In honor of the Blogmaster’s current travels, local politics from Doghouse Riley:
INDIANA inaugurated Mike “Choirboy” Pence its fiftieth governor earlier this week– apparently we had to–and while I can pretty much swear I’ll have nothing nice to say about the man from here on out, I will grant that he gave every impression of a man who was wearing a tuxedo for the second time in his life.
I’ve lived here most of my life–in my defense, I am congenitally indolent–and Mike Pence is the sort of man I’ve been expecting to have to survive the governorship of for most of the last forty years. He’s a religious huckster with no other discernible qualities. He was essentially ushered into the Governor’s mansion by his predecessor–who gave then Lt. Governor Becky “GED” Skillman the same chronic and asymptomatic disease Mark Souder’s wife came down with right after Souder was caught dipping into the office help and needed to spend more time with the family–so that Pence wouldn’t either a) come back to Indiana and challenge Dick Lugar in last year’s primary or b) come back to Indiana and wait out Lugar’s last term.
Pence had been the #3 Republican in the House, in case that tells you anything you didn’t already know about Republicans in the House, but quit his post after the 2010 elections because the party wasn’t mixing enough Religious with its Mania anymore, and said that would be his final term. […] The talk at the time was that Pence was planning his own Presidential run, perhaps as a stalking horse for Herman Cain, at a time when Daniels was still milking his own non-candidacy. Then, suddenly, the whole thing arrived like Athena. Or the 2000 candidacy of George W. Bush. Pence suddenly wanted to be governor, Skillman suddenly wanted to be barely ambulatory, and Daniels wanted to tote up some more “campaign” contributions.
Pence’s campaign for governor basically consisted of him assuring concerned Hoosiers that he was a practicing heterosexual. As a result he managed to win by 70,000 votes in a state Mitt “Remember Me?” Romney won by a quarter million….
Warren Terra
I can’t be the only person who initially read this as travails
BruceFromOhio
These two-bit ratfuck criminals got nothing but self-preservation as the defining political force. Orders came down from somewhere, whether its the electoral college crowd or just positioning for 2014, or some other piece of the Grand Old Party Scheme to Fuck Every Single One of Us As Hard As Possible.
Pawns, to a man.
Yutsano
Oh Jeebus. Someone is scouring Rentboy.com as we type.
hitchhiker
Speaking of local politics, my state passed a law allowing gay people to marry a few months ago, and my friend Margot just got a piece in the NYT reflecting on that magnificent event.
Check it out, y’all. Good writing.
pseudonymous in nc
One of the times where I can get behind Yglesias wholeheartedly is his repeated insistence on pointing out that Mike Pence is a very dumb person.
It is apparently uncouth to say that Pence, and Louie Gohmert, and Lynn Westmoreland, and other extremely dumb GOPers are extremely dumb. I wouldn’t say that of Boehner or Cantor or Turtle Mitch, but it is to the detriment of American politics that its dumbfucks are not identified as such.
YellowJournalism
For a second there when I saw this title, I thought John had staged a coup.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I am sure that he has someone doing it for him. As research… Into what you people do. Bad you. Bad.
Or something like that. I am not fluent in repressed and assholic.
mai naem
@pseudonymous in nc: When I saw that the title was about Pence I was going to comment about his stupidity too. I can’t remember who it was but Ezra Klein or Josh Marshall had a similar column some years ago, about how Pence was one of the dumbest people in congress.
bago
I think I have achieved peak Seattle. I’m a snowboarding Microsoft who is going to a private Goth club before going to a memorial for my roommate who overdosed on heroin.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@pseudonymous in nc:
I expect Bobo to soon publish a column demanding that we praise people like Pence, Gohmert, Westmoreland, et al, for their accomplishments. You know; not soiling themselves for a whole day, tying their shoes, finding their way to work without help.
Alison
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I heard Gohmert went a whole week without eating paste!
Spaghetti Lee
@bago:
Is it raining?
