Category: Elections

Wendy Davis is Running for Texas Governor

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After her bursting on the national political scene, she has announced that she is running for Governor:

Wendy Davis walked across the stage at the Wiley G. Thomas Coliseum more than 30 years ago to accept her diploma from Richland High School.

On Thursday, she returned to that stage to kick off her bid to become Texas’ 48th governor.

“This is a campaign not just for governor, but for the very future of our state,” the 50-year-old Democratic state senator from Fort Worth said. “Thirty-two years ago, I started my own journey in this room.

“Today, we start a new journey – together,” she said. “It’s a journey that won’t end on Election Day and it won’t end in Austin. As long as we can make our great state even greater, we will keep going.”

Davis gained national fame — and notoriety — from a June filibuster geared to prevent a comprehensive abortion bill from passing, which prompted Democrats throughout the state to encourage her to try to reclaim for their party the governor’s mansion which hasn’t housed a Democrat since Ann Richards left in 1995.

I think that she is facing long odds, but at least she will be competitive, and we won’t have a freak show like the 2006 election, which had Carole Keeton Insertlastnamehere and Kinky Friedman running as independents and scoring in the double digits.

It’s good for the Texas Democratic Party, even if she does not win.

I Missed this on Tuesday

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Incumbent Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes was soundly defeated in the primary by Ken Thompson.

The reason that I have an interest in what would ordinarily be a very local race is because there is a huge Haredim (ultra-orthodox Jewish) community, particularly the Satmar, and many of the leading rabbis threw their support behind him.

When juxtaposed with the very soft touch applied by to the Hynes’ office toward the Orthodox community, the implication of an electoral quid pro quo is hard to avoid.

Thompson is saying that they will have a, “DA’s office, where there will be one standard of justice for all, no matter where you come from, no matter how much money you have,” which I think is a pretty obvious shot across the bow regarding the pattern of aggressive threats toward witnesses in the Haredi community.

As an aside, I think that Hynes had an inkling that he might lose, because we have some credible allegations that one of his assistants, the, “scandal-ridden A.D.A. Michael Vecchione,” has been removing files from the office for the past few days, allegedly to prevent Thompson from reviewing them and referring them to the Bar or a court of law.

If Thompson can break the Omerta of the Orthodox community, it would be a very good thing.

Election Results

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For New York Elections, Blazio has won the Democratic primary for mayor, but it won’t be clear until morning if he got enough votes to avoid a runoff, while on the ‘Phant side, Joseph Lhota has won by a sufficient margin to avoid a runoff.

Unfortunately, Spitzer lost in his race for Comptroller, because Wall Street managed to buy enough votes for his opponent Scott Stringer.

In Colorado, it looks like the NRA has successfully recalled the two state senators who helped pass the common sense gun laws there.

Bummer on Spitzer’s loss and the NRA’s victory. 

It’s Not Like it Was Important, It’s Just an Execution

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So Florida Attorney General had a fundraising meeting, so she delayed an execution:

There is no graver responsibility and act of state government than an execution.

In Florida this week, a campaign fundraiser takes precedence.

Attorney General Pam Bondi persuaded Gov. Rick Scott to postpone an execution scheduled for tonight because it conflicted with her re-election kick-off reception.

“What’s going on down there? It’s ridiculous,” said Phyllis Novick, the Ohio mother of one of Marshall Lee Gore’s victims, when told Monday about the reason for the delay.

Gore, 50, raped, strangled and stabbed 30-year-old Robyn Novick in 1988 before dumping her body into a Miami-Dade County trash heap. Gore was also sentenced to die for the slaying of 19-year-old Susan Roark, whose body was found a few months later in Columbia County.

Gore was initially scheduled for execution in June, but the date was twice delayed because of legal skirmishes over Gore’s sanity.

I have mixed emotions.

I oppose the death penalty, I see a delay to an execution as a good thing, but postponing an execution so that you can raise money?!?!

Damn, that is cold.

Not Enough Bullets………

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In the New York City Mayoral primary, Bill De Blasio, the New York City Public Advocate, is leading in all the polls.

In fact, he is leading by enough that, in a 9 candidate race, he has a shot to clear the 40% requirement in a runoff, is rather telling.

