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.

Most Republican Senators Supported Bush's Wall Street Bailout-- But It Looks Like Robert Bennett (R-UT) Will Pay The Price

Bishop Mitt and one of his wives have endorsed Bennett

DWT, your always ready source of news for all things Mormon, sensed early on that longtime Senator from the Mormon Empire, Robert Bennett, might not be quite psychotic enough in today's climate to be re-elected in the Beehive State (where Palin is, after all, as good as queen). Don't get me wrong; Bennett is one of the most extreme right-wing lunatics in the Senate. His 2009-2010 ProgressivePunch score is a flat zero; yes, he has defined the Party of No, from the day President Obama was sworn into office. There are only 15 other senators who have the bragging rights to a score of zero, the absolute bottom of the lunatic fringe barrel (DeMint, Bunning, Coburn, McCain, Sessions, Crapo... crap like that). But that still isn't good enough for Mormonmania. After all, his lifetime score is 2.86 (out of 100), so somewhat closer to Barbara Boxer's (93.84), Al Franken's (100) and Sherrod Brown's (96.73) scores than are truer neo-nazis like Richard Burr (2.31), Jim Inhofe (2.18), DeMint (2.15), John Cornyn (1.80), Miss McConnell (1.67) and Johnny Isakson (1.32).

At least a part of what the real problem boils down to is that Bennett went along with Bush's Wall Street bailout back in October, 2008. (This is before Obama was elected so the GOP hadn't morphed into the Party of No yet.) In the Senate ten Democrats and fifteen Republicans voted against the bailout. Coming from a progressive/populist perspective, you had Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Jon Tester, Maria Cantwell, Debbie Stabenow and Ron Wyden in opposition. Already getting into Party of No mode were extremists like Jeff Sessions, Sam Brownback, DeMint, Inhofe and David Diapers Vitter. These are the Senate Republicans who voted for the bailout:

Lamar Alexander (TN)
Robert Bennett (UT), vulnerable, to put it mildly, to primary defeat
Kit Bond (MO), retiring
Richard Burr (NC), vulnerable to defeat by Elaine Marshall in November
Saxby Chambliss (GA)
Tom Coburn (OK), lucky enough to represent a state too dumb to know its ass from its elbow
Norm Coleman (MN), defeated one month after the vote
Susan Collins (ME)
Bob Corker (TN)
John Cornyn (TX)
Larry Craig (ID), slipped up in a public toilet incident and retired a month after the vote
Pete Domenici (NM), overcome by senility and corruption; retired
John Ensign (NV)
Lindsey Graham (SC)
Chuck Grassely (IA), vulnerable to defeat in November
Judd Gregg (NH), announced retirement rather than face certain defeat
Chuck Hagel (NE), retired
Orrin Hatch (UT), nervously watching what happens to Bennett
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), lost gubernatorial race to a goober
Johnny Isakson (GA), see Coburn, Tom
Jon Kyl (AZ)
Richard Lugar (IN)
Mel Martinez (FL), see Gregg, Judd
John McCain (AZ), vulnerable to defeat in August 24 primary or in November
Miss McConnell (KY), so unpopular in Kentucky that when he endorsed Trey Grayson, Greyson's campaign came to a crashing halt
Lisa Murkowski (AK), saved by antipathy from the Palin Clan
Gordon Smith (OR), defeated one month after the vote
Olympia Snowe (ME)
Arlen Specter (PA), driven out of the GOP, vulnerable to defeat in the primary this month or in the general in November
Ted Stevens (AK), defeated one month after the vote
John Sununu (NH), defeated one month after the vote
John Thune (SD), see Coburn, Tom
George Voinovich (OH), retiring
John Warner (VA), retired

Yesterday a couple of Villagers took some time out to look at Bennett's plight and how it's impacting Republican Party politics. Believe me, Orrin Hatch isn't the only nervous one out there. The chances that Bennett will lose so badly in today's Mormon conclave that he won't even qualify for the primary are so strong that other TARP supporters around the country are running around like Sue Lowden's chickens without their heads. They point out that "for those who must face the voters this year, the notion that a straight-shooting party stalwart [i.e.- knee-jerk right-wing hack who always does what he's told] like Bennett would become the first establishment scalp claimed by insurgent conservatives [not counting Hagel, Bond, Sununu, Gregg, Voinovich, Martinez-- and Utah Congressman Chris Cannon] has sparked something else-- fear of reflexive voting against any and all incumbents."

