Quick Quiz: Which Party Has Had More Retirements This Campaign Cycle?

On January 6, 2010, in National Politics, by Mary Mancini

Tea Party SignSteve Benen at the Washington Monthly reached for his calculator and found the truth, even after the Dodd and Dorgan announcements, Republicans have more incumbents retiring than Democrats in both the House and Senate:

In the House, 14 GOP incumbents have decided not to seek re-election, while 10 Democratic incumbents have made the same announcement. It seems that the truth is that it’s the Republicans and not the Democrats who are “dropping like flies.”

In the Senate, six Republican incumbents have decided not to seek re-election, while two Democratic incumbents have made the same announcement.

But that’s not all. More Republican than Democratic Governors who could seek re-election aren’t:

Among governors, several incumbents in both parties are term-limited and prevented from running again, but only three Democrats who can seek re-election — Parkinson in Kansas, Doyle in Wisconsin, and Ritter in Colorado — have chosen not to. For Republicans, the number is four — Douglas in Vermont, Rell in Connecticut, Crist in Florida, and Pawlenty in Minnesota. (Update: the GOP number is five if we include Palin in Alaska.)

ABC/The Note should be embarrassed for being so easily led around by Republican spinmeisters.

So what’s the real story? Rational Conservatives are being forced out of their party by the extremists who, by the way, take their orders from the talk-radio wing of the party. Most recently it was the Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer who was chased out of his party by the crazy, intolerant tea-partiers:

“As you know, there is a great debate in our party on the direction, moderates vs. conservatives, whether we should have a big tent or a small tent…And while I have made it my utmost concern to try and keep those arguments and discontents out of the Republican Party of Florida, over the last six months there has been a very vocal group within our party that has become very active in seeking an effort to oust me as chairman….They have, as they say, thrown everything up against the wall as they possibly can, to either embarrass me or embarrass the Republican Party of Florida…They simply have two goals in mind, and if the first one fails, fall back to the second one…And the first one is remove me as chairman, and if that doesn’t work, burn the house down and destroy the Republican Party of Florida

Republican GOP Chairman Michael Steele has called the schism “overrated,” which is surely an admission that it’s not. And if I didn’t already know that the radical conservative tea-partiers are her people (see her many appearances on Fox News but esp. this one), I could almost believe that in this political climate Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn has been given an ultimatum – either participate in the craziness in Nashville in February or get out of the way.

By the way, did you know that Congresswoman Blackburn has a challenger?

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Like Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn Thinks She is Above Playing by the Rules

On November 18, 2009, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Mary Mancini
Click to embiggen.

Click to embiggen.

Yesterday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) “investigate whether Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) violated House rules by organizing and holding a November 5th rally on the U.S. Capitol grounds to oppose a health care reform bill.”

CREW contends that Rep. Bachmann misused her official congressional website by urging people to come to the Capitol to protest the legislation despite House rules restricting members from using their websites to engage in “grassroots lobbying or solicit support for a Member’s position.” Rep. Bachmann’s website urged people to come to the Capitol rally “and tell their Representatives to vote no” on the health care reform bill.

Hrm….”urged people to come to the Capitol rally” on her website. Now where have I read that before? Oh yeah! At the website Tennessee Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn built with taxpayer dollars to serve her constituents! And at the website Tennessee Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn built with taxpayer dollars not to lobby for or against any particular legislation or legislative position. From Congressman Blackburn’s website:

“From all over the country, people are coming to let Speaker Pelosi know that they are opposed to her massive new health care bureaucracy. If you can make it to Washington, you should. If you are already coming to Washington, please let me know. The event will begin at Noon on the Capitol steps.”

Hey Office of Congressional Ethics and CREW, when you get done with investigating Congresswoman Bachmann for this ethics violation, you might want to take a gander a little further south to Tennessee Congressional District 7.

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Rep. Marsha Blackburn Joins the Radical Right

On September 12, 2009, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Mary Mancini

Those of you in Tennessee already knew that. But today when she speaks at the 9-12 March on Washington she will clue in the rest of the world.

“Revolution.” “Succession.” “A New Civil War.” It’s all part of a days work (cha-ching!) for the sponsors of the march. And, apparently, for Blackburn.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. Congressman Blackburn was more than willing to appear on the local mouthpiece of the most extreme wing of her party, Michael DelGiorno, who every day demonstrates how irresponsible he is as a broadcaster by insinuating that the President is a very scary man who is working towards a dictatorship, trying to indoctrinate your children, and using the tactics of imperial Japan and Nazi Germany to overthrow the government. Oh, and Harry Reid is coming to kill you and Barack Obama is the antichrist.

