Progress Report From The Republican Civil War Front

I don't know a single progressive that wants to see conservative Democrat Bill Owens in Congress. He's likely to turn out to be as disappointing as Scott Murphy, a businessman we were assured believes in Democratic values. Murphy's voting record puts him so far at the bottom of the barrel that there's a Republican, Louisiana's Rodney Alexander, voting more consistently with Nancy Pelosi than he does-- and only one Democrat, neo-Confederate Blue Dog Parker Griffith of Alabama, voting in a more reactionary way. On the other hand, all the Democrats I know are enjoying the spectacle of a high-profile Republican civil war pitting the surging teabagger end of the GOP-- including Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Mike Pence, Dick Armey, Rick Santorum, Todd Tiahrt-- against a limp Republican Party Establishment that includes Scozzafava supporters John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Lindsey Graham, Pete Sessions, John McCain, Susan Collins, Ginny Brown-Waite, Thaddeus McCotter, Newt Gingrich, and Peter King. Many Republicans-- from Tom Price and Mitt Romney to Tim Pawlenty-- are curled up in balls under their respective beds, avoiding taking a stand.

With the GOP having abdicated its messaging in favor of Hate Talk Radio and TV hosts-- from Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Coulter and O'Reilly to Savage, Ingraham and whatever kook crawls out of the woodwork to call Obama Hitler, the party is now stuck with a pack of jackals more interested in goosing ratings points and ad revenues by being controversial than in doing anything that will help the Republican Party start to recover from its own ratings problems-- only 19% of Americans trust the GOP and only 20% of voters consider themselves Republicans.

Financially, the party of Big Business, Greed and Selfishness, is having no problem raising money for congressional candidates for next year's midterms. But the specter of loads of primaries between mainstream conservatives and neo-fascist teabaggers is an absolute joy to watch. Even higher profile than the Scozzafava-Hoffman brouhaha in upstate New York-- which appears to be leading to the election of a Democrat in that district for the first time since the U.S. Civil War-- is the U.S. Senate race in Florida. Once considered a shoe-in for Gov. Charlie Crist, the NRSC and the Inside the Beltway Establishment is catatonic as far right extremist Marco Rubio wipes Crist out in every single GOP straw poll in every single Florida county. Rubio has captured the soul of the Florida Republican Party and is looking like he has a shot at the impossible-- capturing the Republican nomination, the effective of which will be to give an otherwise hopeless and mediocre Democrat a chance to take a red seat.

Several Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats have all but abandoned the electoral coalitions that helped get them into office and have pursued conservative voters by spending most of their time on the Republican side of the aisle. Quasi-Democrats like Glenn Nye (VA), Bill Foster (IL), Zack Space (OH), Parker Griffith (AL), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Walt Minnick (ID) and Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ) are all weak candidates who have been following the Don Cazayoux formula towards political extinction. If any of these reactionaries winds up in Congress in 2011 it will be because of the intra-party Republican bloodletting that often puts crazed teabaggers at the throats of mainstream conservatives. Two wealthy businessmen, Scott Rigell and Ben Loyola, are spending over to a million dollars in a primary battle that is benefiting only Blue Dog Glenn Nye. In the suburbs west of Chicago where Denny Hastert once ruled supreme his son Ethan was once considered the perfect candidate to take out conservative Democrat Bill Foster. Now it looks like Hastert will be lucky if he beats a right-wing state Senator, Randy Hultgren. Similarly two extremist loons in Alabama, Les Phillip and Mo Brooks, each considered a 3rd or 4th tier candidate, is hoping to knock out the other to get a shot at supremely unpopular Blue Dog Parker Griffith.

In California two far right Vietnamese-American Republicans, Van Tran and Quang Pham are pouring money into beating each other up while Blue Dog Loretta Sanchez looks more and more untouchable by the day. And in the U.S. Senate race against Barbara Boxer, extremist Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, is fighting it out with failed corporatist Carly Fiorina for the relatively worthless Republican nomination. Fiorina will likely spend several million dollars from her Hewlett Packard severence pacakge to defeat the teabaggers.



UPDATE: Pawlenty Wants To Show The Teabaggers He's One Of Them-- Endorses Hoffman In NY-23

Tim Pawlenty, a full time GOP presidential candidate, ignoring Minnesota's problems completely, first passed on endorsing anyone in the NY-23 congressional race-- I mean who in upstate NY ever heard of Tim Pawlenty or cares who he thinks their representative should be (as long as it isn't himself)?-- and today came out, limply, for the third party candidate against Republican Dede Scozzafava. The NRCC, which has already put almost $850,000 into the campaign on Scozzafava's behalf, still believes she can win and one insider has told friends that there is a lot of fuming that a "pack of self-serving Benedict Arnolds are fucking over this party" to make points with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.