Category: Elections

Describing the Green Party to a T

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In Illinois the Green Party Candidate for Governor, Rich Whitney, had his name misspelled on voting machines. It reads Rich Whitey.

I know that there are “people of color” in the Green Party. The late Ed Boyd, an African American, ran for governor in Maryland in 2006, but received no party support, because they were focusing on (equally doomed) the Senate candidacy of rich whitey Kevin Zeese.

Ed Boyd was kind of pissed, but that really is how the Green Party rolls. It’s the comfortable pretending to afflict the comfortable.

They Do This Because They Believe that Minorities Should Not Vote

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I have to invoke this when discussing the travails of anyone named “Kirk”.


In any case, let’s roll tape*

That is why Republicans like Mark Kirk spend enormous amounts of time and effort trying to keep minorities from voting.

The difference is that this time, he got caught on tape:

In a private phone conversation that was secretly recorded, Mark Kirk, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois, told state Republican leaders last week about his plan to send “voter integrity” squads to four predominately African American neighborhoods of Chicago “where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat.”

Kirk’s campaign confirmed the candidate was secretly taped last week as he was talking about his anti-voter fraud effort.

Someone taped this discussion, and then released it into the wild.

There are some values of the Republican party that have been present since its founding, like opposition to organized labor, and there are some that are the product of the politically expedient decision to embrace the white racist portion of the electorate with the “Southern Strategy.”

It started with Barry Goldwater, was embraced and extended by Nixon, and finally came to full fruit under Ronald Reagan, who did his best to make bigotry look cool.

In the process, the bigots subsumed the party.

Thus we are left with the Republican definition of “vote fraud”: to them, it means allowing n*gg*rs to vote.

*The “tape” is actually illegal, as Illinois, like Maryland is a 2 party consent state, but that is largely irrelevant to the fact that a rock got turned over, and the slime beneath was revealed.

Well, This is Nice…

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Now if only he would continue his attacks on corrupt Republicans after the election:

The White House intensified its attacks Sunday on the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its alleged ties to foreign donors, part of an escalating Democratic effort to link Republican allies with corporate and overseas interests ahead of the November midterm elections.

………

David Axelrod, a top Obama adviser, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that secret political donations to the chamber and other groups pose “a threat to our democracy.”

Axelrod also took the unusual step of calling on the chamber to release internal documents backing up its contention that foreign money is not being used to pay for U.S. political activities. Democrats have seized on a report by a liberal blog alleging that dues from chamber-affiliated business councils could be used in that way.

“If the chamber opens up its books and says, ‘Here’s where our political money’s coming from,’ then we’ll know,” Axelrod said. “But until they do that, all we have is their assertion.”

The chamber has vehemently denied the allegations, characterizing them as part of a desperate strategy to stave off a GOP takeover of Congress. The business lobby has vowed to spend up to $75 million on the midterm elections, primarily in favor of Republicans.

On November 3, Obama will be back to kissing their asses.

They should be beating this drum every day.

Your Moment of Schadenfreude

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If there is a bright spot this year it is the meltdown in the Colorado Gubernatorial race, where John Hickenlooper is cruising to victory as Republican Dan Maes and wingnut Republican turned 3rd party candidate Tom Tancredo pummel each other, but I did not think that it was much beyond that.

Well, I was wrong, because Maes appears to be polling near 10%, and if he gets less than 10% of the vote, then the Republican Party becomes a “minor party” in Colorado:

But a big win for Tancredo — or even drawing much closer — could spell a big loss for both the GOP and his adopted third party, the American Constitution Party, for the next four years.

If Republican nominee Dan Maes receives less than 10 percent of the vote in November, the GOP becomes a minor party and subject to rules that could cut in half the amount its candidates can collect in campaign contributions. [Because they cannot get a separate donation for the primary if it is uncontested for state and local positions]

As Republicans absorb the news, leaders of the 2,000-plus-person ACP worry about their potential promotion to the majors if Tancredo exceeds 10 percent at the polls, a status that comes with new and costlyorganizational requirements.

Former ACP chairman Doug Campbell reveled in the GOP predicament, if not that of his own party, which may have to host precinct caucuses throughout the state and mail out primary ballots.