It is heartening that in the home of Wall Street an unabashed liberal appears likely to be the next Mayor of New York.

One of his central proposals is to, “Increase the city’s income tax on wealthy residents earning over $500,000, from 3.86 percent to 4.41 percent,” (PDF) to fund universal preschool.

If you do the math, you will realize that this means an additional $2750.00 in taxes for someone earning a million dollars a year, basically chump change, particularly amongst the well to do in New York.

However, it appears the suggestion that the rich and very rich toss a few more pennies toward public resources has hurt the feeling of rich self absorbed assholes:

When New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio first proposed taxing the rich so every child in the city could attend all-day preschool, it was October and he had support from fewer than 10 percent of Democrats in polls.

 Now he leads the pack. And some of the wealthy New Yorkers who’d pay more under his plan say it bewilders and offends them.

Oh, it offends them, their delicate feelings are hurt.

F%$# that.

“It shows lack of sensitivity to the city’s biggest revenue providers and job creators,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a network of 200 chief executive officers, including co-Chairman Laurence Fink of BlackRock Inc. (BLK), the world’s biggest money manager.

I am so concerned that we are being insufficiently “sensitive” to the parasites from Wall Street.

E.E. “Buzzy” Geduld, who runs the hedge fund Cougar Capital LLC in the city and is a trustee of Manhattan’s Dalton School, where annual tuition tops $40,000, said de Blasio’s plan “is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard” and “not a smart thing to do.”

Yes, because someone who can afford $40,000.00 for a year at private school, will be absolutely destroyed by a 0.55% increase in their taxes on income over ½ a million dollars a year.

De Blasio first presented his tax plan to a quiet audience attending his Oct. 4 speech to the Association for a Better New York, a real-estate developers’ civic group. He called on them, as some of the city’s wealthiest individuals, to provide about $532 million for universal all-day pre-kindergarten and after-hours middle-school programs.

About 20,000 of New York’s 68,000 four-year-olds get city-funded full-day pre-kindergarten classes, with 38,000 enrolled in three-hour programs and 10,000 in none. The added pre-K slots would cost roughly $342 million, de Blasio said.

It’s rather telling that George Soros has contributed to De Blasio campaign. I think that he earns a decent salary.

Additionally, that raving Bolshevik Ben Bernanke has endorsed increased pre-school and after school programs as well.

What a bunch or useless self-absorbed jerks.  I would call them schmucks, but a schmuck has a head.

I’m a Little Bit Less Enthused About Martin O’Malley Now

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It turns out that he campaigned with corrupt Joe Lieberman wannabee Cory Booker:

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) will campaign for New Jersey Senate candidate Cory Booker (D) on Thursday.

The governor, considered a likely 2016 presidential contender, sent out a tweet on Tuesday alerting his followers to his plans.

“Excited to join @corybooker on the campaign trail in New Jersey this Thursday,” he tweeted.

According to PolitickerNJ, O’Malley will make stops on his own in Trenton and Paterson and appear with Booker in Newark, N.J.

He’s previously helped another New Jersey Democrat, gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono, to raise cash, lending his name to a fundraising email sent out by her campaign last month.

I understand the motivation, he wanted to hook up with a winning campaign to show that he has some political pull to aid his embryonic presidential bid, but Booker is a corrupt bankster loving SOB.

Oh, well.

He is Probably Going to Win the Primary Tomorrow, but Cory Booker is a Corrupt Rat-Bastard

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You may remember his wankitude in the 2012 elections, when he said that Obama being mean to Bain Capital gave him a sad, but it’s worse than that.

He is deeply and openly on the take:

The conference room in the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters of LinkedIn was packed with the stars of Silicon Valley. Top executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter gathered around a table; the billionaire Sean Parker looked on from a back row. The guest of honor: Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark.

 The stated purpose of the gathering was to give Mr. Booker, already a Twitter fanatic, a seminar on social-networking technologies. But hanging in the air was an electrifying sense of being in the presence of an ascendant politician they believed understood the potential of the new digital world they were shaping.

 “He’s part of this tide,” said Gina Bianchini, an entrepreneur who was at the meeting, in May 2009. “It feels like he’s one of us.”