MikeJ
@Spaghetti Lee: Freezing fog.
SatanicPanic
@Alison:
That must be some sort of religious observance. He wouldn’t do it otherwise.
bago
@Spaghetti Lee: More of a San Francisco fog.
ulee
Corner Stone mocked me, saying I might only write children’s songs because I’m shy. My lyrics for “You can tell Mary” are on the BoBo thread. I’ve got the melody and the punk rock delivery for one of the best songs ever written. You won’t know it till youve heard it. I’ll do that and then Corner Stone can have his say.
ulee
And I’ve got alot more like that, songs that have never been revealed.
NotMax
Did Mr. Cole remember to wear pants this time?
MikeJ
Does it seem like half the internet is down? Sourceforge, slashdot, hell, I can’t get to downforeveryoneorjustme.com.
BillinGlendaleCa
@MikeJ: Maybe they didn’t pay their domain registration renewal. I’ve heard of that happening.
TR
If Pence has “no other discernible qualities”,what can be said for those that voted for him? LOL
Ash Can
Ugh. I have a cousin-in-law who’s a public school teacher in Indiana. I fear for her future.
El Cid
I’m watching Al Sharpton talking to a Republican Tennessee state rep lecturing him on how his bill proposing to have the state arrest federal agents for Obama’s “assault” on the 2nd Amendment is really in the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
Their assertion of primacy of the state’s sovereignty in interpreting and enforcing the Bill of Rights is really just the same thing MLK was protesting for.
Beautiful.
jayboat
@mai naem:
Tweety went to school with Pence and has talked more than once about how dumb he was/is/will forever be.
Stoopid is as stoopid does- new gooper motto.
Gindy51
@TR: They’re typical Indianans, I know I live here. Most of them are fairly hard working but insulated in their own little worlds. Lots of big fish in very small ponds. They like the familiar and do not like change. I am still stunned President Obama won here in 2008 and not at all shocked Rmoney took the state in 2012. Pence is easily recognizable and as dumb as a rock. He won’t rock the boat at all. Daniels had so many skeletons in his closet, lots never saw the light of day, but most people here knew nothing about the traveling wife and the drugs in college. When I tell them about that, they are stunned.
Nethead Jay
@hitchhiker: Yeah, that’s a very good piece of writing. Thanks for the link.
bemused
Ezra Klein filled in on Last Word last night and did a fantastic segment on Business Roundtable CEO’s recommendations to raise both SS and Medicare eligibility age to 70. The video is probably up this morning on Last Word which should be shared widely.
John M
@Gindy51: You live in Indiana and you use “Indianan” as if it were a real word? That is a first. You’re a Hoosier, whether you like it or not.
John M
The best way I can think to describe Pence is that if he were invented by Aaron Sorkin as the Republican foil in one of his movies or TV shows , he would seem over the top and unrealistic. Even as a Democrat with a dim view of Congressional and Indiana Republicans it is hard for me to believe that someone as vapid as Mike Pence can ascend to such heights.
Or, to paraphrase the exchange from Seinfeld:”Maybe there’s more to Mike Pence than meets the eye.”
“No. There’s less.”
Gindy51
@John M: Nope, not a Hoosier, I was born in Illinois and I’ve lived in almost every state and a few foreign countries as well (military brat, big brass dad kind of thing).
I will never be a Hoosier. I don’t even know what the hell that is.
El Cid
Half of America are below average intelligence, and don’t they deserve representation too?
Shouldn’t we support the political success of someone from the reasonableness-challenged community?
NotMax
@El Cid
Channeling Roman Hruska?
