Month: May 2008

California took a giant step toward becoming the second state to legalize gay marriage — the other is Massachusetts — in light of a ruling by the state supreme court today:
“The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.”
— Ruling

Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.

In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the “fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship.” The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.

“The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion.

Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry “will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage,” George said.

In addition, he said, the current state law discriminates against same-sex couples on the basis of their sexual orientation – discrimination that the court, for the first time, put in the same legal category as racial or gender bias.

Hoping to drum up support for John McCain in the presidential election this November, conservatives are attempting to place an initiative on the ballot that would ban gay marriage by amending the state constitution. “Protect Marriage,” the group organized to promote the initiative, paid $1.5 million to petition-gatherers who claimed to have collected 1.1 million signatures — far in excess of the 694,000 signatures they needed. The signatures are currently being validated by county election offices.

While it is likely there will be enough valid signatures to qualify the initiative, civil rights experts point out that the petitioning was a mercenary operation — workers were paid for each signature they collected — rather than a volunteer, grass-roots effort. This could signal weak support among California voters in the fall.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vetoed two bill that passed the legislature that would have legalized gay marriage, says he will oppose the ballot measure.

“It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 – 1899), lawyer and orator

Einstein supposedly said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The leader of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) confirmed that he and his colleagues are bat-shit crazy:
NRCC Chair Cole is undaunted by yesterday’s results, calling the anti-Obama strategy a “useful tool” for hitting Dems in conservative areas.

It looks like the GOP plans to continue its efforts to damage down-ticket Dems by tying them to Barack Obama — even though this strategy completely failed to defeat the Dem candidate who won a big upset victory in the Mississippi special election yesterday.

On a conference call with reporters today, NRCC chair Tom Cole confirmed that the party will continue using Obama to tar Dem House candidates, in much the way the GOP has historically used figures like Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi to do the same.

The NRCC and the local GOP candidate in Mississippi ran ads tying Travis Childers to Obama and even to Jeremiah Wright, but Childers won yesterday by a comfortable eight-point margin.

But Cole is undaunted by yesterday’s results, calling the anti-Obama strategy a “useful tool” for hitting Dems in conservative areas: “I think reminding people that we have a very liberal, and I think very inexperienced Democratic nominee, and that your opponent is likely to be supporting that individual, is interesting.”

The NRCC’s strategy of nationalizing the special elections is based on this sort of polling:

According to internal NRCC numbers obtained by The Hill, Obama has a 32 percent favorable and 58 percent unfavorable rating in Mississippi’s 1st district, where Republicans nearly lost a special election last week to a Democratic takeover. The race will go to a runoff May 13.

His numbers were better but similar, 37-50, in Louisiana’s 6th district, where a special will be held Saturday.

Pelosi’s numbers in those two districts were 18-39 and 24-47, respectively.

“We like the way that’s unfolding,” Cole said. “We would rather be running national elections.”

The flaws in the strategy aret a) the Republican Party disgraced itself while it was in power and no longer has credibility with anyone except the most hardcore GOP dead-enders and b) voters aren’t worried about the connection between the Blue Dog Democrats in these special elections and the party leadership.

Rep. Cole’s insanity is fueling talk that he might be replaced, and quick:

[A House GOP] leadership aide told Real Clear Politics that something new is going to happen at the NRCC. “People look at Cole, and they say, ‘What are you going to do to change?’ And if he doesn’t want to change, change is going to be forced on him.”

The leadership aide suggested that a former NRCC chairman, Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, could take on a larger role in the coming months. Davis, who is retiring after this session of Congress, ran the committee earlier this decade and currently serves as chairman of the NRCC executive committee. The adviser suggested, instead, that the wounded NRCC presents an opportunity for other members of the caucus to help out their fellow Republicans with political action committee donations, setting up future advancement for themselves.

Our favorite arch-conservative Richard Viguerie has his panties all in a twist over the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. He’s got such a hard-on for John McCain and other fake conservatives that he started a blog called Ultimate John McCain. As if he didn’t already have enough platforms from which to eulogize the passing of the Pillars of Conservatism: Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley.

Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal
-media politicians are replaced.

Viguerie does not mince words when opening a can of WhupAss on the Repugs:

Republican leaders in the White House, the Congress, and the Republican National Committee and its affiliates, along with most Republican leaders at the state level, have failed — or outright betrayed — the conservative voters who put them in their positions.

The result is that the party’s “brand” has become a negative, to an extent greater than in the Watergate era, perhaps worse than in the days of Herbert Hoover.

When he’s right, I have to agree with the old right-winger:

The hard work of the last 50 years by millions of conservative campaign workers, donors, candidates, writers, intellectuals, and activists has been trashed. The conservative movement has been set back 10-20 years — possibly even permanently – by politicians consumed by power, including but certainly not limited to Denny Hastert, Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, party chairman Mike Duncan, and their friends.

Viguerie builds to a crescendo of colorful hyperbole before invoking the Three Horsemen of Conservatism:

Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal-media politicians are replaced mostly with principled conservatives in the mold of Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Hey Richard, you left out greedy, larcenous, adulterous, bibulous, fatuous and generally morally bereft.

Viguerie didn’t get around to bashing John McCain in this post. He had bigger fish to rail at, namely calling for all Republican office holders at all levels of government to step down and allow for the next generation of REAL conservatives to step up.

Of the three comments on the post, my favorite was this excerpt:

McStain is closer to “The Manchurian Candidate” than anything else. There is no way I’m voting for him or the two pods from the Dumbcrat side. My choice was Ron paul. (sic)

With bright lights like that on his side, Richard Viguerie sure has his work cut out for him.

3. May 13:

Democrat Travis Childers wins a U.S. House seat in Mississippi’s deeply Republican 1st Congressional District.

Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a special election to fill the final few months of a two-year term in Congress. The seat was vacated when Roger Wicker was appointed to the U.S. Senate after Trent Lott resigned.

2. May 4:

State Rep. Don Cazayoux won the special election in Louisiana’s 6th district yesterday, a victory that marks the second time this year that Democrats have won a seat previously held by a Republican.

Cazayoux, a conservative Democrat, defeated former state Rep. Woody Jenkins, 49 percent to 46 percent for a seat held by Rep. Richard Baker (R) for the past two decades. (Baker resigned to take over as the head of the Managed Funds Association.) Cazayoux will serve out the remaining months of Baker’s term before running for a full two-year stint in the fall.

1. March 8:

The Democratic Party scored a major symbolic win last night when a soft-spoken Democratic physicist claimed the suburban Chicago seat held by the former Republican House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, for nearly 21 years.

Democrat Bill Foster took 52 percent of the vote to 48 percent for Republican dairy magnate Jim Oberweis, in a district that President Bush won in 2004 with 55 percent. The Democratic victory in what was once a safe Republican seat gave the clearest sign yet that the anti-GOP wave that swept Republicans from control of Congress in 2006 may still be rolling.

“A victory in the seat held by Speaker Hastert will send a political shock wave that will be felt across the country,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “It’s a stunning repudiation of President Bush, his allies and John McCain, who wants to carry on his legacy.”

Dear Dr. Democrat:

Did we always have super delegates? I don’t remember ever hearing the term before this year.

Unsure About Supers

Dear Unsure:

The super delegates were added after the McGovern nomination in order to prevent the party from ever again nominating high-minded, wine-sipping, arugula-munching intellectual elites who don’t stand a chance in the general election. Obviously, it has been an abysmal failure.

But seriously, the purpose of the super delegate system is to stop a too-liberal, unelectable candidate in a close election from getting the nomination at the convention. The idea was that if it should ever come to pass again that the hoi poloi gave the popular vote to an unelectable effete, the super delegates, who are mostly current or former elected officials, would step in and save the day by choosing a more palatable (i.e., conservative) candidate.

It’s popular to cast Clinton as being evil because she might play this card, but the card was put there to be played. That being said, I don’t think she’ll do it — and if she tries, I don’t think the supers will go for it. Feinstein and even Schumer have signaled they won’t vote for her.

But, as the saying goes, the rules are the rules.

Dr. D