The Ryan Budget is a big gift to all of us, right and left, because it clearly shows us what the GOP stands for – nature red in tooth and claw where we struggle for survival of the fittest  – with a little extra help for our rich citizens who are probably considered to be the most fit because they can afford to pay Congress for the assistance.  This blatant embrace of the 1% is interesting because new research suggests that it does not really reflect the beliefs of the important if somewhat confused Tea Partiers who are popularly supposed to be playing an important role in the ever more rightward drift in the GOP itinerary.

Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, who have exhaustively researched the Tea Party phenomenon, have concluded that even those strident advocates for “liberty” from taxes, don’t really oppose government spending – as long as the spending is lavished on people they perceive as being like themselves. As Steven Teles summarizes it in The Washington Monthly:

In short, the fundamental principle of Tea Party activists is that government is fine when it’s helping people like them-hardworking, uncomplaining, non-mooching, self-restraining, religious (but not Muslim!), patriotic Americans-but it’s a threat when it’s helping people who are not like them. Screaming about the debt is really just the language Tea Party activists use to express their fear that the reins of government have been taken away from the people who actually make the society work, and given to a coalition of weirdos and parasites.

Which brings us to the three Republicans vying to represent their party in the race contesting Claire McCaskill’s Senate Seat. Their reactions to the Ryan budget provide a type of Rorschach test not only for the individuals involved, but for the degree to which they are actually attuned to attitudes that animate their base:

Todd Akin, a.k.a. Mr. Predictable, makes no bones about the fact that he wants to push even the lame, halt and starving little birdies out of what he views as a nest unfairly feathered by the  government at great cost to the rich:

This is a concrete plan that will put our economy back on track. Now is not a time to sit on the fence or to wait to see where the polls and political winds blow, it is time for action and leadership

Since almost no economists believe that the Ryan spending plan will do anything other than increase the deficit, gut the safety net and enrich the rich, this has to be a case of hard-core ideological blindness, disguised with the now cliched GOP efforts to paint Ryan as a bold thinker – or even as a thinker. Clearly, Akin would love to see the last of such programs as Medicare – and he might find that this attitude won’t endear him to the very folks he’s relying on to support him.

Sarah Steelman, the anointed candidate of the Tea Party Express if not all generic Tea Partiers in Missouri, is more in tune with the Tea Party mentality that Skocpol describes, albeit in a cautious fashion:

I would like to move towards a fairer flatter tax, shrink the size of government and balance the budget sooner. I am also taking a closer look at the Medicare revisions to make sure that Congress isn’t treated better than our seniors and that seniors have the option of staying with the current Medicare plan.

In other words, Steelman wants to deflect attention from the issue of privatizing Medicare, and tries to placate her Tea Party followers by reassuring them that if they suffer, she’ll make sure that Congress suffers too. Congress  is usually a fail-safe stalking horse. Notice that Steelman says nothing about making sure that the wealthy pick up their fair share of the load that the Ryan Budget foists off on the poor and middle class.

And John Brunner? Mr. No-Show does it again:

The third GOP candidate, St. Louis businessman John Brunner, said that Ryan showed “courage and leadership,” but declined to offer his views on the Wisconsin lawmaker’s proposed budget.

Interesting that Bruner chooses to emphasize “courage and leadership” while carefully showing neither. It seems that what he dubs the  “message of the citizen-senator against the career politician,” when speaking about his campaign, seems to be no more than an empty piece of paper.

No word yet about what the newest candidate, anti-stem cell guy Mark Memoly, thinks about budget priorities. I suspect it’ll be entertaining.

So there you have it. The old-line, crank right winger, Tea Party confusion and obfuscation, a corporate GOPer who stands for almost nothing but getting elected, and a cipher. And they want us to entrust them to watch out for programs like Medicare and Social Security that have sustained and built the middle classes, programs that even important segments of their own base support.    

How many times will these ignoramouses (ingorami?) embarrass Missouri? Let me count the national blogs that found the level of ignorance – or contempt – displayed by these sterling representatives of the Grand Old (tea)Party of interest (and the roundup below reflects only those I encountered while casually browsing):

Laura Clawson at Daily Kos lays it out in her lead:

Missouri’s Republican Senate candidates may not know what the minimum wage is, but they’re in agreement on one thing: It shouldn’t be raised …

Greg Sargent at the Plum Line offers the money quote:

Apparently one good way to remain competitive in some GOP primaries is to urinate on the minimum wage, by casting it either as a case of Big Government run amok or as a key cause of our economic woes. …

Amanda Terkel at the Huffington Post was amused by the general level of ignorance, but also noted that Todd Akin’s failure to grasp the essentials was particularly egregious since, he:

… as a congressman, is currently responsible for helping to set federal policy.

