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You are here: Home / Cole for Congress!

Cole for Congress!

by DougJ|  March 2, 201010:43 am| 64 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity, Good News For Conservatives, We Are All Mayans Now

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More people read this thing than Kausfiles, apparently:

Pioneering political blogger Mickey Kaus took out papers to run for U.S. Senate in California, he told LA Weekly.

[…..]

And in his Kausfiles blog, Kaus has quite the widely-read bully pulpit, with an estimated readership of as many as 30,000 people daily.

I’m not a Kaus-hater, but I have to confess I just don’t “get” the Kausfiles. Who could stand reading something like that? I tried for a while. It’s worse than The Note was when Halperin ran it, stylistically.

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64Comments

  1. 1.

    Comrade Mary

    March 2, 2010 at 10:45 am

    Yeah, only a few people have ever read Kaus, but every one of them started a goat farm. That’s influence, man.

  2. 2.

    Maxwel

    March 2, 2010 at 10:48 am

    Easterbrook and Kaus – why I gave up on Slate.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 2, 2010 at 10:49 am

    To paraphrase Roman Hruska, “Even if he were [a goat-blower], there are a lot of [goat-blowers]. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all [non-goat-blowers].”

  4. 4.

    Ash Can

    March 2, 2010 at 10:51 am

    I assume “Kausfiles” is an online step-by-step manual for proper goat-blowing.

  5. 5.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 2, 2010 at 10:53 am

    @Ash Can:

    I assume “Kausfiles” is an online step-by-step manual for proper goat-blowing.

    You would think so, but you would be wrong.

  6. 6.

    Persia

    March 2, 2010 at 10:54 am

    I read it when it first moved to Slate for maybe a month. IDGI either.

  7. 7.

    Ash Can

    March 2, 2010 at 10:54 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Improper goat-blowing, then?

  8. 8.

    MikeJ

    March 2, 2010 at 10:55 am

    @Ash Can: If it were it might be useful to somebody, which is certainly not the case.

  9. 9.

    tc125231

    March 2, 2010 at 10:55 am

    I don’t know about “hating” Kaus, but he is clearly an idiot. Electing him would repopulate the Senate with YOUNG idiots to replace the OLD idiots who will eventually die.

    Since 31% of Americans believe dinosaurs and people lived at the same time, one has to believe that idiots deserve representation.

    In the the Senate, though, the percentage is already way over 31%. They don’t need Kaus.

  10. 10.

    mistermix

    March 2, 2010 at 10:56 am

    “Took out papers” — what a fucking wanker. When he actually gathers thousands of signatures on petitions, this might be as interesting as Mary Carey running for Governor.

  11. 11.

    Napoleon

    March 2, 2010 at 10:57 am

    How do we know that those 30,000 hits Kaus gets aren’t goats?

  12. 12.

    Tom Hilton

    March 2, 2010 at 10:59 am

    Why have the news media completely ignored the issue of Kaus’ alleged goat-blowing?

    Time to start a coordinated e-mail campaign to the L.A. Times (to start with) and demand that they cover it.

  13. 13.

    Michael

    March 2, 2010 at 11:00 am

    From his “I can’t even not fuck up a filing” Kausfile:

    But the basic idea would be to argue, as a Democrat, against the party’s dogma on several major issues (you can guess which ones).

    I guess “all of them.”

  14. 14.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    March 2, 2010 at 11:00 am

    First they ran a political ad in California featuring evil mutant sheep, and now Kaus wants in on some of that action. Coincidence or not? We report, you decide.

  15. 15.

    Tom Hilton

    March 2, 2010 at 11:01 am

    @mistermix: No, even then it won’t be nearly as interesting. Not that Mary Carey’s run was all that fascinating.

  16. 16.

    tagimaucia

    March 2, 2010 at 11:01 am

    I don’t like Kaus, but I have to grudgingly admit I enjoy his bloggingheads appearances with Robert Wright– they have a good repartee, and Wright usually calls him out on the most bullshitty of his bullshit.

  17. 17.

    Bulworth

    March 2, 2010 at 11:03 am

    Is he running in the GOP primary?

  18. 18.

    MattF

    March 2, 2010 at 11:04 am

    Funny how everyone’s reaction to Kausfiles is “It must have been interesting before I tried reading it.”

  19. 19.

    Mojotron

    March 2, 2010 at 11:05 am

    Can someone explain to me the history of the “Kaus blows goats/gives sexual favors to alpacas” thing?”

    and don’t forget he’s picked up the all-important libertarian-on-the-public-payroll and wingnut welfare recipient endorsements.

  20. 20.

