Unfinished Business

DADT--Despite Lady Gaga's valiant effort in Portland, Maine, it looks like the GOP will filibuster the entire Defense Appropriations bill to block the repeal of the gay ban. Leading the charge will be Country Last John McCain, who had said during the presidential campaign he would drop DADT if the military agreed--which, with the except of the new Marine Corps commander, they have. The situation is rich in ironies. The allegedly strong defenders of national security would basically de-fund both wars over an issue the federal court has already ruled unconstitutional and the House has already passed its repeal. Then again, with the momentary blip in the Washington media about how friendly to gays the GOP has become, it has to be noted that the court case, which finally doomed DADT, was brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, who are honoring Senator John Cornyn of Texas with their Barry Goldwater Award.

In the end, Barack Obama may have to do a Harry Truman and revoke DADT through executive order as Truman did with racial discrimination in the military.

The Prop 8 Case. Here the the poor 9th Circuit Court is rummaging around for anyone with standing to defend Prop 8 after Vaughn Walker ruled it unconstitutional. Rumors have one town in California trying to recruit a religious Right group to argue the case. Frankly, I don't know whether that would pass the smell test of "having standing."

Sharia Law--Eugene Robinson did an excellent job in blasting Newt Gingrich's speech at AEI, where Leroy raised the new Red Scare of a leftwing conspiracy to get Sharia Law accepted in the United States. In defense of Leroy McPherson, he was coming off a chest-pounding speech at the Value-Less Summit, where the grifters of the religious right eat this up. But Gene put this away in today's column with a calm, eloquence. There existed only one case in recent memory in America where a local judge sided with a Muslim husband over the issue of forced sex with his wife. But on appeal this ruling was over-turned. That is the extent of the threat to America. It's sort of like "terror babies" or "death panels".

Roger Cohen also had an excellent op-ed in today's Washington Post, which simply says that given the GOP candidates this year Republicans are simply not fit to govern. Full stop. You don't need to read the piece.

If you sense that Democrats seem to be a nicer breed of candidate and grounded in reality, you might want to thank Howard Dean's work as DNC chair when he created the 50-state strategy, which believed that no seat was unwinnable. Last night, Howard Dean appeared on the Rachel Maddow show and said calmly that the Democrats would keep both the Senate and the House. He said that President Obama was key and has to keep on the campaign trail. He went on to say that what we are seeing now are the last gasps of the extreme right. He said that the younger American is not homophobic, racist or anti-immigrant and that they will be around in 2012. While you can write off Dean's comments as a good soldier for the party, I was surprised by his calm assurance. He claimed the reason for holding both the House and the Senate was that the Democrats had better candidates and that the average American still knows who got them in the mess.

For a counter opinion, Michael Gerson writes today that the Republican tide is growing as for example the bad fate of Democrat Ellsworth in Indiana and sinking polls in Pennsylvania. Frankly, I'm reading very different polls from Pennsylvania, which actually show the Democrats having a shot at the state house, which I had written off, and winning swing seats, which Republicans need to win to capture the House.

Howard Dean mentioned something else. He said that the Health Reform Bill puts Republicans in a bind. For example, they must tell their base they will repeal. But on Thursday, key provisions of Healthcare kick in--no more rescissions, no more lifetime caps on payouts, no more prohibiting insuring children with pre-existing conditions, and parents can keep covering their children until 26. If President Obama spells out these changes in everyday language, the pressure tightens the bind on the GOP. Howard is right on this.

The Washington Post wrote a front page piece today on how the Tea Party was now a movement raising millions and going to field get out the vote efforts. I even received a call from the DNC about this. The actual problem appears to be a massive effort by the Tea Party and the GOP at voter suppression. This has become clear in Wisconsin, for example. There the Tea Party wants to act as election monitors and challenge voters. Because of the nature of state laws, the GOP and the Tea Party people can actually challenge voters who mail in votes,etc. This is a tactic called "caging voters" and preventing their votes to be counted. As to real Get Out The Vote efforts, it is true the religious Right and the Tea Baggers have purchased very expensive IT systems but their problem is that their average constituent is over 55 and appears at this time to be severely limited technically. In other words, it looks like a very expensive waste of money. Also, the Tea Baggers were to hold a national convention in Las Vegas, but had to cancel.