The 76-year-old senator has missed votes this week to stay in Utah campaigning-- pleading his case in one-on-one conversations with delegates-- but some senior Republicans are worried it may be too late for Bennett. 

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who could face a similar storm in 2012 when his sixth term expires, said he was “very much” concerned about his close friend’s prospects on Saturday. 

“He’s fighting the good fight but there are some misconceptions he’s facing that are very hard to overcome,” Hatch said, adding of the GOP’s conservative grass roots, “They’re mad at everybody.”  [I wonder if he meant "angry;" maybe not.]

Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) said, “I am deeply concerned that he faces opposition that I don’t believe is warranted.”

Bennett’s prospects at the convention have so worried the GOP’s establishment that some influential Republicans in Washington have sent word through Bennett’s predecessor, former Utah GOP Sen. Jake Garn, that Bennett ought to consider running regardless of what happens Saturday. 

But under party rules in Utah, Bennett could not petition his way onto the primary ballot-- and the filing deadline to run as an independent was in March. Should he fail to finish in the top two at the convention, Bennett’s only recourse to run in November would be to do so as a write-in, and Hatch said flatly that that wouldn’t happen.

While Bennett has paid a price for his support of TARP, what worries Republicans like Hatch is that Bennett seems vulnerable largely because he’s an incumbent and part of the political establishment. 

Even before the delegates cast their votes, grumbling has begun among professional Republicans about Bennett’s plight.

“He woke up late to assessing his problem,” said a friend of the senator who also carped about Bennett’s not-very-political Washington staff and seemingly subpar campaign organization. “He’s a gentleman senator, which is good in Washington, but that doesn’t help him in one of these fights.”

Indeed, Bennett is in many ways the personification of a decorous senator from the old school-- a fitting image for somebody who grew up the son of a Utah senator who served four terms during the more collegial mid-20th century... [N]ot all senators are sympathetic to Bennett’s plight.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), a spending hawk who has clashed with appropriators, said Bennett wasn’t just fighting for his political life because he’s an incumbent. Rather, it was because of his unapologetic earmarking ways.

“If you look at his record on spending, it’s not good,” Coburn said.

Some in the Capitol are already chalking up Bennett’s struggles, and anticipated loss, to the fevered emotions of the moment... Asked Thursday about Bennett’s influence, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) quipped:

“If I say anything nice about him, it’ll probably hurt him in his reelection prospects ... given the mood about Washington, so I’ll pass."

That didn't shut up Miss McConnell-- who like Kyl and Bennett voted for the Wall Street bailout-- and he went on at great length about how important Bennett is to him. Many say he's McConnell's closest advisor, not a safe electoral position. “He’s been extremely important-- not only to me but to the conference, not only this year but in other years,” said Miss McConnell. “He’s an incredibly effective member of the Senate who, when he speaks, everybody listens.” Unfortunately for Bennett, so have the teabaggers who, with the Mormons, control the Utah Republican Party. Oh... and brilliant GOP strategist Glenn Beck, of course, interviewing-- I guess you could call it that-- one of the ambitious wing-nuts running against Bennett:



Glenn Beck's candidate, Mike Lee, the likely winner, is a a Ron Paul kook, and has been endorsed by Tea Party string-puller Dick Armey, Hate Talk Radio host Mark Levin, fringe right-wing blogger Erick Erickson and ex-Rep Jim Hansen (best known for forcing cancer-causing U.S. cigarettes onto the people of Thailand). If Mitt Romney can't save Bennett from populist anger over his corporate bailout vote, who's going to save much less-liked figures like Richard Burr, Chuck Grassley, Arlen Specter and John McCain?