    No Joy in Mudville

    March 2, 2010 at 11:05 am

    @tc125231:

    Since 31% of Americans believe dinosaurs and people lived at the same time, one has to believe that idiots deserve representation extinction.

    That way they could hang out with the dinosaurs.

  21. 21.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    March 2, 2010 at 11:05 am

    @Bulworth:

    Is he running in the GOP primary?

    Naw, he’s running as a Dem. He likes donkeys more than elephants. More goat-like, and easier to screw without using a ladder.

  22. 22.

    Dino

    March 2, 2010 at 11:06 am

    I liked his book on equality in early nineties. I can’t recall much but the thesis was ameliorating the tangential benefits of wealth, — e.g. the rich get better treatment from our health and legal systems — while not trying to make everyone equal monetarily.

    I never read Kausfiles, but when he claimed that the Kerry botox story was some sort of synecdoche, it cemented his status as a goat blower fellator.

    Off Topic, but real patriots should check this out this new videogame: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/528055

  23. 23.

    tjproudamerican

    March 2, 2010 at 11:06 am

    I concur!!! Mickey Kaus is the worst blogger ever because he is as dishonest as Glenn Reynolds and that aging Never-Was Blonde disaster harridan. In fact, Kaus-Reynolds-Harridan are the Three Heads of the Monster that killed the Internet as a serious place.

    In each case, Harridan, Reynolds, and Kaus, you get an old bitter white person who won’t even admit that she is a reactionary, knee-jerk George Wallace Voter, pining away for Scoop Jackson and de facto segregation.

    And whenever Slate will have some story I assume will be interesting and suddenly I click and am in Kaus’ staggeringly illiterate set of notes and “……” I wish I could unclick my presence.

  24. 24.

    David Hunt

    March 2, 2010 at 11:07 am

    Okay, as someone who found Kaus unintelligible and boring on the first and second tries and is obviously not in on the joke…What’s going on with all the goat jokes…or do I even want to know?

  25. 25.

    Bulworth

    March 2, 2010 at 11:09 am

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Because one would think, a candidate running to run against a certain party’s “dogma” would probably want to run in the other party’s primary, the party that exists in part or in whole to oppose the other party’s dogma. But Blanche Lincoln is running in the Dem primary and occupies a Senate seat for largely the same reasons, to oppose their own party’s “dogma” and hippy supporters, so who knows.

  26. 26.

    ricky

    March 2, 2010 at 11:09 am

    Mickey Kaus took out papers to run for U.S. Senate in California,
    If Kaus were serious about this political foray he would have taken the cue from the Republican plan at the Health Care
    Summit and taken out a single clean sheet of paper.

  27. 27.

    Linda Featheringill

    March 2, 2010 at 11:10 am

    I just read Kaus [some] for the first time – and I still don’t have a goat farm.

    Yeah, I know you kids want the animals so you can do something the goat is not comfortable with, but I really would like to have a goat farm. With kids and everything. And grass. And fences that are not high enough to keep the little beasties in. And all of that.

    But alas, reading Kaus didn’t get that for me. Sigh.

    But no, I did not find Kaus that interesting, either.

  28. 28.

    demo woman

    March 2, 2010 at 11:10 am

    @Napoleon: What an insult. Goats are pretty smart animals.

  29. 29.

    Tom Hilton

    March 2, 2010 at 11:10 am

    @tc125231:

    Electing him would repopulate the Senate with YOUNG idiots to replace the OLD idiots who will eventually die.

    Actually, no. He’s running for Barbara Boxer’s seat, and Boxer is no idiot.

    If he were running for Feinstein’s seat, you would be right.

  30. 30.

    Will

    March 2, 2010 at 11:10 am

    I’ve always found him unreadable. He takes contrarianism to its natural, 12-year old in the back seat of the car conclusion.

  31. 31.

    MikeJ

    March 2, 2010 at 11:11 am

    @David Hunt:

    What’s going on with all the goat jokes

    For politicians he dislikes the standard of evidence is, “you can’t prove he *didn’t* blah blah blah.” So people started holding him to his own standard, and thus far he has refused to prove he doesn’t blow goats.

  32. 32.

    ricky

    March 2, 2010 at 11:16 am

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    he’s running as a Dem. He likes donkeys more than elephants. More goat-like, and easier to screw without using a ladder.

    As a boy learning the ropes on his way to manhood, Mickey eschewed the often heard reply from a boy’s darkened room: “Not doin nothin Mom. Just breaking in my catcher’s mitt.” Instead, after kissing his Mom goodnight the young Kaus would ask if he could borrow her short haired bristle brush.

  33. 33.