Think Progress sees Terkel and raises her one:

The federal minimum wage (and Missouri’s minimum wage) is $7.25 per hour. Certainly all three should know the wage level at which four million American workers are at or below. Akin, especially, should know, since in 2007 he voted against raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25.

But the really perceptive observation in the Think Progress piece is the observation that:

Perhaps explaining their ignorance of the current minimum wage is the fact that none of the three candidates personally live anywhere near it. Akin owns two homes and receives an annual congressional salary of $174,000. Steelman has donated upwards of $400,000 to her own Senate campaign. Brunner tops them all, sporting a net worth of approximately $100 million.

Talking Poings Memo seemed especially struck with the ideological rigidity of Todd Akin who ignores pragmatics pragmatic considerations in order to offer up a particularly inept version of the party line – TPM also reproduces his typically addled syntax verbatim:

… We have a government that whenever any government says we have to spend this much for this product or that product or you’ve got to pay this wage or whatever, that’s basically government control of the marketplace. It always its destructive and disruptive.

Politico’s David Catenese bluntly declares:

The three Republicans vying for a shot at Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill went 0-for-3 in being able to name the federal minimum wage during a St. Louis radio debate Friday.

The fact that a senatorial primary debate in Missouri generates so much noise and has so much reach is significant.  To return to Greg Sargent, who aptly sums up the implications of the gaffe:

In the Missouri Senate race, which is going to be a tough one for McCaskill, the GOP candidates’ declarations on the minimum wage today could become a major issue. Dems will cast the statements as the latest example of Republicans being beholden to corporate benefactors, and skapegoating [sic] people on the lowest rungs of the income ladder for our continued economic suffering. Given that the issue will likely be key in other campaigns and even in the presiential [sic] race, how this argument fares in a red-leaning state will be a key test case worth watching.

From the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division:

….Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009….

….A minimum wage of $4.25 per hour applies to young workers under the age of 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with an employer, as long as their work does not displace other workers….

….The minimum wage law (the FLSA) applies to employees of enterprises that have annual gross volume of sales or business done of at least $500,000. It also applies to employees of smaller firms if the employees are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, such as employees who work in transportation or communications or who regularly use the mails or telephones for interstate communications….

At the Missouri Department of Labor & Industrial Relations:

October 21, 2011: The Department announces that the state minimum wage for 2012 will remain at its 2011 rate of $7.25/hr.

Employers engaged in retail or service businesses whose annual gross income is less than $500,000 are not required to pay the state minimum wage rate. Employers not subject to the minimum wage law can pay employees wages of their choosing.

The republican U.S. Senate candidates don’t know:

….John Brunner (r): ….Well, the, the issue of the Federal minimum wage has always been an issue for small businesses. And the smaller the business the more difficult, uh, problem that you have….

Announcer: Okay, do, do you know what the minimum wage is?

John Brunner (r): No, sir.

Announcer: Okay, how ’bout you, Sarah Steelman?

Sarah Steelman: Uh, seven dollars and fifty cents an hour.

Announcer: Are, are you in favor of increasing it or decreasing it?

Sarah Steelman: I, I, uh….

Announcer: Or, are you, are you in favor of increasing it.

Sarah Steelman (r): No, I’m not in favor of increasing it at this time….

….Todd Akin (r): …In this particular case the minimum wage can be destructive because if you’ve got a kid that’s never held a job before, wants to just simply sweep a floor and learn how to be, uh, an employee and maybe they’re worth six dollars an hour and yet the government says you have to pay seven something, you don’t hire ’em. And that’s a big mistake….      

….Announcer: Do you know what the minimum wage is?

Todd Akin (r): Uh, my guess is it’s somewhere in that six or seven, but I don’t know the exact number now….

Apparently Sarah Steelman (r) thinks it’s too low. And Todd Akin (r), a member of Congress, is clueless about exemptions and doesn’t know the minimum wage.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) should be thanking the gods of politics. Hourly.