Additionally, it would mean that the party would not be placed in the to ballot spots, but rather would be ranked down ballot on the basis of a lottery with crazies like the Monster Raving Loony Party:

“The effect of the designation of minor party status for the 2012 election would be that our candidate for president will not be in the top two lines which will be reserved for the Democrat and American Constitution Party candidates. We will be left to compete for ballot position with the Greens, Socialists, American Communist Party, Libertarians. Prohibitionists etc.

“Our state house and senate candidates will similarly be relegated to bottom positions. In 2014, when we have our US Senate, Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer etc races, again, we will be at the bottom of the ballot fighting the libertarians etc for ballot placement. As we all know, being at the top or toward the top can mean several percentage points in the vote, enough in a close race to secure victory.”

Admittedly, Maes is polling significantly above the 10% line, he is polling at 15%, and I think that when it becomes clear that neither of them will win that there will be the governor voters will hold their nose and vote for Maes to avoid chaos for the next 4 years in the Colorado Republican Party.

Still, heh.

I’m Sure That ADL President Abraham Foxman will Be Endorsing Them

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Considering the degree to which Abraham Foxman has allied himself with the right-wing, nativist, and bigoted Christofascist right, it’s only a matter of time before he shows up at a fundraiser for the Swedish SD far right anti-Islamic party:

‘It won’t be long before Sweden Democrats show true anti-Semitic nature’

Far-right, anti-immigrant party won an unprecedented number of seats in recent elections; local Jewish leader warns its pro-Israel stance is just an expression of anti-Islam policy.

By Danna Harman

It will not be long before the true anti-Semitic nature of the far-right anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats (SD) party – which won an unprecedented number of seats in Sunday’s elections, is revealed – a leader of the local Jewish community there warned on Monday.

“This is a neo-Nazi party… articulate, and talented…but very dangerous,” said Lena Posner, President of the Official Council of Jewish communities in Sweden, an umbrella organization of Jewish groups in the country. “We know where these people are coming from. They are Nazi sympathizers who, under their jackets, are still wearing their brown shirts.”

The local Swedish Jewish community, at least in the person of Ms. Posner , is showing way more sense and decency that does Mr. Foxman did on the entire Park51 community center matter.

I Believe That the Term Here is “Vigorish”*

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Bummer of a birth mark, Sharron Angle

Nevada Republican Senate Candidate Sharron Angle had a meeting with the 3rs party Scott Ashjian in an attempt to get him out of the race.

Unfortunately for her Mr. Ashjians recorded the conversation, and she was offering a piece of the action:

Says the grass roots movement “gives me juice. That’s really all I can offer to you (Ashjian) is whatever juice I have, you have as well…You want to see DeMint, I have juice with him….I go to Washington, DC and want to see Jim DeMint, he’s right there for me. I want to see Tom Coburn, he’s right there for me. I want to see Mitch McConnell, he’s there.”

She goes on to say that Republicans are corrupt, and that she will lose if the Teabagger Ashjian stays in the race.

Let me make this clear: I do not support the surreptitious taping, and if this happened in a state where it’s illegal, like Maryland, I would support prosecution.

That being said, these revelations could not happen to a more deserving character.

Pass the popcorn.

*I believe that the “juice” in the quote is a reference to transactional profits similar to those of a bookie, hence “vigorish”.

Quote of the Day

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Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it’s going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I’ve concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They’re full of sh%$.

–Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

($# mine)

He had a conversation with a man who has worked as a tax assessor his whole life, and hence is being paid by our tax dollars, and whose wife is on Medicare, and has a scooter funded by the program, but they aren’t the problem, it’s the other who is sucking the marrow out of our society.

Just go read it.

Rahm Leaves White House to Run for Mayor of Chicago

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It was made official yesterday.

My condolences to the people of Chicago. I don’t think that he’s done a good job wherever he has been.

He has a real history of failing up: For example, as head of the DCCC, he spent thousands to displace Christine Cegelis with the hapless Tammy Duckworth, and advised Democrats to be hawkish on Iraq in 2006, he was point man on NAFTA in 1994, etc.

