Last night Rachel Maddow enthused about Claire McCaskill as a presidential candidate if Hillary Clinton decided not to run. It’s likely that Maddow was taking what she believes to be a pragmatic stance that credits the general nattering about how the United States has become a “center right” nation:

…  if I had to pick one Democrat who I thought could definitely win a race for president, it would be you. That’s in part because you’re considerably more conservative than I am, but I think you could win if you ever wanted to run. Anyway, I’ll just leave it there.

Maddow clearly thinks McCaskill is a woman of intelligence and integrity, and I get the feeling that she regards what she calls McCaskill’s conservatism as relative. I’m not sure. I’m as pragmatic as the next person. I not only voted for McCaskill, but made phone calls for her campaign. She was the candidate my Democratic party gave me and she was that much better than the alternative –  both times. But I still can’t see where Maddow derives her sunny view of McCaskill’s hypothetical presidential prospects.

I can see McCaskill’s attractive points. She’s relatively smart, keeps her head down when it’s politic to do so, and knows when to raise her colors so as to attract the attention of apolitical Missouri centrists who like to think that governing is all a matter of “common sense.” She’s really good at looking for the path of least resistance, even if she just as often fails to find it.

But do I think she could manage to get elected president? I can’t help remembering that it took an opponent like Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin to send her back to congress a second time. I’m not sure she’ll make it in 2016 next time barring the type of miracle that a popular Democratic presidential candidate’s coattails might bring off. So, in case you haven’t guessed, the answer is emphatically no.

And the reason why  is that while the opposition serves up hard-core rot-gut, McCaskill seems to be constitutionally incapable of giving us a shot of the hard stuff more than every now and then. In today’s political climate, watered-down spirits won’t cut it even when we’re getting it from a tough bar-tender. She has too obviously capitulated to the pressure of what her chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton, has dubbed the rightwing noise machine, the volume of which was ratcheted up considerably with the election of our first African-American president. That is not what leaders do.

McCaskill often takes up worthy issues, financial oversight, for instance, and she occasionally stands up for a risky issue like abortion rights, but she just as often stops short of going all the way if it involves anything controversial – witness the way she temporized in her approach to rape in the military where she carefully avoided antagonizing the knee-jerk supporters of military authority. She preaches about fiscal responsibility, campaigned against earmarks and supported purchases of more of the outdated EA-18G Growler aircraft than the Pentagon wanted in order to satisfy its Missouri-based manufacturers. Good for Missouri, bad for the spending she’s been so hot to cap, and just a little hypocritical for somebody who campaigned vociferously against stacking up pork back home.

There’s nothing too unusual in such a record; it fits the general profile of regional politicians. But there’s nothing there that suggests leader of the free world either. Political pragmatism is acceptable only when it serves a coherent political vision. I’m not sure what McCaskill’s vision actually is apart from not making waves and fussing about some admittedly not unimportant details, but details nonetheless.

So, sorry, Rachel Maddow. I’ll vote to send McCaskill back to the Senate in 2016 2018 as long as there’s not a better alternative, but would I vote for her in a presidential primary? Would many other Missourians? I hope we never have to find out.



*Edited slightly for clarity.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) was on Rachel Maddow’s show this evening:

Rachel Maddow: ….Joining us now is Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill. She’s a member of the Armed Services Committee. She’s chair of the Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee. Senator McCaskill, thank you very much for being here.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): It’s great to be here Rachel.

Rachel Maddow: Um, you and I, um, have had a lot of interesting conversations over the years about national security, in part because we have some differences of opinion on it. Did I say anything there that struck you as, um, either misstatement of the facts or just contrary to the way that you understand this.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Well, I think it’s important to point out that the enemy of today is a much different enemy than the enemy that our country worried about when we were very young, when my parents’ generation and their parents’ generation. Now, this is an enemy that is all over the world. Um, they have the ability to strike at us as we saw on nine eleven, and, so the necessity that our government be able to have eyes and ears everywhere, learning where terrorists are. Now, having said that, we have to marry that with our constitutional principles and make sure that we stay true to our constitutional principles. And therein lies the challenge. How do we deal with an enemy that doesn’t necessarily represent a country, that represents a philosophy? How do we deal with a group of people that are spread around the world with the technology of today, with the ability to strike at us at any moment in a way that has fundamentally hurt our country. So, I think that’s the debate that you’re referencing. And, yes, I think it’s healthy for us to have that debate.

