Duplicitous bastards

Republican establishment desperately endorses "outsider" Ted Cruz, including Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney

From the story here:

“These guys look like all desperation and as if they have really no means, or ability, to speak to the core constituents who are supporting Donald Trump,” said Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. “At this last minute, it’s, ‘Now we support Ted,’ after you spent the best part of a year telling America how much you hate him.”

“It’s disingenuous,” Steele added. “People aren’t stupid. They see it for what it is.”

Marco Rubio violates his pledge to support the party's nominee

WaPo reports here:

Rubio and his aides have been promoting a #NeverTrump campaign on Twitter. Trump said Sunday that the opposition was the latest slight against him from party insiders and a “total violation” of the Republican National Committee pledge each candidate signed vowing to support the party’s eventual nominee.

RNC and Marco Rubio linked to law firm thought to be behind New Hampshire voter shaming letters

From the story here:

LawNewz.com dug through publically available records, and found the group is linked to a well-known DC lobbying/election law firm, which as recently as 2012 had ties to the Marco Rubio campaign.... Federal Election Commission records reveal that as recently as 2012, the Marco Rubio campaign paid this law firm for services. Bloomberg reports that in 2011-2013 election cycle, the Republican National Committee and Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign, spent $1.7 million for the firm’s services. LawNewz.com reached out to the Rubio campaign as well as the law firm for comment, but have yet to hear back. It is unclear if Rubio made any recent payments to the firm or any of their LLCs this election cycle.

Trump pummels McCain in USA Today op-ed for calling fellow Americans crazies

McCain has a long history of dishing out "crazy" and is finally getting some blowback

Here:

'John McCain has called his own constituents who want a secure border “crazies.”  No one in the news media or the establishment, including the Republican National Committee, criticized the senator for those comments. ... McCain the politician has failed the state of Arizona and the country. ... He would rather protect the Iraqi border than Arizona’s.'

There's much more, at the link.

Republicans Preach Unity After Eating Their Own

Republicans were preaching unity this week at their meetings, as reported here by TheHill.com, but those few of us out here who have politicians who actually represent us in our values and ideas can only cry, "Hypocrites! Liars! Cannibals!"

Republicans these days specialize in nothing if not eating their own. Unfortunately they always choose unwisely from the menu. They enjoy a soupçon of conservatism here, and another there, when what they should be devouring is a full plate of Bushmen.

That's because there's only one kind of unity in the Republican Party anymore: Republican Establishment dictated unity, which is to say, rallying around liberalism in the vain hope of forestalling criticism from Democrats.

If you are a social conservative like Gov. Mike Huckabee or Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema of Michigan or Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, then shut the hell up, which is just what Democrats yell in the direction of Republicans all the time. It is another aspect of the way in which there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the parties.

The moment in history when this sorry fact became memorialized was in the 1920s when Democrats and Republicans conspired to fix representation at 435 so that they didn't have to listen anymore to the voices of the great unwashed from central and southern Europe who had swelled the population for forty years, nor have to rub shoulders with them in the House of Representatives.

If you want to hear that kind of crap on a regular basis, tune in to the likes of Royalist Republican David Frum. But I, for one, am sick of it. As far as I'm concerned the Axis of Evil runs from the Speaker's office to Reince Priebus' office to wherever Jeb Bush happens to be at the moment.

Republicans can go to hell with the Democrats for all I care. Democrats never get my votes, and this year Republicans won't.

Missouri Republicans Finally Stand Up For Rep. Todd Akin

So Reuters, here:

But the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, David Cole, who had issued a statement soon after the rape remarks that questioned Akin's decision to remain in the race, said on Tuesday the state party supported Akin.

"We are confident that Todd will defeat McCaskill in November, and the Missouri Republican Party will do everything we can to assist in his efforts," he said.

Mike Huckabee has been there for Akin from the beginning. Newt has stepped up. Missouri Republicans are stepping up, following Newt's lead. Even Demented Jim's Senate Conservatives Fund is thinking about it.

