Archive for August 11th, 2009
Harry Reid Losing Nevada to Sue Lowden
Harry Reid is losing Nevada to Republican Sue Lowden in matchups RealClearPolitics is conducting.
From what we’ve heard, Sue Lowden is certainly no prize, but can she really beat Reid?
Isn’t there a better choice than Lowden out there?
It’s always felt like the GOP wanted to let Reid hang in there as Senate Majority Leader, since he’s just so terrible at everything he does and is such a punching bag when needed. Hence, not bothering to field a strong and effective challenger in Nevada on the GOP side.
Several months ago, we asked people to chime in with what they thought of Sue Lowden, and readers from Nevada said they did not like her. She seems like a capable and nice enough woman from everything we can read about her, but readers did specifically say they did not like her based upon what they knew as Nevadans. We always respect that, since there are many people in Illinois who might seem like good candidates to outsiders, while those of us who live in the state could tell you Oberweiss (uh, otherwise…inside joke).
But, is Lowden better for Nevada than Reid, no matter what readers have said about her? If the answer to that is Yes, all things considered, then we hope she does indeed manage to unseat the Senate Majority Leader (and magnetic flying monorail future train advocate).
It’s too bad the GOP won’t field anyone to take Pelosi down in San Francisco. It is not impossible for the GOP to find someone acceptable to San Francisco voters to retire Pelosi — difficult, challenging, and requiring great effort, but not impossible. But it’s always felt the GOP likes Pelosi where she is, because she too is such an effective clown whenever needed.
The asinine things Pelosi says as Speaker could never come in a better holiday gift pack for the GOP.
Voters might just boot her buddy Reid from the Senate, though. We’ll be so happy to see Reid go, and can only hope Lowden is not as bad (or as nuts) as some of you have written in to claim.
Could Alexi Giannoulias really win the Senate seat in Illinois?
Here’s something people here in Chicago are talking about today that has many concerned about the childish behavior of some Republicans and “libertarians” in the state. Pettiness and myopia could very well help land Alexi Giannoulias in the Senate — and that’s a very bad thing for Illinois and the nation.
Giannoulias is scion of the family that owns Broadway Bank here in Illinois (also known as ‘The Mob Bank”). The Giannoulias family is so shameless in its dealings with Broadway Bank that recently it even sued several known crime figures for money owed to Broadway. That’s right, they publicly out their dealings with local crime figures to collect relatively small amount of money, with no care in the world that by doing so they clearly admit their cozy relationship with these kinds of people. Only in Illinois would this happen. Only Obama Democrats are this shameless.
And only in Illinois could Giannoulias have been made State Treasurer (having never held an elected position before), largely with Dr. Utopia’s support after he became a United States Senator here. Giannoulias came out of nowhere, with no experience, to become Treasurer — and has been involved in one scandal after another while in Springfield. Coming from a family that does the kind of business it does, with the kinds of characters it associates with, none of this should be any surprise.
The White House wants Giannoulias to win that Senate seat, Dr. Utopia’s old seat. It’s going to be a point of personal pride for the current president to install his basketball buddy Giannoulias there, the way he pushed his basketball buddy to be State Treasurer back in 2006. And Dick Durbin wants Giannoulias to join him in the Senate, where the two will get up to all sorts of shenannigans together.
It seems like a no-brainer that the people of Illinois would refuse to let this happen, but then you have to consider how crazy Republicans are in Illinois. We refer a lot to something that happened on June 29th, 2008 because it is truly one of the most absurd and surreal moments of our lives: a group of Log Cabin Republicans told us they were not going to vote for or help John McCain because he wasn’t conservative enough and they’d rather have a disastrous Democrat in office for 4 years than a Republican who “wasn’t good enough”. So, they sat home and had farting contests all election day, presumably, because a Leftist whose policies are destroying this country was better than a Republican who was too moderate for Log Cabin tastes. It’s insane.
And it is happening all over again with Mark Kirk.
Kirk has a lot of problems as a candidate, not the least of which is the fact he needs a lot more practice campaigning. Ask him any question he doesn’t like or doesn’t want to answer and he’ll just start talking about being in Afghanistan, as if people are so stupid they forgot what they asked him while being mesmerized by his tales of heroics in the military. We love that Kirk serves in the reserves and has been on missions overseas — thank the stars for him, and all those in uniform like him. But, Kirk should not use that uniform to deflect questions he does not want to answer, or can’t answer. It cheapens the sacrifice the military makes when it’s so shamelessly used as a prop like that.