Rachel Maddow: See, I, I feel like the eyes and ears part of it, everybody’s on board with. Like, the eyes and ears part of it, the idea that what an intelligence does and why they have the kinds of power that they do, where policy makers disavow what they do and so much of it is kept secret, is because they are supposed to be finding out things in the world. That’s why after nine eleven, for example, it was the CIA that had unarmed drones out there, not the Air Force that had them, because the CIA was out collecting information about forces in the world that might want to do us harm. I’m all for that. The thing that I felt like just started happening that we didn’t debate was the CIA being used essentially as a branch of the military, the CIA being used for, not just looking, but for killing.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Well, I, I really think that, um, why, I can’t go into some details here, um, by and large the decisions to use drones to take out our enemies still rests primarily with our military. Um, in fact, in Missouri, at Whiteman Air Force Base there is a, actually, one day I was there they were saying, um, there’s some guys going to fly a mission [Rachel Maddow: “Hmm.”] and it was guys going into these things that look, you know, like temporary buildings and they were flying drones in the whole effort to help along the Turk, with, with the Turkish government, um, with some of the efforts we were making right then as it related to some of the conflicts in the Middle East. And, so, there is still primarily, I think, um, and I think there is cooperation, but, also keep in mind that some of these drone strikes were effective and they did it without harm to civilians. And sometimes when you go in with traditional warfare it is more dangerous to innocents in the area than highly sophisticated drone strikes. So, while I think we’ve gotta have the debate about drones and who’s using them, we have to make sure we stay to our, true to our constitutional principles, we also need to know that, um, we’ve got bad guys out there that really want to bring harm to our country and they aren’t all in uniform and they’re not all on a military base somewhere.  

Rachel Maddow: With, with the defense authorization bill getting a ninety-eight to zero vote in the Senate, what gets a ninety-eight to zero vote anymore? That was sort of amazing to see in itself. But looking at some of the amendments there, ba, uh, the passage of an amendment to urge the President to speed up the withdrawal of the, of troops, um, from Afghanistan before his ultimate end date, uh, for the end of combat operations at the end of twenty fourteen. Um, a vote on a somewhat controversial amendment concerning changes to indefinite detention and some other, I feel like some of the partisan divisions that we expect and that we remember from the George W. Bush era and the post nine eleven fights about security and liberty, I feel like some of those partisan divisions are getting blurred. And you can’t necessarily predict a person’s position in these debates based on their party anymore. Do you feel that way?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): I think that’s true. I think D versus R is less prominent in the, in this space than some of the other spaces, um, you know, obviously the vote we had today on the disability treaty was painful for many of us. That was clearly a right wing R verses all of the Democrats in the Senate. Um, but, you know, there are lot of things in the defense authorization bill. As you know, we’ve talked about this before, I’m very proud of the sweeping contract reforms that we got included in that bill. I hope that all of your listeners who know the kind of money we’ve wasted on war profiteering and abusive contracts in the war space, that they, uh, stay on the members of Congress to make sure it stays in the bill. Because it’s not in House version, so it’s going to be a conferenceable item. All of these reforms in war contracting, they could really make a difference going forward that we are holding contractors accountable to a standard that I think Americans would feel much better about.

Rachel Maddow: As we have finished the war in Iraq and as the end game in Afghanistan is starting to become more clear, although we still don’t know the pace of withdrawal there, do you feel like this is the time when we establish new norms for things like contracting, for things like oversight, and for things like what gets debated and what doesn’t, what’s on the President’s plate and what’s on Congress’ plate moving forward? I mean, national security challenges are always going to evolve. We’re always going to have something on the horizon. Is there a sort of template of lessons that we ought to have learned from these twelve years of war now, moving forward, that we should get in place now?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Well, we, we need to be very careful and thoughtful about the cuts to our military because we have to maintain readiness. But anybody who says that we can’t cut anything out of the Pentagon has not spent the time in the weeds in the Pentagon that I have. Um, there has been a lot of money wasted, um, through very wasteful practices, particularly in the space of contracting. If we don’t get this fixed now we will be right back repeating the same mistakes the next time, um, that we find ourselves, uh, putting men and women’s lives at risk on behalf of our nation far, far way.

