“Third Time’s The Charm?”: New Hampshire Says ‘No’ To Interloper Scott Brown
In New Hampshire, the Massachusetts invasion has been staved off—for now.
Incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen has been declared the victor in the closely-fought race against Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator who slid across the border to the state where he keeps a family vacation home, declaring residency and announcing his candidacy in one fell swoop.
Brown had achieved national fame in 2009 when he crisscrossed Massachusetts in his pickup truck, going on to defeat attorney general Martha Coakley in a special election for the Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy. That race presaged the Tea Party wave that was to come in 2010. Brown’s victory was short-lived however; in 2012, he was defeated by liberal favorite Elizabeth Warren.
Brown was a favorite of Wall Street and of moderate Republicans cheered by the possibility that a type of Rockefeller Republicanism was returning to the northeast. In the run-up to the midterms, he publicly flirted with running for president, before eventually being lured into the Senate race in neighboring New Hampshire.
It was a long shot to say the least. New Hampshire remains one of the most conservative states in the Northeast, with Republicans regularly competing in the presidential elections, but it is also fiercely independent, and resentful of the encroachment of the Boston suburbs.
Shaheen often played up her local roots. Brown did himself no favors when, in the campaign’s final debate, he seemed to flub a question about basic Granite State geography, calling Sullivan County north of Concord, when it is in fact west of Concord. The Shaheen campaign pounced, spending part of the next day hitting the hustings in Sullivan County.
“The key is that Brown said what he—and probably a lot of other people—think,” wrote a columnist for the Boston Globe. “That ‘anyplace past Concord’ faces the exact same set of issues.”
Brown tried to counter this narrative by focusing on national issues, describing a nation and hence a state that was left insecure and unstable thanks to President Obama’s leadership, and of course, by Shaheen’s support of that leadership. He combined a number of crises facing the president, including the threats of Ebola and ISIS, mismanagement in the Secret Service and child migrants coming over the border, to argue for a change in direction.
Those attacks though fell flat among charges that Brown was an interloper who would vote to limit the reproductive choices of women in the U.S. Senate.
Things took an especially awkward turn for Brown in the race’s final hours, when the former senator was asked by an MSNBC reporter if he planned to move back to Massachusetts if he lost.
Brown did not answer.
By: David Freedlander, The Daily Beast, November 4, 2014
“Fear Mongering, Because It’s All They Have Left”: The GOP Is Desperate To Win The Mid-Term Elections
They supported the sequester which cut funding research for the Center For Disease Control. Maybe we could have been closer to a cure for a certain virus. They refused to hold confirmation hearings for President Obama’s choice for Surgeon General because they don’t like the nominee, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy (big surprise! Could the NRA’s objection have something to do with it?) Gee, we could have used one right about now. They decided to not come back from their fall break (after a long summer vacation) to vote on going to war against ISIS and instead are campaigning for the mid-term elections.
And now certain members of the Republican party are running election ads attacking the President and Democrats for not doing more to stop both the Ebola virus and ISIS. To me, this is the height of hypocrisy.
One GOP campaigner, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) even went so far as to lie on Fox News and say at least 10 Islamist State fighters were captured at the southern border. This, after others concocted a false scheme where they say immigrant children were entering the country with the Ebola virus.
Either the GOP is very clever, playing on the fears of US citizens or they are desperate to win the mid-terms. But the truth is the President has shown leadership and taken bold action on both issues. He sent troops and medical aids and supplies to the Ebola afflicted African nations. He has appointed an Ebola Czar, Ron Klain, a veteran DC insider with experience in navigating the government bureaucracy and after calling on the President to appoint such a position, of course, the GOP are condemning his choice because they say he has no medical background.
My understanding is that this appointee will not be actually doctoring or healing those with the disease but coordinating and overseeing an effort to find a cure and assist health care workers and hospitals and tracking down those exposed to the virus.
The President and Secretary of State John Kerry have assembled an impressive coalition of many nations including Arab ones to help fight ISIS. Our bombing of ISIS headquarters in Syria and Iraq and most recently the Syrian Kurdish border city of Kobane have ISIS on the run. President Obama has said it will be a long fight but we must prevail.
