Who'll Be The Next In Line For A Heartache?

Let me skip directly from Ray Davies to Thom Hartmann's book Threshold, where I found a mini-subchapter, "Biological Altruism In The Marketplace," I've been meaning to share:

Those who advocate a dog-eat-dog, "survival of the fittest at the expense of society as a whole" approach to economics and governance are... ignoring the surrounding environment, which demands a balanced, homeostatic, and altruistic culture. On every continent in the world we find living cultures and cultural remnants that knew this well and that developed elaborate and successful ways to prevent sociopathic individuals whose obsession centered on acquiring wealth at the expense of others, keeping others from being successful at growing and metastasizing.

No, this isn't going to be another post about Wall Street predators. This is going to be about how society finds ways to deal with the politicians who Wall Street predators buy off with a small sliver of their heist.

This weekend was exciting because colorless GOP hack, three-term Senator Bob Bennett, a knee-jerk, if unimaginative, conservative, was sent packing by an unruly-- and, truth be told unrepresentative-- mob of teabaggers who had grabbed control of the Utah Republican Party. As Tuxedo Moon used to sing, "no tears for the creatures of the night." (I can't believe I found that on YouTube!)

Yesterday ABC News asked the natural, straightforward natural question, prefaced with "Tea Party Power," Who's Next After Bennett?" Obviously the teabaggers have "many more incumbent Republicans in its sights this midterm election year after tossing out an incumbent conservative GOP senator in Utah." And they're welcome to them. Like Hartmann said, society has a way of defending itself from sociopathic individuals (and sociopathic tendencies)-- even if the means seems bizarre and unlikely. ABC posits that Bennett's ignominious defeat is a warning signal and the "beginning of a trend." We'll see.

"You have the next coming up, Kentucky and Arizona and New Hampshire. We're likely to see this elsewhere," [journalist Robin] Wright said. "Democracy's about the majority, but it's about the majority of people who participate. And, in this case, a certain kind of people participated, and their candidate won."

The Tea Party's next big political fight will take place May 18 in Kentucky's Republican Senate primary. Although Secretary of State Trey Grayson has the support of the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican state establishment, he is running against Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, the son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas. Paul is also supported by Sarah Palin and evangelical leader James Dobson.

Although Bennett blamed the "toxic" political environment, even he conceded that his Senate votes may have been a problem. His votes for health care overhaul and the Trouble Asset Relief Program, painted by critics as the "Wall Street bailout," enraged members of the Tea Party movement, who hope to purge incumbents of questionable conservative purity.

...In a competitive year when only 56 percent of Republicans say their party best represents their values, Republican moderates are targets.

According to a recent ABC News poll, only 56 percent of Republicans say their party best represents their values, and 30 percent of Republicans say they pick the Tea Party movement instead of the GOP. This contrasts with the Democratic Party, where 86 percent of Democrats say their party best represents their values.

Still, others chalk it up to anti-Washington sentiment and not necessarily pro-conservatism.

"This is an anti-Washington year," conservative columnist and ABC News contributor George Will said. "How do you get more Washington than a three-term senator who occupies the seat once held by his father, a four-term senator, who before that worked on the Senate staff and then as a lobbyist in Washington? He's a wonderful man and a terrific senator, but the fact is, he's going against terrific headwinds this year, and he cast three votes, TARP, stimulus, and an individual mandate for health care.

OK, now back to Ray Davies' original question: Who, indeed will be the next in line (for heartache)? Not Charlie Crist; he's feeling great as an independent-- and polling great too! Trey Grayson-- a cardboard cutout for Mitch McConnell-- really is the next to go (next week) when Rand Paul-- the teabagger candidate-- will wipe him out. But among the GOP senators who voted for Bush's no-strings-attached October 2008 Wall Street bailout, who will be facing the voters this year-- Kit Bond, Judd Gregg, Chuck Hagel and George Voinovich saving themselves the sure defeats by retiring-- several are as vulnerable to electoral defeat as Bennett was. John McCain could well be defeated in the primary or, if he survives that-- the general. Chuck Grassley has no primary to worry about but he's staring at a general election defeat at the hands of Roxanne Conlin in November. Arlen Specter-- driven out of the GOP-- is also facing defeat in the Democratic primary, or an almost certain defeat in November if he manages to defeat Joe Sestak next week. We'll need plenty of popcorn... and that's even before we get to the House.