There was a republican senate candidate sorta debate today in Kansas City:

Sean Nicholson @ssnich

Hope today’s #MOSen forum sorts out who’ll be best able to avoid voters from Aug-Nov while Karl Rove spends a gazillion dollars on TV. 10:58 AM – 18 Feb 12

John Brunner’s (r) senate campaign issued a statement today after the soiree:

The Brunner for Senate campaign today shined a light on Sarah Steelman’s recently released list of policy proposals, showing they are nothing more than a cut, copy, and paste job of what nearly every other Republican federal candidate and incumbent supports — including John Brunner….

Think about that for a second.

He’s accusing one of his republican primary opponents of having the same “policy proposals” as every other republican candidate, including himself. If you’re a republican isn’t that the point? And as if John Brunner is the index case of the republican party?

Sarah Steelman got an ad out all about the affront to religious freedom and how McCaskill and Obama are bad by proxy. (Check the news if you have somehow missed the nontroversy from last week).

When it comes to matters of Sarah Steelman and the current outrages of the 2012 Republican party, you need to check the record to see what happened in the past.

Back in 2001.. HB762 was moving through the Senate. The National Conference of State Legislatures describes the bill/law as follows:

Mo. Rev. Stat. § 376.1199 (2001) requires health carriers that provide pharmaceutical coverage to include coverage for contraceptives, excluding drugs and devices that are intended to induce an abortion. The law clarifies that coverage for prescriptive contraceptive drugs or devices is not excluded if prescribed for other diagnosed medical conditions. The law exempts specified insurance policies, including health carriers owned and operated by religious entities, from the provisions of the law. The law prohibits discrimination against an enrollee because of the enrollee’s request regarding contraceptive coverage. The law requires carriers to maintain the confidentiality of any individual’s request for contraceptive coverage. (HB 762)

Essentially this law is the “good kind” of birth control coverage in the eyes of the 2012 Republican Party, right? After all, it has exemptions for religious groups and it’s not the kind of coverage that spawns Sarah Steelman attack ads.

Actually, that stand seems to be to the left of the current 2012 Republican stance, judging by the whole matter of Roy Blunt trying to put a “Freedom of Conscience” amendment up to allow employers to opt-out of contraceptive coverage.

This sort of thing did come up in 2001.

John Loudon offered an amendment to the bill to make birth control coverage optional in the law. The vote on the amendment was 25-8 against.

The Ayes were John Cauthorn, Doyle Childers, Bill Kenney, Peter Kinder, David Klindt, John Loudon, Larry Rohrbach, and Morris Westfall.

The overall bill passed 153-0 in the House and 32-2 in the Senate (Loudon and Rohrbach opposed).

That Was Then.

We know that 2012 Sarah Steelman is all about the religious freedom. What about the Blunt Amendment? What about the concept of making contraceptive coverage optional?

Sarah Steelman to Claire McCaskill on Twitter: “are you going to sign on to @royblunt S1467 to protect rights of conscience or is 1st amendment meaningless to you? #mosen #tcot”

S1467 CRS Summary:

Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011 – Amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to permit a health plan to decline coverage of specific items and services that are contrary to the religious beliefs of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan or the purchaser or beneficiary (in the case of individual coverage) without penalty.  Declares that such plans are still considered to: (1) be providing the essential health benefits package or preventive health services, (2) be a qualified health plan, and (3) have fulfilled other requirements under PPACA.

Declares that nothing in PPACA shall be construed to authorize a health plan to require a provider to provide, participate in, or refer for a specific item or service contrary to the provider’s religious beliefs or moral convictions. Prohibits a health plan from being considered to have failed to provide timely or other access to items or services or to fulfill any other requirement under PPACA because it has respected the rights of conscience of such a provider.

Prohibits an American Health Benefit Exchange (a state health insurance exchange) or other official or entity acting in a governmental capacity in the course of implementing PPACA from discriminating against a health plan, plan sponsor, health care provider, or other person because of an unwillingness to provide coverage of, participate in, or refer for, specific items or services.

Creates a private cause of action for the protection of individual rights created under this Act. Authorizes any person or entity to assert a violation of this Act as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding.

Designates the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to receive and investigate complaints of discrimination based on this Act.

Makes this Act effective as if it were included in PPACA.

Oh, That Is Now. Isn’t It.

The main numbers are…

Claire McCaskill 43, Todd Akin 43

Claire McCaskill 43, John Brunner 43

Claire McCaskill 43, Sarah Steelman 43

Claire McCaskill’s job approval? 42% approve, 49% disapprove.

