…asks ThinkProgress. Maybe because he has a black guy running for Lieutenant Governor, says I.
The GOP keeps trying to get them some of that minority mojo that Obama clearly coasted to victory on twice. I would try to talk them out of this game on the grounds that a loony bird like Alan Keyes or E.W. Jackson just insults minorities and offends the faithful, but that outcome does not bother me much. Enjoy losing another winnable race. Morons.
ETA: Not to suggest that the Alan Keyes race was winnable, but the GOP has thrown a surprising number of contests on clearly cynical demographic plays and/or by nominating unnecessarily crazy people in a close contest. You betcha.
Baud
McAuliffmemtum, baby!
MikeJ
It could also be that he wants to make blowjobs illegal, and he promises he won’t use the law against gay people.
aretino
Not to be pedantic, but shouldn’t that be morans?
Baud
@MikeJ:
Yep that’ll do it.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
If they weren’t batshit crazy, they wouldn’t be Republicans. Vicious cycle there.
TG Chicago
Speaking of the GOP’s awesome minority outreach:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/quote-day-republicans-civil-rights-anniversary
But MLK was actually a conservative, you know.
Baud
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that they run on the same ticket in Virginia.
MikeJ
@Baud: You are correct. Separate races that can result in a split ticket.
piratedan
lets just hope that the sanctimonious fucker loses period, if his own brand is as toxic as we think it is, that works for me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Kerry talking about Syria on you TeeVee
Oh shit: Clear and compelling evidence
David Hunt
@Baud: I expect that you’re correct. It’s that way in Texas and, I believe, most states. However, it doesn’t matter that Cooch didn’t personally pick the guy, he still gets to have those blah cooties rub off on him.
Arachnae
Hey, Ken’s quite capable of losing white voters on his own merits. Half of them are women, you know.
CONGRATULATIONS!
post-racial America is sure looking a lot like pre-racial America, but with even more open bigotry.
The Dangerman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My predictions:
(1) Nothing happens
(2) Republicans bitch up a storm about a weak President
OK, the second is like shooting fish in an aquarium, but …
Belafon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m pretty sure the evidence was clear and compelling before today.
J R in WV
Well, seperate ballot races, true. but they are right next to one another on the ballot, under “Republican” – and the Black gentleman is as crazy as you might expect a conservative Republican Black politician to be.
I think any time two candidates appear adjacent to one another and in the same party, the actions and statements of one will have some effect on the other – or am I batcrap crazy myself?
They’ll maybe need more luck than they thought, one hopes!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Belafon: I agree that it is, Assad or someone in his government did this. I just think punitive tomahawks are the wrong way to react.
Roger Moore
It’s amazing how little obvious tokens help with the minority group they’re a member of. It’s almost as if Those People are actually voting on issues and policies and stuff rather than pure ethnic solidarity. If only the White People’s Party could figure that out.
MikeJ
Don’t forget that Cooch also has the stench of the openly criminal current gov rubbing off on him too.
Villago Delenda Est
@TG Chicago:
Yet the fat Nazi fuck was bleating the other day about how the only black Republican senator was “not invited” to the MoW commemoration, when in fact he was and declined, saying he had pressing business in the lunatic asylum state to attend to.
Marc
@Arachnae: This.
Belafon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wasn’t criticizing one way or the other, even though I’m more inclined to want to do something about the chemical weapons.
My point was that I think the “clear and compelling” evidence has already been baked into anyone’s feelings on this, and really, even the fact that the Administration considers there to be clear and compelling evidence has already been factored into most people’s calculus.
eemom
Please don’t jinx it. Also please don’t remind me that it’s winnable. I LIVE in this fucked up state. kthxbai.
ps: Congrats on the baby!
Marc
Also, I’m not certain the Virginia GOP nominated E.W. Jackson because they wanted a token black candidate. They may have nominated him because, other than Ken Cuccinelli, he is the only person in Virginia as crazy as they are.
priscianus jr
As others have pointed out, they run on separate tickets. But I also doubt your basic thesis. I don’t think your average racist has any serious problem with minorities like Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain, Alan Keyes, Allen West.
Stella B.
I have to agree with the dissenters here. Cooch shot himself in the foot with his little foray into the supplements industry. Gov. McDonnell’s investigation will keep Cooch’s problems in view. Add that to his anti-contraception history and he’s got plenty of negatives regardless of who is running on the same ticket for lt. governor. A lot of people who think that abortion is icky still want to have access to contraception. There aren’t that many quiverfull folks and the only non-contraceptive method of preventing pregnancy is a bridge too far for most people. Besides, Terry Mc is at best a Rockefeller Republican.
