Family values will be a fun campaign issue in 2012:
Republican Sen. John Ensign said Monday that not only does he have no intention of resigning in light of his affair and his parents’ payout to the woman’s family, he plans to seek reelection when his term is up in 2012.
Ensign told the Las Vegas Sun he has received calls and e-mails of encouragement from supporters both in Nevada and Washington.
When asked Monday whether he had any thoughts about stepping down, Ensign said his supporters are sending one message: “They say, ‘Don’t.’ ”
“I fully plan on running for reelection,” Ensign said late Monday evening. “I’m going to work to earn their respect back.”
I will be really surprised if there is not a primary challenge for him in the future. Then again, so much of the family values nonsense is just whipping up the bubbas and gay-bashing, and not actually living up to those values, so maybe just having a ginormous loudmouthed hypocrite like Ensign rewarded for having an affair and then paying off the family is just a natural progression for the GOP. In their own way, they’re just keeping it real.
Parole Officer Burke
I call foul. This post title was reserved for McCain’s obituary.
GregB
Perhaps we should start a rumor that there was a secret grass roots effort by the left wing to call and encourage Ensign not to resign so that we’ll have him and his sleazy swingers ethics issues to kick around for a long time to come.
We can make him the perennial punchline the same way the right has used Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank.
-G
Hunter Gathers
By then, no one who votes in Nevada Republican primaries will care, then he’ll get destroyed in November. Stupid is as stupid does.
parksideq
@John Cole,
Why would you be surprised if Ensign doesn’t get primaried? I’d be surprised if he DOES. First, it’s abundantly clear that “family values” is just an empty rhetorical phrase to the GOP. Also, who in Nevada would have a chance to beat him? For good or ill, the GOP is stuck with him for as long as he wishes to stay in office.
kid bitzer
hey, did you see larry craig resign? has david vitter resigned?
i mean–sure, eliot spitzer resigned. but then he’s a democrat.
so, what: you want ensign to switch party affiliation or something?
The Saff
The thing that gets me is that nobody in the media brings up the hypocracy to these morons. It would be nice if a reporter asked Ensign, “So, how do you reconcile your calls for Bill Clinton to resign in 1998 when you did something similar?”
These people are shameless.
Jim
…and even better news for Rudy Giuliani!
I wonder if he’s not just postponing the announcement of his retirement so he can pretend it’s not because of this.
T Paine
To recap: live boy or dead girl; Jeebus forgives; IOKIYAR
Next?
MattF
“Family values” just means “no gays allowed.” Blackmail, adultery, payoffs, screwing the staff, and trips to Buenos Aires are prerogatives of Elected Officials.
joe from Lowell
Hmm. Republican. Scandal-besmirched. Running for re-election. In a state Obama won. During the 2012 cycle, when Obama will be running for re-election.
I say go for it.
El Tiburon
What Kid Bitzer said.
The only two sex acts these so called “family-values” crowd find offensive is homo-gay love and Sex by Democrat.
Balconesfault
Wonkette said it best on the Rachael Maddow show the other day – “Republicans are boundless in their ability to forgive other Republicans”.
Librarian
Well, of course. Republicans believe they are God’s elect and have a divine right to rule, so they can’t just give up power. They circle the wagons and defend each other from those evil libruls. So, neither Ensign nor Sanford will ever resign.
The Moar You Know
He’ll win in a walk. These people don’t give a shit about what “their people” do. Is Larry Craig gone? Sanford? Vitter?
None of ’em.
The beat goes on.
ellaesther
@Librarian: Well, apparently this is the literal belief of Ensign and Sanford and their friends in The Family…. They are the elect, and so the rules literally don’t apply. (Which disturbs me even more than their hypocrisy, and way more than the fact that they cheated on their wives…).
General Winfield Stuck
I’m going to write a letter to my Senator requesting he submit a Bill designating the GOP Senate Caucus a National Landmark Red Light District.
DonnaInMichigan
The GOP believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and his mistresses.
Comrade Dread
The Five Stages of Political Scandal:
1) Denial: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman. I was hiking the Appalachian trail.”
2) Anger: “If I did have sexual relations with that woman, it’s a private personal matter between me and my wife and my alleged mistress, and besides, Democrats have done a lot worse. I mean, hell, at least my alleged mistress is kind of hot, unlike that one intern I won’t mention. Also, up yours, liberal media. Stop persecuting me! Wah!”
3) Bargaining: “Okay, maybe if I did kind of, sort of cross the line and did things I’m not proud of, it wouldn’t affect my ability to continue to service- serve my constituents one hot chick/dude at a time.”
4) Depression: “I crossed the line. It was a personal failing. I’m sorry (that I got caught). With the help of God, Buddha, Vishnu, the Prophet and my local Voodoo man, I think I can regain your trust and the trust of my wife (because you’re all suckers who believe in that sort of stuff.)