UPDATE: The Mormons Are Voting

They just had their first round and poor old Bennett hung on... barely. He came in third. The Glenn Beck/Ron Paul candidate, Mike Lee, scored 28.75%. Another teabagger, Tim Bridgewater, got 26.84% and Bennett came away with 25.91%, a close third. Problem is all the other candidates are teababgers and anti-TARP kooks and their votes weren't destined for Bennett in the next round. The second round was so-so for Mike Lee, who wound up with 35.99% and bad for Bennett (26.59%); Bridgewater vaulted to first place with 37.42%-- a teabagger, but without the Ron Paul/Glenn Beck baggage. Romney's endorsement doesn't seem to have been as important to Bennett as Glenn Beck's was to Mike Lee. A candidate needs at least 60% to become the party’s candidate, and at least 40% in the final round to qualify for the party primary on June 22. Bennett is threatening to run as a write-in candidate after he's eliminated (a certainty). Too bad Utah has a moribund Democratic Party incapable of taking advantage of the bitter GOP civil war. In fact Blue Dog Jim Matheson, the only putative Democrat in the Utah congressional delegation, is also being challenged today and may not be able to get the official Democratic nod (despite the fact that he dragged Steny Hoyer out to Utah to work the room for him)!

UPDATE TWO: Bennett Doesn't Make It To Round Three

Did I forget to mention that above? Round three will be between teabagger kooks Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater. Bennett is sad. This was a huge, embarrassing defeat for Romney, McConnell and the Republican Establishment. The next nightmare for these characters will be in a week and a half when teabaggers nominate Ron Paul's lunatic son Rand for the Republican Party slot over McConnell's protege, Trey Grayson. And Green Day's got just the song for Bennett and all the other reactionaries on both sides of the aisle who fall this year (although Dave Weigel had a good song idea too)!

The final ballot failed-- barely-- to give anyone the Party endorsement. Tim Bridgewater came in first with 57.28% and the Glenn Beck nut, Mike Lee, came in second with just 44.72. Extremist bloggers on the fringes of the right have been railing against Bridgewater in their pro-Lee mania. This should be a real bloothbath. (Rep. Jim Matheson was also forced into a primary with a real Democrat, Claudia Wright, who campaigned as an anti-Blue Dog.

Wright, a retired high school teacher and college gender studies instructor, fought a spirited campaign at convention to assure delegates she is electable in a district that Matheson's backers said is too conservative for her. Liberal Salt Lake City Democrats had chosen her to challenge Matheson after his vote against the health care reform bill, pushed by President Barack Obama.

Wright went room-to-room in the morning caucuses at the Salt Palace Convention Center telling delegates that Republicans have become so radical in their nominating process that some of their party members will consider Democrats, including her.

"The Republican Party has moved so far right that those Republicans who are moderate are seriously considering becoming Democrats," Wright said in the morning to the Stonewall Democrats, a gay-rights caucus.

Teabaggers Energizing the Republican Grassroots-- To Wreck The GOP

This cycle there may be many Republican Dede Scozzafavas, including stalwart conservatives who have gotten on the wrong side of a pack of drooling, angry, and ignorant teabaggers out for blood-- anybody's blood. Yesterday the NY Times focused in on the travails of arch-conservative Utah Senator Robert Bennett. Hailing from the Mormon Empire, where there is no premium put on education or intelligence, other than a negative premium; their bizarre version of "God" requires a leap of faith so strenuous that it literally takes someone with half a brain.

ProgressivePunch ranks all senators based on close contested votes that call for party unity. High scores-- like Al Franken's 100%, Sherrod Brown's 97.30% or Bernie Sanders' 95.27%-- show a powerful and unwavering commitment to progressive legislation. Low scores-- like Jim DeMint's 2.15, Richard Burr's 2.31 and Johnny Isakson's 1.32-- are indicative of a completely reactionary, if not neo-fascist, mindset. Robert Bennett's lifetime score is 2.86 and since Obama became president he is one of 17 disgraceful senators with ZERO scores. ZERO. He also scores an A from the National Rifle Association and a 98% from the far, far right U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But that isn't enough for Utah teabaggers. As the Times article says, "He pledged to serve only two terms, but he is now seeking his fourth. He sits on the Appropriations Committee, which distributes earmarks, and has done little to slow the growth in federal spending. And not only did he vote for the bank bailout, known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program, he also signed onto a bipartisan health care bill seen as an alternative to the main Democratic plan." The piece is titled "Political tide could wash away Utah senator."