James E. Powell
@priscianus jr:
Right. The bigots actually flock to those candidates because doing so proves they are not racists, right? It’s the political equivalent of having a black friend. At work. And neither of you has ever been to the other’s house. And you know don’t know his wife’s name.
Jebediah
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I think I finally understand why people keep telling me “racism isn’t a problem anymore.” It’s cuz the racists don’t have a problem with it.
Jebediah
@James E. Powell:
Or his last name.
The Ancient Randonneur
Nothing surprises me anymore with these people. I suspect a sizable element in the GOP is preparing to impeach Hillary.
MattF
I get the uneasy feeling that it’s not cynical– that Repubs run crazy colored because that’s the kind of colored they like. It’s what the evidence says, fwiw.
? Martin
Those unnecessarily crazy people reflect what the base actually wants. Are 27% of the public undeserving of representation? Of course not, so one of the demands of a democracy is that a certain amount of crazy people be nominated.
skeeball
I love this about the GOP. They constantly accuse Democrats of playing “identity politics” because it is the only understanding they have of ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender or any other classes of groups. They think blacks, women, gays, Hispanics, etc support Democrats because the Democratic party has these groups in offices and that all they need to do is run someone from one of these groups like Ted Cruz or Sarah Palin and the [insert group here] will come flocking to vote to them. They totally neglect that these people are pushing the same hostile policies (anti-immigration, anti-abortion) that the white men were pushing. So even in trying to attract different groups of voters, they are blatantly insulting them with the message “You are stupid enough to vote for us when we make it clear we are going to screw you to the wall because the person doing the fucking looks like you”
This gets back to the theory of “whatever Republicans are accusing you of doing, they are certainly doing themselves”
Jebediah
Tim – you’ve probably already seen this – but if you haven’t, TPM talking about reps not helping constituents with questions about Obamacare. And they did not give you so much as a hat tip….
Don K
Back in ’86, the Reps in MI ran Dem-turned-Rep Bill Lucas (County Executive and ex-Sheriff of Wayne County) for Governor against Jim Blanchard. Now there was no way Blanchard was going to lose that year (the auto economy was good, UAW members had cashed profit-sharing checks earlier in the year), but only Lucas could have lost 68-31, losing every county in the state other than Ottawa. The clear Rep strategy is to run the black dude in a race you’re going to lose anyway (well VA LG this year is an exception to that).
feebog
I think Cooch and E.W. are equally crazy, so most of this falls on the shoulders of guy at the top of the ticket. But I’m sure E.W. has contributed a small share. I hope Terry Mac beats him by 10 points, send him packing never to be seen again on the political stage.
BruinKid
@skeeball: Yep, otherwise the GOP would be pushing Jack Dalrymple or Dennis Daugaard for leading their states with very, very low unemployment rates.
(And since 95% of you have no idea who they were without looking it up on Google, they’re the governors of North and South Dakota, respectively.)
rikyrah
It’s because he wants all up in the uterus and women are scared of him-suburban White women
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Stella B.: Yup. Cooch is a gift candidate for Virginia Democrats. Trouble is, he’s shown he can win statewide races, so we can’t just point and laugh…
BlueVirginia has more on the latest with Cooch and his gifts from Star Scientific’s Johnnie Williams.
We really need McAuliffe to win.
Cheers,
Scott.
cmorenc
@Tim F:
The South Carolina GOP might just have successfully pulled off the feat of nominating an insanely crazy black person (Tim Scott) to be interim US Senator following the resignation of Sen. Jim DeMint. Given that this is South Carolina, Scott’s main obstacle to winning the 2014 election to the rest of DeMint’s term will be more whether he draws some equally crazy well-funded cracker running against him in the GOP primary than whether the SC Dems can come up with a competitive challenger. The problem with South Carolina is that a strong majority of the white electorate are themselves batshit crazy, which in neo-confederate bizzaro land, is seen as sanity and sanity is seen as insanity.
cmorenc
@priscianus jr:
Ironically, that’s because they see these relatively few black men as enough like themselves to pass as honorary angry white men, whose acceptance into their ranks upholds and reaffirms their imagined proper order of things rather than threatens to overturn it. In the minds of angry white reactionaries, it gives them unassailable cred that they’re not really racist, because…well, look I have blacks who are my political friends I support too…take Uncle Thomas here for example….
Tom
@Baud: terry mcauliffe – seriously? Enjoy becoming a dead Yankee state.