Kentucky’s primaries are today and the big story is here in my home district of KY-4, where GOP Rep. Geoff Davis is retiring. Sen. Rand Paul has stepped into the race, backing the Tea Party nutjob du jour around here, Thomas Massie, in the last several weeks. The entrance of Paul’s influence into the race all but assures Massie will win in a landslide out of the pack of seven Republicans running. Joe Sonka:
Either Thomas Massie now wins the race easily, or he loses and shows that support for the rEVOLution among the Kentucky GOP is starting to vanish. We’re betting on the former.
Here’s the question I’m more intrigued by: Did Master McConnell give Paul permission to make this ad (granting an exemption due to Old Man Bunning calling out Rand Paul as a failure), or is he going rogue? And if he’s going rogue, will McConnell retaliate, and how? And will there be woodchippers involved?
I don’t know about woodchippers, but I do know that Rand’s dad getting out of the race sure spared his son from having to make too many awkward answers to the “Romney vs Paul” question with Old Age Mutant Nimrod Turtle Mitch McConnell looking on. Meanwhile, this is yet another race where Citizens United SuperPACs have dropped seven figures to assure a win.
Bill Adkins, the Democratic favorite in his head-to-head primary versus Greg Frank, has raised…about $14,000. It’s a shame too, because Bill Adkins is that rarest of breeds: A Kentucky Democrat who isn’t running screaming from President Obama.
Bill Adkins, one of two Democrats running in the 4th Congressional District, said he believes government-payer health care system can best tackle the inefficiencies and problems and that’s the way to preserve Medicare.“Single payer is my preference. I think that the compromise that is the buy-the-insurance mandate is an incremental move,” Adkins said (7:00).
He also said he would consider one of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s proposals — to decrease the level of benefits for seniors with the highest incomes, known as means testing.
Adkins, a Williamstown lawyer and the Grant County Democratic Party Chairman, said he decided to get into the 4th District race because he said he wanted to make sure there was a full discussion of the issues.
“We needed a Democratic presence in this race,” he said.
Yeah, that’s right, a Kentucky Democrat who acts like a real gorram Democrat. Single payer. I love this guy. The problem is after redistricting, KY-4 has gone from fairly conservative to blood red. Adkins is going to need a miracle against Massie if the scene plays out today as I suspect.
Not completely giving up on Adkins either. He’s definitely one of the folks we need in Congress.
FraAnima
+2 points for the Serenity swear.
liberal
The bizarre thing is that the name “Thomas Massie” was the same as someone I had when I TA’ed a class at MIT aeons ago. OK…so I went to the campaign website. Oh oh…face looked similar. Looked at bio…”two engineering degrees from MIT.” When I knew him he was interested in robotics.
Huh. Kid was pretty smart way back when and not unreasonable. Either he got bonked on the head, or it’s akin to the the Salem conjecture run wild.
Zandar
@liberal: I know. An MIT engineer turned Tea Party asshole, he’s killing me. Guy took his patents and said REGULATION IS ALL UP IN MY GRILL and went the full Galt.
He’s just unrepentantly awful.
MikeJ
@liberal: Libertarian? Robots?
Probably building fuck toys for Glenn Reynolds.
Davis X. Machina
@Zandar: The nerve of him, getting his degrees from a land-grant institution.
Are there no private, for-profit engineering schools?
liberal
@MikeJ:
As a frequent technoskeptic, I’m not a big robot fan myself, but he was pretty good at math.
liberal
@Zandar:
I don’t know anything about him from after that class.
I do find it funny that so many engineers become libertarian douchebags. (Standard disclaimer: yes, some engineers are both very smart and very politically reasonable.) Not sure whether it’s a cognitive mindset thing, a political economy thing (e.g. the institutional economics of engineering vs e.g. science), or…
MikeJ
@Davis X. Machina: I would also bet that MIT’s robotics program wouldn’t exist without the yearly cash dump from Uncle Sugar.
liberal
@MikeJ:
Not sure about robotics, but back in the day and presumably now a huge amount of their funding was DoD-related.
liberal
@Davis X. Machina:
Heh. Though I’ll put my Georgist hat on and point out that if you’re talking land, you’re talking rent, not profit, at least in the lingo of classical (ie, pre-neo-classical) economics.
liberal
@Zandar:
That’s another facet of the incoherence and inconsistency of right-wing libertarianism that I don’t see discussed enough—how many of these assholes are against government-granted intellectual property?