The dissatisfaction with Washington sweeping through politics is not only threatening the Democratic majority in Congress, it is also roiling Republican primaries. The Tea Party movement and advocacy groups on the right are demanding that candidates hew strictly to their ideological standards, and are moving aggressively to cast out those they deem to have strayed, even if only by participating in the compromises of legislating.

There is no bigger quarry in the eyes of many conservative activists than Mr. Bennett, who has drawn seven challengers and will not know for six weeks whether he will even qualify for the ballot. His fate is being watched not only by grass-roots conservatives testing their ability to shape the party, but also by many elected Republicans in Washington who are wondering, If Bob Bennett is not conservative enough, who is?

“If the anti-incumbent tide is as strong as some people think it is, I will be swept out, despite all my efforts,” Mr. Bennett said in an interview. “If the anti-incumbent tide is a lot of conversation, but has no center of gravity as a true political movement, then I’ll be just fine. There’s no way to know.”

For all the anger directed at President Obama and his party from the right, especially after the passage of health care legislation, the first opportunities for Tea Party members and the groups seeking to channel their antigovernment energy into electoral politics are in Republican primaries. Mr. Bennett is especially exposed to the grass-roots anger. The quirky nominating system in Utah means that 3,500 delegates must give Mr. Bennett their blessing before he can face the primary electorate in June... The rise of the Tea Party movement, along with an investment in the race by the Club for Growth, the antitax Washington-based group that seeks to influence Republican primaries, has turned the race into what the soft-spoken senator calls “the nastiest one I have experienced.”

Bennett is counting on Mitt Romney, who Mormons want to see capture the White House, to save his ass. He's trying to persuade Republicans that Bennett's vote for the TARP bailout was the right move. Romney calls the yes vote "the correct and courageous vote.” Right-wing icons like Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Jeff Sessions (KKK-AL), Jim Bunning (R-KY), David Diapers Vitter (R-LA) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) see it differently than Romney; they feel their vote against the bailout that put billions into the pockets of failed and corrupt banksters was neither correct nor courageous and many of them see Romney as the worst of what the GOP has to offer. In Utah, though, he's the Mormon golden calf. Enough to save Bennett? There are 3,500 delegates to the state convention on May 8. If he doesn't win at least 40% of their votes, he won't even get onto the primary ballot.

[T]here was a hint of trouble for Mr. Bennett in Precinct 2064... The senator’s sister, Frances Jeppson, was running as a delegate. When she announced that she intended to support her brother, voters did not select her.

And Senate races in Florida, New Hampshire, Utah, Arizona, California and Colorado aren't the only places where teabaggers are causing the Republican Establishment heartburn and agita. Their potential to cause the Republicans real problems is even greater in the House, where they are running dozens of candidates, some in primaries and some as third party candidates. In most cases where a Democrat, a Republican and a teabagger are all facing off, the advantage goes to the Democrat. That could well help North Carolina voters dislodge vicious sociopath Virginia Foxx as well as wreck Charlie Dent's chance to be re-elected in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley and re-elect freshman Virginia Democrat Tom Perriello.

Teabbagers are especially incensed at Riverside County's Mary Bono Mack who has tried to please her district's voters by rare votes in favor of environmental sanity on occasion. Now she's facing off against moderate Democrat, Steve Pougnet, mayor of Palm Springs, on the one hand and a crazed Hemet teabagger Clay Thibodeau on the other. And if that wasn't bad enough another teabagging imbecile, Hate Talk Radio host Bill Lussenheide is running as a third party candidate and promises to draw enough right-wing fanatics away from her to destroy any hopes she has to be re-elected. Pougnet might make an especially interesting member of Congress-- he's gay, married to a man, raising two adorable children they adopted and... thinks he may be a Blue Dog! Only in the Inland Empire!