Rachel Maddow: But you feel like the constructive discussions that are happening right now around the defense bill and some of these other things that you have worked on, you feel, you feel like it’s, it’s potentially ground to move forward? Do you feel like [crosstalk] constructive work is being done?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): I do. [crosstalk] I do. And the main thing is to not, not go on to the next shiny object. [Rachel Maddow: “Right.”] We need to stay in this space, make sure we debate these issues fully, make sure we set policy clearly, and then, hold ’em accountable, hold their feet to the fire and make sure that we don’t go back to bad habits, and that some of the decisions you’re talking about, everyone understand what the ground rules are.

Rachel Maddow: I think that this is an incredibly important time in national security and it’s, it’s times like this when you have to actually be focused on having the best debate. Uh, not times when, uh, things are starting, but times when things are [crosstalk] ending, so.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): That’s exactly right. [cross talk] That’s exactly right.

Rachel Maddow: Senator Claire McCaskill, congratulations on your win.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Thank you very much, Rachel.

Rachel Maddow: Uh, in this hard fought Senate race. [crosstalk] And it’s nice to see you. Thanks a lot.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Thank you. [crosstalk] Nice to see you. Thank you….

A Kansas City area independent book store sponsored a book event featuring Rachel Maddow at the Uptown Theater this afternoon. A crowd of approximately fifteen hundred attended. For the price of admission they received a signed copy of Rachel Maddow’s book, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, and got to listen to a ninety minute conversation with the author.

The early contingent of a very jovial “sold out” crowd we estimate at

fifteen hundred for the event was already lined up before noon for the 2:00 p.m. scheduled start.

Mary O’Halloran (left) and Judy Baker (D) (right), a Democratic Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor,

in the audience before the start of the show.

Rachel Maddow.

A transcript of portions of the conversation:

….Rachel Maddow: …I don’t think the reaction would be as bad, um, as it was in two thousand four. I don’t, I, I actually think that there are some ways in which we have learned from this sort of national shock we had after nine eleven. For example, I don’t think that we are going to make the mistake again of conflating views on the wars with the, with respect for the troops. I think that we are now past the idea that if you are against the war that means you are somehow against members of the United States military. [applause] And you know, demagoguery on that issue is not that old, but I do think we, we quickly grew, were horrified by it and grew out of it. I mean, the, there was a Pew survey late last year of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans asking them about their views of the wars in which they had fought. And only about a third of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said they believed that the wars were worth it. And you can’t say that they do not respect the troops. They are, they are the troops. That’s the troops speaking for themselves. And so, I, I think that we are, I think that we grew through that. And I think that we are morally, um, I think that we can be temporarily moral, morally susceptible to demagoguery like that, but I actually think that our hearts are in the right place. I think that when somebody puts a magnetic yellow ribbon on the bumper of their SUV and somebody else is, you know, next to them in traffic in the bike lane cursing their magnetic yellow ribbon on their SUV, the impotence of that gesture, I actually think that both of those things come from the same place. I think that both of tho, I feel for, I feel for both  of the characters in that anecdote because both of them want to have a real and respectful connection with the military that has been fighting wars in our name while we have done nothing to represent, to, or even, or, or even mimic their sacrifice.  [applause] ….

