Imploding

The further disintegration of all things Republican continues apace today. There is a lot to talk about so let’s get started shall we.

Leading off, from behind the Orange Curtain, we have Mr. Tan D. Nguyen, Republican candidate against Dem Loretta Sanchez. Nguyen’s campaign got caught sending out potentially illegal and certainly nasty voter intimidation mail. The brave Mr. Nguyen claimed no knowledge and blamed a staffer. That appears to be bullshit as the County Republican Chairman, Scott Baugh, directly fingered the candidate.

"I learned information that allows me to draw the conclusion that not only was Mr. Nguyen's campaign involved in this, but that Mr. Nguyen was personally involved in expediting the mailer," Baugh said in a telephone interview.

Reaction to this underhanded move was general disgust. Arnold even called it a hate crime. The Orange County Republican Executive Committee voted unanimously to request Nguyen to withdraw from the race. Nguyen has thus far refused to drop out which you just have to love. Seriously, one of the most conservative places in the country has thrown its own candidate under the bus, for good reason mind you, and the candidate will not bow out. Trauma drama.

Next up, we go to Arizona, where Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth is in a street fight with Democratic challenger Harry Mitchell. The polls are tied in a race that should have been a slam dunk for the incumbent. Instead, it is a dead heat. Hayworth, aside from being a windbag and party line tool, has gotten into a bit of hot water recently for expressing support for some of Henry Ford’s anti-semitic ideas and then refused to apologize after Jewish groups protested. Not smart for a guy representing Scottsdale, a place chockablock with transplant Jewish retirees. So he skipped out on a scheduled visit to a synagogue yesterday and sent a pair of dim-witted surrogates in his place. What follows next, I swear to God, could only happen in real life. If you wrote this a fiction, no one would believe it. From Wonkette:

Unable to defend his repeated praise of Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic “Americanization” program, U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth bailed on a scheduled campaign appearance Tuesday evening only to send in his place surrogates who repeatedly lectured the audience at Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale and proclaimed that Hayworth “is a more observant Jew” (ed. – Hayworth is not Jewish) than those present.

The comment by Jonathan Tratt, a spokesman for the Hayworth campaign, drew loud and angry boos and caused nearly three-quarters of the crowd of more than 200 to walk out in disgust. After the walkout, another Hayworth surrogate, Irit Tratt, stood on the Temple’s bimah as she told members of the audience who gathered to ask questions, “No wonder there are anti-Semites.”

Way to go J. D.! You give amazing outreach. Next time, why not send someone dressed in an SS uniform or maybe a big white sheet? I will be stunned if this clown gets a single Jewish vote for the rest of his political career.

Moving on the Virginia, President Bush stumped for George Allen yesterday. Allen repaid the favor by stabbing the President in the back on Iraq. In a monumental flip-flop, the Senator finally dropped the ‘stay the course’ rhetoric and called for a new strategy. From the Pilot:

But in a two-week shift begun when U.S. Sen. John Warner returned from Iraq and gravely warned that the war is "simply drifting sideways," Allen has undertaken a not-so-subtle readjustment in rhetoric.

The new language was on display Wednesday in a speech notable for both its audience and its location.

"We cannot continue doing the same things and expect different results. We have to adapt our operations, adapt our tactics," Allen told the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, meeting in Lynchburg, the heartland of Virginia conservatism.

Usually, when politicians deliver a major pronouncement to a group with unrelated priorities, it's because there's no time to wait for a more appropriate invitation. The word needs to get out, pronto.

The snark level of the piece is pretty high all the way through but the finale really sticks it in and breaks it off.

Eleventh-hour conversions are better than none at all. But Virginians should ponder why it took Allen so long to recognize what Webb saw four years ago, and why this shift comes on the eve of a close election.

Well, this Virginian has pondered that question and the answer is simple. The war and Bush have tanked in the polls and Allen, like a rat abandoning a sinking ship, is trying to get a far away from the President and the issue as quickly as possible. But Allen is right in that we can't do the same things and expect a different result. That is why the citizens of the Commonwealth are going to, God willing, fire his ass on November 7th.


Finally, the Foley case has caused a bunch of staffers and leadership people to turn on each other. With that investigation in full swing, the story will be in the news through the election. Coupled with Iraq and the seemingly unending corruption scandals out there, the Republicans are swimming against a current of really bad news. Things have gotten so bad that the economic conservatives, the war hawks, and the evangelicals are at each others' throats, creating the proverbial circular firing squad (hat tip to AmericaBlog).

Unless something big happens, and I mean of Biblical proportions, the House will fall to the Democrats. When that happens, two words will be on the lips of every member in that Chamber: subpoena power. The wave of investigations into Iraq, energy policy, tax policy, Katrina, etc is going to bring the conservative agenda to a screeching halt. The President and his party will not know what hit them. As Scott Adams put it, we are about to witness a paradigm shifting without a clutch.