The Politics Blog

"But Kentucky, as Hogan says, was not dead but on'y sleepin'. Th' other day that gran' ol' state woke up through two iv its foremost rapid firin' citizens."

-- Finley Peter Dunne, 1899.

(Himself, something of a hypochondriac, went to bed early last night with an attack of rheumatism)

A wise nation will combine all these considerations; and, whilst it does not rashly preclude itself from any resource which may become essential to its safety, will exert all its prudence in diminishing both the necessity and the danger of resorting to one which may be inauspicious to its liberties.

-- James Madison, Federalist 41, January 19, 1788.

Frankly, what scares me most about the upcoming midterm elections is not the idea of a Republican Senate which, I admit, is a legitimate cause for abject terror. What scares me the most are the events at the actual polls. I will not be surprised in the least, in certain states with certain tight races, if some of our "open carry" strict constructionists decide that Election Day might be a good time to exercise their Second Amendment rights and do some educational outreach around various polling places. To keep away the threat of the New Black Panthers, or Ebola, or something, and to constitutionally educate some of Those voters away from the ballot box. I will not be surprised at that at all.

If this happens, of course, the basic philosophy behind the educational outreach also will be put into practice within the institutions of government and under the color of law. We already have a court taking a dive in Georgia, where the Secretary of State somehow misplaced 40,000 registration forms. This will prolong the legal wrangling and send already close races there for the Senate and the governorship into chaos which, a cynical mind might say, is precisely the point.

There are going to be two misconceptions thrown about in celebration of the life of Tom Menino, the former mayor of Boston who passed away today at 71. The first is that his ascension to power was some kind of fluke, and his continuation in Boston, some kind of accident. The second is that Menino was a kind of throwback among America's mayors -- straight from the wards, no political ambitions beyond City Hall, not in any conceivable way glib, and not very good on television at all, an old school, index-card, machine politician in a data-driven, hyper-atomized, computer age. Neither of these is true. We will deal with the second one so as to understand why the first one is so remarkably wrong.

Menino was a puzzlement only to those delicate souls who mistake syntax for intelligence. He became mayor just as Boston was emerging from the very last vestiges of its parochial past -- insular neighborhoods which did not welcome outsiders, which might simply mean someone who moved there from another parish in Dorchester. It was Tom Menino who navigated his city through the end of a process that showed its most poisonous fangs during the busing crisis in 1974, and which ground steadily on thereafter. Menino eased the way. He made Boston a welcoming place, perhaps the first time in the city's history, dating back to when they were hanging Quakers on the Common, that such a thing could be said unequivocally. People came to Boston from college and stayed. Artists flocked to loft space. The gay community increased both its visibility and its political and cultural influence, culminating in the Goodridge decision that legalized marriage equality. Menino oversaw this cultural earthquake with dignity, and with aplomb.

This one was easy. Everybody in the cafe put down their sippy-cups and cheered. Huckleberry J. Butchmeup won the day -- and the free dessert that comes with it -- with surpassing ease and complete commitment to the founding ideals of the joint, and the utter abandonment of the usual Republican conservative Inside Voice.

Graham said the Hibernian Society encourages speakers "to be earthy, to make fun of yourself, to make fun of them. Then you say something serious and sit down. And if you talk over 20 minutes, they throw something at you." In the recordings, Graham, who is favored in his race for re-election next Tuesday against Democrat Brad Hutto, appears to joke about the possible 2016 presidential bid he recently floated in an interview with the Weekly Standard. "I'm trying to help you with your tax status," Graham says in the recording. "I'm sorry the government's so f---ed up. If I get to be president, white men in male-only clubs are going to do great in my presidency." The crowd is then heard laughing.

Hibernian Society, my bollocks, by the way. These are not my people.

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where you need a dump truck to unload your head.

A week to go, and the governmentin', and the assault on democracy with intent to govern, is reaching a fever pitch out there in the hinterlands. The A-games are coming out. Addled. Appalling. Asinine. They're all in play right now.