….Rachel Maddow: …We certainly have the option with, um, the new technological means by which we have access to media. We have the option to be really irresponsible about it. You definitely can tailor all of your news so that you see nothing that is not about a member of the Kardashian family and yourself. [laughter] Right? You can, you can do that. You can just be, you know, like weather and the Royals and the Kardashians and Paula Deen. [laughter] Just have that for your news. And that can be, and that can be a very satisfying way to live. [laughter] Um, depending on how passionate you feel about Paula Deen. [laughter] But, or any of those other things. But, uh, you also have the opportunity to be way more responsible in your news reading, in your news gathering than you ever could have been before when we sort of all only, when we all only had access to these voice of God three network newscasts, um, in their purported objectivity, right? Um, and national newspapers and whatever we could get reported [inaudible]. When that was all we had you could be the most responsible newsgatherer on Earth and still have, let’s say, no idea what was going on with, you know, some, some technological issue that was being debated in Congress that you actually had relevant expertise about but you have, you didn’t know was happening ’cause it didn’t come to you through your work trade journals. Right? But now, if there is some thing going on in Congress, if there’s some regulation being debated, if there’s some controversy over something that you know about, that you have access to good information about and that you ought to be contributing in that debate, you can get as deep in to that, the daily information reporting about that, as anybody anywhere on Earth. You can get daily detailed news reports from Mombassa, Kenya from here in Kansas City. You can get very opinion, you, you can get very detailed information about small towns anywhere in our country, about technical issues anywhere in our country, and about deep, you can get deep access political opinion you never could get before. I mean, we do have the option to hive off into ideological bubbles that make us happy. But we also have access to everybody else’s bubbles, too….

Photo by Jerry Schmidt, Show Me Progress

Photo by Jerry Schmidt, Show Me Progress

After the event we walked a few blocks south on Broadway to find a place to eat. We stumbled upon a newly open establishment, Open Fire – Wood Burning Pizza, and had a good meal.

I voted today.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, political groups spent $4 billion to influence that vote. Thanks to the “speech” rights bestowed on corporate America’s dollars by the Roberts Court, that spending has the potential to significantly skew results:

Identifiably conservative organizations are spending more than $2 on advertisements and other communications for every $1 liberal organizations do. While corporations are behind much of this money, many of these companies have skirted public scrutiny by laundering their cash through intermediary organizations, which often sport nondescript names and don’t immediately, if ever, reveal who funds them.

Think Crossroads, Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Job Security (which was recently outed by the New York Times as “a front for a coterie of political operatives, devised to sidestep campaign disclosure rules.”)

What’s at stake? Rachel Maddow’s retrospective of the numerous achievements of the past couple of years makes it clear what Democrats really stand for, despite the diluting effect of a few weak, Democratic “centrists”:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Historian Michael Beschloss, who speaks briefly at the end of the segment, sums up the administration’s choices as substantive achievement over political expediency. Not such a bad epitaph if it comes to that.

And what, on the Republican side, are all those corporate dollars buying?  Steve Benen suggests that a new K-street project may already be in the works; our anti-big government, Tea Party approved GOP wants to solidify their control over corporate donations so that they can funnel all those dollars to the best advantage in 2012. Otherwise, apart from lots of talk about eviscerating the Constitution, the Party of No, hasn’t promised anything constructive aside from shutting down government whenever they can’t have their corporate-approved legislative way. How else are they ever going to repay all that campaign boodle?

Here in Missouri, state Republicans are so confident that all the national level momentum (i.e. spending) will leave them safe in the driver’s seat that they’re already squabbling amongst themselves about how the various factions (Tea Party, far right, rightwing)  will divide the spoils. Thanks to Crossroads’ saturation of the airwaves with false talking points (did you know that Robin Carnahan will cut $500 billion from Medicare?), Roy Blunt’s planning what to wear to his his victory party as I write this. Meanwhile, if the latest polls are confirmed, Prop. A’s daddy, Rex Sinquefield, will sleep tonight, a couple of million dollars lighter in the pocketbook, but secure in his faith that the almighty dollar can buy just about anything.

Nevertheless, I voted today; I know what my votes stands for and it isn’t slick, dishonest politicking. I know that you all have the same belief about what government can and should do, so go forth … and vote.

The Senate failed to act on the Disclose Act in late September. This act would have closed loopholes created by the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision that permit tax exempt 501(c)(6) “issue” oriented organizations to funnel money into political advertising without disclosing the source of the funds. The legislation passed in the House last June thanks to the Democrats and two Republicans. Predictably, neither of those two Republicans were from Missouri.

All the GOP members of the Missouri delegation voted against it except for Roy Blunt who skipped the vote, but his spokesperson had earlier stated that he was “pleased” about the Citizens United decision, so we can probably infer how he would have voted. (Am I wrong that old Roy has avoided voting on just about everything since he began campaigning for the Senate? In hopes of depriving the opposition of any possible ammunition perhaps?)