Frankly, Congressman Blackburn is exactly where I would expect her to be today – cozying up to the most extreme members of her party who are so afraid of Barack Obama’s “otherness” that they bring guns to his public events and scream “You lie” to his face in very inappropriate settings.

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Here’s more from Rachel Maddow:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Saint Thomas Health Services and Baptist Hospital to Host Congressman Blackburn for Healthcare Panel

On August 17, 2009, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Mary Mancini
Baptist & St. Thomas say: Check your hyperbole at the door, Congressman

Check your hyperbole at the door, Congressman

Congressman Blackburn seems to be everywhere discussing healthcare these days. But on Monday, August 24, 2009, she will be participating in a panel discussion presented by Saint Thomas Health Services and Baptist Hospital that might be her most balanced, informative, and unemotional appearance all summer.

Titled “Shaping Healthcare: Reform for Future Generations,” the panel will feature Blackburn, Virginia Trotter Betts, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, and Dr. Cornelia Graves, a Nationally-recognized Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist and Medical Director of Baptist Hospital’s Perinatal Program.

More info and RSVP:

This signature event is part of Ascension Health’s 100% Campaign to help raise awareness and influence healthcare policy to achieve 100% access and 100% coverage.

Welcoming more than 7,000 new lives into the world every year, Baptist Hospital knows the need for a stronger healthcare system that cares for future generations.

That’s why we hope you’ll join Baptist Hospital and Saint Thomas Health Services for a discussion from three leading women whose perspectives on healthcare are shaping today’s reform.

Ascension Health is “the nation’s largest Catholic and largest nonprofit health system.

The panel discussion is scheduled for 9:00 am and will be held at the Gladys Stringfield Owen Education Center Auditorium at Baptist Hospital, 2000 Church Street. Free parking is available in the 21st Ave. Parking Garage and parking lot at the corner of 21st Ave. N. and Patterson Street.

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Marsha Blackburn Chases Michelle Bachman’s Spotlight

On April 3, 2009, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Mary Mancini

In what can only be described as a brazen attempt to ride Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachman’s coat tails into the Fox News limelight, Tennessee Congressmen Marsha Blackburn and Zach Wamp have signed on to Bachman’s proposed Constitutional amendment that would prevent the Obama administration from replacing the dollar with global funny money:

“The President may not enter into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States.”

Of course, there is absolutely no such proposal on the table, but that apparently won’t stop Bachman, Blackburn, Wamp, and 27 of their colleagues from getting ready for their closeup on “The Glenn Beck Program” instead of focusing on real problems that need real solutions.

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Your Stock Market May Say “No,” but Your History says “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

On March 5, 2009, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Mary Mancini
We're goin' down, down, down...

We're goin' down, down, down...

Every ten years or so of the last two thousand, we hear of the fulfillment of prophecy that proves the “end is nigh,” a.k.a. “end of days” or “OH MY GOD THE SKY IS FALLING!” Remember when Jesus himself kicked off the recurring doomsday theme by saying that the world would end in his lifetime (Mark 13:30)? Good times, but not the end of times. Because, yoohoo, it’s 2009 and we’re still here.

Yet, people continue to stick their fingers in their minds, ignore history, and apply failed prophecies to current events. Some are funny. Others are just sad. Scratch that, they’re all funny.

And it’s not only religious fundamentalists who whip out unwarranted and inaccurate accusations sans historical context to further their agenda. Our elected officials and political pundits do it, too.

Take the frantic and unrestrained declaration that our brand-spankin’ new President is a socialist and/or communist and is taking “cues from Lenin.” Been there, done that, with not one [pdf], but two, Roosevelts, a King, and a Clinton.

Oh and yesterday, despite evidence to the contrary, Tennessee’s own Congressman Marsha Blackburn joined the chorus of voices blaming the stock market slide on Mr. Obama’s candidacy, his election, and his whole 6 weeks in office. Little does she care – because I’m positive she knows – that her one-trick pony hopped on a ship that’s been launched to sail over and over again and over again.

Democrats have also ignored historical context. While attacking the leading voice of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, for saying that he wants President Obama, and by proxy the country, to fail, they neglected to mention all the times during the last eight years that high-profile Democratic mouthpieces have said they wanted President Bush to fail.

