NY 23, Kinky in Texas, Moonbeam in California

Maureen Dowd
Dana Milbank
Anne Applebaum

“Moderates by definition have no principles,” - Rush Limbaugh

“Obama, Obama — either you’re with them or you’re with us,” - Iranian Protestors

Let's talk about the elections held yesterday. I'm not going to pundit you to death, you can read every other political blog for endless analysis of what they meant for the nation, and they are all bs. Times are tough right now, and if people feel the incumbents were doing a poor job, then they elect someone else. It just happened that in Virginia and New Jersey the incumbents were Democrats. If I was living in either state I would resent the implication that it was a rejection of Obama. Local elections focus more on problems that the Feds don't even know about, so whomever addresses those problems the best will get my vote, and Party politics has the least to do with it.

But, there was the fun factor occurring in New York's 23rd District. It was an experiment in using Facebook to influence voters, as Sarah Palin came out and endorsed the Conservative Party candidate. It forced the moderate Republican candidate to drop out of the race and support the Democratic candidate, very weird. Since Sarah is asking $100,000 per speech, I wonder what she charges for 180 words? It was billed as a test for national carpetbaggers trying to co-opt the tea party conservatives, but the Conservative Party's man didn't live in the district and hadn't any knowledge of the local problems, so he didn't get elected. For the first time since the Civil War this district is sending a Democrat to Congress and next year the district will disappear because of redrawing the districts...

the eyes of Texas...

“It’s time for Rick Perry to take the lampshade off his head and go home.” - Kinky Friedman

We know about the fight for the Republican nomination for Governor of Texas, between Rick Perry and Kay Bailey-Hutchinson, which will be a mean, knuckle-dragging affair. But there isn't anything similar going on the Democratic side, in fact, it could be a lot of fun if Kinky Friedman gets the nomination. Besides the cool factor of having a governor named Kinky, he feels that he has a good chance of winning it all: "... the Democratic Party’s struggles in Texas can largely be attributed to a lack of candidates. “My heroes have always been Democrats,” said Friedman. “But I must admit: Since [former Texas Gov.] Ann Richards, the powers that be, which are the career politicians, insiders of the Democratic Party, have presided over a 17-year unbroken string of losses. So a lot of customers have left the showrooms.”


He’s hoping to offer the party a new model. “I believe that I’m capable — and I’ve demonstrated [this] before — of inspiring a lot of independents, libertarians and Republicans to come over to our side. I think the problem is that the Democrats have run very uninspiring candidates, and they don’t run on ideas. They run on demographics, and that’s a mistake.” He sounds a lot more thoughtful than Jesse Ventura, who chose his stage name like a pornstar does, and that bad actor who is the incumbent in California.

resurrecting the dead...

“There’s no need to get going too soon, ... unless you’re one of the more obscure personalities.”  - Jerry Brown

In California, politics after Halloween seems to be about resurrecting dead political carers. Not only do we have Carly Fiorino announcing her intention to run for Congress, but Jerry Brown is poised to run for Governor: "For Brown, a 71-year-old former governor who has been a staple on the statewide political scene for nearly 40 years and whose father, Pat Brown, also served as governor, his increasingly certain path to the nomination constitutes something of an astonishing political comeback. After waging three failed White House bids, serving as mayor of Oakland and serving a term as attorney general, Brown is inching closer to the governor’s mansion that he departed more than two decades ago.


There have been times when Brown — dubbed “Gov. Moonbeam” during his more esoteric and New Age-influenced exploits in the 1970s — has seemed a political has-been. Political analysts marvel at his ability to mount a second — or third or fourth — act."

Jerry was Governor during the time when popular culture was influenced by the hippie movement. He was seen as an antithesis to the old style glad-handing hack that his father was, and he dated Linda Ronstadt, how cool was that? He liked to eat at the restaurant run by the San Francisco Zen Center, and personally lived an austere life.

Granted there were weird goings on at that time, for example, one of the Limelighters owned a ranch in Northern California, the Morningstar Ranch. He let people squat there for free, and a treehouse community quickly sprang up. He refused to pay taxes after deeding the land to God. The California Supreme Court then ruled that God had no property rights in the State of California and taxes must be paid... shortly after this decision James Dobson packed up his radio and book business and moved to Colorado. Coincidence?

Even when he had retired from politics he ended up as Mayor of Oakland, the head gang-banger, that started out as a project to revitalize the area where he was living. He has chased away all other contenders, including the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles. We are going to have to come up with a new nickname, something that becomes a 70 year old man who's been in politics for over 40 years. Arnold is the "Governator," and since he's basically playing "The Same Old Song", perhaps we can name him the Fifth Top? I doubt that he could do the choreography...

Now it's the same old song

But with a different meaning

Since you been gone...