Primary Season Ends For Another Cycle

Christine O'Donnell must be missing student loans payments or mortgage payments again. She's threatening the Republican Party that she may run for the U.S. Senate again. Her successful primary challenge to popular mainstream Rep. Mike Castle in 2010 in universally thought to be the reason the GOP doesn't hold the Delaware Senate seat occupied by Chris Coons now. “I think I owe that to my supporters, to at least consider a run,” O’Donnell said in an interview last week. “People sacrificed. Not only came out of their comfort zone-- sacrificed to work hard in order to win the primary. And I think that I owe it to them to give it every consideration.” (She has also said she is available for a paying gig in a Romney Administration if he wins the November election.)

If Democrats are cheering, mainstream Republicans must be rolling their eyes at the thought. Primaries by right-wing extremists like O'Donnell have hurt the GOP in general elections, not so much in deep red states where the brain-dead citizens would vote for a lump of shit labeled "Republican"-- think Utah or Texas-- but in normal states. This primary cycle, for example, saw 15 congressional incumbents defeated-- 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats, although, to be fair, one of the Republicans, Bob Turner, was gerrymandered out of his district and then lost the GOP Senate primary.

All but 2 of the Democratic losses were incumbent vs incumbent matches-- Jason Altmire lost to Mark Critz in western Pennsylvania. Both are extremely reactionary right-wing Democrats who commonly vote with the GOP. In New Jersey moderate Steve Rothman lost to more progressive Bill Pascrell. In Ohio, quirky economic progressive/social conservative Marcy Kaptur beat progressive icon Dennis Kucinich, in a district that was drawn to predict those results. In Michigan under-funded progressive Hansen Clarke was beaten by ConservaDem Gary Peters and St. Louis political fixture Russ Carnahan, a moderate, was beaten by the more progressive William Lacy Clay in a 63% to 34% landslide. In the two districts where there were actual non-incumbent challengers, corrupt Blue Dog Tim Holden was beaten by a more progressive Matt Cartwright, 57-43%, a stunning and rare upset. A few weeks later a similar primary battle in El Paso resulted in longtime Establishment Democrat Silvestre Reyes going down to defeat at the hands of popular young reformer, Beto O'Rourke, 50.5 to 44.4%. (Beto, pictured on the right, will be the Blue America live guest at Crooks and Liars tomorrow at 11am (PT, noon El Paso time.)

In Republicanville, there were 3 incumbent vs incumbent races. Florida Establishment shill John Mica swamped teabagger Sandy Adams, widely considered the stupidest Member of Congress (yes, dumber that Gohmert). He swamped her financially, spending $1,214,486 to her $451,281, and beat her 60-40%. The Republican Machine wiped out an annoying teabagger without much effort. In Illinois, the GOP Machine got behind freshman zombie Adam Kinzinger and helped him beat Don Manzullo, 56-44%, even though the redrawn 16th CD included 44% of Manzullo's constituents and 31% of Kinzinger's. Kinzinger spent $1,548,515 on the primary and Manzullo spent $1,257,113 but outside groups orchestrated, possibly illegally, by Eric Cantor and Aaron Schock (widely rumored to have a gay crush on Kinzinger) spent a great deal of money to defeat Manzullo. The third incumbent vs incumbent race pitted Dan Quayle's lunkhead son, Ben, a leadership lackey, against David Schweikert. Ben Quayle was never popular in the Arizona district and was remembered for having been an on-line pornographer (DirtyScottsdale.com/Brock Landers) before narrowly winning a wild primary against 10 other Republicans (outspending all his rivals combined). This year Schweikert spent $1,289,381 and Quayle spent $1,537,407. An Adelson-funded superPAC, Friends of the Majority, spent another $1,120,000 in negative ads against Schweikert. But Arizona voters were tired-- after just one term-- of being embarrassed by the clownish Quayle and he went down 53-47%.

Far more interesting were the 4 races where non-incumbents beat incumbents. The headliner, of course, was far right extremist Richard Mourdock beating Indiana GOP icon Richard Lugar with a stunning 60% of the vote. Lugar was viewed (disapprovingly) as a mainstream conservative when the GOP primary voters wanted someone more like... Christine O'Donnell. Mourdock spent $3,162,191 on the primary and Lugar spent $8,301,994. But outside spending, mostly from extremist groups, was tilted in Mourdock's favor. Club For Growth spent $947,991 in negative ads against Lugar and $517,810 in favor of Mourdock. The Koch brothers' FreedomWorks spent $341,503 against Lugar and another $330,129 in favor of Mourdock. Similarly the NRA spent over a quarter million dollars tearing down Lugar and approximately $638,000 bolstering Mourdock.

