Democrats, defeating themselves...

Grasping defeat from the jaws of victory...

The NRSC (I think) is running a brutal ad of liberal commentators condemning [Senate hopeful, Jack] Conway, and a columnist (a pastor, no less!) in the Louisville Courier-Journal approvingly cited Jonathan Chait's condemnation of Conway this morning.

-Joshua Green

Snickering at the religious right just doesn't win elections in America.

(I wonder if Chait looked at Rand Paul's take on abortion - I'm *sure* that didn't come from Ayn Rand. It's like the Will & Grace episode in which everyone discovers that the candidate they assumed as something, was something else...)

It burns that Rand Paul may get through the ring on this. If he was going to be a Congressman, that's one thing. But this is the U.S. Senate.

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Rand Paul: Talks Like a Fireman, But He's Really an Arsonist

No regulatory bodies? Free market ya-hoo?

While mine safety has improved over the years, mining accidents have claimed five lives in Kentucky this year alone five too many. Rand Paul has callously said, in regard to tragedies like this, that ‘sometimes accidents happen,’ and he advocates eliminating mine safety regulations as well as other workplace safety regulations. Too many lives have been lost for us to allow Rand Paul to erase safety rules. We must continue to be vigilant by enforcing strong safety rules, implementing new technology, and requiring safety training.

-Jack Conway

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Rand Paul: How to look reasonable while saying wacky things

$50,000 exemption on a national sales tax.

Now, we collect sales tax at the point of sale.

So, how is Big Government going to keep track of whether this or that sale is exempt?

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Is the media covering Rand Paul's abortion stance?

How does Paul poll with women? Good grief, I'm not a follower or close-watcher of his bizarrely ranging opinions, but ... Reason has this dope.

Libertarian Party Vice Chairman Joshua Koch cites Paul's support for a federal abortion ban, along with his opposition to gay marriage and his refusal to call for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, as grounds for running a candidate against him this fall, which he says the party is considering. "We're not going to let Rand determine what a Libertarian stands for," Koch, an erstwhile Paul supporter, told The Washington Post. "I'm here to say Rand does not have the Libertarian ideology."

Given what we know about 'Aqua Buddha', where does Rand come up with these views?

He's the one who has put his beliefs up for questioning, no? Both his actions and his unique views on abortion, yes?

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Jack Conway fails to press the advantage

The Kentucky debate, agreed to by Rand Paul only after 'Aqua Buddha' and his secret society caused his advisors to push him to it, was apparently bland.

This means Jack Conway was cowed or ill advised. "Bland" only affirms Paul.

One tires of a situation in which the Right is free to cast aspersions and make intimations about a Godless Left and the Left just stares back like a deer in headlights, sometimes with 'oh, that's unreasonable and stupid'.

There's not much that Conway can do about this [Republican lean in his state]. He played a lot of "me too" on Monday, bashing the Wall Street bailout and cap and trade and arguing that the healthcare reform law needs to be altered (but not junked completely), but his party label makes it unlikely that voters who are preoccupied with these issues will support him. His stage presence also left something to be desired. While Paul sat up straight and spoke forcefully and with inflection, Conway's delivery was subdued and he spent far too much time looking at his own lap while speaking.-Salon

Meanwhile, the fear and anger on the Right is running over and means that, in a voter turnout election, the Republicans really do look likely to stun Democrats:

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Showing pictures of your kids proves you have Christ in your Heart

Truth is that Rand Paul believes more in private property than Jesus. He even said so, more or less, when he said that private ownership gave people special moral rights to discriminate against black families.

Without answering whether the facts of what were asserted were true and thereby leveling a bizarre charge of "false witness", Rand Paul shows up with the typical stuff that we suffer from the Right, every election:

Pictures of kids and family as proof that "Christ is in your Heart".

Sometimes, the implication is even bizarre: pictures of large families, with 8+ children as proof that one is somehow "worthy". Tell, me if you have two kids, does that mean you have twice as much 'Christ in your Heart' as one? We know from science, after a certain number siblings, it's really not optimal for the kids ...

So, cheers to Jack Conway for standing up to the false images, messages, and pretenses of the Rightwing hacks and pretenders for Jesus. Octomom will be the next Teapublican candidate, no doubt.

Truth is that Rand Paul believes more in private property than Jesus. He even said so, more or less, when he said that private ownership gave people special moral rights to discriminate against black families. Bleh. Eliminating the Department of Education? Bleh. That's where the funding for kids with disabilities is.



Rachel Maddow gives the much needed context for Rand Paul and the pass that he and others are getting this year. If this doesn't close the enthusiasm gap, it's hard to know what else will:



*Quoting The Weekly Standard as an authority to pass judgment on what is shameful is a hoot.

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"Are you questioning his faith?"

This is the question that Anderson Cooper had for KY Senatorial hopeful Conway, on his ad about Rand Paul.

Innocuous on face and perhaps on point.

But, consider how that question just willfully ignores the entire milieu in which that ad dropped.

So, Amen! Jack Conway and pass the ammunition.

Consider that holding a "value voters" summit isn't just a tacit way to question the faith of those who apparently don't hold "values". Consider how that is backed up by the profane "goddess" pundit, who pens a book, Godless. Consider how many times you've had to listen to Karl "I skipped out on a House subpeona" Rove talk about how 'church-going folks' are going to respond to this or that message, which is just his way of dog-whistling a faith test. Consider the long history of abuse, and how the political assertion of a "moral majority" is a direct challenge to everyone else's faith. Consider even within the year the Manhattan Declaration and its highly political air of moral superiority, which does worse than question the faith of an individual, it questions the faith of entire groups, including ostensively religious groups.

So, Amen! Jack Conway and pass the ammunition.

I'm so sick of giving the Rightwing a "pass" on their airs and pretenses to religious superiority and piety that it's well past time to light a fire.

Update:

Chait, depressed or something, is predictably in tears, poor thing.

Erza Klein is lost in the weeds, apparently still not proverbially smarting over whether Kerry was in Cambodia and thinking that really was/is of prime relevance.

Mark Ambinder uses language to paper over the facts, "Jack Conway continues to question Rand Paul's college flirtation with religious hijinks, ..." Uh, you don't join an organized group and call it a "flirtation". Do it on your own, it's a flirtation; but join a group, and that's dedication. Anyway, the hijinks were apparently more than flirtational hijinks, because the group was kicked off the Baylor campus, reportedly.

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