The GOP Bataan Death March

I'm doing my best to disagree with Chris Cillizza's embarrassing story in the Washington Post today without being nasty or demeaning to Chris. He asks a question that many Inside the Beltway are asking-- but no one else: Are Republicans On The March?. Over the cliff? To hell in a handbasket? The Villagers couldn't wait to trumpet the news: Obama has no coattails because Democrats lost in three post-Nov 4th elections in the heart of the old Confederacy. Chris leads with their wishful cockamamie thinking:

In the wake of an election cycle dominated by bad news for Republicans, the last five days have been a welcome relief.

Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss cruised to a runoff victory last Tuesday, and House Republicans held Louisiana's 4th district and pulled off a massive upset win over Rep. Bill Jefferson in Louisiana's 2nd district on Saturday.

Those three developments have led some Republicans to insist that what happened on Nov. 4 was almost entirely due to President-elect Barack Obama's unique electoral appeal and that when the soon-to-be-president is not on the ballot-- the 2010 midterm elections-- his party will not fare nearly as well.

And there's no one better to bring this argument to its bitterest extreme of absurdity than the Republican Party's silly and lazy House Minority Leader, John Boehner, who said, "The Cao victory is a symbol of our future. In the two years ahead, House Republicans will demonstrate our commitment to reform by holding ourselves to the highest possible ethical standard...[and] presenting principled, superior solutions to the challenges facing our country."

The chances of Cao retaining the seat he won Saturday-- in a D+28 district where African-American voters didn't bother going to the polls to endorse one of Congress' most corrupt members, William Jefferson. The Democrats will have a better candidate in two years-- unless Cao is savvy enough to give up his GOP membership and join the Democrats. He's a lifelong independent who joined the Republican Party very recently.

As far as Cao's victory being a symbol of the GOP's future, Boehner better hope it isn't a symbol of his own because if his bribery and corruption charges are ever seriously investigated, he could easily wind up sharing a jail cell with Jefferson (unless Jefferson decides to hang with the Bloods and Boehner sticks with the Aryan Brotherhood).

The biggest irony here is that Boehner's handpicked candidate to replace former Republican Party House leader Deborah Pryce in OH-15, banking lobbyist Steve Stivers, lost his seat in a purple district to an out and out, unabashed progressive Democrat, Mary Jo Kilroy, and conceded yesterday. Boehner neglected to mention it. And even, towards the end of his column, when Chris debunks the idiotic meme he perpetuated in the first half of his column, he seems to have missed the significance of Kilroy's victory. Obama shook Georgia up a great deal. In 2004 Bush won Georgia with 58% of the vote. That's RED. This year McCain scraped by with 52% and Chambliss' 57% win cost him $12,559,124 (Martin only spent $4,810,604) and IOU's to every big name Republican looking for allies for 2012, from Giuliani and Romney to Palin and Huckabee. It wouldn't surprise me if the GOP dragged Joe the Plumber and Dick Cheney down there.

The race in LA-04 is so close-- 44,497 to 44,141-- that a recount will determine who actually won and who lost. And that's a solidly Republican district (R+7) where McCain beat Obama by 19 points! And, of course, Jefferson didn't win because Cao is a Republican or because Cao is or isn't anything else-- other than not William Jefferson and not indicted on 16 counts of bribery and corruption. As Chris concludes, correctly, at the bottom of his column, "These victories do not solve the problems Republicans as a party face-- a shrinking base, a lack of clarity on core principles-- but they lay the foundation for at least the possibility of a comeback in 2010 and beyond." Oops-- except for that last little Villager bit he just couldn't control from coming out. Easier than fitting something in about Kilroy I guess.