In the Tulsa, OK-area and Jacksonville, FL-area House races, unknown challengers came from nowhere to beat, respectively, John Sullivan and Cliff Stearns. Jim Bridenstine beat Sullivan, an extremist and drug addict, 54-46%. Sullivan spent $1,113,091 on the primary and Bridenstine spent $293,890. The PACs from opthamologists and anesthesiologists, who had felt dissed by Sullivan, spent around $100,000 against him and seem to have made the difference in the race. And in the case of the never-popular Mean Jean Schmidt, it was podiatrists who did her in. In fact, a podiatrist, Brad Wenstrup, beat her 49-43%, in a district east of Cincinnati. Wenstrup sent $357,260 and Mean Jean spent $657,489. The good government group, Campaign for Primary Accountability, spent $132,022 against Schmidt. (It's worth noting that they also spent $240,000 against Reyes, $130,875 against Hoden and $224,529 (some of it funneled by Cantor and Schock) against Manzullo.

Primary season is over and it's time to get serious about November. Normally this would be a time when we could safely say that there isn't a single congressional race anywhere in America where the GOP nominated someone better than the Democrats. That may not be the case this year. We're still investigating, but Republican rebel and libertarian may well turn out to be a less odious choice for voters than anti-Choice fanatic Steve Pestka in the Grand Rapids/Battle Creek area of south-central Michigan. We'll get back to you on that one.

Oklahoma Congressloon John Sullivan Officially Joins The Birthers

Would you let your young child near this guy?

Lifelong binge drinker and wingnut John Sullivan is back from his taxpayer-funded stay at the Betty Ford Clinic. He claims he's no longer tempted by alcohol. But he's doubling down on the crazy wingnuttery. According to the very conservative Tulsa World, Sullivan, addressing a mob of Republican activists at a health care forum at the Summit Club, questioned the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Without having his alcoholism as an excuse for his psychotic pronouncements, does Sullivan really have a reasonable shot at being re-elected next year?

Despite Oklahoma suddenly leaning Democratic in party identification, lets' not kid ourselves. Oklahoma gave McCain a bigger percentage of it's vote (66%) than any other state in the Union, even more than the three crazy Mormon states! And Obama did even worse in Sullivan's Tulsa-based district (OK-01) than Kerry had in 2000. At the same time, Sullivan also netted 66% of the votes in the district.

Out of a possible score of 100 on the ProgressivePunch scale of progressiveness, Sullivan rated a 0.86! (He must have had a couple drinks too many one day and accidentally cast a vote that favored working families for a change.) He isn't even the most far right member of the sociopathic Oklahoma congressional delegation. Mary Fallin, who represents Oklahoma City, the only part of the state where Obama actually did reasonably well, has a rating of 0.37! (She's been burnishing her image for a run for the governorship.) Tom Cole and Frank Lucas are relative socialists though with scores of 1.53 and 1.57 on the scale, beating out in the race to the bottom of the fringe barrel such celebrated extremists and national cranks as Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Dan Burton (R-IN, but owned by the government of Turkey) and Dan Lungren (R-CA).

Back to supposedly the rehabilitated Rep. Sullivan. The Tulsa Teabag Tribune reports that Sullivan can expect stiff competition, both from a Blue Dog type Democrat, conservative Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor, and from a gaggle of far right Republicans.

Certain Republicans in Oklahoma City are wondering if investing in Sullivan is a lost cause and if it isn’t time to invest in a candidate who would win.

People like to back a winner.

On the Republican side, former State Sen. Scott Pruitt is being urged to jump into the GOP primary against Sullivan in 2010.

Pruitt ran against Sullivan in his first campaign and lost in the primary.

Pruitt has interest in an Oklahoma City baseball team but maintains his home in Broken Arrow. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006.

He is a conservative Evangelical who has always had an eye for higher office.

Other conservative Republicans in Tulsa are hoping that former Gov. Frank Keating would run for the First District.

Keating is moving back to Oklahoma after working in Washington, D.C., for a few years. He was a successful two-term governor and was on the short list for vice president with George W. Bush.

Family sources say Keating is not going to run. His wife, former First Lady Cathy Keating, lost to Sullivan in the Republican primary in 2001 in a major upset.