I rather expect he won’t get the streets plowed in Chicago.

I would also note that if the LGBT political establishment is interested in getting some respect from Obama and his administration, working to make sure that Emanuel does not win the February mayoral primary would be a good place to start.

More of This

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Alan Grayson accurately calls his opponent Taliban Dan Webster.

This is what Alan Grayson does best: He explains the moral dimensions of Republican beliefs and Republican policy.

As opposed to drinking tea with the pinky extended, and talking about how stupid or lame the voters or your base is, he takes it to them.

If you don’t call out evil and insanity this time around, it becomes normal behavior the next time around.

This is why triangulation is a failure, it serves only to embolden your opponent to move further away from sanity when you extend the boundaries of what is socially acceptable discourse.

It’s why I love* Alan Grayson.

He understands the moral dimension to policy, and he aggressively communicates these dimensions.

Needless to say, the Beltway Kool Kidz club is having the vapors about his ads.

*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

Stewart on the Republican Pledge

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Why do I even bother blogging, when all I need to do is point you to Jon Stewart monologues:

Just to get this straight: Two years ago America broke up with you because you had badly mistreated her. And so you disappear, do some soul searching, get your head together. And you come back rapping on our door, hat in hand, and you say: ‘Baby, I know you left me, but if we get back together, I pledge to you, I promise you, I will still try to f%$#k your sister. Every chance I get. It’s who I am.’

Cowardly Conservadems Cause Tax Cut Catastrophe

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What Cee Lo Green Said (NSFW)

So, put a fork in it, the Democrats won’t be voting on middle class tax cuts, because the conservadems are unwilling to support the idea:

Obama wanted a vote on his proposed extension of some of the tax cuts before lawmakers returned to the campaign trail for the November 2 elections, in part to reinforce Democratic support for pocketbook issues.

Democratic strategists have been divided over whether it’s politically beneficial to push for a vote on the tax cuts now, citing their candidates from conservative states in tough re-election battles who would have to defend the resulting increase in the tax rate on wealthy Americans to previous levels.

Of course, voting on this would have put the Republicans on the defensive, by forcing them to vote against middle class tax cuts, the the conservadem/Blue Dog types are so terrified of Republicans that they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Bad policy and bad politics.

Truth be told, I’m for letting it all expire, and then increasing taxes on the very rich (94% sounds good), but still it is remarkably how Dems can pull defeat from the jaws of victory.

Take it away Cee Lo.

The Republican Senate Caucus Blinks

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After announcing her write in bid for the Alaska Senate, the Senate Republican caucus threatened to yank Lisa Murkowski’s position as rinking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but they have now backed away from that:

In a surprise move, Senate Republicans did not vote to drop one of their own, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Senator Murkowski’s decision to mount a write-in campaign after losing her primary to “tea party” backed attorney Joe Miller angered many of her Senate colleagues. Even a failed bid risks splitting the Republican vote in Alaska, giving Democrats an unexpected pickup and curbing GOP prospects for taking back the Senate.

On Wednesday, the caucus did replace Murkowski with Sen. John Barrasso (R) of Wyoming as vice chair of the Republican Conference – the policy wing of Senate Republicans – but it declined to go further.

So they went with a largely symbolic slap on the wrist, because losing her ranking status would have made it far more difficult for her to campaign in Alaska on the political currency of that realm, pork barrel spending.

I don’t know what went on behind closed doors, 24 hours ago her being stripped of her position was thought to be a done deal.

I Write Letters

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So, the New York Times has an article where they bemoan the fact that Wall Street financiers could not buy 3 New York State Senate elections for “educational reformers”:

They were the candidates of riches, flush with hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street investors who believed in the promise of charter schools.

But when the election results came in on Tuesday, all three State Senate candidates supporting education reform — Basil Smikle, Lynn Nunes and Mark H. Pollard — lost by huge margins, with none cracking 30 percent of the total vote in primary contests against union-backed rivals.

The three New York races amounted to some of the country’s first proxy wars between labor groups and Wall Street financiers pushing for education reform, and in the end, the time-tested union machine prevailed.