The ironic thing is that even though Republican lawmakers support the President’s actions against ISIS, many have blamed him for their emergence and have constantly called him weak on foreign policy issues. I remember a time when it would have been deemed treasonous to not back our Commander in Chief in times of war.
Instead of constantly condemning, I would like to know what the GOP plans to do. Besides a travel ban which many experts believe would hamper efforts to contain the virus where it started, I have seen no solutions from Republicans to either of these crises.
I notice we hear little these days about Obamacare which was supposed to be the defining issue of these mid-terms. I guess that means those people who have it like it (and can keep it). My question is why don’t the Democrats turn it into an election year plus and call out the naysayers? Is it because it is too closely tied to the President? The GOP may be fear mongerers but the Dems are cowards.
It seems to me those seeking election should campaign positively and tell what they have done and will do for the American public rather than running away from the tough issues or blaming the other side for all the ills in the world. No wonder Congress has an approval rating of 16 percent. They talk about the President’s being low at 40 percent but he’s 24 percent higher than they are.
I get it. The campaign tactic is to deflect from the good economic news and the growing support for Obamacare. But I am hoping the electorate will reject the fear mongering and the voter suppression and the cowardly avoiding of the hot button issues and do research and vote for those who run clean campaigns and have proven themselves good public servants. There must be a handful of them out there. The only way to exact change is to throw out those who have no solutions but constantly complain. Negativity is not what we need right now, rather it is a coming together of hearts and minds to solve our problems in a constructive way regardless of party.
By: Joan E. Dowlin, The Huffington Post Blog, October 21, 2014
“Falling Off A Right-Wing Cliff”: Mike Huckabee Threatens GOP Over Marriage
The right wasn’t pleased when the Supreme Court indirectly cleared the way for marriage equality in several states this week, but some conservatives took the news worse than others. For example, take Fox News’ Mike Huckabee, a former preacher, governor, and presidential candidate.
Huckabee declared this week that any Supreme Court decision is just an “opinion” until Congress passes “enabling legislation” signed by the president. High court rulings, he added, are “not the ‘law of the land’ as is often heralded.”
None of this is even remotely accurate, but the comments were the latest evidence of Huckabee falling off a right-wing cliff. The Republican also said this week that Americans should doubt U.S. officials giving the public information about Ebola because of Benghazi.
And in case that weren’t quite enough, Huckabee also this week threatened to leave the Republican Party for being insufficiently anti-gay.
One guest on the program was Mike Huckabee, who began his interview by threatening to leave the Republican Party if the GOP does not take a stand against the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday not to hear appeals of lower court rulings striking down gay marriage bans in several states.
Incensed by the decision, Huckabee declared that “I am utterly exasperated with Republicans and the so-called leadership of the Republicans who have abdicated on this issue,” warning that by doing so the GOP will “guarantee they’re going to lose every election in the future.”
The former governor added that the GOP might lose “guys like me and a whole bunch of still God-fearing, Bible-believing people” unless they become more aggressive in fighting a right-wing culture war against marriage equality and reproductive rights.
Huckabee went on to say he’s prepared to “become an independent,” adding, “I’m gone…. I’m tired of this.”
At a certain level, this isn’t entirely new. Over the course of the last 20 years, I’ve lost count of how many times prominent social conservatives and leaders of the religious right movement have threatened to leave the Republican Party en masse for not going far enough in fighting the culture war. There’s never been any follow-through, at least not to any meaningful degree.
That said, Ed Kilgore raised a good point: “[I]t’s not unusual for pols associated with the Christian Right to suggest their foot soldiers are going to get discouraged at being played for suckers by the Republican Establishment, and might stay home or stray. But Huck’s making a personal statement about his own threat to book if the GOP doesn’t conspicuously get back on the traditional marriage train. And he’s saying it via the homophobic obsessives of the AFA, who can be sure to broadcast it near and far.”
Republican officials usually ignore such threats, confident that when push comes to shove, right-wing culture warriors will stay with the GOP to prevent Democratic victories.