Let’s go to the videotape. Oh wait. We can’t? There is no videotape of a high-profile Democratic mouthpiece or elected representative saying he wants President Bush to fail?

What if we accept (for the length of this sentence) Limbaugh’s excuse – that he only wants President Obama’s policies to fail – and modify the request?

Still no?

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2010 Is Already Here: Bill Haslam Is Tennessee’s Next Governor

On January 4, 2009, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Freddie

In a statement released this afternoon, Bill Frist opened the floodgates for Republican gubernatorial hopefuls and kept the door closed for his own presidential ambitions by confirming that he will not run for governor in Tennessee in 2010.

Who will be the Republican hopefuls?

  • Zach Wamp: The congressman from the fighting 3rd has basically been telling Frist to shit or get off the pot for weeks. I’m sure I’m not the only Tennessean who has noticed his self-promoting mug on billboards prominently placed along I-40 the farther East one gets in Tennessee. His shrewd pre-emptive waste management of his nose candy problem was almost Obama-esque, but is he too zealous?
  • Bill Haslam: Haslam has a head-down reputation for competent governance of Tennessee’s pre-Appalachian outpost, and he’s less of a lightning rod than former Knoxville mayor Victor Ashe.
  • Bill Gibbons: I’ll confess to knowing least about Gibbons other than that he has confessed interest in the race as a Republican.
  • Marsha Blackburn: The only female congressman in Tennessee, the newly feminist and ever-ambitious ex-stylist Marsha Marsha Marsha has her work cut out for her in accessing the same base Wamp is likely to court, especially after a healthy challenge from her right by Tom Leatherwood in 2008’s Republican primary. Word in the mythical backrooms is that the Baker boys aren’t fond of her. Her ambition more than conventional wisdom leave her on the list. Rep. Beth Harwell’s recent deferral to Mumpower keeps her off for now.

The real wildcard here will be whether this is a replay of the 2006 U.S. Senate Republican primary, where two conservatives (Bryant, Hilleary) pave the way for a moderate (Corker), or whether two moderates pave the way for a conservative. Will Gibbons enter the fray as a moderate or a conservative (particularly of the social variety)? I’m expecting Haslam to lean moderate, although he could (unpleasantly) surprise me.

Haslam stands to out-Bresdesen Bredesen by campaigning as a pragmatic fiscally responsible executive able to build alliances with rather than alienate core members of his party but able to be a sincere bipartisan operator at the same time.

The other big winner from today’s news is Democratic state senator Andy Berke. Having recently been the best promoter of Democratic ideas in the state, he stands well poised to emerge from what will probably be a small field of legitimate Democratic contenders if the U.S. Senate primary is any gauge of Democratic interest in statewide office.

Honestly, I don’t know if there will be any other serious contenders than former state representative (and first woman Majority Leader) Kim McMillan, and I’ll be interested to see how she makes the case, other than explicitly, that someone who previously supported a state income tax can win statewide office in Tennessee. Is it possible that a pro-income-tax progressive consensus could emerge that could push her past Berke’s redefinition of Democrats? I see that as almost as unlikely as her using her past support as an asset rather than a liability in the first place.

I suppose I should mention Lincoln Davis, as he has done some preliminary positioning. His name being in the hat would certainly increase tensions about the direction of the party. Having treated Obama in the Republican-lite mode, his was not an uncommon approach to Democratic presidential punditry in Tennessee, and that mode hasn’t served the party well at the ballot box since we’re in a state flush with real live Republicans who are certainly not fat-free.

And it almost pains me to mention Harold Ford, Jr. because I haven’t seen any indication that he’s serious about governance, although his name has come up in conversations about the race. I’m hopeful that Frist’s bowing out doesn’t increase the prospects that HaFo enters the race.

As much as I’d like to see the Democratic primary campaign generate broader statewide interest, I suspect that, should Haslam demonstrate grade-A gangsterism in the Republican primary, the race will be his to lose. The post-Kurita TNDP is unlikely to find a revolutionary in either Charles Robert Bone or Chip Forrester that truly speaks to Lamar!’s grand divisions broadly, so the rebuilding of the state party is likely to take more than a single election cycle, especially after the presidential, U.S. Senate, and General Assembly races we witnessed in 2008. And with Andy Berke one of few people in Tennessee Democratic politics willing to play the game on someone other than Bill Hobbs’s turf, the number of skilled messengers is likely to remain too few to allow him a realistic shot at the governor’s mansion. Regardless, I’d like to see a spirited contest between him and McMillan, as I think they might be able to point the way for the next iteration of the TNDP, especially since each will be based outside of Nashville.