You see the message here: something is wrong with America if a bunch of rich pukes from Wall Street cannot buy elections in order to privatize an essential public service, in this through for-profit charter schools, and generate taxpayer subsidized profits.

It’s worked so well for prisons, and for military contractors, that we must feed our children to feed the Wall Street beast yet again.

In any case, it pissed me off enough to write a letter to the editor on the subject, which is almost certainly not going to get published:

I found the article one sided. While it is clear that unions played a role in the elections, you make it sound as if this was somehow unfair, while relegating those who donated, “hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street investors” to these candidates who lost as somehow simply being people of good will, “who believed in the promise of charter schools.”

The promise of charter schools that attracts ” Wall Street investors” is its creation of an educational-industrial complex and its associated revenue streams.

There have been numerous studies of charter schools over decades, and they do not meaningfully outperform public schools in properly constructed studies.

There are real problems in our schools, but neither the mindless focus on test scores nor bringing Wall Street profiteers into the equation are the solution.

Murkowski to Mount Write-In Bid for Alaska Senate

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Pass the popcorn:

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who lost Alaska’s GOP primary last month in a stunning upset to a tea-party backed rival, announced Friday that she’s mounting a write-in candidacy in a bid to hold onto her job.

Murkowksi told supporters at a late afternoon rally in Anchorage that she’s worried about Republican nominee Joe Miller’s extremist views, as well as the Democratic candidate’s inexperience.

The decision follows Miller’s surprise win in last month’s primary. Murkowski acknowledged she made mistakes during the primary campaign, but promised she’ll be more aggressive this time in running against Miller.

I think that she will talke more votes from teabagger Miller than remarkably-liberal-for-Alaska McAdams.

Primary Results

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The races that are of interest to me, and were at all competitive in Maryland are:

  • Democratic primary for Congress in MD-4, where Donna Edwards, who took down the corrupt PG county machine politician Al Wynn last time is facing a challenge from the PG county machine:
    • Results: Edwards sails to victory.
  • Democratic primary for Baltimore County Executive, where I favor Joe Bartenfelder over Kevin Kamanetz, whose mission in life is to put cameras in every parking lot on the county.
    • Results: Kamanetz wins, damn.
  • Republican Primary for Governor: I dislike former Maryland Governor Bob “Bad Hair” Ehrlich, and his opponent, Brian Murphy, won’t win, but it will be interesting to see just how much the fact that Sarah Palin endorsed him gets him votes:
    • Results: Bobby didn’t even break a sweat. Palin does not carry much weight here.
  • I will note that Andrew duck won in the6th Congressional district, so he will face Roscoe Bartlett for the 2nd time in 4 years. He ran a creditable race in a very tough district in 2006. I met him, and he’s a good guy, albeit he is a bit to the right of me. Also note that he is on Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.

Outside of the Free State, we have some interesting elections as well, mostly on the Republican side, looking at how well the teabaggers do:

  • The biggest election is probably the primary in Delaware, where Christine O’Donnell, a teabagger who is so outrageous that Dick Armey’s Freedomworks Teabagger AstroTurf org endorsed moderate Republican Mike Castle.
    • Results: The teabagger nutjob won by what looks to be about 6%.
  • In the New York Primaries, we have the always happless perennial loser Republican mainstay Rick Lazio running against the batsh%$ insane (he wants to put the unemployed in jail) Carl Paladino.
    • Results: Paladino wins, and Lazio once again proves himself to be the Washington Generals of politics, and Andrew Cuomo is going to be the next governor unless he is found with a dead girl in his bed.
  • And we have the Democratic Party primary in the 15th district, where the scandal plagued Charles Rangel is being challenged by the grandson of the man he beat to become a Representative, Adam Clayton Powell IV.
    • Results: Rangel wins, though he got barely 50% of the vote against his 5 opponents.
  • We have the New Hampshire primary, where in the Republican Senate primary, you have Ovide Lamontagne, who was endorsed by the Manchester Union Leader and is considered more teabaggy versus Kelly Ayotte, who was endorsed by the Palin bot and is considered more mainstream (Yeah, NH is weird).
    • Results: It appears that Ayotte has won, by something like 900 votes out of the over 100,000 cast.