In a post earlier today, I discussed the situation that lack of disclosure requirements have created in Missouri’s political race. On the Rachel Maddow show last night, her guest, Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Scott Thomas, very explicitly clarified the nature of the danger posed by our current situation in regard to disclosure:

If you deplore this lack of transparency, just remember which Missouri politicians want to retain it. It’s not too difficult to figure out why.

“…Well, it’s, it’s because we didn’t have enough people when we went into Iraq. Truth be known, we didn’t have the size of force necessary to do what we were trying to do in Iraq…” – Senator Claire McCaskill (D)

Somebody should have told that to Donald Rumsfeld. Oh, wait…

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) was a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show last night, discussing contractor oversight in Afghanistan. The transcript:

Rachel Maddow: ….Joining us now after way too long an absence is Senator Claire McCaskill of the great State of Missouri, chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Contracting. Senator, thank you so much for your time tonight. Good to see you.

Senator Claire McCaskill: Thanks, Rachel, good to be with you.

Rachel Maddow: After all of these years and all of these billions paid to contractors to do this, did they have any explanation for why they haven’t done something as simple as, as telling people what the sights on their guns are for?

Senator McCaskill: Well frankly, I mean, it’s been like the wild west because nobody’s been watching them. This is a textbook example of complete lack of oversight on contracting. And it wouldn’t be so frustrating if this wasn’t a story that we’ve heard over and over again. If you look at this contract it’s been bounced around, from, uh, Defense to State, uh, now they’re trying to take it back to Defense. And here’s the saddest part of the story, this is a key mission of what we’re doing in Afghanistan. Training these police departments is one leg of a three legged stool that is going to dictate whether or not we succeed or whether we fail. So contracting oversight of the police training mission is incredibly important and it has been an abject failure…

…Rachel Maddow: General William Caldwell is in charge of training Afghan forces. He says publicly that he would rather work with people like the real Italian police or any real police other than working with contractors. Uh, General McChrystal today said that we’re too reliant on contractors and said they don’t save money. He says he wants fewer of them in Afghanistan. Who is actually in favor of these contractors still being there? Why can’t we seem to free ourselves of them?

Senator McCaskill: Well, it’s, it’s because we didn’t have enough people when we went into Iraq. Truth be known, we didn’t have the size of force necessary to do what we were trying to do in Iraq, so the logistic support went to contractors. The, um, training of police went to contractors. Now we’re repeating that in Afghanistan. Now, hopefully, uh, I was in Afghanistan not too long ago, met with both General McChrystal and General Caldwell. I will tell you, General Caldwell gets it. He understands how badly this has been done before. He understands that he’s got to get this under his command and get control of it. But just to give you another example of what, what nonsense there is here, guess who they’re hiring to oversee the contractors that are training the police in Afghanistan? Contractors.  [laugh] So, we’ve got to get people in the country that work for our military, that are watching the way these people are being trained because it’s not just training, it’s also mentoring. There’s rampant corruption in these police departments. Uh, and you’re not gonna establish a rule of law unless you work on the mentoring part so they realize there’s a different way to police besides saying what can you pay me to let you go.

Rachel Maddow: I worry about the oversight of, of contracts themselves being, uh, uh, contracted out. Contractors overseeing contractors. I also worry about the fact that we think this is something that can only be done by contractors in terms of devel, uh, delivering this, this service. I mean, Blackwater is up for this police training contract in Afghanistan now, despite Nisour, uh, Nisour Square, despite the State Department investigations, despite this indictment against their former employees. I mean, how badly does a company have to behave before we stop hiring them and just have our troops and our government employees do this stuff?

Senator McCaskill: Part of the problem is that our military wants what they want when they want it. And contracting is a quicker way to get there. Um, we’ve got to realize that that is a luxury we can no longer afford. ‘Cause it hasn’t, hasn’t been a good investment for our taxpayers. And it hasn’t been the kind of support our military needs. So we have to begin to realize that especially training local police for rule of law in a counterinsurgency effort, which is going to be a core competency of our military forever, we’ve got to bring that in house. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got the oversight of the contracts that are in the military chain of command so we know who to fire when it goes badly. That’s part of the problem with this mess, is you don’t even know who to hold accountable, because it’s such a cluster. You’ve got NATO in there, you’ve got the military, you’ve got the State Department. Meanwhile these contractors, they’re not really sure who the boss is, so they do what they feel like.

