Channeling Charlie Crist

Howard Troxler of the St. Pete Times is channeling Charlie Crist. But he forgets the line that so many moderate Republicans, like that relative of ours who was a lifelong Republican, are using: "I haven't left the Republican Party. It has left me."

Charlie Crist's Deadline

'The absence of party affiliation is no guarantee of the absence of ugly politicking. If anything, the reverse is true.'

The Pensacola News Journal on Sunday editorially urged Florida governor Charlie Crist to run for Florida's vacant U.S. Senate seat as an independent. Noting that he faces an April 30 deadline to withdraw from the G.O.P. primary the newspaper argues "for the good of the state, shouldn't Crist and [Marco] Rubio have a chance to face off in November — the state's political Super Bowl date — instead of in preseason?"

In Florida's closed-primary system, registered Democrats and independent voters do not have the chance to vote for or against Crist. Yet Crist and Rubio are the political heavyweights, and they should meet in the finals.

Once again, weak sports metaphors are invoked to distort political reality by making it resemble a horse race (or a football game, or a boxing match) without regard to the long-term policy consequences. The PNJ's proposal is tantamount to advocating the defeat of Democratic senatorial candidate Kendrick Meek even before he's had a chance to introduce himself to the voters.

As the News Journal must know, recent polls suggest Crist has a realistic chance of winning the general election only if he draws a boatload of votes from the Democratic candidate. This is because it looks like he'll get almost none from Republicans:

Even in a three-way match-up with Crist running as an independent, Meek comes in second with 25% of the vote. Rubio leads with 45% support, while Crist earns 22%.

To be sure, other journalists also are applauding the idea. Take Broward County's Sun Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo, for example. He hauls the PNJ's "it-would-be- good- for- Florida-voters" theme one step farther by imagining a Crist win in November:

If he wins as an independent, Crist could find himself the most powerful senator in the country.

Democrats now have a 57-41 edge over Republicans in the Senate, and there are two independents who align with the Democrats, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

With 36 Senate seats up for grabs in November, Democrats and Republicans could end up virtually deadlocked for the majority.

Could you imagine if there was a 49-48 split and Crist were one of three independents?

Anything Florida wanted, Florida would get.

Almost immediately, however, Mayo ruins his own fantasy by impliedly having 'independent' U.S. Senator Crist sell off the sand on Pensacola Beach to the oil corporations:

How about this idea: Our junior senator could broker a deal where all Florida homeowners get affordable windstorm coverage through national catastrophe insurance. In exchange, we allow expanded oil drilling off Florida's shores.

Mayo's wet dream offers an unintentional caution about the naive fantasy of an "independent" politician. The absence of party affiliation is no guarantee of the absence of ugly politicking. If anything, the reverse is true. A senator without affiliation with one of the two major parties is like Edward Everett Hale's "Man Without a Country." Joe Lieberman's deceitful run as an "Independent" is a useful template. It has made him, to be charitable, "a little crazy."

The reality is that every "independent" in the U.S. Senate is impelled by the circumstance of Senate rules and traditions to caucus with one or the other of the two major parties. Even if Crist were to win the senate race as an Independent, he'd have to huddle either with the Republican or the Democratic Party. As with Lieberman, that means either being completely marginalized (much as has happened to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a more reliable Democratic vote than most other Democratic senators) or forever living on the edge of betraying one party by flirting with the other.

That might be entertaining. It might sell more newspapers. But if Crist takes advice from the likes of Michael Mayo and the Pensacola News Journal, it would be terrible for the nation as well as Pensacola Beach.

Democratic senate candidate Kendrick Meek is a fine legislator and a courageous man. However, as Stuart Rothenberg says, he was "handed the Democratic nomination without a fight largely because Crist looked invincible when the race was taking shape."

He's been doing better than expected in the fund raising derby. He even polls fairly well, only 6 points behind, in a 2-man race against Rubio -- and most Floridians hardly know him yet. Even in today's over-heated partisan atmosphere he has a legitimate chance to win.

A Crist independent candidacy, however, would doom Meek's chances. Meek and Crist would split the sane vote while Rubio cleans up among the chronically angry old farts, demented paranoids, racists, and those who want to protect Wall Street bankers so they can continue schtupping main street America with toxic investments and paying themselves outrageous bonuses.