Progressive Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) is high on Republican target lists and they have the same sleazy bank lobbyist who she beat last time running against her this time, Steve Stivers. If being a sleazy bank lobbyist isn't a disqualification in a Republican Party primary-- in which Stivers has 3 opponents, at least one of whom is even further right than he is-- it's the general where teabagmania will do him in:

In what may be further bad news for Stivers, the field also includes a Libertarian-- William J. Kammerer-- and two Constitution Party candidates, David Ryon and Christopher A. Micisco. The Constitution Party candidates will square off in a primary, with the winner making the general election ballot.

The lineup echoes 2008, when Stivers and Kilroy were on the ballot as the major-party candidates and a Libertarian and independent social conservative also ran. The latter two candidates got about 9 percent of the vote combined, which some Stivers supporters say cost him the race.

In fact, Ohio Republicans' problems don't stop with the hapless Stivers. Over in the 12th district Pat Tiberi is fighting for the GOP nomination against one kook, Andrew Zukowski, while two teabaggers, Travis Irvine and Eddie Florek, want to challenge him in November.

And one state over, in Pennsylvania, with incredibly popular Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan breathing down flippy-floppy incumbent Charlie Dent's neck, Dent is being pressured to keep moving further and further away from the mainstream by two extremist opponents, one in the GOP primary, Matthew Benol, a leader of the Lehigh Valley Tea Party, and one in the general, another Tea Party fanatic, Jake Towne. PA-15 has been trending bluer and bluer while Dent has been forced to shed his "moderate" disguise and come out as a raging wingnut to protect his right flank. In 2000 Gore beat Bush 49-48% and four years later Kerry won in a tight 50-50 race. But in 2008 Obama buried McCain 56-43%. The district has continued looking for mainstream solutions while Dent has gone off the rails. It should be an interesting campaign season.

Obstructionism In Action-- Obama Nominations Failing To Get Senate Approval

Wait... The Democrats won the Senate, right? Even with Republicans preventing Al Franken from being seated-- and even with Ted Kennedy incapacitated-- there are still 58 of 'em and only 40 Republicans. So what happened to President Obama's nomination of David Hayes as the #2 guy at the Interior Department? Obeying directives from Limbaugh and Cheney and the rest of the obstructionist hard core, the Republican Senate caucus decided on a de facto filibuster. When Reid moved to shut down debate-- for which he needs 60 votes-- he wound up with a 57-39 outcome, 3 short. I hate to say it but clearly, it's time for Kennedy to give up his seat. (Kerry was attending a military funeral in Massachusetts, which is why he missed the vote and Mikulski has been out for a few days.) Reid and Kyl traded votes so that, under the arcane Senate rules, Reid can bring it up again, and Olympia Snowe crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats. (With Kerry, Mikulski and either Kennedy or Franken voting, the cloture would have-- or, more important-- will in the future, be successful.)

Hayes, the first of Obama's nominees to be rejected by the Senate, is an environmental lawyer and he was targeted by GOP hack Bob Bennett (R-UT) because Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled oil and gas leases. Salazar right after the vote:  "It may be uncomfortable for some to watch us have to clean up mess after mess-- from corruption to lawbreaking-- that is the previous administration’s legacy at Interior, but to cast a vote against such a qualified and fine person is the height of cynicism."

So why does Bennett have his panties all in a tangle? Ahh... glad you asked. Back in March we looked at a little intra-party political problem Senator Bennett is having back in the theocratic homeland of the Mormon Cult. If you're an avid twitterer, you may be aware that what we warned about back then was revealed-- by another klutzy Republican troglodyte-- this morning. Bennett is viewed as a something of mainstream conservative and the Utah Republican Party is cleaning house and moving way to the right. Last year they ousted another mainstream conservative, Chris Cannon, and replaced him with a hard right fanatic, Jason Chaffetz, a confirmed bigot and someone way out of the mainstream of American political thought-- just the way most of the Mormon hierarchy likes 'em. Next up on the chopping block is Bennett, who was, until today's twittery slip, hoping to avoid a vicious primary with Utah's neo-fascist Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff. Like most Republican politicians, Shurtleff is clueless about how to use technology but knows he has to make himself look like he's one of the cool kids. So, forgetting it's a public communication system, the hapless AG sent out a series of tweets-- now removed, 1984 Ministry of Truth style-- giving away his hand. (Someone who knows what a slimy character Shurtleff is, photographed the evidence.)