 Two and a half years later, some of those same Silicon Valley leaders joined forces again on Mr. Booker’s behalf. But this time, their efforts resulted in giving Mr. Booker, until then an admired outsider, the equivalent of full-fledged membership in their elite circle: an Internet start-up of his own.

 Mr. Booker personally has obtained money for the start-up, called Waywire, from influential investors, including Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. A year after its debut, Waywire has already endured a round of layoffs and had just 2,207 visitors in June, according to Compete, a Web-tracking service. The company says it is still under development.

 Yet in a financial disclosure filed last month, Mr. Booker, 44, revealed that his stake in the company was worth $1 million to $5 million. Taken together, his other assets were worth no more than $730,000.

 That revelation, with just a week left in Mr. Booker’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate, shows how a few tech moguls and entrepreneurs, many of them also campaign donors, not only made a financial bet on the mayor’s political future but also provided the brainpower and financing to help create a company that could make him very rich.

Why is this blatant influence peddling?

Well, the tell is that Waywire hired the 15 year old son of the head of CNN and gave him stock options:(Yes, it’s NY Post, but echos the New York Times story linked above, and it is far less oblique)

He isn’t even old enough to drive — but CNN President Jeff Zucker’s teenage son has already resigned from a cushy position at Cory Booker’s closely watched Internet start-up.

 After somehow scoring a seat on the advisory board of the rising Democratic star’s Waywire video-sharing site, 15-year-old Andrew Zucker abruptly quit yesterday amid questions over his qualifications.

 The rich kid’s consulting career as a “millennial adviser” ended just hours after it was revealed that he had been granted stock options in the firm co-founded by Booker, the Newark mayor who polls show is a shoo-in for the US Senate after a special election.

 “Despite the fact that his affiliation with Waywire was extremely limited to only an advisory capacity, in order to avoid even the perception of a conflict, Jeff’s son has resigned from the Waywire advisory board, effective immediately,” CNN said in a statement.

 News of Andrew’s stock deal lit up social media yesterday, with critics on Twitter branding it a “gross nepotism alert.”

 Corporate-governance experts also called his hiring highly unusual, saying they’d never before heard of anyone so young getting such a cushy gig.

 Advisory boards are usually stocked with “seasoned folks who have been through the process of making that kind of a start-up work, or enhancing the capacity of a company so it can move to an IPO [initial public offering] or the next level of business,” said Eleanor Bloxham, CEO of The Value Alliance. “So you’re not generally looking in the high-school age range.”

The defense is that he got less than qualified than, “Lady Gaga’s manager.”

Seriously, the royalty of Silicon Valley is showering their largess on this guy because it’s such a good idea? For a web site that got 2,207 visitors in June?

Seriously, I got 1,457 unique visitors in June, and I’m the worst writer on the internet.™

But wait, there’s more. There is also the case of his old law firm, which continued to pay him for years while getting lucrative contracts from the city:

Cory Booker pocketed “confidential” annual payouts from his former law firm while serving as Newark mayor.

 Booker, the front-runner in New Jersey’s Senate race, received five checks from the Trenk DiPasquale law firm from 2007 until 2011. During that time, the firm raked in more than $2 million in fees from local agencies over which Booker has influence.

 “This was a settlement buyout for my interest in the firm,” the mayor told The Post at a campaign stop in Jersey City yesterday. “I had an equity stake, and we had a negotiated settlement.”

 Booker worked at the West Orange firm for five years, leaving in 2006 when he was elected Newark’s mayor to avoid “the appearance of impropriety.”

 He refused to answer how much he received in the five years after leaving.

 “It’s all been disclosed for the last seven years,” Booker said.

 Not quite. Booker’s state financial disclosures from 2006 to 2011 list two sources of income — the city of Newark and the law firm. The forms mandate reporting of income over $2,000 a year, but do not require an exact sum or range.

 Booker’s closed lips on the earnings fly in the face of his public stances. In 2002, he released his tax returns during his unsuccessful race against incumbent Mayor Sharpe James, and ripped James for not doing the same.

 The returns “provide the only clues as to how many deals the mayor is involved in . . . and the only record of the money he’s making on the side,” Booker said at the time.

 When The Post asked Friday for Booker’s recent returns, his campaign refused to turn them over.

