GOP Digs Deep Enough To Come Up With Some Hopeless Schlub To Run Against Alan Grayson

Last night Alan Grayson was on MSNBC again, kicking Dick Cheney and misleading Republican talking points in the teeth. It drives GOP propagandists insane when they hear a cool, collected, knowledgeable, self-assured and fearless Democrat-- whether Alan Grayson, Eric Massa, Maxine Waters, Dennis Kucinich or Barbara Lee-- obliterating the deceptive platform on which their house of lies is built. Speaking of Cheney's latest eruption, Grayson turned the tables:

They failed us. The greatest attack of terrorism in American history happened on their watch. We have nothing to be defensive about... When Ross Perot was talking about that crazy uncle in the attic, I think he was talking about Cheney.

When asked if he's ready to be attacked by Republicans, Grayson pointed out that he's attacked by them all the time. The GOP and the media barons who work hand in glove with them never let up on him. "As Franklin Roosevelt said, 'I welcome their hatred.'"

Meanwhile the RNCC has been running around like a chicken without a head trying to persuade a credible candidate to run against the much-loved Grayson. Today, apparently, their 25th choice, a mediocre state Rep from outside the district, Kurt Kelly, decided to give it a try. He joins a huge fielded of misfits, clowns, publicity hounds, extremists and teabaggers who have signed on as GOP candidates-- and he certainly fits right in. His first press release is a pathetic mess, claiming "the people of Central Florida deserve a Congressman with a business background who knows that money spent by the federal government in Washington isn't play money, but rather hard-earned money taken out of each of our paychecks," apparently unaware that Grayson's business and economic background have made him the most effective member of Congress as a watchdog for that hard-earned money.

From a working class family, Grayson put himself through Harvard, graduated summa cum laude (and Phi Beta Kappa) and then worked as-- sorry Kurt-- an economist, before returning to Harvard Law School. He then went on to become a law clerk at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, working with a broad spectrum of judges, from Abner Mikva and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to right wing firebrands Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia. Before running for Congress-- and ousting a hapless Republican incumbent (172,854- 159,490) in a Republican district-- Attorney Grayson was described by the Wall Street Journal as "waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq." With a Bush Regime unwilling to take on contractor fraud, it was Grayson who took on the role of protecting taxpayer dollars against corporations who saw the Iraq War as an opportunity for unregulated self-enrichment. Kurt Kelly will have to find a very different tree to bark up if he wants to attack Alan Grayson, the man who wrote, shepherded and passed a bill-- as a freshman to link all bonuses paid by companies that had received funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to performance, and was finally able to get Ron Paul's Fed transparency bill to pass the House Financial Services Committee despite opposition from the entire bankster power bloc.

I'd say if Kelly wants to attack Grayson-- beyond just typical GOP smear tactics-- he could always point out that Grayson was one of only 32 Democrats who opposed the president on a supplemental budget to escalate the war in Afghanistan. If you'd like to help Grayson stave off GOP attacks, the Blue America goal of raising $35,000 for Grayson's campaign is at $34,719. It wouldn't take more than a handful of contributions to put it over the top. Other than that... well, he could attack Grayson for not supporting Kelly's plan to levy a $1 billion regressive tax on the Internet.