Shoot The Messenger

As Martin Longman points out, if you thought the Democrats were serious about trying to win the Senate back in 2016 with Sen. Elizabeth Warren in charge of strategy, all that ended Friday when the Dems placed Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia in charge of the party's messaging machine.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia was almost bounced out of Congress, primarily because he and the Democratic Party were criminally overconfident about beating tomato can, Ed Gillespie. It was a humbling experience because Warner was seen as immensely popular in his home state, and just the kind of vice-presidential candidate who could put some Electoral College delegates firmly in the hands of Hillary Clinton, or any other Democratic nominee. Warner's comeuppance didn't last too long, however. Despite leaking that he had voted against Harry Reid to remain the leader of the Senate Democrats, he was just awarded a similar kind of leadership position to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said that Warner will be "taking on the role of policy development advisor at the Democratic Policy and Communications Center."

Mmm, a healthy diet of debt nonsense and "entitlement reform" for all the poors.  The Catfood Commission is back, kids, and this time there's just one man running the whole show.

The split is particularly apparent on fiscal matters, as could be seen on the campaign trail in Virginia where Warner won an unexpectedly close re-election campaign against former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie. Warner held campaign events touting fiscal responsibility, even telling a room full of Democrats that some of them might be better off voting for Republicans if they would support a debt and deficit deal that includes revenue increases.

Looking forward to that GOP Congress for the next, oh, forever.  Just need to blow it badly enough to stick Jebbie or Rand in the Oval Office and we'll fiscally responsible our way right into total oblivion.

The 2016 Clown Car Clock Strikes Thirteen

The Hill identifies the baker's dozen of GOP goofballs potentially running for the White House in 2016, and these thirteen are a solid wall of losers each with their own problems that will prevent them from ever winning.

The current driver is Rand Paul:

Paul would not have been in the top tier just a few months ago, but since then he’s become a media sensation. He’s as comfortable bashing the president for his immigration executive actions on Fox News as he is joking about pot with Bill Maher on HBO’s “Real Time.”

In addition to inheriting his father’s campaign infrastructure, he’s moved early and aggressively to build his own from Silicon Valley to Washington.

Paul’s Libertarian streak could appeal to young voters who have tilted Democratic in recent years. And out of the top tier of establishment contenders, he has the best chance of winning the Iowa caucuses, which would make him the unquestioned frontrunner.

There's a lot of push to make Paul the libertarian version of Dubya's "compassionate conservative", where compassion is replaced by "profit margin".  For the voters who believe that everyone would be a millionaire except for those pesky government regulations and that those people just need to work 95 hours a week if they really wanted to not be poor, Paul is their man.  Bonus points for his forays into the dark urban jungle to visit the natives there to show people he cares about black and Latino voters. 

I think that's what bothers me the most about Rand Paul, that to him, voters of color are noble but ignorant savages that simply need to be educated on the wonders of Randian capitalism, like the calendar reads 1732 and Detroit is the heart of the new Dark Continent.  If we were only shown the enlightenment of Republican conservatism, we'd instantly leave behind the "Democrat plantation" forever.

That's the basis of Rand Paul's minority outreach.  Black and Latino voters are too stupid to see the truth and need to be educated by any means necessary.  It's really not too different from the days of African Colonialism or the British Raj, only it's the police doing the dirty work.  When we talk about the "modern apartheid state" here in America, it's not terribly far from the truth.

And Rand Paul is the guy packaging all that in a guilt-free wrapper for a lot of Republican voters (and more than a few young white Democratic voters too).

Of the thirteen the Hill lists, Rand Paul is by far the most dangerous.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• For the first time since 2007, a CNN poll on the mood of Americans finally find a majority, 52%, believe things are going well in the country.
• US corporations are threatening to pull support for the Affordable Care Act over the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's recent lawsuits over employee wellness programs.
• Ferguson demonstrators peacefully blocked and shut down a St Louis mall on Black Friday as protests over the death of Michael Brown continue across the country.
• Gas prices in some parts of the country may drop to the $2 a gallon mark as OPEC production quotas remain high and oil prices are dropping towards $60 a barrel.
• Sony has jumped into the smartwatch game with a crowdfunded campaign to test the waters, and the company says the response was so good, they're moving forward with manufacturing.