Politicians On Both Sides Of The Aisle Are Counting On Ignorant Voters

I bet Steve Israel wishes he had never recruited Jennifer Garrison, "the Sarah Palin of Ohio," to run for Congress as a Democrat in OH-06. Garrison is extremely conservative-- anti-Choice, anti-environment, virulently anti-gay, anti-worker, pro-NRA and pro-coal. She doesn't just sound like a typical right-wing Republican, she has a voting record in the state legislature to demonstrate that. While normal Democrats in Congress are trying to raise the minimum wage and pass ENDA, Israel and Steny Hoyer are raising campaign cash for Garrison who voted against Ohio's own version of ENDA (and killed the bill) and voted against raising the minimum wage. Israel and Hoyer never mention that to labor leaders when they sucker them into donating their members' dues to Garrison's campaign. Garrison may remind horn dog Israel of his last mistress, a former staffer half his age named Erin Zeigler, but she is the polar opposite of his mystery meat strategy of presenting a pack of mediocre candidates with no records.

Israel wants to repopulate the House Democratic caucus with conservatives like himself-- he was a Blue Dog before starting to climb the leadership ladder-- and he hopes to get quietly conservative candidates like Pete Aguilar (CA), Jerry Cannon (MI), John Lewis (MT), Domenic Recchia (NY), Suzanne Patrick (VA), Kevin Strouse (PA), Ann Callis (IL), Pete Festersen (NE), elected without anyone knowing how bad they are. Garrison has that awful voting record but she's one of the only Israel recruits with a traceable record. When Nancy Pelosi approvingly said that Israel is "reptilian," she could have just as well have appointed Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to head the DCCC. Walker also embraces Israel's mystery meat approach to selling voters a pig in a poke. Walker was on This Week yesterday talking-- somewhat delusionally-- about how he would be such a much better candidate than the Republicans in Congress-- Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul-- who have presidential ambitions. "I think it's got to be an outsider," he offered immodestly. "I think both the presidential and the vice presidential nominee should either be a former or current governor, people who have done successful things in their states, who have taken on big reforms, who are ready to move America forward."

Walker said Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Kent.) are "all good guys," but said the next GOP nominee must be "somebody who's viewed as being exceptionally removed from Washington," and stood by his comments when asked about his friend, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

He also knocked the Cruz-led strategy to defund ObamaCare that led to the government shutdown. "I, like others, was a bit frustrated with the shutdown because I don't think the way you make the compelling case to the American people that we can do better is by shutting things down," he said. Walker faces reelection in 2014 before he can pivot to a potential presidential run. He easily beat back a recall effort last year, but polls show him in a tougher race this time around in the swing state.