Getting the message, Sens. Hutchison and Cornyn? These nuts will drag you down. Plus final election thoughts

You might have thought there was no more unimpeachably conservative senatorial tandem than Texas's Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. Ha! To the Lone Star Loons, they're practically socialists.

by Ken

As I've pointed out a number of times, the fact that tomorrow's elections offer hardly any races of national electoral significance isn't going to stop the Village media mavens from reading all sorts of significance into the results. And does anyone doubt that by this Wednesday -- hell, by about 9pm ET tomorrow, the Village idiots, getting their talking points from Teabag Central will be fulminating about how everything is changed and that madman Obama must repent of his wild socialistic ways?

Of course they won't spew the straight Teabag Line, which is that there is almost literally no such thing as being "conservative enough," unless you happen to have James Dobson's hand up your butt working your mouth. Which reminds me --

DID YOU HEAR THE LATEST FROM THE LONE STAR LOONS?

My God, you can't make this stuff up. The Texas ultraloons, of course, are backing that dimmest of dim bulbs Gov. Rick "A Man, A Plan, Great Hair" Perry for reelection over his expected primary challenger, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and are now in a tizzy over the, um, "revelation" that one of two men whose credentials were passed on to the White House by both Senator Hutchison and the state's other Republican senator, John Cornyn, to be the new U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas is gay!

According to Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau Chief Todd J. Gillman, Robert Pitman, currently a U.S. magistrate in Austin, "is highly regarded in legal circles. In a recent bar poll, lawyers rated him the most competent judge in Travis County."

Apparently this bit of wingnuttery goes too far even for Big John Cornyn, a man clearly unused to taking potshots from his right flank. Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin is quoted by Gillman commenting: ""A person's sexuality has no bearing on his qualifications for a job. ... It's just not even remotely considered." Yes, that's John Cornyn's spokesman

They're so far a little mushier in Senator Hutchison's office. Spokesman Jeff Sadosky said, "Senator Hutchison made her recommendations based on the merits of each individual's qualifications and their abilities," but wasn't prepared to say whether the senator knew that this one of her recommendations is gay.

Mind you, the senators can't even be said to have "nominated" Pitman to the job. He's simply one of two applicants they passed on to the White House with their approval. But, as Gillman reports --

Tim Lambert, president of the Texas Home School Coalition, a former member of the Republican National Committee – and, like nearly all prominent social conservatives in Texas who have picked sides, a Perry supporter – called the recommendation "very unusual and disturbing."

"I suspect that a lot of Republican primary voters would find it interesting that Senator Hutchison would make that recommendation," Lambert said.

RACE TO THE CENTER

So no, the Village idiots won't be going quite to the Teabag-Pure Right. No, they'll be going where they always do, reflexively: for a group hug in the magical, mythical Center, which is pretty far right, but not quite that far.

New Jersey

Of course, assuming -- as the recent numbers are suggesting -- that New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine squeaks through in his reelection bid, the lesson would seem to be otherwise, since Corzine's public values remain rather consistently progressive. Meanwhile his Republican challenger seems ever closer to indictment. Blue Jersey's Huntsu reported Saturday that something very like an evidence trail appears to be developing to back up the general supposition that as U.S. attorney Chris Christie made a special practice of illegally leaking politically damaging information about Democrats.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Anyone who's considering voting for Chris Christie, in a state that doesn't have a lieutenant governor, should insist on a clear statement of the gubernatorial succession rules covering all contingencies -- for example, if he's indicted after being elected but before taking office, and whether he's required to resign as soon as he's indicted, etc.

[CORRECTION: As commenter Devin McCullen points out, beginning with this election New Jersey voters are electing a lieutenant governor. So the person I'm suggesting prospective Christie voters should be focusing on is his running mate, Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno, their all-too-likely next next governor. (Thanks, Devin!)]

Virginia

Meanwhile in Virginia, surely the collapse of Creigh Deeds's gutless, misbegotten gubernatorial campaign suggests the opposite of the Village Conventional Wisdom. Deeds was so busy running as far right as his little legs would take him that we never got a chance to see whether a campaign built on principled progressivism would have had a better shot at unmasking the Republican candidate, Attorney General Bob McDonnell, as the theocratic right-wing zealot everything in his career tells us he is.

There is some forlorn hope that the widespread disilllusionment with Deeds among Virginia Democrats won't produce the ultimate disaster: the sweeping in of some unusually toxic down-ballot sludge, starting with the GOP candidate to succeed McDonnell as attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, an exponent of "natural law," whose idea of natural law seems to be the sum of his massive far-right bigotries and prejudices. Cuccinelli is so extreme as to have roused the slumbering Washington Post into editorial an editorial declaration that "As attorney general, [he] would be an embarrassment to Virginia."

In the case of Cuccinelli and some of the other down-ballot GOP horror shows, one can only hope that masses of Virginia Democrats can rise above their appropriate ennui regarding the governor's race, and don't wish to reward the hapless Creigh Deeds with their votes, to at least take a stand against the riffraff below.

Virginia extra-credit question

Would Virginians be better or worse off if Mr. Moneybags, Terry McAuliffe, had succeeded in buying the Democratic gubernatorial nomination? Discuss.

FINALLY, IN THE LGBT RIGHTS RACES . . .

The late numbers come in are frankly alarming. It's always dangerous to underestimate how much damage all the right-wing money and religious hate-mongering can do. There are too many people who can too easily be persuaded by propaganda that it's their civic duty to vote down someone else's basic rights -- and too many people who think it's just fun to do so.

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