SEE ALSO: Kleinheider

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Rewriting the Last Eight Years, Tennessee Republican-Style

On December 7, 2008, in Liberate Your Radio from The Right, by Mary Mancini

Today’s Tennessean has a doozy: “Tennessee Republicans commend Bush’s legacy.”

I thought it was a typo. Surely they must have meant, “Tennessee Republicans condemn Bush’s legacy,” right? But no, there they are – U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, former Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, Tennessee Republican Party chairwoman Robin Smith, and U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn – paying homage, making excuses, and blaming others.

At a time when the vast majority of Americans see the presidency of George W. Bush for what it is – disastrous for the country – Tennessee’s elected Republicans see it quite differently. They have chosen to rewrite history and fault not the President for his failed policies but the White House communications department (a group of people who have no real responsibility for making actual decisions vital to well-being of the nation) for how they presented them. As a group, they seem to be part of a minority who will cling to ideology and rhetoric and Rovian “attack, don’t defend” tactics.

Here’s a particular gem from Rep. Wamp:

The way they communicated the response to Hurricane Katrina left everyone puzzled and wondering if they could even respond. What they communicated was much worse, just showing the president flying over the damage. This is a man who would relish getting into the water and getting people out of the water. But the way they handled it made it look like he wasn’t engaged. They didn’t make him look like the compassionate leader he is. This is a man who loves to cut wood and sweat, and it didn’t come through. People lost confidence.

As much as President Bush would “relish getting into the water and getting people out of the water,” he didn’t, you know, get into the water. He did, however, fly over the damage. So which is perception and which is reality? And which is more important to the well-being of the people of the nation?

At a time when most of the country, and its elected leaders, have acknowledged the need for a change from not only the last eight years of President Bush, but also the kind of politics that have divided us for so long, it’s just more of the same from Tennessee Republicans.

It’s going to be a long two years.

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The Not-So-Veiled Partisanship of Congresswoman Blackburn

On August 7, 2008, in Uncategorized, by Mary Mancini

Moments after proclaiming that fixing the energy crisis of 2008 was “not a partisan issue” on this morning’s Steve Gill Show [guest host Larry Woods], Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn forgot the definition of “non-partisan.”

“…this is what inaction is getting us, the fact that the liberal elites in DC are controlling each house of Congress and not allowing these votes to come forward. The [price] increase has taken place primarily over the last couple of years.”

Someone might want to remind partisan hack Congresswoman Blackburn that she should refrain from using clichéd partisan-slurs to describe people who disagree with her when trying to present an issue as non-partisan. Just sayin’.

Oh and she also might want to check her claim that oil and gas price increases have increased “primarily over the last couple of years” and her explanation of why (three guesses whose fault…).

It’s easy to place blame for partisan reasons and Blackburn sure is good at it. But for the intellectually honesty of it all, let’s list some other reasons why we might be experiencing record high gas prices: increased consumption, production disruptions, turmoil in the middle east, the destabilization of Iraq, corporate greed, Iranian and U.S. saber-rattling, and whatever back-room shenanigans that go on between the Bushies and the Saudis (to name just a few). To lay blame at the feet of one of America’s political party for the global problem? Ridiculous. To lay blame at the feet of the leader of the free world’s administration whose policies encouraged global turmoil? Sounds about right.

And speaking of honesty, she and her friends standing in the dark in the House chamber might want to stop claiming that off-shore drilling will give us immediate relief from high gas prices. ‘Cause it won’t. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) – that’s the United States Energy Information Administration – “access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017.”

Not sure about the good Congresswoman, but I don’t think the rest of us can wait until 2030.

Listen to Blackburn and Woods on Gill

UPDATE: NY Times’ favorite economist, Paul Krugman (aka FOL* Dr. Beardy), weighs in this morning on a party who believes that “that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise.” Paging, Congressman Blackburn.

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be “insignificant”? Presumably they’re just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats. And the Democrats, as Representative Michele Bachmann assures us, “want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, take light rail to their government jobs.”

Is this political pitch too dumb to succeed? Don’t count on it.

Oy.

*Friend of Liberadio(!)

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