In the loopy political atmosphere we see all around us today, the only honest thing for Charlie Crist to do is to think inside the box -- one or the other box. Either run as the moderate Republican he's always been -- or switch parties and run for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
minor edit 4-19 am

Dept. of Further Amplification

4-19 pm

Marcos Moulitsas, writing as Kos, has his "fingers crossed," hoping for Crist to make "an independent bid." Presumably, for different reasons than those expressed by the News Journal.

Suicide Alert!

Are U.S. Senate Republicans feeling suicidal? Steve Benen's latest report suggests they need some intervention to protect them from themselves: "As of this afternoon, it appears Republicans are prepared to link arms and take their chances, fighting to protect Wall Street from accountability."

Senate Dems Cave to Lieberman - Again

Reuters is reporting that Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says his fellow Democrats have voted in secret to allow Holy Joe Lieberman to remain chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, a post he used over the last two years to hide contractor failures, incompetence, and thievery by Bush administration cronies.

It was a political, clubby decision, not a good government decision. As TPM observes:

Reid and his fellow Senators have made the political decision to leave Lieberman in a job that he was a disaster at, rather than make the good governmental decision to remove him for the good of the country.

They'll be sorry. Lieberman can't be trusted.

Moreover, Blue Dog renegades like Florida's Bill Nelson now know the Senate leadership can't properly parent them. Go ahead, kids. Do your worst. There won't be any consequences.

Dept. of Amplification
11-18 am

Jane Hamsher reminds us that for delinquents like Lieberman there's still work to be done.

Joe Lieberman Whitewash

How odd. Judging from Joe Lieberman's official U.S. Senate web site, he hasn't given a speech or written an op-ed newspaper article in all of calendar 2008. Click on any month --

"None found for this time period."

The man doesn't even have the strength of his own convictions betrayals.

Dept. of Amplification
11-18 am

Thankfully, Think Progress has rescued the record of the Senator from Sanctimony, cataloging all his speeches, writings, and other betrayals over the past year -- and a little more. No doubt, Lieberman's official senatorial web site will be soon be restored to show what he did and said in 2008.

Dept. of Even Further Amplification
11-18 am

The thing is, Joe Lieberman's word is no good.

Dept. of Even More Amplification
11-18 am

And, he misused his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee to cover-up FEMA incompetence and criminality.

Dept. of Conclusions
11-18 am

Lieberman must go.

What To Do With Lieberman?

We're with Rachel on this one. To be sure, Joe Lieberman is no longer a progressive. But the core problem really is that Lieberman's word is worthless. Sooner or later he betrays everyone who places their trust in him:

Beltway Banditry

In Washington today, telecom lobbyists have launched a full-court press to win retroactive immunity for their illegal eavesdropping on American citizens. Granting retroactive immunity will let corporate law-breakers off the hook and hamstring efforts to learn the truth about Bush's illegal spying program.

-- John Edwards

While many Americans understandably have been worrying over crime in the streets, it seems crime in the boardrooms of the Telecom corporations (that would include ATT, Verizon, and all the rest -- except U.S. West) has been running rampant. For six years they violated the U.S. Constitution and federal law by spying on thee and we.

Now, Telecom industry lobbyists and Dick Cheney are angling to have Congress grant them retroactive immunity for their past crimes. And, in the absence of real leadership from any presidential candidate other than John Edwards, Democrats in Congress are just as deeply implicated as accessories-after-the-fact as Republicans.

As Glenn Greenwald explains today --

Telecoms already have immunity under existing FISA law where they acted pursuant to written government certification or where they prove they acted in good faith (see 18 USC 2520 (d)). There is no reason that the federal courts presiding over these cases can't simply make that determination, as they do in countless other cases involving classified information.

Lots of bloggers and more traditional news sources have the low-down on what's happening, such as here and here and here. If you're short of time, Leave Us Alone! offers a succinct version. with links. Raw Story has an update for today, as well.

Click on this link to see what you can do today to defend the U.S. Constitution at no cost.

Dodd's Thank-you

Dodd Prevails on Telecom Immunity

Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid late tonight confirmed he will "pull" from the Senate floor the FISA bill that grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies like ATT. Firedog Lake has an early take on the courageous stance of Senator Dodd.