@Gindy51
One of the definitions (arguably the original definition) is “an ignorant rustic.”
danielx
Yes indeed, Mike Pence is a dim bulb, although with his empty head supporting that magnificent crop of silver hair he looks like a distinguished tv preacher – er, statesman. Many of my fellow citizens here in Indiana are impressed by that sort of thing, and whether the fellow can emit a coherent sentence on any topic other than god-bothering is strictly a secondary consideration. As to his proposed 10% tax cut, even the solons in the state legislature have noticed that after eight years of Mitch Daniels’ gentle hand that further cuts to the state budget will likely result in schools falling back on three ring notebooks and kerosene lanterns while cars will be falling through the holes in highway overpasses.
This is a particularly sore subject for me, since three years back I voted in the affirmative for a local referendum to increase local property taxes to compensate for Our (but not MY) Man Mitch’s latest round of cuts to the local school district’s budget. This is a topic near and dear to my heart since the local schools’ excellent special ed programs were of great benefit to my daughter. The initiative passed by a 4 to 1 margin, which in this state is nothing short of a miracle on the same level as bringing the dead to life, what with tax increases being about as popular as bubonic plague in this most Republican county in one of the most Republican states. Of course, the increase in local school funding was nearly wiped out by Governor Mini-Me’s* next round of cuts to state education funding, bless his black flabby heart.
So yes, we’re eagerly anticipating Holy Mike’s efforts to reduce Our Fair State’s education and service measures to those prevailing in Mississippi and Louisiana, the latter charging for the bottom due to the continued efforts of that Republican star Bobby Jindal. Who know, maybe Pence still has continued ambitions towards to White House and figures that transferring resources from voters to corporations (like Jindal) is the way to go.
*I encountered Br’er Daniels at a restaurant last night. I’d never seen him in the flesh (shudder) and he really is a short person; if my wife was six inches taller than me (like his) and didn’t want me to run for Prez I wouldn’t do it either. It was a tremendous temptation to ask the sonofabitch what he was thinking to let Pence weasel his way into the house at 46th and Meridian – Daniels is pretty much a standard-issue corporate Republican, not stupid and not a Pence-type godbother; one can deal with that. Even if his record as W’s budget director should have disqualified him for any public office higher than shitpicker in Gas City…
Woodrowfan
I went to college with him. He was always a self-rightous dweeb. When he started going out with his girlfriend (his eventual wife) he said he had to “forgive her” first because she had gone out on a date before with someone else. Not “slept with” or screwed or anything, just gone on a date with, which, on our little campus, probably meant a movie in the campus auditorium or a dance at one of the dorms or Greek houses.
I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw his ego. He’s a snake who will lie to your face and cheat and steal and excuse it because, you know. GOD.
and yes, if he were on Jeopardy he’d come in 3d behind the box of rocks and the bag of hammers..
danielx
@Woodrowfan:
If Pence was competing with a barrel of hair it would be hard to call.
Citizen_X
@bago:
9.8. If you somehow managed to work coffee in there, you would have gotten a perfect 10.
@Spaghetti Lee:
Derp. It’s Seattle.
Of which it has been said, “If you can see Mt. Rainier, it’s going to rain. If you can’t see Mt. Rainier, it’s raining.”
xian
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: and criticizing Obama for espousing coherent sensible policies intentionally designed to make crazy people froth at the mouth and babble nonsense
xian
@MikeJ: usually that means us-east-1 is down at Amazon’s (AWS) hosting
phoebes-in-santa fe
@NotMax: What is Cole doing in Indiana? I seemed to have missed his reason for going. He does sound like he’s there under duress.
NotMax
@phoebes-in-santa fe
Haven’t the foggiest.
Mr Stagger Lee
I think Kentucky was invented so Indianans can point their fingers and laugh, except during basketball. No wonder Kurt Vonnegut fled that place. But bless John Mellencamp for staying there.
bago
Well, the coffee goes without saying.
Tim I
Our new gov, Mr. Pence is the sort of brutish imbecile that I really want to punch. You can know everything you need to about him by looking at his churlish facial expression.
Crza
So bitter that this asshole is basically my new boss.
And Yglesias was probably right in saying there was no one stupider in the House of Reps. Here’s one of many examples of Pence wisdom.