  • Also in New Hampshire, we have the primary in the 2nd CD, where Blue Dog wannabee Katrina Swett is running against Act Blue fave from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, Ann Kuster
    • Results: Kusters wins in a walk, which is a surprise, because Katrina Swett is political royalty in New Hampshire, being the daughter of Tom Lantos and the wife of former Congressman Dick Swett.
  • The Washington DC Mayor’s race, where the polls have the incumbent, Adrian Fenty behind Vincent Gray, largely because he is a complete jerk, he is generally considered to have done a good job, and because he has completely alienated the African American middle class in the city, largely because of his support of School Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s policies, which are perceived as having engaged in, “a well-calculated strategy to weed out African Americans from positions in the public school management and classrooms,” in order to pander to the influx of rich white families in the district.
    • Results: Gray wins, and which probably means that Rhee is gone as well, if just because she was , “she abandoned the role of a politically impartial school administrator,” by actively campaigning for Fenty.

I’ll post the updates tomorrow,

Not Gonna Happen……

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The latest polling on the Texas governor’s race has the Republican Rick Perry leading Bill White by 42% to 41%, which, given that undecideds generally swing against the incumbent (Perry) means that White could actually win this election, and might therefore be able to have a significant influence on redistricting.

The same goes for this poll, which has Perry up by 39% to 33% shows that the race is pretty close.

Obviously, the specifics of the polls make a difference, but this should be interesting in November, particularly given the ability of Governor Goodhair to put his foot in his mouth.

In any case, the phrase, “Margin of Error” figures prominently, as will the dynamics of early voting.

How Barack Obama Could Appoint Elizabeth Warren, and Why He Won’t

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Under the Dodd-Frank bill, there is a provision that allows Timothy Geithner to appoint a head to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until such time as the Senate approves a nominee:

According to the bill’s language, the Treasury Secretary has sole authority to build the new agency before it’s ultimately transferred to the Federal Reserve. That includes anointing a person to head the effort on his behalf, and under his authority. The interim head would serve until the President’s nominee is confirmed by the Senate.

That person could be Elizabeth Warren.

And the legislation doesn’t appear to contain a deadline for a Presidential nomination, experts say, which means Warren could start the agency from scratch, put her people in, begin cracking down on predatory and abusive lenders, and initiate a culture that would put consumers’ interests above those of the nation’s most powerful financial institutions.

What is interesting here is that this is not a recess appointment, and so is not subject to the limitations, such as the requirement that their appointment expires at the end of the current Congress in January, 2010.

Theoretically, if Warren were appointed, she could serve for decades without Senatoriual approval.

So, Warren could be appointed, and be on the job, tomorrow, and the only way to remove her would be for the Republicans not to filibuster her in the Senate, and hope that she is defeated by 51 votes on the floor, which won’t happen, because any Democrat who votes against her has the party base campaigning against him or her in the next election cycle.

So, why don’t I think that Obama will do this? Because in so doing, he would energize the Democratic Party base, who would then come out and vote for Democrats in 2010:

Within hours and possibly minutes I expect the president will name Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer protection agency, and if he does, the Democratic base will erupt and turn out to vote in far greater numbers than any current poll suggests.*

The thing is that I believe that there are two dominant schools of thought in the White House:

  • Those who believe that appealing the the base will always be a net loser in terms of elections. (Rahm)
  • Those who actively hate the Democratic Party base, which they see as irrational, unrealistic, a part of the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington, and terrifying to the fictitious middle of the road voters in off year elections. (Barack Obama)

Basically, in order for such an act to be taken, the core philosophies of the power centers in the White House have to be repudiated by the people who hold them.

This won’t happen, because even if these decisions help the party, they diminish the power of Emanuel and Obama’s philosophies within the party, which makes it a sort of perverse manifestation of the Iron Law of Institutions, (on edit see this Google link, because one of the purity asshole brigade at Wikipedia deleted the link) which states that, “the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself.”

*I would note that the author is already wrong, having posted this on Thursday, September 9, and we have had no announcement.