What's to think about, Jim?

Meanwhile Reince Priebus of the Republican National Committee is still running away from Akin as fast as he can. That guy is as clueless as was his predecessor, Michael Steele.

Establishment Republicans are hopelessly clueless.

Al Hunt Blames Christian Anti-Mormon Bigotry For Romney's Troubles

Al Hunt for Bloomberg blames evangelical Christians for Romney's problems in this article:

Mitt Romney has a persisting Mormon problem. Less certain is whether this is limited to the Republican primaries or it’s a general-election worry, too.

“This nomination would be in the bag if it weren’t for the Mormon factor,” says John Geer, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University who works on the intersection of religion and politics.

The exit polls from a plethora of primaries confirm that. Romney, a deeply devout leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gets clobbered among white evangelicals and those who believe the religious views of a would-be president matter a great deal. This has caused him to lose a few primaries and denied him decisive wins in others.

The trouble with this argument is that it is wrong and ignores the fact that Mormonism is a bigger impediment in a candidate for Democrats than it is for Republicans, who might well realize this and instead want someone without this baggage who can also garner Democrat votes in the general election.

Last June's Gallup poll is a case in point: 27 percent of Democrats are unwilling to vote for a Mormon, compared with 18 or 19 percent for Republicans and Independents.

But there is another reason for Romney's woes, a candidate with far superior organization and much more money than any of the rest: proportional primaries.

Joseph Curl discusses the advent of proportional primaries in the Republican Party here, in the wake of the 2008 candidacy of John McCain:

[T]his is ... the scenario Republicans set up in 2010. Party leaders felt the process was too front-loaded, tilted too far to establishment leaders. So, to extend and open up the nomination, the leaders moved from mostly winner-take-all primaries and caucuses to proportionate distribution of delegates based on popular vote.

“There were a lot of people on the [Republican National Committee] and other places who were not very happy after ‘08,” David Norcross, chairman of the party’s Rules Committee when the changes were made, told the Daily Beast. “We didn’t think it was right that four or five states got to pick the nominee. It was slam, bam, thank you, done - and I think we were not helped by that. In fact, some of us think [Sen. John] McCain was not helped by that because he was not forced to sharpen his candidate skills. It was over and he went on to wait for the Democrats to produce a candidate. Just sitting around waiting.”

The new system established hefty penalties for any state that sought to move up on the calendar, in essence halving the number of delegates a state could award if it were so brash. It didn’t work; Florida moved its primary up anyway, with disastrous results.

But the new system also suggested the stakes be ramped up after April 1. The idea was for states holding primaries and caucuses after that date to be winner-take-all. But many of the late-date states wanted the nomination battle to still be alive when their date came up, so they stuck with the proportional setup.

That is why, almost into April and just halfway through the primary calendar, front-runner Mitt Romney has less than half the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination. And while everyone’s math differs, it looks as if he has to win about half of all delegates from now until the final primary in Utah on June 26.

With 1099 delegates still to be apportioned as of today in the rest of the primary contests, Romney needs 576 more to capture the nomination. Santorum needs 871.

But under a winner-take-all scenario, Romney would possess 625 delegates already and could theoretically clinch the nomination by winning the next thirteen states through May 15th. It would take Santorum through May 29, winning all sixteen of the next contests to add to his would-be current total of  461 under winner-take-all, including such places as Maryland, DC, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Oregon and Texas. A dubious proposition.

Presumably the dynamic of the race under those conditions would look far worse for Santorum because of Romney's natural advantages in boots on the ground and money. What is keeping Santorum viable today, however, has little to do with what Christians believe about Mormonism. What keeps Santorum alive is proportional voting.

Santorum needs to capture 79 percent of the still available delegates to win it, which is crazy. And if he thinks he's got a snowball's chance in hell of carving out a role in any future administration after the things he's said this season, he's even crazier than I think.

Let's hope he puts us out of our misery and gets out before Pennsylvania humiliates him on April 24th.