Let's start in Ohio, where incumbent governor -- and one-time hipster Republican who can talk to the young -- John Kasich is cruising to reelection. The way we know this is that he's stopped talking about anything. He's jumped on the old mute button with both feet.

But during a heated six-minute exchange about the issue, Kasich would not explain why he supported such a policy. The governor initially shrugged off the pointed question from Democratic challenger Edward FitzGerald and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Asked again by a member of the paper's editorial board, Kasich simply reiterated his support for pro-life policies, including an abortion exception in cases of "rape, incest, and life of the mother," but did not explain how the gag rule advanced that viewpoint.

Oh, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Maggie Haberman. Get out of there before they fully activate the microchip.

Haberman's campaign coverage is often the best thing to be found in Tiger Beat On The Potomac. Consequently, it is more than kind of a drag to see her name atop one of that publication's substance-free horse-race clickbait exercises. I know she doesn't write her own headlines. But she should seek out whoever wrote this one and whale on them, because there isn't a smidgen of a scintilla of a drop of evidence in the piece that suggests that Senator Professor Warren is "vexing" Hillary Clinton at all. The kidz in the Village desperately want this catfight, and most of them grew up as writers and thinkers during the extended run of Cirque du Clinton in Washington. They missed out on the really good stuff -- Cattle futures! Billing Records! Fort Marcy Park! -- and, lo and behold, here's another chance to pretend that they're back in the good old days. Also, it would tax the view from nowhere if the Democrats smoothly nominated Clinton while the Republicans had another demo derby in the locked ward like they had in 2012. The kidz might actually have to notice this time. And also, catfight! Mrrrrowwwwrrrr!

Anyway, as I said, this entire piece is based on the fanciful notion that SPW's ferocious campaign against the plutocrats is putting her crossways with Clinton.

Outside of a five-state moonshine ring, or a preacher with a taste for rubber suits and meth, can you think of a more purely Southern political scandal than one involving a company that makes its money off derelict automobiles that get pulled out of the creek? Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia, currently locked in a tight race for re-election with Democratic candidate Jason Carter, appears to be about to find out.

Here's the Readers Digest Condensed version of this epic which, I assure you, comes nowhere near conveying the glorious vista of awesomeness that you can find in the entire tale. In 1990, it seems, the state contracted out the job of doing title searches on abandoned vehicles. These were sweet, no-bid contracts divvied up among companies by region, all over the state. The sweetest one went to a company called Gainesville Salvage Disposal, which was co-owned by a young state senator named Nathan Deal. This might strike a cynical soul as something more than coincidental. Then, in 2007, when Deal was serving in the U.S. Congress, the Georgia Revenue Commissioner noticed that this scam...er...arrangement was costing the state a carload of money. He cancelled all the no-bid monopolies that had been handed out 17 years earlier. Congressman Deal, however, wasn't letting go of the grift. He was making 75-G's a year as a corporate officer of the salvage firm. Alas, the House doesn't allow its members to be corporate officers, and they can make only $25,000 in outside income. So Congressman Deal simply didn't disclose his salvage business. Then, things got really strange.

"In th' old days if a man kilt another man he took three jumps fr'm th' scene iv th' disaster to th' north corrydor iv th' County Jail. That still goes f'r th' poor man. No wan has thried to rob him iv th' privilege won f'r him be his ancestors iv bein' quickly an' completely hanged. A photygraph iv him is took without a collar, he's yanked befure an awful coort iv justice, a deef-mute lawyer is appinted to look afther his inthrests an' see that they don't suffer be bein' kept in th' stuffy atmosphere iv th' coortroom, th' State's attorney presints a handsome pitcher iv him as a fiend in human form, th' judge insthructs th' jury iv onprejudiced jurors in a hurry to get home that they ar-re th' sole judges iv th' law an' th' fact, th' law bein' that he ought to be hanged an' th' fact bein' that he will be hanged, an' befure our proletory frind comes out iv his thrance he's havin' his first thorough fill-up iv ham an' eggs, an' th' clargy ar-re showin' an amount iv inthrest in him that must be surprisin' to a man iv his humble station"

-- Finley Peter Dunne, 1899.