Still, Huckabee’s ultimatum reinforces a Republican Party with an awkward dilemma. If the GOP quietly moves towards the mainstream on social issues, it alienates a significant part of the party’s base. If Republicans toe the far-right line on the culture war, the GOP will continue to shrink, pushing away younger voters and a mainstream that’s increasingly respectful of diversity.
To be sure, this has long been a challenge for Republicans, but with the party’s demographic challenges becoming more acute, and far-right voices like Huckabee’s growing louder, GOP leaders are left with no good options. Is it any wonder Republicans responded to news from the Supreme Court this week with near-total silence?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 10, 2014
“The Politics Of Fear Comes With Fine Print”: If You’re Afraid Of Anything, Vote GOP, But Don’t Expect Us To Actually Do Anything
After a couple of Republican congressional candidates literally included ISIS propaganda excerpts in their anti-Democratic attack ads, the message of this year’s elections came into sharper focus. The GOP has effectively given up on running against “Obamacare” and unemployment – choosing instead to tell Americans there’s a monster under their beds and only Republicans can save them.
Last night in North Carolina, for example, Sen. Kay Hagan (D) debated her far-right challenger, state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R), who focused the bulk of his attention on Islamic State terrorists and the Ebola virus.
Does Tillis have any background in national security? No. Has he presented new ideas on keeping the public safe? No. Does he have any expertise in infectious diseases? Of course not. Are there any instances in which Hagan has made a misstep on these issues? Not even one.
But Tillis gets the sense North Carolinians are feeling anxiety, and the Republican hopes he can exploit that angst for personal gain.
As Jeremy Peters reported, there’s a lot of this going around.
With four weeks to go, the election has taken a dark turn as conservatives use warnings about Islamic State militants, the Ebola virus and terrorist acts to send a message: The world is a scary place, and the Democrats can’t protect you.
Take a new Republican ad aimed at Representative Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona that warns of terrorists streaming across the Mexican border. “Evil forces around the world want to harm Americans every day,” it says. “Their entry into our country? Through Arizona’s backyard.”
Another one, against Senator Mark Udall in Colorado, plays a clip in which he says the Islamic State does not pose an imminent threat. “Really?” the announcer asks. “Can we take that chance?” An ad in another Arizona House race features the footage of the journalist James Foley right before his beheading.
There’s no denying the political potency of fear. Those who feel terrified are more easily manipulated, more likely to ignore reason, and more likely to show poor judgment. Those who otherwise have nothing worthwhile to offer the public often turn to demagoguery because it can be an effective substitute for substance.
But there’s one important flaw in the Politics of Fear, or at least the Republicans’ reliance on it.
The GOP pitch relates to government in a fairly obvious and direct way: your government, the argument goes, whatever its intentions, simply isn’t capable, competent, or prepared enough to keep you safe. Your family should therefore feel a sense of panic … and vote Republican.
Cooler heads might notice the flaw in the logic. An American in a constant state of fear about terrorism, diseases, the state of the Secret Service, migrant children, and creeping Sharia, might think twice about supporting the party that believes in slashing budgets, gutting the public sector, and generally avoiding governing whenever possible.
In other words, the Republican tack is burdened by an awkward contradiction: what Americans need is a strong, vibrant public sector prepared for every emergency, which is why Americans should vote for a party that wants to weaken and dismantle the public sector as quickly as possible.
Think of it this way: If Republicans could magically take control every federal office today, what exactly would they do differently than the Obama administration in, say, addressing Ebola? Privatize the CDC, cut taxes, and offer vouchers for protective gear? What would they do differently about ISIS? Continue the airstrikes President Obama launched back in early August – the ones Republicans don’t even feel like holding an authorization vote on?
The entire strategy is void of meaning and purpose if Republicans are pushing fear for the sake of fear – there’s still no agenda, no vision, no plans, and no ideas to serve as a foundation.
“If you’re afraid – of pretty much anything – vote GOP,” the message goes. “Just don’t expect us to actually do anything if we win.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 10, 2014
“Unreasoning Dread”: Freaking Out About Ebola Isn’t Helping
One afternoon two weeks ago, I did my best to calm a friend who’d become fearful that her son would contract Ebola in Syria. The young man had enlisted in the National Guard. She knew the U.S. was bombing ISIS terrorists there, and that people were talking about “boots on the ground.” She thought she’d heard about a Syrian Ebola outbreak on TV.
