Previously: Tommy Sowers (D) in the 8th Congressonal District: clubbing Jo Ann Emerson (r) with the bailout

Tommy Sowers’ (D) campaign started airing a television ad and Jo Ann Emerson’s (r) campaign followed suit. The Sowers campaign issued the following statement in response to the Emerson ad:

“Emerson is trying to change the subject, because she doesn’t want to talk about her vote for the Wall St Bailout, her trade votes that have killed SE Missouri manufacturing, and […] the union pension bailout scheme she is sponsoring. All 3 are incredibly unpopular with voters in the district. This also serves as recognition of how threatened Emerson is by Tommy Sowers. She’s never mentioned any of her opponents by name in past TV ads, now she’s doing it more than 2 months before the election. She thinks her support in the district is a mile wide, but it’s an inch deep.”

Announcer: Where do they stand? On health care Tommy Sowers wants government in charge.

[Tommy Sowers, Government Run Health Care]

Sowers supports keeping the Obama health care takeover.

[Tommy Sowers, Southeast Missourian, 11,8/09, “Sowers Said He Would Vote For It.”]

Higher taxes, more spending, less control of your care.

[Tommy Sowers, Higher Taxes, More Spending, Less Control]

Missouri needs a leader…

[Missouri needs a Leader]

…not an Obama Pelosi yes man.

[Tommy Sowers, Obama-Pelosi, Yes Man]

Jo Ann Emerson fought the health care bill…

[Jo Ann Emerson Fought Obamacare]

…and is working for repeal so doctors make decisions, not bureaucrats. Putting people before politics…

[People Before Politics]

…Jo Ann Emerson for Congress.

[Paid For By Team Emerson. Approved By Jo Ann Emerson.]

Jo Ann Emerson:  I’m Jo Ann Emerson and I approved this message.

Okay. Let’s deconstruct this just a little bit. To advocate that the health care reform bill is destroying a health care system that’s working you should probably point out the stuff you think works.

Let’s see, universal access to affordable health care? Nope. People without health insurance get their medical care late and in hospital emergency departments where the care is most expensive. Who pays for that? Uh, the hospitals recoup those costs by charging those with insurance more.

“…Jo Ann Emerson fought the health care bill and is working for repeal…”

Prohibitions against restricting coverage of preexisting conditions? Prohibitions against denying people the insurance coverage they paid for because the actually got sick (rescission)? Really, Jo Ann Emerson thinks those provisions of the health care bill need to be repealed?

“…so doctors make decisions, not bureaucrats…”

Uh, what color is the sky in Jo Ann Emerson’s world? Insurance company bureaucrats don’t make our health care decisions for us now? Really?

“…Obama Pelosi…”

Uh, Jo Ann Emerson is not running against Nancy Pelosi, she’s running against Tommy Sowers, who also happens to be a veteran. That’s a nice touch by Jo Ann Emerson, by the way, having veterans surround her at the end of the commercial. I wonder if this comment came up while they were filming that scene for her commercial? Just asking.

“…Putting people before politics…”

Her campaign can’t be serious in using that cliche phrase in a political commercial – unless they’re delusional or think everyone else in the world is too stupid to compare her words with her record.

Uh, by the way, as a member of Congress didn’t Jo Ann Emerson have access to government health insurance before the health care bill was signed into law? Just asking.  

Tommy Sowers‘ (D) campaign is airing this latest ad:

Tommy Sowers: When I served in Iraq I wasn’t alone. I had my fellow soldiers and this combat Bible. I’m Tommy Sowers, a veteran running to bring new blood to Congress.

Announcer: Jo Ann Emerson sold us out.

[Jo Ann Emerson]

Voted for job killing trade deals and the Wall Street bailout.

[Bad Trade Deals, Wall Street Bailouts]

Now Emerson is backing another one hundred sixty-five billion dollar bailout scheme and taking money from big city special interests in return.

Vote Sowers and stop Emerson’s latest bailout.

[Shotgun]

Tommy Sowers: I’m Tommy Sowers and I approved this message.

[Sowers, SowersForCongress.com

Aaproved by Tommy Sowers, Paid For By Sowers For Congress]

Heh. The shotgun is a nice touch.

Last month, when Michele Bachmann put out the list of the first members of her new congressional Tea Party Caucus, I noted the predictable presence of Teetotaler Todd Akin (R-2nd), and asked where the rest of the Missouri Republican delegation was. The answer is that, with one exception, Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-9th), they are still missing.

It might be that Roy Blunt (R-7th), Jo Ann Emerson (R-8th), and Sam Graves(R-6th) still have some capacity for embarrassment. Or that, lacking the sincere conviction that practically oozes from, say, Todd Akin, they want more wiggle room. They may well be worrying about constituents who would think twice about a congressperson whose goal is to “serve as a listening ear to tea parties.” (Are you, like me, wondering what kind of ears aren’t “listening” ears?)