So does TPM Election Central:

Senator Chris Dodd had planned to filibuster the bill this evening, and it didn't look as if the other Senators running for President -- Hillary, Obama, Biden -- would lend support for the filibuster in person. Now the question's moot -- until January.

Why did Reid pull the bill now? "Sen. Reid refused to jam this bill through the Senate because he believes it’s an important bill that deserves to be debated thoroughly," a Reid aide told us.

But Dodd aides expressed satisfaction, saying that the Connecticut Senator's filibuster threat was what stopped the bill for the time being. They vowed that he'd be back to fight it again in January.

Some politicians waffle. Some just talk a good game. Some actually get up, leave the campaign trail, and do good for the Nation. Smart voters discern the difference.

Contribute to Dodd as we did? Click here.

Rule of Law In Senate Trial

UPDATED BELOW

In many ways that matter, the rule of law is on trial in the U.S. Senate today. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) explains in TPM Cafe.

This morning, another U.S. Senator, Chris Dodd (D-CT), interrupted his Iowa presidential caucus campaign to address the Senate in straight-forward, candid terms not often heard inside the Beltway much less in media available to the public at large. Immediately at stake is whether retroactive immunity will be granted for giant telecom companies for helping the Bush administration violate the Constitution by secretly invading the privacy of tens of thousands if not millions of private citizens.

In the event the Bush administration prevails in today's vote, Sen. Dodd has promised an old-fashioned "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" filibuster. Think of it as an early Christmas present to those who value our Constitution -- now, in the past, and most especially in the future.

Concerned citizens want to know -- where is Hillary? And is Obama still dawdling in Iowa?

You should go here, too.

UPDATE
12-17 noon

Lawyer Christy Hardin Smith at Firedog Lake has the transcript of Sen. Dodd's "barnburner" opening speech.

Here, There, and About

Joe Scarborough admits he's thinking about running for the seat currently held by U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), according to Leslie Conn of the News Journal.

More than that, a national AP dispatch reports that Scarborough "has already talked with Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and plans to meet with Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and White House officials next week about whether to get into the race to unseat Democrat Bill Nelson."

Doesn't it seem unlikely Scarborough would be calling on the three most important power brokers for the 2006 Republican primary election cycle just to discuss his cable TV contract?

* * *
Some blog calling itself Betty the Crow News has the early lead for funniest line about the Florida Senate race:

BTC News has no preference for either Harris or Scarborough, but we would greatly enjoy watching their primary battle and so we will encourage Scarborough to run. Run, Joe, run.

Suggested campaign ad for Harris: "Katherine Harris has proven she’ll do anything to win. Joe Scarborough has proven he’ll quit even if he does win."

* * *
Even before the final totals are known, Hurricane Ivan has settled in as the third most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history, according to the National Flood Insurance Program. Only Hurricane Andrew ($21.1 billion) and the World Series earthquake of 1994 ($15.9) exceed Ivan's costs. For now, however, the exact final total for Ivan remains unknown:

Claire Wilkinson, vice president of global affairs for the Insurance Information Institute in New York, said Ivan's total destruction likely comes with a price tag closer to $12 billion to $14 billion.

"We usually figure that about 50 to 60 percent of damages are insured," she said.

What she might have added, locals are probably saying to themselves, is that of all the insured damages, too many insurance companies routinely offer to pay only half.

* * *
Speaking of storm recovery efforts, wet-dry ballots are being mailed to Santa Rosa County voters today. They should be returned by mail or in person by 5 p.m. September 6.

This is the first time Northwest Florida voters have been offered the chance to vote by mail -- one of the only benefits from Hurricane Ivan. Chuck Pohlmann, who spearheaded the petition to put the issue to a mail-in vote, argued successfully that a mail-in ballot was needed because so many voters have been displaced by Ivan and now use mail boxes.

We'll toast to that -- and hope mail-in voting becomes routine, as it now is in Oregon.

Scarborough Clownery

"[T]his is the problem with punditry, that an uninformed opinion has exactly the same power as evidence."

-- Eric Alterman, U.S. Comedy Arts Festival 2005 ("Industry Seminar: Wag The Debate – What’s the Future of The Pundity?") Feb. 12, 2005 (p. 41)(pdf format).