So, how did this come about? Let’s go to the numbers.

I personally prefer to combine the very/somewhat totals for Liberals and Conservatives on PPP polls to create a wider sample. The realities of how PPP splits by ideology has a way of reducing the number of moderates, so there’ll be quite a few Somewhats who are closer to Moderate than the Verys. But here goes.

Claire McCaskill’s job approval

Liberals (31%): 72-18

Moderates (27%): 50-35

Conservatives (42%): 13-80

Claire v. Akin

Liberals: 71-10

Moderates: 57-30

Conservatives: 12-74

Claire v. Brunner

Liberals: 74-13

Moderates: 55-25

Conservatives: 11-75

Claire v. Steelman

Liberals: 72-18

Moderates: 50-35

Conservatives: 13-80

In other words, people who approve of Claire McCaskill seem to support her, and most of the people who don’t approve of Claire McCaskill do not support her. And when over 1/4th of the voters who you should be winning 4/5ths of are not supporting you, then you have a problem where your base does not like you enough and the people you’ve been focusing on pleasing for 5 years don’t like you either.

Or to put it more bluntly, if the election were held today between Claire McCaskill and one of her 3 opponents who has under 50% name-rec, Claire McCaskill would lose. Which is remarkable, considering the gap between her and her opponents, she shouldn’t be polling 43% and she shouldn’t be tied with every single opponent.

Moderates don’t like Claire McCaskill enough (and they tilt to Dems on the PPP samples, including Obama getting 61% job approval with Ohio Moderates). Liberals don’t like Claire McCaskill enough. And Conservatives don’t like her either, because she’s a Democrat, and no amount of posturing will change that.

One of the wonders of a three-way primary is the possibility that the Republicans will do a lot of the work necessary to get Claire McCaskill elected. But you can’t just depend on your opposition nuking each other.

Today GOP senatorial candidates Rep. Todd Akin (R-2) and Sarah Steelman participated in a debate that is mostly interesting for the absence of the third primary candidate, St. Louis businessman John Brunner, who was lustily calling his opponents out to debate just a few weeks ago. The resulting hoopla about Brunner’s failure to participate suggests that, as the old adage tells us, you should be careful what you ask for. Talking Points Memo offers a good summary of the  debate and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch digs into one of the high points – Akin’s vote on Medicare Part D (did he or didn’t he?).

One interesting take away for me was the fact that both these GOP stalwarts, Akin implicitly and Steelman explicitly, are running against the Bush years as much as the Obama presidency. Steelman makes no bones about her repudiation of the GOP record:

If you like the way it’s been for the last 12 or 15 years in Washington, and you like the direction we’re headed from that experience, then I’m not your candidate. I’ll just say it as plain as can be, I’m not your candidate. But if you want something different, and you think we need to move in a different direction, and you think earmark spending does matter, and you want more freedom for people to choose what to do with their money, than I am your candidate.

Akin, for his part, frantically tried to disassociate himself from the Bush administration’s Medicate Part D giveaways to Big Pharma. You get the impression that he regards it as the litmus test for his conservatism. Sadly for Rep. Akin, there’s something a tad tawdry about one of the gang always claiming that the other guy did it.

But be that as it may, this whole campaign line does suggest just how serious the fissure in the GOP really is. You’ve got your big money boys and you’ve got your newly emboldened crackpots, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Steelman’s breezy disregard for the GOP corporatist establishment and Akin’s discomfiture suggests that we might be well into the winter of GOP discontent.

Remember last October when Sarah Steelman pushed to debate the other GOP candidates seeking to run against Claire McCaskill next year and the Brunner campaign seemingly demurred? At the time it seemed obvious that the reason might have had something to do with the “not-ready-for-prime-time” vibe that Brunner was giving off. Consider, for instance, this little snippet culled from John Brunner’s effort to describe what he would do to help small business:

When starting a business, you have to look at the total picture. We have got so far off track; the whole health care system is so federalized. I have never seen the U.S. government take on a project that it was able to provide a better value at a lower cost more efficiently.It’s a huge, huge problem and it hits us hard. I know in my own business, the most important thing for everybody is to have good health care. We need to take a look back and find out why do we have hundreds of other regulations and other costs that take priority over what I would say is basic health care for the employees and associates in your business? Our priorities are messed up in our country, bottom line. The priority of our competitive environment is that our government has laid in so many regulatory costs and so many complicated tax issues and so many legal issues that a small business now – we have a system that is sucking dry everything. …

As you read this, don’t you envision a shipwrecked sailor desperately paddling for land, grabbing at every bit of right-wing flotsam and jetsam in mental proximity?