Kirk also needs to explain his vote for Cap & Trade (something many people believe will destroy the US economy while China and India plow ahead unimpeded). Kirk’s always been an enviromentalist, but did he read the Cap & Trade bill before being one of 8 Republicans to vote for it? It seems like he didn’t, and at various events around Chicago, when asked about his vote, Kirk hems and haws and stumbles through an anecdote about Afghanistan, where he starts to claim the US is there for oil (Kirk is a terrible liar, though apparently used to getting away with this kind of thing because he’s legitimately surprised when someone in a crowd calls him out and reminds him there’s not only no oil in Afghanistan, but the reason we’re there is to eliminate the Taliban).
All of this has conservatives and libertarians in Chicago up in arms about Kirk. These people are, largely, diaper babies.
Great big, petulant, diaper-clad, adult infants.
Their arms are folded against their chests. Their lacy onesies are splattered with various shades and flavors of Gerber’s. They mutter endlessly, “Can’t support Kirk ’cause Cap’n Trade. Just gonna sit here election day. Let Giannoulias win for all I care ’cause Kirk voted for Cap n’ Trade!”. Waaaaaaaaaaaah!
Kirk was a fool to vote for Cap & Trade. He was. It’s a bad bill that if passed in the Senate, too, would cripple US manufacturing and be a serious and fatal blow to our economy. It’s worth wondering what Kirk was promised to pass the bill and what went into his thought process when casting that vote. What was he thinking? WAS he thinking? Which devils in Washington made him do it? We think he just didn’t bother to read it and figured it was something innocuous for the environment…but his voting YES allowed at least one Blue Dog to vote NO when otherwise the DNC would have scrambled to get that extra needed vote. All 8 Republicans who gave cover to Blue Dogs on this should be ashamed of themselves.
But they shouldn’t suffer the wrath of the diaper babies.
Because the diaper babies need to grow the Hell up.
Honestly.
Who are these perfect candidates from mythology they want to support? The diaper babies were huge supporters of Mark Sanford just a few months ago. That’s all we heard from their cribs. “Mark Sanford! Mark Sanford! Mark Sanford!”, over and over and over again. That was their guy for 2012! That was the man who was going to send Dr. Utopia packing! Mark Sanford was going to come from nowhere and save the day!
The diaper babies are stupid. Because they sat out 2008 (and gave McCain less GOP support than Bush got in 2004, while Dr. Utopia did NOT, contrary to media myth, overwhelm the voting booths with new young and black voters), Republicans lost with a moderate who was “not good enough” for the diaper babies to crawl out of their cribs and vote for. ”Not conservative enough, so me stay in crib and suck my binky election day!”. This candidate’s not conservative enough. This other one is not libertarian enough, whatever the Hell that means. Someone else has too many freckles. Really, these people are impossible.
It’s like they work for the Democrats.
They are as bad as Ralph Nader supporters were in 2000: election spoilers.
“Us diaper babies gonna vote third party ’cause we’re LIBERTARIANS, that’s right, we are.” Even though voting third party means a Democrat like Giannoulias wins the seat when Republicans could have a truly wonderful prize for the taking. Even though the diaper babies were in LOVE with Mark Kirk until the Cap & Trade vote, they are going to throw away a Senate seat because of the “principle” of it.
We hear this nonsense every day and it never once makes any sense. There is just no reasoning with diaper babies, and so it’s our own fault for letting them boggle us. People who choose to roll around on the floor wailing and crying and making no sense are people who don’t really care about winning that Senate seat anyway. Really, they just want attention. And being thorns in Kirk’s side over Cap & Trade means they get to put on their most sparkling, bedazzled Pampers and their most garish bibs and bonnets and pout and stomp and get all up in Kirk’s grill every chance they can, crying, “You lied to us! Us babies sad! We no vote for you!” while Kirk just shakes his head and asks, “Well, what can I do?”.
Would Mark Kirk be a better Senator for the people of Illinois than Alexi Giannoulias and his mob bank connections? That’s an unqualified YES.
Is Mark Kirk perfect? No. Is Mark Kirk a better person and candidate than Alexi Giannoulias? YES. Will Mark Kirk occasionally vote for things the diaper babies will be upset about? Probably. Would Alexi Giannoulias upset the diaper babies? Guaranteed, every day, with every vote.
So, the choice for diaper babies is either a guy they are mad at for one thing, or a guy they would be mad at every day for all kinds of things.
A choice between someone who might make one bad call out of 100 versus someone who will surely make 99 more bad calls than Kirk.
Can the diaper babies cut the screaming and wailing long enough to see the reason in this? Or will they take their toys and go play with a “Libertarian” candidate on the third party route, the way they threaten (and guarantee a Democrat win in the seat)? It’s frustrating this same nonsense plays out again and again in this town, but it’s the diaper babies’ favorite game, to be sure.
Tuesday Open Thread, August 11th 2009
What’s on your mind this Tuesday?