An Associated Press report rounding the nation is that Republicans are asking former Pensacola congressman and current cable TV pundit Joe Scarborough to run next year against U.S. Senator Bill Nelson. The White House and party poobahs, as the Washington Post has reported, are worried that the only announced G.O.P. candidate for the GOP nomination, Katherine Harris, has negatives that top off all Florida politicians' leaderboards.

Local reporter Lesley Conn ferrets out one small fact in the Pensacola News Journal that no one else seems to have noticed:

"Another issue to resolve: 'Scarborough Country,' the 2½-year-old MSNBC talk show that Scarborough hosts from Pensacola. His contract ends in March ... ."

If he were to run, Scarborough undoubtedly would have the full-throated, rich-fisted backing of the White House and GOP campaign donors. The mere possibility will persuade a lot of Harris' potential campaign contributors to sit on their wallets for awhile.

Meanwhile, Scarborough also can parlay all the political talk into a hefty increase in his renewed MSNBC contract -- if he wants to do so. Struggling against its farther-to-the-right competitor, MSNBC can hardly afford right now to lose a popular show like "Scarborough Country."

Two other elements may be at work. For one thing, Harris greatly embarrassed herself the other night on one of Fox Cable News' screaming heads programs by adopting -- let's be discrete, here -- a grotesquely unnatural and openly flirtatious posture for Sean Hannity and and fake-liberal Alan Colmes. The episode was so bizarre that state Republicans must be wondering what kind of a mental midget they've sent to Washington and why in the world they would want to keep her there.

News Hounds ("We watch Fox so you don't have to") headlined the story 'Katherine Harris Shakes Her Boobies'. You can see the video yourself on Crooks and Liars.

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show drew huge guffaws from the audience just by showing the clip, raising a single eyebrow, and mentioning that Harris and "her two running mates" were interviewed. Even the gossipy Wonkette -- who is no enemy of D.C. Republicans -- had something snarky to say.

For a second thing, there are some faint signs that Scarborough may be feeling a little soiled after working the Cable TV circuit the past few years. Last February, he chaired a panel discussion for American Progress.org. To be sure, the conference was titled "The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival" and the inspiration was the Peabody award-winning Daily Show. But the panel debate was a fairly serious one.

The panel was discussing "What's The Future of the Pundity"? A transcript is available here.

Maybe it was the Aspen air, maybe it was all the Democrats he had to sit with at the table, but reading between the lines it's obvious that Scarborough was weighted with misgivings about the value of what he presently does for a living. Here are just a few suggestive lines that pop out on first reading:

• "When MSNBC first hired me, [my wife] said, “Don’t be a clown, I want you to be Tim Russert.” (p. 9)


• "What a lot of pundits always ask themselves is, is anybody listening, is anybody watching." (p. 11)


• "I don’t think progressives watch cable news as much as – you know, I had somebody from Fox News tell me one time when I started my show – they said, 'We really don’t care what happens east of the Hudson or west of Las Vegas. We’re going for red state America, and that’s how we’re going to build this into the top show.' And I’ll be darned if, four years later, that formula didn’t work. So I think again that’s what the focus has been. And maybe some of the more progressive pundits wouldn’t play as well with the people that turn on cable news as much. I don’t think they’re watching O’Reilly on the Upper West Side, as much as they are in Kansas City." (p. 33)


• "[P]eople watch Fox News, but then when the tsunami hits, CNN’s numbers go through the roof. On the State of the Union, a lot of people turn to Matthews. I mean, people are smart enough to figure out what they’re going to get when they go to Fox News." (pp. 32-33)


• "I think... if I say something stupid – it used to be a couple years ago, if I said something stupid, which is every night, my wife would meet me at the back door and just shake her head and go to bed." (p. 33)


• "[I]s nuance going to move to the cable audience? Because we’re talking about the cable audience. Forgetting about what’s happening on PBS, forgetting about what’s happening in the New York Times. Are you talking about is that sort of nuanced debate going to take over cable news or move to talk radio?(p. 34)

At times, one supposes, everyone must be assailed by doubts about the worth of what he or she is doing. Nearly everyone, too, at least considers a career change from time to time. Joe Scarborough certainly has. He's been a musician, a lawyer, a congressman, and a Cable TV pundit, among other things.

The question of the day now is, do you think he's sick enough about what he has been doing to reenter the political arena? Or, would a fat new contract with MSNBC keep him happy as a clown?