Yes, We'll Have Mitt Romney To Kick Around For Years And Years

After getting his ass kicked as a serial flip flopper with no core values, Mormon Mitt Romney withdrew from the race for the GOP presidential nomination and started a Political Action Committee, the Free and Strong America PAC, ostensibly to help other Republican candidates. Romney, who became stinking rich by playing accounting games as a vulture capitalist (Bain Capital) used the PAC to scoop up a hefty $2,220,532 but only donated $135,200 to GOP candidates most of it in small and inconsequential amounts to cash-strapped right-wing candidates who went down to defeat last month. Among the big losers Romney gave small amounts to were a gaggle of some of the most extremists in American politics:

Dean Andal (R-CA)
Lou Barletta (R-PA)
Tim Bee (R-AZ)
Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Keith Fimian (R-VA)
John Gard (R-WI)
Steve Greenberg (R-IL)
Chris Hackett (R-PA)
Andy Harris (R-MD)
Melissa Hart (R-PA)
Jennifer Horn (R-NH)
Joe Knollenberg (R-MI)
Kieran Lalor (R-NY)
Lyle Larson (R-TX)
Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
Wayne Parker (R-AL)
Steve Pearce (R-NM)
William Sali (R-ID)
Bob Schaffer (R-CO)
Tim Walberg (R-MI)

Interesting that the challenger he didn't help, Joseph Cao (R-LA), just won an "impossible" race against a corrupt Democratic incumbent, William Jefferson. Cao, a lifelong independent, wasn't taken seriously by the GOP Insider Establishment and if there's one thing Romney wants to be more than anything, it's part of that. He didn't max out to any of them and some got only token amounts. So where's all the money he sucked up from donors who thought it would go to GOP candidates? Well... it is going to a GOP candidate-- Mitt Romney, for his 2012 presidential run. According to today's Boston Globe Romney's using the dough to staff up for '12.

Republican Mitt Romney is laying the groundwork for a possible White House campaign in 2012, hiring a team of staff members and consultants with money from a fund-raising committee he established with the ostensible purpose of supporting other GOP candidates.

The former Massachusetts governor has raised $2.1 million for his Free and Strong America political action committee. But only 12 percent of the money has been spent distributing checks to Romney's fellow Republicans around the country.

Instead, the largest chunk of the money has gone to support Romney's political ambitions, paying for salaries and consulting fees to over a half-dozen of Romney's longtime political aides, according to a Globe review of expenditures.

Romney founded the Free and Strong America Committee shortly after dropping out of the 2008 presidential primary. He filled its coffers by telling conservative contributors around the country that their money would be used to support Republican candidates and causes.

According to the Globe analysis, he spent $244,000 on contributions to congressional and other candidates between April and the November elections. He has spent more than twice as much on staff salaries and contracts to hire professional fund-raisers, who are compiling contributor lists that will serve Romney well in a future presidential campaign.

In essence, Romney is financing a political enterprise that he can use to remain a national GOP leader and use as a springboard should he decide to launch another presidential bid for 2012.

...[T]he committee's track record of spending most of the money on other expenses, such as Romney's political staff, raises questions about written fund-raising solicitations he has made that were mailed to potential contributors, including this one:

"It is more essential than ever that conservative candidates and organizations have the resources they need to get their message out to voters," Romney said in the fund-raising appeal. "Because of your help, my political action committee... is supporting over 70 candidates this election cycle. Your continued support today will ensure that they have the assistance they need to win."

Technically, he didn't break any laws, but nonpartisan campaign finance watchdogs are warning donors to watch the slippery and dishonest Romney. Right now he's polling third after Huckabee and Palin. No wonder people are abandoning the GOP in droves. Actually in the most backward, superstitious and uneducated states areas of states like Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Utah, and Texas, the GOP is very healthy and on it's way to being a competitive regional power. But in normal parts of America... it's pretty much over, at least for now. In California 5 previously red strongholds have reported new registrations numbers that show there are now more Democrats than Republicans: San Joaquin, Stanislaus Alpine, Ventura and San Bernardino. Meanwhile Del Norte, San Diego and Trinity counties are all a matter of months away from Democratic majorities. Statewide there are 2.3 million more Democrats than Republicans.

GOP analyst Tony Quinn: "There are almost no areas in the state that can be considered safely Republican anymore." In fact since 2004 the GOP has shed over 317,000 voters in the state while the Democrats have picked up over 560,000.

Although Romney is now almost universally loathed in two of the states he is most associated with-- Michigan, where his father was governor, and Massachusetts, where he was governor-- and can't even dream about competing in California (even though California has more Mormons than even Utah!), he is expected to do well in the theocratic-oriented Mormon areas and can count on Utah, Idaho and Wyoming to back his bid for the GOP nomination.