5) Acceptance: “Well, I guess my Presidential ambitions are over, but I will run for re-election to my current job, and if that doesn’t pan out, I’m sure I can get a high-paying lobbyist position for the agriculture/tobacco/defense contractor/financial industries and use my knowledge of my fellow congressman’s relationships with their interns to reap huge rewards in the private sector. God bless America!”
blogenfreude
@Parole Officer Burke: FTW.
Ensign and Sanford are downright dangerous given the people they hang out with. They and politicians like them need to be driven from office.
Aqualad08
Why is that every time a Republican caught in a scandal and decides to stay on, they refer to phantom messages of encouragement from anonymous supporters as the reason for sticking around? And why doesn’t the media ask them for some samples of those messages?
Crashman06
Republicans only seem to get a primary challenge from the right if they don’t embrace a “tax cuts now, tax cuts forever” philosophy. The family values thing will be forgotten about, or ignored by the time he’s up for reelection.
Rank hypocrisy.
kay
The Sanfords are my favorite. That was a masterful con, and the entire national media fell for it, although the local papers in South Carolina didn’t.
While the idiots in DC were promoting Sanford’s wife as some kind of feminist icon, she was on the phone calling in markers to keep her husband in power. She got him elected, and she kept him in power.
Complete con from beginning to end, including the numerous tearful press conferences. Masterful.
The Sanford’s make the Edwards and the Clintons look like political rubes. I am in awe of the duplicity of that couple, and amazed at how the national media swoons for the machinations of conservative power couples without fail.
Michael
The Great Orange Satan has an excellent diary by Troutfishing (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/14/82949/2014?detail=f#c118) that links this spooky article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/john-ensign-linked-to-do_b_231272.html
The upshot is that Ensign’s in the “Do It Yourself” exorcism movement. Remember Aimee Semple McPherson’s “Foursquare Church”? That’s his.
These people are scary in a Heinlein/Sinclair sort of way.
Zifnab
Ensign For Senate: He’s not gay!
Ensign 2012: He loves your wife as much as he loves his own.
Re-elect John Ensign for Senate and he’ll keep the much-besieged tabloid industry humming for years to come.
Napoleon
Ensign may not be seriously primaried for an entirely practical reason. The Rep party in that state have absolutely been decimated with scandals and the like. There is not much of a bench for someone to come off of to primary Ensign.
Ash Can
In all seriousness, this has to be fantastic news for whoever his Democratic opponent will be. The stump speeches and political ads will practically write themselves.
Just Some Fuckhead
How can these good-looking straight white guys step down when you got Larry Craig, a closeted old queen publicly outed as a bathroom cruiser, practically rubbing everyone’s nose in it? It ain’t fair.
someguy
Family values is just a ploy to keep the rubes on the right voting Republican, kind of like how promises of increasingly progressive taxation is just a ploy to keep dumbasses on the left voting Democratic.
After about the 50th time I heard it I realized it was just a f***in’ lie, and Goldman Sachs and a couple other companies basically own the two parties. I’m losing hope in the current guy pretty quick.
So what’s your flavor? Vanilla with nuts, lots of nuts? Or Vanilla with multi-colored sprinkly bits?
ricky
Keep Ensign Poker.
ricky
Bordellos are legal in Nevada!
Trollhattan
For the life of me I can’t figure out who the “average” Nevada voter might me. Since more than half of the population emigrated there in the last decade or two it seems reasonable to assume the senate seats are up for grabs every six years, or at least more so than most states.
This Ensign fellow may seem perfectly reasonable to a Vegas 21 dealer.
SiubhanDuinne
@kay: Fascinating, and I don’t doubt it for one minute, but I’d love to see a link.
Anne Laurie
Fixt.
JGabriel
Deleted by author. Made a joke, and other people got there first. Should have known.
.
Political Pragmatist
Actually, Ensign isn’t a loudmouth. He is an empty suit. He is an ineffective spokesman for anything, but will be an effective target in 2012. The worst news for Nevada’s GOP is his refusal to resign.
My take from Las Vegas
DRD 1812
Apropos of Ensign, Sanford, Edwards, etc.
“Politician,” by Cream
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
I want to just show you what my politics are.
I’m a political man and I practice what I preach.
I’m a political man and I practice what I preach.
So don’t deny me baby, not while you’re in my reach.
I support the left, though I’m leaning, leaning to the right.
I support the left, though I’m leaning to the right.
But I’m just not there when it’s coming to a fight.
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
I want to just show you what my politics are.
Nancy Irving
Is that porn actress still running against Vitter in Louisiana? Maybe she has a friend in the prostitution business in Nevada who can challenge Ensign in the primary.
Reggie Greene / The Logistician
There is a very simple reason why disgraced politicians should immediately resign no matter what the offense, or the talent they may possess which could benefit society: in this partisan, acrimonious, political environment in which we currently live, and at this point in time in our nation’s evolution, any elected official needs as much support from his constituency which he or she can gather. After the offense, that support base will undoubtedly diminish, and render their service less effective.
As for resignation, you might check out this.