And then there are his positions on the issues:

  • He supports privatizing public education and handing it to Wall Street.
  • He has repeatedly allied himself with religious organizations that have sponsored Uganda’s “Kill the gays” bill.
  • His close relationship with Scaife/Olin/Koch funded political organizations.
  • His founding an organization heavily funded by the Walton (Wal-Mart) family.

If he wins the primary, he is almost certain to win the general.

First, New Jersey is very blue now, and second, the Republican field is best defined as a clown show.

This is the Best Political Slam I’ve Ever Heard

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That’s Gotta Hurt!

And yes, I’m including Winston Churchill’s best slams* in my calling this the best.

Even more surprising is that it comes from a woman, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is running against Mitch McConnell for Senate in 2014, as women are frequently subjected to a double standard on such thing. (A man is assertive, and a woman is a bitch, etc.)

At a political staple of Kentucky politics, a barbecue at a small hamlet known as Fancy Farm, Grimes let fly:

But in her speech, Grimes didn’t shy from attacking McConnell directly, painting him as an obstructionist who’s been in Washington too long, as her own supporters chanted, “Ditch Mitch.”

 “If the doctors told Sen. McConnell that he had a kidney stone, he’d refuse to pass it,” Grimes said, in her most memorable zinger of her six-minute speech.

 While McConnell left after his likely Democratic opponents’ speech, not staying to hear his GOP primary opponent at the end of the program, Grimes welcomed Bevin to the race, joking that he was glad to see the “GOP nominee had shown up.”

That is going to leave a mark!

*A couple of Churchill’s more famous insults:

One day shortly after the Second World War ended, Winston Churchill and Labour Party Prime Minister Clement Attlee encountered one another at the urinal trough in the House of Common’s men’s washroom. Attlee arrived first. When Churchill arrived, he stood as far away from him as possible. Attlee said, “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?” Churchill said: “That’s right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it.”

 ………

 Lady Astor: Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink.
Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.

One of the Worst of the Blue Dogs Gets a Free Pass

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Bill Halter, who nearly defeated the despicable Blanche Lincoln in the 2010 Arkansas Democratic Primary, has decided to withdraw from the race for Governor, leaving the race to one of the Dlue Doggingist of the Blue Dogs, Mike Ross.

It appears that the proximate cause is anemic fund raising.

My guess is that this is payback from the Clintons, who have not “gotten over” his challenge to Lincoln. (She would have lost anyway, the polls were clear on that.)

This sucks.

Eric Holder Will Sue Texas Under the Voting Rights Act

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He has announced that he will sue Texas under section 3C of the voting rights act. Basically, the Supreme Court invalidated the old list that was incorporated into the law when it was first passed (Section 5 4), but section 3, which can be invoked on the basis of specific actions by a state, can also require preclearance on voting changes.

This has been invoked before, albeit briefly:

The Obama administration moved to retain some oversight of the way states conduct elections after the Supreme Court invalidated part of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, setting up a new fight with Republican governors.

The legal strategy, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder Thursday, is directed initially at Texas’ voting procedures, but it promises to have much broader impact: The action in Texas, Mr. Holder said, “will not be our last.” Other states expected to receive Justice Department scrutiny include South Carolina, North Carolina and Alaska.

On Thursday, the Justice Department asked a panel of judges in San Antonio to order continued scrutiny of the state’s voting rules and operations, following the Supreme Court ruling in June that effectively nullified what had been a requirement for the state to seek federal approval of any changes.

In an announcement that drew strong criticism from Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Republicans in other states, the attorney general said the Justice Department would invoke a little-used section of the law as a replacement measure for the one the Supreme Court struck down.

In its decision, the court effectively voided Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act by ruling unconstitutional the formula the federal government used to identify jurisdictions that must receive its approval—a process called preclearance—before changing voting procedures.

Now, Mr. Holder said, the Justice Department will use Section 3 of the law to try to keep Texas subject to preclearance. Under Section 5, certain states and counties with a history of discrimination against minority voters couldn’t implement voting-rule changes without federal approval. Under Section 3, a court must first find evidence of intentional discrimination—a tougher test—before subjecting the jurisdiction to preclearance.

In the Texas case filed late Thursday, Justice Department lawyers are seeking a 10-year preclearance period.

In this case, the “tougher standard” is not so tough.