A host of Republicans are hoping to persuade former State Sen. Jim Williamson to run for the First District. They would have liked to draft Williamson for mayor but Williamson declined. He might like the idea of a higher office.

Williamson has not said he will make that race but he hasn’t ruled it out.

That Tulsa World story linked above sums up Sullivan and his confusion nicely: "Sullivan began by saying he questioned the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate and alluding to what he said is an 'enemies list' the administration is compiling from e-mails critical of the Democrats' health care reform initiative, but concluded with a call for less bickering." Maybe he only did eleven steps.

What Made Oklahoma Wingnut John Sullivan Check Himself Into Betty Ford Last Night?

John Sullivan, on the right, as usual, takes a leave of absence from Congress

Earlier today, Ken signified that the battle for the Republican Party's soul might be termed one that pits the crazies against the stoopids. He looked at the state's two senators, Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn and only one thing is certain-- you can't always be clear where the ignorance stops and the insanity begins, not in Oklahoma. And when you look at the state's incredibly reactionary House delegation-- way at the bottom of the national barrel-- you see a similar pattern. Mary Fallin, who represents the bluest part of the state, Oklahoma City, can lay claim to being the most radical hard right kook in the entire House of Representatives-- the only member to have not ever voted once in her entire career for anything significant that would in any way be of benefit to a working family. She scores a zero. Not even lunatic fringe maniacs like Michele Bachmann (MN-O.41), Devin Nunes (CA-0.71), Paul Broun (GA-0.71), Adam "Howdy Doody" Putnam (FL-0.77), Eric Canter (VA-0.88), Roy Blunt (MO-0.96), Virginia Foxx (NC-0.97) or John Culberson (TX-0.99) score zeros. And well-established national sociopaths like Mean Jean Schmidt (OH-1.18), Marsha Blackburn (TN-1.13), Darrell Issa (CA-1.21) and Steve King (IA-1.34) are almost socialists in comparison.

Fallin is running for governor and her "no, never, nothing, not ever" stand on everything can be attributed to her focus on a lust for higher office. The holder of the second worst voting record in Oklahoma, Tulsa miscreant John Sullivan (0.87) has an entirely different excuse: he's usually drunk or hung-over when casting his votes on the House floor.

A former failed real estate agent with a long police record for drunk driving, disorderly conduct, and assaulting police officers, he was judged by Oklahoma voters to be a perfect representative for them and entered Congress in 2002. You can call him crazy or stupid-- both work fine-- but his mind-boggling anti-working family voting record-- and his complete embrace of the Politics of Hate-- also points up a long history of substance abuse. He checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic in California Thursday. It isn't clear yet what precipitated the move. Usually Republican congressmen check into drug and alcohol rehab clinics when they get caught doing something unspeakable-- like soliciting a police officer in a public toilet or raping a young child. We expect to hear what impelled Sullivan to hop on a plane, take a leave of absence from Congress-- he opposes Alan Grayson's bill calling for a one week paid vacation for all Americans-- and check himself into the clinic. And we'll let you know.

One other thing. It's entirely possible that the pressures of being a hypocritical right-wing congressman are what drove Sullivan over the brink and that he didn't rape anyone or kill anyone or get caught stealing anything-- maybe not likely, but possible. And maybe it was just the tension of having been one of only two of Oklahoma's uber-reactionary members of Congress to vote for Bush's TARP legislation and then declare himself, incongruously, a teabagger, even speaking at a teabag party in Tulsa, hoping no one would notice that he and his record were what they were actually protesting.

As for the likelihood of Sullivan being exposed as a crooked pol... well, hints began early in his career that, aside from being an uncontrollable lush, he is also a criminal. From his Wikipedia entry:

In July 2004, Dave Pearson, a former GOP communications consultant, claimed he was owed $20,000 for work he did on Sullivan's 2002 special election. Pearson put out a press release attacking his former candidate, and sent a letter to all of Sullivan's campaign contributors: "Sullivan is the most dishonest, disingenuous and crooked politician I have ever known. He is a liar because he repeatedly lied to me and others about his business background, his arrest records and many other things." Sullivan responded by saying that Pearson was fired for "not doing his job" and "owes me money probably."

At least his temporary departure from Congress means one less obstructionist fighting to prevent health care reform-- the kind that would make it possible for the rest of us to get the kind of treatment he's getting, at our expense, at Betty Ford.