I get the sense the Nate Silver is pondering his predictions this morning with his comments on recent polls coming from swing seats, which show Democrats in comfortable leads. He is raising questions about how useful the generic vote polling is to determining the final election. He appears to be watching some of the polling I have been watching. For example, there are a handful of House seats in New York,where the constituency is historically Republican but which in 2008 went Democrat. They appear to be staying that way for now. Likewise, three seats in Iowa show Democrats holding them, when the mood in the state has tilted Republican. Chris Van Hollen continues to release internal polls on so-called contested House races, which show Democrats with surprising strength. That 43 number looks very daunting from a Republican perspective. Yesterday's Gallup poll shows Democrats with a 1% edge on Republicans in the generic poll. Normally not great news, this marks another indicator that the Democratic Party may be coming out its summer slump.

If you want to follow Christine O'Donnell's silliness, I recommend Think Progress' piece "The Old Adventures of New Christine", which documents her obsession with sex, gays, God, religion and popular culture. To her credit, she knows that Sarah Palin become a millionaire grifter by advocating these nutty things so she really has made a great career move. However, the recent poll on the Delaware race puts Coons in a commanding position and shows that only 33% of those in the state believe she is qualified for public office.

Barbara Boxer appears to be following her past pattern--bad polling in the beginning of the campaign and widening the distance at the end. She has hit 50% against Carly Fiorina. However, Governor Moonbeam has been running a below the radar campaign. I guess he figures that Meg Whitman's incessant ads will turn everyone off in the end. Queen Meg has obtained the Guinness Book of Records for personal spending on her campaign--surpassing the $120 million mark.

Republicans will be releasing their new Contract with America on Thursday, the same distance from election as their 1994 effort. So far, it's unclear how they are going to deal with the whole tax and deficit issue. President Obama in the last few days has hammered how irresponsible keeping these tax cuts are. Vast majority of Americans in poll after poll after poll agree with the President and are against the tax cuts for the rich. And how are the Republicans going to reconcile their repeal of Healthcare with their "pretend" concern with the national debt. Any tinkering with the Healthcare issue will vastly increase the national debt as several CBO reports maintain.

Then we come back to the social conservatives and the Religious Right. Rachel Maddow did a good service by pointing out that the tea baggers are almost all culture warriors being absolutist against women's choice, anti-gay, against immigrants and anti-anything but Christians. On real economic and political issues, they basically subsume corporate agendas and whatever the Koch brothers funnel to their front organizations. But they simply don't believe any of these things. Their real goal is parallel with the ambitions of the Religious Right. Even Rand Paul, Mr. Libertarian, has been campaigning hard among the Christian Right as opposed to his real anti-government constituency. Since the Christian Right were allowed under Bush-Rove to gain a strangehold on the Republican Party,it is inconceivable for me to believe they can abandon their base. In fact, there has been backlash against Mitch Daniels and others suggesting the GOP abandon these issues in a time of economic hardship.

Ann Coulter was right when she criticized Tan Man Boehner for claiming earlier this summer how large a Republican victory would be, saying that anything less would be considered a loss. I agree. The media narrative has been set--this is a tsunami election and if the Republicans don't win then heads should roll. In fact, people are aleady starting this mantra among House Republicans, who view Boehner as lazy and someone who should not allowed to speak after 3pm.

I'm currentlyagnostic about how much the media really affects our elections. I didn't believe they did in 2008 and I'm beginnning to believe we are going to see the same non-effect this year. One dirty secret among the networks is that all of them were in terrible financial shape until the 2008 primaries and the elections generated revenues to keep them afloat. So they stayed with their winning formula. Then CNN tried to poach the FOX audience by hiring more conservative types to report on politics. This hasn't quite played out as well for them. But it's all business. Unfortunately, I believe they have played an unhealthy role in giving the Teabaggers the media attention they so desire. These people are American Idol wannabes. Politics is nothing but television anyway.

In the end, this year's election comes down to the rational reality-based candidate against the paranoids,psychopaths, meglomaniacs. Forget liberal or conservative. The conservatives vanished into the swamp of lunacy.

Finally, if you are concerned about the deficit, then let's have all the tax breaks expire. This morning's Washington Post shows that if they did expire, our deficit would essentially evaporate.