There was already a finding of fact by a court a few months ago (under the now defunct section 5) that Texas was engaged in discrimination.

I also think that discovery, when the DoJ computer forensics teams go through emails at the Texas state house, should be very interesting.

Props to Eric Holder. (I cannot believe that I just wrote that)

I Hope That This is Sincere

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It might also just be a realization that it’s political poison to piss off minorities even more.

But in either case, the fact that Eric Cantor is calling for speedy legislation to fix the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Voting Rights Act is a positive development:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) reacted late Tuesday afternoon to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that overturned a centerpiece of the Voting Rights Act.

 “My experience with John Lewis in Selma earlier this year was a profound experience that demonstrated the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all,” Cantor said in a statement provided to TPM. “I’m hopeful Congress will put politics aside, as we did on that trip, and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected.”

It should be noted that the proverbial devil is in the details here. 

If the teabagger caucus is allowed to get its teeth into this, whatever come out of the house will be deeply ugly.

By a 5-4 Vote, the Supreme Court Says, “Silly N*gg*rs, Votes Are For Whites!”

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The Supreme Court just castrated the Voting Rights Act:

Handing Congress an assignment with profound political risks, a divided Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a key part of the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act and left it to Congress to try to salvage the law as the effective ban on racial bias at the polls that it has been for nearly five decades. It appears that the future of the Act’s core depends on members of Congress being willing to impose heavy new legal burdens on their own states.

Before the Court in Shelby County v. Holder (docket 12-96) were constitutional challenges to two of the main sections of the 1965 law; the Court nullified one and left the other formally intact but perhaps in deep peril, too. The dissenters complained that, without the invalidated part, the other will be “immobilized.”

If the full potential impact of the ruling does occur, what would mainly be left to authorize challenges to racial discrimination in voting would be other parts of the law not under review Tuesday, but those parts require a potentially time-consuming process of one lawsuit at a time, persuading a court to give a remedy that applies to one state or local government per case.

See also here.

BTW, less than 2 hours later, the Texas AG unleashed their minority voter suppression plan:

Just two hours after the Supreme Court reasoned that discrimination is not rampant enough in Southern states to warrant restrictions under the Voting Rights Act, Texas is already advancing a voter ID law and a redistricting map blocked last year for discriminating against black and Latino residents. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued a statement declaring that both measures may go into effect immediately, now that there is no law stopping them from discriminating against minorities.

………

In the case of the new electoral map, a panel of federal judges found that “substantial surgery” was done to predominantly black districts, cutting off representatives’ offices from their strongest fundraising bases. Meanwhile, white Congress members’ districts were either preserved or “redrawn to include particular country clubs and, in one case, the school belonging to the incumbent’s grandchildren.” The new map was also drawn in secret by white Republican representatives, without notifying their black and Latino peers. After the court blocked the map, the legislature approved small changes to appease Democratic lawmakers last week. Now that they are free to use the old maps, however, Gov. Rick Perry (R) could simply veto the new plan and use the more discriminatory maps.

The strict photo ID requirement blocked by the DOJ and a federal court would require Texans to show one of a very narrow list of acceptable photo IDs. Expired gun licenses from other states are considered valid, but Social Security cards and student IDs are not. If voters do not have an ID — as many minorities, seniors, and poor people do not — they must travel at their own expense, produce their birth certificate, and in many cases pay a fee to get an ID.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, the DOJ no longer has any power to block these laws, even with the backing of federal judges who found blatant discrimination. Under the remaining sections of the Voting Rights Act, individuals may sue to kill these measures, but only after they have gone into effect and disenfranchised countless Texans of color.

BTW, if you think that this sucks, I think that David Kaiser is right when he predicts a return to a property requirement for voting rights:

………

It occurred to me this morning that the solution to Republican electoral problems is, when you think about it, obvious, and a friend of mine from a red state pointed out that a Tea Party leader has already mused about it, back in the heady days of 2010. The solution, which has a rich tradition in western and US history, is a property qualification for voting. And what is rather shocking is that there does not seem to be anything in the Constitution to prevent it.

We are going to be seeing the teabaggers lobbying for this, the only question is which is the first state where this actually is formally submitted by a state legislator.  (My money is on it being Texasissippi)

Chris Christie Splits the Baby

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Chris Christie had a conundrum.