Todd
I live in KY-04, in the far western reaches of this atrociously gerrymandered crappile of a congressional district. I have few interests in common with the suburban/exurban Cincinnati teatards; I have zero in common with the people of Boyd County.
If you look at the map, it is a nightmare. They’ve diluted the hell out of Louisville interests (and absolutely crushed representation along the river from Cincinnati to the east) to basically give Cincinnati an extra congressional seat, all because they’re the most reliably stupid conservative voters around.
The efforts over the years to shut down the liberality of Louisville voters have intensified, all while evil Louisville funds their roads, bridges, teachers and government salaries.
ETA – Happily cast my Adkins primary ballot, and am pleased that the SuperPAC purchased calls from Massie will cease (wife is still registered GOP, and they’re relentless in home calls).
jprfrog
I am dating myself, but what the hell:
McConnell is much less charming than then a Ninja Turtle. What he really brings to absurd life is that great old MGM cartoon rooster Foghorn Leghorn. (“Mah friends…. and ah know you’all are mah friends…”). Check out a Youtube or two and see.
liberal
@Todd:
Well, of course, this really is the case of “both sides do it”. I live in suburban MD, very liberal district, and given the “prisoner’s dilemma” of this aspect of politics, I hope the Dems gerrymander the f*ck out of the Republicans; it’s not like we have much choice in the matter.
Well, of course, there’s a choice, and some idiot political science prof around here had an op-ed or something in the Wash Post saying the MD Dems shouldn’t do that; it’d be better for MDers on the whole not to gerrymander. That of course entirely overlooks the national situation, where the only way it would be fair would be if some Republican state committed not to gerrymander. (Though I can’t see how such commitments are really enforceable.)
Myself, I don’t find the logic of “geographical representation” compelling at all. What’s the benefit? Pork? “Constituent services?”
Mike
Adkins’ opponent, Greg Frank, is a libertarian nutball. He’s penned what will undoubtedly be the beach-reading smash of the summer, “Common Sense II: Death of Democracy” (the “II” is the WTC). His “principles” include reimbursement of monies paid into Medicare and Social Security and drug testing for all federal employees. Good for a brief click.
Gatewood Galbraith used to run as an Independent on similarly loopy libertarian platforms — although he really pushed the legalized weed angle. Frank’s candidacy is the first time I’d seen a libertarian run on a Democratic ticket, though.
burnspbesq
@jprfrog:
Foghorn Leghorn was a Warner Bros. character.
Fourteen comments and none of the usual suspects has suggested that woodchippers would be an excellent solution to the problem of excessive Republican influence. Must all still be asleep.
Also worth noting: the Supremes granted cert. in Clapper v. Amnesty International, an important standing case involving a challenge to the 2008 FISA amendments. We talked about this cas at some length in last week’s discussion of the preliminary injunction in Hedges.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/05/clapper-and-the-future-of-surveillance/
gypsy howell
Slightly OT, but can someone explain to me (because I am dense, I guess) what Ronpaul’s “rEVOLution” thing means.
What is the meaning of the EVOL part?
Best I can figure, EVOL is the opposite of LOVE, which actually does make sense to me, given his “fuck you I got mine” outlook on life. I just don’t think that’s what THEY mean by it. Or do they?
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
I can kinda see the point of “geographical representation” in states that have lots of geographical differences. It makes some sense here in California to put the coastal communities on one side of the mountains into one district and the desert communities on the other side into a different district since the two areas’ concerns are going to be quite different.