    Joel

    March 2, 2010 at 11:20 am

    I assume we’re talking about the Senate in Baja, California, right?

  34. 34.

    Paul in KY

    March 2, 2010 at 11:21 am

    I think it’s funny he’s running in the Democratic primary. Hope he loses alot of money & gets shellacked by Sen. Boxer.

    i can only assume his GOP masters put him in there to cut up Sen. Boxer a bit. I would think he won’t be able to do Kausfiles while he’s running, as Sen. Boxer would demand equal time. That could be the best gift he would ever give the American public (having to shut down Kausfiles).

    The other gift would be video of him blowing a goat.

  35. 35.

    Sentient Puddle

    March 2, 2010 at 11:24 am

    Yeah, I remember trying to read him early in the decade (2002, 2003-ish). My reaction was best summed up by @MattF:

    Funny how everyone’s reaction to Kausfiles is “It must have been interesting before I tried reading it.”

    I think it was because back then, nobody’s idea of what a political blog was supposed to be was really set, and I just assumed that Kaus was writing in a format that I would just have to get used to. Of course, I then found bloggers who knew how not to ramble irately.

    Last time I tried to read him, I was dumbfounded at how he still seemed dead set in refusing to go along with conventions such as headlines, block paragraphs, and other formatting conventions that make things readable.

  36. 36.

    kindness

    March 2, 2010 at 11:24 am

    The comments on the link are great though. Who knew goat blowers needed more representation?

  37. 37.

    ricky

    March 2, 2010 at 11:27 am

    @Joel:

    Warning: Blowing on the cabrito to cool it can spread communicable diseases to others and, if done too quickly after removal from the coals, can result in burns to the lips and tongue.

  38. 38.

    Tenzil Kem

    March 2, 2010 at 11:30 am

    Please, please, please tell me this means he has to stop writing for Slate while he’s a candidate. Please.

  39. 39.

    Andy

    March 2, 2010 at 11:39 am

    I guess the goats will be pleased that he has to leave them alone while he is pretending to be a candidate.

  40. 40.

    Marc

    March 2, 2010 at 11:48 am

    He’s even worse than he used to be – all union-bashing crap, all of the time now. He appears to have learned nothing – and forgotten nothing – from the Bush years.

    Please, please let him run – so the Slate column can be axed, and he can fail to get enough signatures, and lose a lot of money, and be generally humiliated. “Puppet show and Mickey Kaus!”

  41. 41.

    Boots Day

    March 2, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    Who exactly does Kaus think his constituency is going to be? There can’t be that many Democrats who hate the Democratic Party and all that it stands for.

    I don’t recall ever seeing anyone refer positively to his blog, although I’ve seen plenty of people blast him for being such a ninny. How he’s going to turn all that negative attention into votes is anyone’s guess.

  42. 42.

    Cris

    March 2, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    @MikeJ: Do you recall where it started? I’m thinking Yglesias, but I’m not sure.

  43. 43.

    Nellcote

    March 2, 2010 at 12:21 pm

    @Paul in KY:

    The other gift would be video of him blowing a goat.

    Carlyfornia’s guy could make a demon goat ad.

  44. 44.

    Nellcote

    March 2, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    @Boots Day:

    Who exactly does Kaus think his constituency is going to be?

    BigHollywood.con?

  45. 45.

    PaulW

    March 2, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    Ooooh, I’d like to run for the US Senate here in sunny Florida!

    Do I need to file paperwork or can I just use a write-in campaign and stealth it?

  46. 46.

    Paul in KY

    March 2, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    Nellcote, with Carly’s money, I’d expect high production values & some good CGI (if they can’t get actual footage of the goatalingus).

  47. 47.

    Tonybrown74

    March 2, 2010 at 12:42 pm

    These people really believe their own shit, don’t they? He’s actually going to take on Barbara Boxer in a primary from the right?

    The only [sensible] reason to do this would be to weaken her in the general by trying to show that she is too liberal for California.

  48. 48.

    BrianM

    March 2, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    The End of Equality had an intriguing key idea:

    + Inequality of wealth (capitalism) is a useful driver of productive activity.

    + Efforts to reduce inequality haven’t been wildly successful.

    + Wealth needn’t be the only source of status and self/societal worth. (Obligatory de Tocqueville quote about how, in America Back Then, the honest tradesman could look the richest man in town proudly in the eye and consider himself his equal.)

    + So the liberal program ought to stop focusing on wealth equality and focus on the other kind(s). Recommendations were things like universal health care (we’re all in this together), heavy support of public schools (as a place where all wealth strata can meet at an impressionable age), spending money on the public square, not building public buildings out of cheapo cinderblock but rather something that made public service look dignified, and so on. [Even then, the recommendations seemed weak in the face of the advantages of wealth.]