Because others were listening, I didn’t want to embarrass her. I suggested she’d misheard a reference to Sierra Leone, a tiny country in the tropical forest of West Africa where the Ebola epidemic rages — thousands of miles from Syria, which borders on Israel. The road to Damascus and all that.
The Bible reference helped. A guy in a John Deere cap backed me up. Syria was definitely not in Africa. My friend was mollified.
I’m sure she’s heard plenty more about Ebola since then, possibly even about Sierra Leone, a nation of which most Americans have zero knowledge. A lifelong map nut, I’d have had to search for it myself.
Although my friend is an intelligent person with a lively wit, it wasn’t her ignorance of geography I found so surprising. After all, polls showed only 17 percent of Americans could locate Iraq on a map back when the U.S. invaded in 2003. Rather, it was her unreasoning dread of Ebola, a tropical disease wholly limited at that time to three countries in West Africa.
Now that a single Ebola victim from neighboring Liberia has made his way to Dallas, isn’t that fear more justifiable? Shouldn’t we be running around with our hair on fire like the talking heads on cable TV? Isn’t it time for our government to do something drastic, such as banning all travel from West Africa to prevent Ebola-stricken refugees from bringing this terrifying plague to America?
Actually, no and no. Freaking out never helps when there’s real danger. For once, I felt sympathetic toward Gov. Rick Perry, who, because the Liberian victim ended up at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas, was compelled to act like a competent government official instead of a carnival barker.
“Rest assured that our system is working as it should,” Perry said during a hospital press conference. “Professionals on every level of the chain of command know what to do to minimize this potential risk to the people of Texas and this country.”
Of course that wasn’t strictly true. Due to a communications snafu too common in hospitals, the first physician who examined the victim wasn’t told he’d traveled from Liberia, misread the chart, and bungled the diagnosis.
But that still doesn’t mean the sky is falling. Medical experts agree that while deadly in Third World environments, Ebola is both treatable and relatively hard to catch. Patients aren’t contagious until they’re visibly ill. Even then direct contact with a symptomatic person’s bodily fluids — saliva, vomit, stool, urine, etc. — is necessary. Unlike a cold, it can’t be transmitted through the air.
Writing in The New Yorker, brilliant surgeon and author Atul Gawande documents a South African case in which some 300 hospital workers treated an undiagnosed Ebola patient for 12 days without contracting the disease.
Isolate patients, monitor their intimate contacts, dispose of their waste properly, and Ebola can be stopped. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) the likelihood of a mass Ebola outbreak in the United States is remote.
Perhaps that makes the disgraceful performance of so many self-styled “conservative” pundits and GOP politicians a bit less disturbing. Going all Chicken Little and doing everything possible to use a public health crisis for partisan ends would be even more contemptible if the danger were as great as they pretend.
As usual, Fox News personalities led the charge. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee sought to use Ebola to foment petulant mistrust of government in general and President Obama in particular.
It all somehow reminded him of Benghazi.
“The Ebola scare,” Huckabee claimed “goes to the heart of a simple question: do you trust the government. Audience, do you trust the government?”
Fox News and ABC News contributor Laura Ingraham hosted crank medical conspiracy theorist Dr. Elizabeth Vliet, who accused Obama of downplaying Ebola for political reasons. Rush Limbaugh suggested that the president sees Ebola as a punishment for slavery, and won’t ban travel to and from West Africa out of political correctness.
Several GOP politicians, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, have suggested basically quarantining entire countries, a “solution” that sounds sensible until you think about it for 30 seconds.
For example, would that mean volunteer doctors, nurses, missionaries and soldiers couldn’t come home? And then what? A catastrophically worsening epidemic in Africa, that’s what.
I’ll say this too: If Ebola were happening, in say, Denmark or Belgium, we’d be having a far saner conversation.
But then it couldn’t, which is part of the point.
By: Gene Lyons, The National Memo, October 8, 2014
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