However, a report from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) suggests that those who haven’t yet joined the Tea Party Caucus membership might want to reconsider in the future since:

… analysis shows that the top contributors to the 50 members of a newly-established congressional Tea Party caucus — which so far includes only Republicans — are health professionals, retirees, the real estate industry and oil and gas interests.

Furthermore, donations from health professionals, oil and gas interests and Republican and conservative groups are, on average, higher for Tea Party caucus members than for members of the House of Representatives in general and even their fellow House Republicans.

I have to admit my first reaction was so what? These are exactly the groups I would expect to be lavishing funds on legislators on the Tea Party bandwagon – and many of the Missouri politicians that haven’t joined the caucus get plenty of moola from those groups as well (you can check out their totals by industrial and other donor groups on CPR’s OpenSecrets.org).

However, I began to get the point when I read further:

Tea Party activists have already established political action committees to fund favored candidates. But the formation of the caucus may make it easier to track which industries’ interests are aligned with the movement.

If the pattern of giving that CRP has described becomes more marked, perhaps we’ll see more movement toward the Tea Party caucus from the rest of the Missouri GOP in the future. Political scientist, Jim Hensen, claims that “The guys that are forming the caucus in Congress are trying to, you know, ride the train …”. Could that be the gravy train he’s talking about?

The airwaves campaign in the 8th Congressional District race has started:

When I served in Iraq, I wasn’t alone. I had my fellow soldiers and this combat bible. I’m Tommy Sowers, a veteran running to bring new blood to Congress. Jo Ann Emerson killed our jobs with bad trade deals and bank bailouts. She’s just been there too long. I will force Congress to fix the bad trade deals, and I won’t vote for bailouts like Emerson. I’m Tommy Sowers, and I approve this message. Together, you and I can bring new blood to Congress.

[Sowers Congress

Sowersforcongress.com

Approved by Tommy Sowers. Paid for by Sowers for Congress.]

I don’t know whether Jo Ann Emerson should be worried about her challenger, Tommy Sowers (rhymes with “hours”).

It’s hard to judge since he’s the first credible challenger she’s faced. Everybody agrees, though, that without money, no challenger has a chance, and by that measure, Sowers is credible. In the first quarter of this year, he raised almost $300,000–$70,000 more than Emerson did. And all but about $600 of those contributions came from individuals.

But money is only one part of the story. The rest of the story tells you why the money has poured in from lots of small donors. Sowers is a poster boy. For what? Well, he’s a photogenic 34 year old, born and raised in Rolla, who went to Duke University on a ROTC scholarship and served on active duty for eleven years, rising to the rank of Major. He led a group of Combat Engineers for four years during the Balkan War, then took the Special Forces Qualifications Course, led his class, and commanded a group of 12 Green Berets during two tours in Iraq. He conducted counterinsurgency operations and was awarded two Bronze Stars. Oh, and, by the way, he taught for three years at West Point.

That kind of background will recommend him to constituents in a district that has more than 70,000 veterans. The voters who aren’t vets are probably related to someone who is. And in fact, Sowers pointed out that over Memorial Day weekend, Emerson took a swipe at his military credentials. That riled up veterans in his district so much that close to a thousand of them have signed a petition telling her what they think of her low blow. If she knew her district better, she’d have understood how touchy her constituents might be on that topic, but maybe she doesn’t get it. Or maybe she’s starting to feel some pressure from this upstart.

My advice to Emerson, if she feels the need to belittle Sowers, would be to head for safer ground and take pot shots at his academic record. Not that he’s vulnerable there, since he was one of the top three students when he graduated with a Masters in Public Policy from the London School of Economics. Currently, he is finishing his PhD in Government there. He wants to use that knowledge to bring jobs to the poorest district in the state and one of the ten poorest districts in the country. For example, he wants FDIC regulations for small banks reformed. Local banks did nothing to deep six this economy, but their FDIC insurance has gone up 20 times.

He wants to renegotiate “free trade” (as if!) agreements and bring cell phone and broadband technology to Southeast Missouri, because, without them, the jobs will never follow.

I interviewed Sowers after a fundraiser in St. Louis with Gen. Wesley Clark. When I asked what issues he cared about besides those associated with bringing jobs back to the Eighth, he veered right back to the jobs issue. He’s lasered in on that. That focus is one of the reasons that Clark is endorsing Sowers. Clark, who is from Arkansas, can remember driving through Poplar Bluff years back when that area was thriving. He says that same drive is sad now, that it’s hard to believe how much southern Missouri has suffered economically.  

Clark has known Sowers for several years. The general wanted to find time in his schedule to address one of Sowers’ classes at West Point. That never materialized, but when Sowers called last year to say he planned to run for Congress, he had Clark’s endorsement immediately. Since Clark was in St. Louis Tuesday for another event, an ethanol fuel workshop–he’s heavily into promoting alternative energy–this fundraiser was pulled together on just five or six days’ notice. But Clark promises he will get to the Eighth District to campaign for Sowers on Tommy’s home turf.