With the death of Frank Lautenberg, this leaves a vacancy that needs to be filled.

This was a problem for governor Chris Christie.

First, there are two conflicting statutes as to whether the governor appoints a replacement until the next election, or whether a special election is held.

Second, if he makes an appointment, Republicans will demand that he appoint someone with a Ted Cruze/Michelle Bachmann level of the crazy, which might interfere with his reelection bid this November.

Third, if he holds a special election at the same time as the gubernatorial election, it brings out more Democrats to votes, which would hurt his chances, though he already pretty much a shoe in.

So, his solution was to called a special election in October:

At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) called for a special election to replace the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg to be held on Oct. 16. A primary will take place on Aug. 13. Christie will appoint an interim replacement to serve in Lautenberg’s Senate seat until the election is concluded. Though he did not reveal whom he plans to choose, his deft handling of the situation has already allowed Christie to sidestep several potentially sticky situations and may have created an obstacle for one of his top rivals.

Prior to his announcement, Christie was seen as having multiple options for scheduling the Senate election. One statute was reportedly cited by Jersey Republicans as giving Christie power to appoint a replacement who would serve the remainder of Lautenberg’s original term, which ends in 2014. Christie said he did indeed have this power, but wanted to do the “right thing” and let the people of the Garden State pick their representatives in the Senate.

………

Christie’s decision also allows the governor to sidestep a series of problems the vacancy in Lautenberg’s seat presented to his current re-election bid and rumored national ambitions.

………

While other similar attacks are likely to come down the road, Christie’s masterstroke of election scheduling comes with a potent, built-in defense that he is simply standing up for the needs of the voters.

While it would seem having a handpicked senator as long as possible could be advantageous to Christie, making an appointment who serves for the absolute minimal amount of time came with a third side benefit for the governor. Christie has turned himself into a highly touted potential 2016 presidential contender based in no small part on his image as a GOP governor who isn’t afraid to make compromises with the other party. If he made a pick that would serve for a substantial amount of time and they were seen as insufficiently conservative it could damage Christie’s standing with Republicans nationally, while an unequivocally conservative pick could hurt Christie’s bipartisan branding. Allowing his choice to serve for only a few months will almost assuredly burnish Christie’s magnanimous reputation while also decreasing the spotlight on the appointment — and the chance it could reflect negatively on him.

Well played, Christopher, well played.

I Wonder What Happened?

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So, I get up this mourning, and discover that Michele Bachmann is not running for re-election.

Seeing as how she literally thinks that she its on a mission from God, I gotta conclude that an indictment its about to get unsealed.

On an electoral level, this might make switching her seat from red to blue more difficult, because the district is pretty Republican, and having a slightly less obviously batsh@# insane candidate might make the swart easier to hold onto for the ‘Phants.

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Funny of the Day

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By Jonathan Chait, of all people, comments on the Hobson’s choice for Virginia Governor between batsh%$ insane wingnut Ken Cuccinelli and poster child for money driven soulless hack Terry McAuliffe, and he makes a pretty good funny:

The most depressing election in America is unfolding in Virginia, where voters will trudge to the polls this fall to choose either Republican nutjob Ken Cuccinelli or soulless Democratic hack Terry McAuliffe as their next governor. We know why Republicans picked Cuccinelli — he’s crazy, they’re crazy, it’s the sort of perfect match that regularly produces nominees like Todd “legitimate rape” Akin and Richard Mourdock.

Just how McAuliffe managed to clear the field is harder to explain. McAuliffe is a House of Cards character, only less articulate. Unlike most soulless hacks, he did not obtain his position through years of greasy pole climbing — he’s a novice in electoral politics whose only real power base is Beltway insiders. McAuliffe is the Democrat Democrats have been dying to vote against, except they can’t, because he’s running against a falling-off-the-right-edge-of-the-map Republican. (It’s a testament to McAuliffe’s visceral loathsomeness that he’s starting off with a ten-point deficit against Crazy Ken Cuccinelli, in a state Barack Obama won twice.)

He then goes to list 5 worse choices.

I won’t spoil it, I’ll just tell you number 5 on his list: Godzilla vs. Mothra.

Just read it.