Special-interest money in Washington may have peaked but it looks more like it has plateaued at mile-high altitudes, with hundreds of millions of dollars continuing to fill the coffers of lobbying firms each year as they sign up ex-members of Congress and other well-connected “public servants,” as Michael Winship reports. By Michael Winship Pity poor…
"You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate, though," giggled conservative Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor on the big screen. He was unseated by an undistinguished right-wing extremist, Tom Cotton, 476,309 (56.5%) to 332,669 (39.5%). I don't know how much his remarks to Bill Maher played into his defeat. I don't know how much Arkansas voters care about IQ test results or intelligence in their elected officials at all for that matter.
A Member of Congress, a strong, active, unambiguous progressive who sailed to victory Tuesday, called me complaining about Pelosi's tele-caucus meeting the other day. The Democrats, Pelosi said, did badly in the election because-- wait for it-- turnout was bad. It was bad... something like only 36.6% of registered voters went to the polls. But that in itself doesn't explain why the Democrats did poorly, nor why Republicans did well.
Last week we talked about how Republicans were unleashing a barrage of attack ads against weak conservative Democrats, like John Barrow, for voting with Republicans. Democrats who crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans to cut Social Security benefits for retired people are now being bombarded with ads-- that are true, regardless of the disingenuous source-- pointing out that they are the enemies of working people.
Beltway pundits are always smitten with aloof intellectual phonies. Paul Ryan has been the most obvious example in recent years but Arkansas pedant Tom Cotton— another Harvard-educated reactionary is always such a curiosity… like a circus freak show— is catching up.
With Steve Israel's policy of never targeting GOP leaders, policy makers and committee chairman keeping the DCCC out of the MN-02 race that pits progressive Mike Obermueller against reactionary incumbent John Kline-- chair of the powerful and destructive House Committee of Education and the Workforce-- Blue America was over the moon that Bill Maher has stepped into the breach.
Right-wing extremist Tom Cotton (r) with his lovely, blushing beard, AnnaMark Pryor is way too conservative for my tastes. According to ProgressivePunch his 62.82 crucial vote score for the 2013-14 session marks him as the 2nd most conservative Senate Democrat, slightly better than Joe Manchin (D-WV) and slightly worse than Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN).
We haven't really been covering the Arkansas elections this cycle. Basically, all the contests are classic lesser or two evils situations-- Democrats rated D or F and Republicans rated F-minus. Is there anything less than an F these days?
Friday, Alan Grayson endorsed particle physicist George Gollin for Congress from Illinois' 13th congressional district. He began his endorsement with a simple statement you can hear all too often from the more educated members of Congress-- Grayson has three graduate degrees from Harvard: "I’m really getting tired of listening to people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
