Rand Paul Is Offended, Joe Miller Is Offensive

Barbara Boxer's first ad defining Carly Fiorina-- watch it if you haven't seen it yet-- was devastating for the failed business executive running for the Senate. Boxer's polling numbers started climbing from the day the ad was released. It was tough and stark and clear as a bell-- targeted exactly to what California voters are worrying about when they think of Republicans getting their hands on the levers of power again. Over the weekend, Boxer released another, obviously made by the same company, and even more powerful. Neither ad is playing footsie with these fascists.

"Oh, don't call them fascists," pantywaist hand-wringers and pearl clutchers whine. These are also the craven self-styled adults who bemoaned the "mean-spiritedness" of Markos' insightful and brilliant new book, American Taliban and Alan Grayson's stark ads about the religionist crackpot he's running against, Daniel "Taliban Dan" Webster, who the mass media has tried to paint as a mainstream conservative but who is actually far more radical and extreme than even Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, Ken Buck, Pat Toomey or Sharron Angle. (I left Joe Miller out for a reason and we'll get back to him shortly.) Friday night I went to the filming of Bill Maher's TV show because Markos was a guest. I was reluctant to go because Maher, the creator of the great documentary religionism takedown, Religulous, had made a craven, boneheaded remark about Grayson's Taliban Dan ad that showed a disturbing lack of comprehension and/or attention-- and on the part of someone who fancies himself a social commentator. I had a feeling he would also ambush Markos. And he did. It was completed obvious that the distracted Maher-- sexy girlfriend-- hadn't bothered to read Markos' well documented book he decided to savage.

Digby's kept a steady commentary up on these smelling salt users for some time and she hit it out of the ballpark yesterday.

Rand Paul, the pot smoking libertarian Tea Partier is now rending his garments like a typical social conservative Christian and condemning Jack Conway for being insensitive to his religion. (And once again the liberal intelligentsia is abandoning Conway because he's made an ad that they feel in "inappropriate.")

The fact is that Rand Paul, once a hardcore libertarian, condemned religion and certainly didn't believe in social conservatism. Tens of thousands of libertarians sent him money just this year believing that's the kind of Tea Partier he was. Now, like the rest of them he's changed his tune and he's become a Church Lady Bible thumper, excoriating Conway for saying the word "hell" at a political picnic. This is a bullshit game and Conway has every right to call him out as a hypocrite.

This race in Kentucky is a vicious dogfight that very possibly may end up being the only chance the Democrats have to hold the Senate. The Teabaggers and other right wing deviants are running disgusting ads all over the country ripping Democrats to shreds and appealing to basest instincts of the voters.

...But the good news is that if we can help Rand Paul drag down Conway and give the villagers an "even the liberals" narrative for Paul to use as his sanctimonious fainting couch, at least on the morning after the election, when the US Congress is taken over by antediluvian throwbacks, we'll all be able to say that we didn't stoop to their level. I'm sure that will be very comforting.

When this new progressive movement started, one of its tenets was that if progressive candidates would take risks, would be aggressive against the Republicans, would shake up the establishment and stop being the milquetoast campaigners that had turned the Democratic party into an embarrassment-- we would get their backs. Some of them believed us and they went outside the normal cautious "don't make trouble" approach and came out swinging. It's risky, and sometimes it misses. But taking risks is what we asked them to do and that's what we signed up for.

We have two weeks to go and some of these races are very, very tight. They may all lose, some might win, we just don't know. This is an ugly election-- one of the worst I've ever seen-- financed by billionaires who are very happy to let the GOP run completely wild as long as it takes care of the owners. But it isn't ugly because the Democrats have been hurling mud. It's ugly because this ugly political movement is fighting as dirty as candidates can fight. Some Democrats aren't rolling over and playing dead. The least we can do is have their backs as we promised we would.

Joe Miller & Rand Paul have you in mind-- and your family

Sunday night, during a town hall in Anchorage, crooked Tea Party thug Joe Miller-- who has already announced he will not be answering any questions about his shady background-- had members of his private militia attack and kidnap, Tony Hopfinger, a journalist who asked him some embarrassing questions. Do you think any conservatives have come out and chastised Miller? Let me know if you find any. After all, Miller's professed love of the Constitution is just a talking point, nothing something he or his followers take seriously.

The Senate race in Alaska is a three-way neck-and-neck scramble between Democrat Scott McAdams, Miller and conservative Republican sore loser Lisa Murkowski. If she were to drop out, McAdams would win a sweeping victory. Unfortunately, her colossal ego is keeping her in a race that splits the sane people on one side and the insane people on the other (Miller's). This could end badly. If you'd like to help McAdams in the final round, you can do it here, same place you can help Jack Conway fight back against Rand Paul.

If teabaggers like Joe Miller, Sharron Angle, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey and Ken Buck (and don't forget rightist Florida thug Allen West) are elected in two weeks, our country will be one step closer to this, the Republican vision of "freedom" and "liberty":