Of all of the races yesterday, the most interesting for me was the Missouri Senate race. Senator Claire McCaskill was one of the least popular members of the Senate and a virtual guarantee for defeat until Rep. Todd Akin delivered victory from the jaws of defeat. Akin’s infamous rape remarks made him completely toxic to the entire nation and the GOP leadership quickly called for his withdrawal from the race. Akin treated the suggestion as absurd and allowed two deadlines to pass that would have allowed his party to repair the damage that he caused. At one time, politicians would put the interests of their party and their country before their own. However, we live in a different time and Akin is the face of the times: egotistical, selfish, and extremist. Linda MacMahon in Connecticut cut the same intensely egotistical image: spending $100 million of her own money in two unsuccessful efforts to make herself a Senator despite a fairly toxic personality and image associated with professional wrestling. Despite the sound defeat in the last election, MacMahon spent even more of her own money as the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment to secure a second defeat. The question for the GOP is whether the disaster this election will cause anyone in the party to consider the eradication of moderates in their party and the loss of what we once called “Rockefeller Republicans.”
In the end, Akin appears to have been unable to even break 40 percent of the vote.
Had Akin withdrawn, the GOP would have likely secured the seat in Missouri. Not only Akin but the entire Tea Party worked last night to the great benefit for the Democrats — alienating moderate voters and securing wins across the country.
Akin will be left to history as a sad clownish figure who refused to accept the obvious reality that his own comments and extremist views destroyed any chance for election. MacMahon will fill another footnote on the amount of money someone is willing to spend in pursuit of egotism. Notably, MacMahon never appeared to have any particular vision or idea or cause — she just wanted to be a Senator and thought she had the money to guarantee it like some choreographed WWF bout. They are not the only such figures in this election.
The question is how we end up with such caricatured candidates in national elections and the overall low quality of politicians in this country. I have long blamed the monopoly of the two major parties on our politics. I still hold that view. However, Akin also represents a sad cultural reality today. It is not just the loss of moderation in politics but a loss of a sense of personal integrity and responsibility. Akin immediately blamed others and refused to stand aside for the benefit of his state and party. He is for me the face of what is wrong with our politics: an anti-intellectual extremist who ultimately shows little sense of duty or calling beyond himself.
Source: USA Today
I think a big lesson of this election was that giant buys by SuperPac money did not have a decisive effect at all; at least on MSNBC they pointed out many candidates outspent by 3, 5, and 10 to 1 prevailed anyway.
I am actually hoping Nate Silver weighs in on this point, sooner or later; it seems like an important point for his analysis (which again was excellent throughout).
*to open up*
Blouise,
True, the diversity of the DNC does blunt the corporatist influence, but until we get comprehensive campaign finance reforms to limit contributions and put corporations out of the process where they belong and get some electoral reforms to open of the process making third party and independent candidates easier to get on the ballot? The parasitic illness is still killing the body politic.
oops! that both parties
” …it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship” (anonymously posted)
Exactly 🙂
nick spinelli, The PACS that supported Baldwin were union and liberal organizations not the Rovian ones. The people that tried to spin the both parties are the same bs lost every bid as much as the republicans did. Third parties did very poorly. All combined were under 2 percent.
Gene,
But the diversity of the Democratic Party makes it more difficult as we see in the case of Warren … and others
I would agree in part that the corporate fascists have ridden the Republican Party into the ground as any parasite eventually does to its host if left to feast without interruption. The democrats need to get rid of their corporate leeches also.
“They really need to get the Corporate loonies and guys like Boehner, McConnell, and Rove out of there or else, mark my words, we are going to be a one-party democracy.” -Blouise
I’m reminded of Chalmers Johnson who said:
“A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can’t be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.”
And who is Wall Street, the insurance and banking industry in bed with, Smom?
That’d be both parties.
And don’t forget Big Pharma.
SWM, Having to sit through all the Baldwin/Thompson ads I can tell you both had almost toally negative campaigns funded in part by Super Pacs. That’s why Feingold got my write-in vote. He never used Super Pac money.
Wall St., defense and the banking industry were all in for Romney. Their stocks plus coal are crashing today.
Blouise, I’ve heard those laments before from both directions. Remember the Reagan years when Dems lost the “Reagan Dems” and some thought they would never never get back to the White House. As long as there are only 2 parties, the other one will always come back. The only choice is Coke or Pepsi. I chose root beer.
Smom,
The Kochs are not the only totalitarian authoritarian corporate fascists out there. They are truly some of the worst if not the worst of the lot, but Wall Street, the defense industry and the insurance and banking industries are eaten up by people every bit as bad as those two.
Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin won not because of SUPERPAC money but in spite of it.
Gene H. The Koch Bros don’t like the dems. When they and Adelman start contributing to us you might have a point. And Boehner still has a large majority in the house, Blouise.
James in LA, “Send in the clowns..don’t bother, they’re here.”
Nick Spinelli loses another day of argumentation. Time for another name change.
“They really need to get the Corporate loonies and guys like Boehner, McConnell, and Rove out of there or else, mark my words, we are going to be a one-party democracy.”
But Blouise! That was the plan of the totalitarian authoritarian corporate fascists all along! Which party doesn’t matter as long as they could maintain their icy graft riddled grip on controlling both the selection of candidates and what they do once in office.
I am sincerely concerned that the Republicans have driven their own party over a cliff. They’ve lost women, in general no matter what their race or religion, blacks, latinos, and the younger generations of white males. They really need to get the Corporate loonies and guys like Boehner, McConnell, and Rove out of there or else, mark my words, we are going to be a one-party democracy.
Zarathustra,
You give butts a bad name. They have much more utility than Mr. Alsoran.