages a chain of hardware stores. "Even though I agree with some of their ideals, there's no compromise when you're dealing with a revolutionary." Gardner, who founded a countywide tea party, said that was the point.

"That's where people in politics get a bad name, when they have their ideals, but they leave them at the door for compromise," he said. "I believe we need to hold to our ideals."