    The book was reasonably well-written, with paragraphs, complete sentences, prudent use of exclamation points and all that.

    All this was pre-intertubes. Something dreadful happened to him since then.

  49. 49.

    Jeff Fecke

    March 2, 2010 at 12:50 pm

    @Cris:

    It was Yglesias’ commenters. Kaus had written a “John Edwards Can’t Prove He Didn’t Have Sex” post (hey, even a blind squirrel), and someone pointed out that hey, Mickey Kaus can’t prove he didn’t felate that goat….

  50. 50.

    Fencedude

    March 2, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    For those curious, I dug the links up earlier.

    Mickey Kaus blows goats, Part the First and Part the Second

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    March 2, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    Well, we had a pr0n star run for governator, so it’s only fair that a third fourth-rate, Canadian, goat-lovin’ (“irresponsible not to speculate…”) blogger gets a shot. However, it runs contra to the current rule that statewide candidates must be billionaires.

  52. 52.

    Tax Analyst

    March 2, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    Cole for Congress!

    Excellent! I think just about everyone here will be looking forward to Nancy Pelosi whipping John into line now and then.

  53. 53.

    tc125231

    March 2, 2010 at 3:59 pm

    @No Joy in Mudville: Good one.

  54. 54.

    tc125231

    March 2, 2010 at 4:03 pm

    @Tom Hilton: Boxer is not an idiot. But Kaus assuredly is.

    But McCain and company will eventually die. Kaus’s presence would ensure that the torch of imbecility was not dropped.

    However, given that the Senate’s moron quotient already exceeds 50%, I don’t think he is needed.

    I hope she hands him his lunch.

  55. 55.

    tc125231

    March 2, 2010 at 4:06 pm

    @Tenzil Kem: Man, that would be a plus. He and John Dickerson are 90% of why I no longer read Slate.

  56. 56.

    Tax Analyst

    March 2, 2010 at 4:09 pm

    Oh, BTW – Kaus is an idiot AND a fool here. There is no way he primaries Boxer.

    But thanks for playing, Mickey Dickhead.

  57. 57.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    March 2, 2010 at 4:15 pm

    @Tax Analyst:

    Excellent! I think just about everyone here will be looking forward to Nancy Pelosi whipping John into line now and then.

    Naw, it would be the other way around. John would be the Democratic House Mop. If the cats don’t respond to herding, Nancy could threaten them with Naked Mopping.

  58. 58.

    tammanycall

    March 2, 2010 at 4:16 pm

    His candidacy makes no sense. If he were to run in the GOP primary as a moderate Republican, he might have a chance. But an anti-union, anti-immigrant candidate running against an incumbent in a California Democratic primary? Lunacy.

  59. 59.

    asiangrrlMN

    March 2, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    I suggested in an earlier thread to get a BJer from each state that has an election to run. I think it would be a great stunt, and who knows? We might even win a few elections! Except, instead of Cole, I propose Tunch for Congress. He could use the Paw of Doom to swipe the recalcitrant Dems and force them to get with the program.

  60. 60.

    Tax Analyst

    March 2, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    Naw, it would be the other way around. John would be the Democratic House Mop. If the cats don’t respond to herding, Nancy could threaten them with Naked Mopping.

    The Naked Nu-Colear Moption?

    That’s a really stretched-out pun, isn’t it?

  61. 61.

    JGabriel

    March 2, 2010 at 6:31 pm

    Pioneering political blogger Mickey Kaus …

    Pioneering? That’s a strange word to apply to Mickey Kaus — I’m pretty sure that goat-blowing has been around almost as long as mankind has been herding and milking ruminants.

    (I wish I had more insider-y, on-point, jokes to make about Kaus than the old “goat-blowing” routines, but I stopped reading him years ago, for the same reason Doug mentions: the guy is unreadable – just a painfully bad writer.)

    .

  62. 62.

    Brian J

    March 2, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    Whoa, for a long time, I thought I was the only one who hated the way he wrote. I mean, Jesus Christ, it’s like he never learned how to end a sentence…very annoying…did he not finish school? And why…oh why…is he running for the Senate if he doesn’t expect to win?…. Come on now….

  63. 63.

    Quiddity

    March 2, 2010 at 7:39 pm

    I doubt those 30,000 hits a day. The comment section is rather sparse for that kind of traffic.

Comments are closed.

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  1. Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » SATSQ says:
    March 2, 2010 at 11:26 am

    […] Cole for Congress! 02 Mar SATSQ […]

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