Rachel Maddow:  Do you feel like you have support in the administration and at the Pentagon for the views that you’ve expressed here and the way that you’ve approached this issue?

Senator McCaskill: I do, um, you know now, what, what, this is not something you can turn a switch and accomplish. Part of the problem, Rachel, is the area of contracting is not exactly sexy. And you might have noticed that folks around the Capitol kind of like the stuff that’s getting headlines that day. So part of it is attention span. Um, that’s why I’m happy about this committee. We can stay on this even though there may not be a full hearing room, there may, may not be cameras or people covering it in the newspaper. But these agencies are gonna know somebody is paying attention to the way they’re contracting. And I think over time we’re gonna be able to make a real difference, ’cause nobody’s been paying this kind of attention to contracting in the federal government before.

Rachel Maddow:  You keep doing these hearings and I promise we will keep covering it. At least at our little show here at nine o’clock. [laugh] Uh, I have one last question [crosstalk] senator.

Senator McCaskill: It’s a deal.

Rachel Maddow:   All right, it’s a deal. Uh, [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: Sure.

Rachel Maddow:   Uh, one last question, is, and I know that you won’t answer it directly, but I’m just gonna ask anyway. Wouldn’t being a Supreme Court justice be an awesome job?

Senator McCaskill: Honestly, for me, I would get way too restless. Um, you know, I, I love, I’m an intellectually curious person and I do love to read, but it’s an isolating job and I kinda need to be out there mixing it up a little bit more than you can do as a Supreme Court justice. So, it’s not something that I, honestly I don’t think I ‘d even be considered, uh, but if I were I’d have to say I, I don’t think I’m the right personality to be a Supreme Court justice.

Rachel Maddow:   Senator Claire McCaskill of the great State of Missouri answering that with way more detail than I ‘d ever thought I’d get. Uh, thank you so much for your time today. [laughter] And good luck to the Cardinals tonight.

Senator McCaskill: Thank you very much.

Rachel Maddow:   All right….

Give ’em hell, Harry.

Progressives never accuse Howard Dean  of being a sellout, so when he speaks favorably of the Senate compromise–dropping the public option in favor of expanding Medicare–as he did on Rachel Maddow’s show Thursday, that’s an opinion many of us respect.

But Jane Hamsher’s assertion that expanding Medicare is only worthwhile if it’s a mandate for everyone 55 and older is based on credible knowledge. She contacted Physicians for a National Health Program, who informed her that if it isn’t mandatory “it becomes the place where all the sickest patients get dumped.”

Is Dean’s optimism ill founded?  

Nobody was too surprised that Ike Skelton voted for the repressive Stupak-Pitts Amendment which, if it is retained, will do more to impede access to abortion than any other piece of legislation since  Roe v. Wade made abortion legal. Nor was it surprising that Skelton also voted against the Health Care Reform Bill itself – although the Stupak-Pitts amendment was supposed to buy the votes of Republican-lite Democrats like Skelton.

However, Rachel Maddow, in a discussion of the roots of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment last night suggested a sinister influence that might have played a role in determining Skelton’s votes. In the video below (at point 2:09) Maddow states that Skelton is reported to be a member of The Family, a shadowy, elite, evangelical network that, according to author Jeff Sharlet, works through susceptible politicians to move our government closer to becoming a fundamentalist Christian state:

There’s nothing intrinsically evil about being conservative, moderate, or whatever Skelton calls himself, though one can argue that his policy positions are mistaken. Neither should one question his Christian faith per se.  However, what does deserve to be examined in the light of full disclosure is the possibility that Skelton, an eleted official, is unduly influenced by a secretive religious organization that works to exert a sub rosa influence on the political life of the nation.      

Joe Lieberman:

“…he campaigned for down ticket Republican senators…”

Dayenu.  

Give Claire McCaskill a call and let her know what you think: 202-224-6154

For the record, I rarely wear pajamas when I blog. Usually I just stick to a T-shirt and boxers ensemble.