Not sure what the point of it is in states where the geography is pretty much all the same.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
If it weren’t for Los Angeles County, California would be a red state. Republicans get their revenge when they can. For example, the new map has forced two Democratic incumbents into a single district, resulting in the loss of one pretty decent Congresscritter regardless of whether Sherman or Berman wins.
feebog
@ burnspbesq:
I live in that new district; now CD 30. The redistricting commission had a mandate, and they followed it. One mandate was to disregard where politicians lived when drawing lines. The problem for Berman was that the majority of his district was moved into a minority-majority district, which he would have had a tough time holding onto in any case. On the other hand, Sherman retained about 60% of his old territory. Sherman could have moved north, into what was Gallegys old district in Ventura county, but he wisely decided that he had a better chance in the new CD.
It is a shame that one of these guys will lose, but overall the redistricting will result in a net gain of 2 to 4 new democratic seats, and Dems are going to need those pickups if we are to regain the House.
Todd
@liberal:
Understanding of the specific concerns and interests of the district, along with being able to interact with the constituents in such a way as to effectively advocate for things they want or don’t want government to do.
Southern Beale
How do we get an ActBlue page set up for this Adkins feller?
Southern Beale
@burnspbesq:
That would be news to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@gypsy howell:
I just figured that they were all Sonic Youth fans (ducks).
liberal
@Todd:
Yeah, I understand what it is. I think its role in good governance is extremely overrated.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
Respectfully, I disagree.
I don’t live on a coast, yet I have strong opinions on coastal development. I don’t run a chicken farm, yet I have strong opinions (this is vis-a-vis having local representation at the state legislature level) about the role rural counties here in MD play in chicken shit run-off being a large contributor to the degradation of the Chesapeake Bay.
There are undoubtably counterexamples, but overall ISTM that the supposed benefits of local representation are vastly overrated.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Not sure that geography means that much anymore in California or elsewhere, because of the diverse economy. I guess you could still make a breakdown between city/urban and agricultural interests, but coastal vs desert doesn’t mean much. And of course, even Los Angeles would be more desert like if we didn’t haul in our water from elsewhere.
@burnspbesq:
This is semi true only if you ignore population. LA County has 10 million people. The next largest counties have no more than 3 million each. And in the 2008 presidential election, for example, Obama got more than 70 percent of the vote in San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, and San Mateo counties, and 69 percent of the vote in LA County.
There may be more people registered as Indepdent than as Republican in California. We’re blue with a hint of burgundy.
Spaghetti Lee
I think gerrymandering is a double-edged sword: you see what happens whenever Republicans get a chance to mess with those districts. One of my favorites is how Texas Republicans keep trying to split up Austin 5 or 6 ways to prevent the Democrat that would otherwise obviously come out of metro Austin from being elected.
burnspbesq
@Southern Beale:
Census data don’t lie. Per the 2010 census, the population of Los Angeles County is 9,818,605. The combined population of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties is 7,117,033.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html
Keith
Or it might be significantly simpler than that.
Nobody but a republican is going to get elected in that district, nobody.
Sad, I know, but true.
So, if you wanted to get into office as the KY-04 congress-critter, which team jersey would you don?
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@burnspbesq: Oh “Foghorn Leghorn was a Warner Brothers Character” indeed, BUT, Warner Bros. STOLE the character from Fred Allan’s Senator Claghorn! Egad! Cartoon Plagerism. What next? “Wimpy?” Stolen from Fibber McGee & Molly. We are truly doomed.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
You have strong opinions, but unless you actually live in that coastal community or in that farming community, your opinions should not have more influence than those of the people who actually do live there.
Developers who live in Riverside would loooove to be allowed to influence the decisions that they make in Santa Barbara about coastal preservation and overbuilding, because the developers in Riverside won’t have to live with the consequences. They would love to build crappy low-quality McMansions right up to the water’s edge, but they get blocked by the local government and the local state representatives.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Frankly, though, that sounds more like a problem of gerrymandering than with local representation. That’s why Republicans love to group urban areas into districts with suburban ones — that way, the urban residents have no way to push for what they want because they get drowned out by the suburban interests.
What you actually want is more geographical representation so the city can stand against the suburbs and rural areas rather than being splintered and distributed among them.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
How would my vote count more in a non-locality based democratic voting system?
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
Non-local-based proportional systems would be a much cleaner solution.