Last week brought good news and bad news when it comes to the professional corruptionists of Washington DC.
First the good news. Super corruptionist Ralph Reed decided not to run for Congress in Georgia. This is only good news because the weak minded Republicans of Georgia might have elected the corrupt son of a bitch.
Instead of running for office, Ralph has decide to follow the lead of his big brother Grover Norquist and establish his role as a Republican Party ‘King-maker’. Ralph will have a hand in 2010 election, but he is making his big play for 2012 and the Republican candidate for the White House.
As Ralph told the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
I had to decide. I was either going to help put 50 to 100 people like me in the U.S. Senate, Congress and state houses, or I was going to spend the next eight or nine months focusing solely on me…
And that is why he was in Iowa this week.
Ralph’s words remind me of when Grover said that what Washington needed was 50 Jack Abramoffs, but I digress.
Reed went to Iowa this week to an event to fluff long-time Team Abramoff member (and canine fetishist) Rick Santorum–when Abramoff was just starting out his lobbying career back in the mid-nineties one of the first things he did was help Santorum out with raising money and Rick was on Jack’s speed dial ever since.
On the trip for Santorum, Reed announced the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition. It is Ralph’s effort to capture politics in Iowa, claiming that if he could raise $500,000 he could change Iowa politics forever. According to a conservative rag he hyped the effort by saying (emphasis added):
“We need to raise about a half a million dollars to execute that program,” he said. [snip]
“Tonight, when you give, we’re not a PAC and we’re not a candidate,” he said. “Therefore, there is no limit to what you give here tonight. Isn’t that exciting?” [snip]
“We’re not going to leave the express advocacy during an election to the radical left, MoveOn.org and labor unions anymore,” he said. “We’re going to do it, and we’re going to get people who share our values elected to office, from governor all the way down to the statehouse and school boards all across the state of Iowa.”
Naturally, Ralph asked for cash (it is harder to track and it can be collected in buckets). I’ve been following the career of this weasel for years and it is always amazing how little his basic scam changes. He always tells the rubes what they want to hear and then steals their money.
It is amazing to see a grifter like Reed running the same scam that he has run since the eighties yet again. Folks who give Reed money would be wiser giving it to one of those Nigerian emails of a few years ago (or tossing cash out of their car windows as they drive), but fools and their money are easily parted. That is why grifters like Ralph are always in the money and why the Modern Conservative movement survives failure after failure–a sucker really is born every minute.
In the coming months, thousands of Republican grifters like Ralph will be seeking off-the-books financing set free by the radical Roberts SCOTUS to fuck up our Nation. They should be in jail for their crimes, but thanks to a corrupt Bush DOJ and a very lazy Congress, most of the corruptionists who worked with Abramoff have never been brought to justice.
I guess when Jack gets out of prison he’ll have a steady job with Grover, Ralph or the RNC.
Corruption and theft are the only consistent elements of the modern conservative movement. This is why corruptionists like Reed, Norquist and Abramoff will always find new ways to get paid.
I can only hope that folks in Iowa get wise to the scam. I hope the folks there wake up to this scam and react to it in an “old school” way. That would be sweet and FYI, I would pay good money to see these fuckers tarred and feathered at the Iowa State Fair.
Cheers
dengre
craigie
I wish you would stop pulling your punches and tell us what you really think!
Geoduck
“A few years ago”? I still get Nigerian-type money scams in my email all the time.
Cat Lady
Dennis, do you know any Iowa based journalists? You’ve got so much ready-to-go info, I would think that some enterprising young reporter in DesMoines would love to do some pre-emptive muckraking. The problem with these zombie Republicans is that they think that they’ve either covered their paths, or that they’re cleverer than they really are. They’re so predictable. How long can they really keep doing the same crap over and over?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Republicans are out to not only destroy Obama’s presidency but finish us all off by blocking any effort to reform the financial industry that nearly succeeded in killing our economy, and taking the worlds economy down with it in the process.
They are cold revolutionaries that see white power majorities slipping away demographically, and are attempting to engineer our mutual destruction using rules put in place by our founders meant to provide the minority a voice. No doubt with the GOP hoping to be The Phoenix Party to rise from the ashes and reinvent the US of A in the image of some modern day Roman Empire that rules by the sword and the Oligarch.
And here we are with finance reform, same shit as health care reform. Adopt a 60 vote requirement in the senate for every piece of legislation and not budge an inch unless they get to write the bill themselves.
Only 59 seats dems have. This is our country today. The nihilist southern wingnuts are in charge with a party platform for calamity. And a democratic party running around clutching pearls when they should be unceremoniously shoving them down the Grand Old Parties throat.
cs
Not sure how Ralph Reed being a grifter is necessarily a problem. The more money he siphons away from his marks means less money for the Republicans who actually will spend 100% of the donations on campaigns.
Jim Snyder
> I’ve been following the career of this weasel for years
I beg your pardon. [indignantly] I object to your slur against weasels.
On behalf of the Judeo-Palestinian Weasel Liberation Front (w/apologies to Messrs Python, Perl, TCL, Tk, and Ruby)
oops, sorry, context switch..
Never mind.
Frogbert
Hi Dennis!
Nice piece, as usual. You said:
“That is why grifters like Ralph are always in the money and why the Modern Conservative movement survives failure after failure—a sucker really is born every minute.”
And some are Born Again. And Again and Again and Again…
Cheers!
Your pal…
Dennis G.
@Jim Snyder:
You have me. I was unfair to weasels everywhere when I grouped them with Reed. My apologies to these honest rodents.
Cheers
andy
Got a robo call from the fucking piece of shit the other day. I would have showered with lava soap after if I had had some…
Yutsano
@Dennis G.: I feel this bizarro need to yell “WOLVERINES!!” all of a sudden. Not quite sure where that’s coming from.
WereBear
Well, this is the crux of it:
I expect this will be something of a growth industry for these targets. The future is less and less something they like or understand.
asiangrrlMN
OK, wait. Are you trying to tell me that Ralphie is gonna run for prez or gonna be the puppet master? Either way, you’re giving me the serious heebie-jeebies! Shudder.
El Cid
Reed appeared to fail miserably at his last electoral effort here in Georgia, a massively weak candidate even before the election, so I think this is simple grifter’s rationalism.