Following a Twitter announcement from former congressional candidate Tim Bridgewater (R) that he would challenge Bennett, Shurtleff fired off a series of Twitter messages that he thought were private.

The writing is strange and hard to decipher, but the message is clear: Shurtleff is in.

“I'm announcing I'm running at 12," he wrote in one.

“it will also be against Bennett and I’ll pick up his delegates when he drops off the first ballot,” Shurtleff writes, apparently referring to the multi-ballot nominating process at the Utah GOP’s state convention.

He says in another that he will have “all of the legislative conservative causcus [sic] and other senators and representatives there endorsing me. Time to rock and roll!"

Anyway, Bennett has been on a lunatic fringe rampage all year trying to prove that he isn't a mainstream conservative but a neo-fascist obstructionist maniac. Uncharacteristically, this year he's one of the deadly zeroes, a group of 25 far right obstructionists who have voted against every single proposal President Obama has put forward. His score is zero; Orrin Hatch's is 6.06. Hatch isn't up for re-election.

There are two unrelated matters each related to today's vote that I want to point out. First is that, despite an hysterical and bloody uproar from the nutroots, the GOP Establishment is determined to destroy far right Florida fringe candidate Marco Rubio's primary campaign so they can get relatively moderate (and electable) Charlie Crist into the Senate. Yesterday Red State's Erik Erickson warned after the NRSC endorsed Crist that they would be sorry when all the "salacious stuff" started coming out about him.

Even more important is another vote coming up to confirm Dawn Johnsen to run the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Normally the Senate just gives nominees a pro forma look and then confirms them with a voice vote. That's how a scumbag and torturer like Jay Bybee got the job. But the Republicans have decided Johnsen is too liberal for the job, regardless of what the president thinks. And yesterday Harry Reid confirmed that he doesn't have the votes to prevent them from their de facto filibuster maneuver. Odd how one of Bush's most controversial nominees, Michael Mukasey, was confirmed as Attorney General with 53 votes while Johnsen needs 60 votes to be confirmed. Pseudo-Democrats Arlen Specter and Ben Nelson have vowed to oppose her nomination, although at one time it looked like Nelson had agreed to vote for cloture, which would allow an up or down vote that Johnsen would easily win. Reid actually only needs one more GOP vote (since Lugar favors the nomination) and both Maine senators say they are still deciding how to vote.

A few days ago an L.A. Times editorial urged her confirmation and pointed to the horrifying hypocrisy of the Republicans' tactics: "The irony is overwhelming: Republicans in the Senate are opposing-- and may try to filibuster-- President Obama's choice to head the Justice Department agency that during the Bush administration provided legal cover for the torture of suspected terrorists. Their argument: Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen is a partisan activist who would politicize the Office of Legal Counsel, which is charged with providing the executive branch with an objective analysis of existing law."
That hate her because she's so outspoken about her opposition to torture and because she's a powerful voice for pro-choice positions.

The Republicans' opposition to Johnsen is hypocritical, given their acquiescence in the rank politicization of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush years. But even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has noted that the nominee has not been a cloistered academic. Feinstein said she voted for Johnsen in the Judiciary Committee after the nominee assured her "in no uncertain terms" that she would leave her views as an activist behind when she returned to the office, where she served during the Clinton administration. Feinstein added: "I take her at her word."

So do we, and only partly because Johnsen has broad support from the legal community. Her most impressive qualification for the position, in addition to her prior service, is a detailed position paper she and 18 other former Office of Legal Counsel lawyers published after the release of the first torture memo. It offers a mirror image of the way the office behaved during the Bush administration: "When providing legal advice to guide contemplated executive branch action, OLC should provide an accurate and honest appraisal of applicable law, even if that advice will constrain the administration's pursuit of desired policies. The advocacy model of lawyering, in which lawyers craft merely plausible legal arguments to support their clients' desired actions, inadequately promotes the president's constitutional obligation to ensure the legality of executive action."