But now, a scant two months later, Brunner is signaling that he is chafing at the bit when it comes to debating his primary rivals. You think he actually mastered the essentials during a couple of months of cramming? Of course, you have to consider his opponents, Todd Akin and Sarah Steelman. Perhaps Brunner’s handlers finally decided that there’s not too much he could say to hurt himself in such company.

It should be entertaining at the very least. Given Brunner’s obvious proclivity for twisted syntax and chaotic free association, the only thing more amusing might be listening to him debate Sarah Palin. Although, come to think of it, even better would be hearing Claire McCaskill, who is nothing if not quick on her feet, eviscerate him next year.  

@sarah_steelman Sarah Steelman

To @clairecmc the word compromise is French for increase spending, raise taxes. bit.ly/uiBjNq #mosen #badidea 19 hours ago

French? What does that have to do with anything, other than being a dog whistle for the right wingnut base?

A few days ago I noted that the reactions to the Occupy movement by Missouri’s senators, Democrat Claire Mcaskill and Republican Roy Blunt, ran true to their usual form. But what about the gaggle of GOPers who are vying to be the Republican candidate for McCaskill’s Senate seat?

Two of those in the running, Sarah Steelman and Rep. Todd Akin (R-2), are both currently on the record with a few predictably dismissive comments. The third and newest contender, St. Louis businessman John Brunner,  has, so far as I can determine, not made a public statement on the Occupy movement. However, since he doesn’t seem to have said much of anything about anything in public, that’s not especially surprising.

On the topic of the Occupy protesters, Sarah Steelman observes that:

Yes, they have a right to be angry that there are no jobs. But they shouldn’t sit back and act like somebody should do something about it. They need to do something about it

Hunh? She thinks it’s just another symptom of apathy when protesters take a stand in order to articulate the essential powerlessness so many Americans feel in the face of a corporate culture gone off the rails and taking our government with it? If she means that they should go out and get a job, of course, maybe somebody ought to remind her what unemployment figures actually mean about the availablity of jobs.*

Steelman also wags her metaphorical finger at the protesters, declaring that the poor babies are “misguided and they don’t understand what capitalism is.” But isn’t this the kind of thing lazy thinkers always say when they aren’t willing or capable of of responding to an argument, in this case the Occupy movement’s critique of the laissez faire capitalism that is favored by Steelman and her GOP cohorts? Greed and its effects  aren’t really hard to understand – especially for its victims.

The best that one can say about Rep. Akin’s logically tortured contribution to the discussion is that it is, as are so many of his utterances, at least unique:

The thing that I find sort of amusing about it is it is the liberal whole philosophy which destroys the average person,” Akin said. “They’re screaming about there’s rich and poor, and they’re the ones that create that more than anyone else by just taxing the hide and regulating the dickens off of an average American.”

This is coming from a man who has actively supported the mislabeled “fair tax,” which would increase the tax burden of the poor and middle class while decreasing taxes on the wealthy. Tell me again who it is who wants to tax “the hide” off of the average person? As for “regulating the dickens off an average American,” does that maybe have something to do with protecting that average American’s food, air and water from greedy corporations? Makes you wonder just who Akin thinks “average Americans” really are.

What we really learn from these comments is that the Occupy movement is getting harder and harder for politicians to ignore, no matter what ideological hidey-hole they inhabit. As Eugene Robinson observes in his column today:

The biggest impact of the Occupy Wall Street protests has been to provide a focal point for generalized economic and political discontent. Frustrated voters on the left and the right may disagree on, say, immigration policy or health care reform. But they can agree on a critique of the financial sector – and, potentially, on specific measures to bring about necessary change.

Ms. Steelman to the contrary, I’m willing to bet that that a viable critique of the financial sector that will satisfy the Occupy folks and their myriad sympathizers will not include a sermon on the sanctity of the untrammeled market and its Wall Street acolytes. Nor, despite Todd Akin’s liberal-hating spleen, will many of these folks endorse his efforts to force the 99% to pay for tax cuts for the 1%.

*Sentence added.