She's probably one of the half dozen best nominations Obama has made so far. Pennsylvania progressives should watch carefully to see how the Senate's newest "Democrat" votes on this one. And anyone know what ever happened to Harry Reid's public promise to seat Al Franken by the beginning of April?

Employee Free Choice is extremely important if we're going to turn the economic tide and go back towards middle-class friendly policies. But it isn't the only reason to look askance at Biden's lame deal to make Specter a Democrat:

Mormons Trying To Outflank Each Other On The Far Far Far Right

Powerful Mormon Beltway types-- not far right enough for the kooks back home

Although Utah is a theocracy, it is still playing along with democracy for appearance's sake. They even have a semi-Democratic congressman, Republican-voting Blue Dog Jim Matheson. But the action is always inside the Mormon Cult-approved Republican Party, which has won every Senate race since 1970 and every presidential race since LBJ beat Goldwater in 1964. This morning CQPolitics reports that all the political action in Utah this year revolves around the lunatic fringe far, far right faction going after the lunatic fringe far right faction. Target: far right Senator Robert Bennett.

First of all, for the sake of context, no one outside of really bizarre extremist politics could look at Robert Bennett as anything but a right-wing ideologue and loon. His lifetime Progressive Punch score on crucial issues is 2.93 (out of 100), making him one of the furthest right kook in the U.S. Senate. (Utah's other right-wing senator, Orrin Hatch scores a 3.05 lifetime voting record.) But with an election coming up and the real whackos in Mormanland screaming for ideological purity, Bennett (who faces the voters next year) and Hatch (who doesn't) have diverged. In the most current congressional session Bennett has been determined to never waive from out-and-out knee-jerk obstructionism. His 2009 score is a perfect zero. He has voted against every single proposal to stave off a full blown depression and fix the problems 8 years of Bush misrule have left Obama to face. Robert Bennett-- unlike Hatch who has a 10.53 quasi-cooperative score this year-- can now claim to be the worst die-hard obstructionist in the entire Senate, tied with the neo-Confederates and neo-fascists like Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Jim Bunning (R-KY) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

Is a zero good enough for the Mormon radicals? No, of course not. These people are dangerous sociopaths busy poisoning the American political landscape. Utah's radical right maniac Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, is challenging Bennett in the Republican state party convention/HateFest. The kooks and nuts have attacked Bennett because he supported Bush? Huh? Yes, now that the Bush presidency is widely viewed on the far right fringe as an abject and catastrophic failure they have re-written history to make him-- and his supporters-- moderates! Bennett, once beloved by Mormons for being a brain-dead rubber stamp for Bush (who won 72% of Utah's vote in 2004!), is now being portrayed as someone who supported Bush's Business-friendly immigration policies and catastrophic economic agenda. And the crazy Attorney General goes even further, pointing out that his fellow extremists believe the bailout was “not only fiscally irresponsible but immoral.”
Bennett has brought in the heavy guns: the Mormon cult's undying hope for capturing the American presidency, Willard Romney (AKA, "Mitt") is in Utah raising money for him.

Bennett noted that he has begun to “rehabilitate himself” with President Obama in office, saying he voted against automobile bailout package, the economic stimulus law, confirming Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury secretary-- and that he would vote no on the upcoming budget resolution.

Paul Rolly, political columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, said Bennett has “really become obvious in catering to the right wing part of the party.”

Utah politicians and activists are well aware of the “Chaffetz effect” named after challenger Jason Chaffetz , who defeated Cannon by taking a hard-line conservative approach to fiscal and social issues. He had a shoestring campaign made entirely of volunteers and raised substantially less than Cannon. His strategy was simple: meet and talk to the delegates that control the convention nomination process for congressional elections. He worked them over and they liked his message and the fact he wasn’t a Washington insider.

Although he makes $176,000 a year, Chaffetz pleases the bumkins back home by sleeping on a blown up bed in his office and storing his clothes in filing cabinets. Bennett, who prefers to sleep in an area with amenities like a bed, a shower, a sink and a toilet, is viewed as someone who has "gone Washington."