Both men agree on a philosophy of listening to others rather than dictating to them before you earn people’s trust. Clark said that that shared belief is one of the reasons he supports Sowers. Sowers recalled that when he took over a command, he was assuming control of a group of people who had a wealth of experience. The men in his detachment knew what had worked well and what hadn’t, and he made a habit of hearing what they had to say.

He’s done the same in this campaign with his “Boots on the Ground” tour of southeast Missouri last winter:

For 28 days, US House of Representatives candidate Tommy Sowers spent one day and one night living, working, and listening in each of the 28 counties of the 8th Congressional District.  Tommy, along with his dog Chuck, traveled over 3100 miles in his pickup truck, more than the distance from New York to Los Angeles. He returned home to Phelps County on Tuesday for the final day of his “Boots on the Ground” project.

In every county, Tommy spent the day discussing issues and learning peoples’ concerns in the coffee shops, courthouses, workplaces and homes of southeastern Missouri. Sowers also worked side-by-side with residents on many days of Boots on the Ground. His jobs varied from teaching high school in Perry County, to working on a road crew in Iron County, to milking cows in Texas County.

I said to start with that I don’t know whether Emerson ought to be worried, but the reasons to think she should be keep piling up. Sowers has been getting attention from Democrats nationally. Howard Dean talked about him on MSNBC, calling him a “knockout.” Also, Sowers has just been added to the “Red to Blue” list, the DCCC’s list of the most promising candidates challenging Republican incumbents. And as Sowers’ website points out: “This district tends to vote for the person before the party, with 57% Democratic officials at the county level and below.”

Still, Emerson is an incumbent. In Rush Limbaugh territory. But wouldn’t that make it all the sweeter if he can win?

Help make it happen.

It’s their world of false equivalence, the rest of us only get to live in it.

Jon Rust, the publisher of the Southeast Missourian, writes today in “Innuendo: Bad politics”:

…This week, people close to the Emerson campaign crossed the line in mudslinging too. In a paid election letter to this newspaper, a writer who once worked for Emerson’s husband called into question Sowers’ sexuality. The innuendo used was repugnant…

“Too?” Rust spends the first three paragraphs blaming Tommy Sowers’ (D) campaign for the tone of the 8th Congressional District campaign, without citing any examples, before he gets to condemning a paid political letter which appeared in his paper written by an individual associated with Jo Ann Emerson (r), the republican incumbent. The subject? You guessed it:

…The second point — the innuendo — is unfair and inappropriate. I will admit: I don’t see that sexual orientation has anything to do with whether a person is qualified for Congress…

You’d think the publisher of the paper would cite a specific example of a “distortion” by the subject of his first three paragraphs. You’d think. Nah, it’s just easier to wrap yourself in a false cloak of impartiality and dismiss one party’s egregious behavior with the condemnation and excuse that “everybody does it.” And then wring your hands.

I wonder if that letter by the Emerson supporter had anything to do with this?:

Jo Ann Emerson (r): wedge issues trump everything for republicans

Besides, what will all our seven year olds think? Uh, Ike, I think that cat is already out of the bag.

We received the following press release from the White House:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of Media Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 4, 2010

Cabinet Secretaries, Senior Officials Hold Events Across the Country to Highlight Administration’s Commitment to Job Creation, Economic Growth

….Friday, June 4th….

….Department of Transportation

Secretary Ray LaHood, along with Reps. Russ Carnahan and Jo Ann Emerson, will attend the ribbon cutting at Holcim’s newest Recovery Act-funded cement plant in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.  The plant supported 2,500 jobs during construction, and now supports 250 full-time permanent positions.

11:00am CDT

Holcim Ste. Genevieve Plant

…Bloomsdale, MO….

Wait a minute. Representative Jo Ann Emerson (r) was scheduled to attend the celebration of the fruits of the Recovery Act? Didn’t Jo Ann Emerson vote against the Recovery Act? Yep:

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 46

(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)

     H R 1      YEA-AND-NAY      28-Jan-2009      6:11 PM

QUESTION:  On Passage

BILL TITLE: Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending 2009

—- NAYS    188 —

Emerson

We don’t know if she actually attended. If she did, that’s chutzpah for you.

What Jo Ann Emerson (r) has posted about the Recovery Act on her campaign blog:

Perryville Suntimes News: Emerson Says Stimulus Effect Lagging on MO Highways

March 11th, 2010

WASHINGTON Perry County’s representative in Congress, Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08) voted against the stimulus bill passed by Congress in early 2009, and she says that bill which contained more than $800 billion in new federal spending continues to disappoint Missourians. According to the Eighth District’s member of Congress, only $86 million of the state’s $974 million in requests from two key transportation grant programs have been fulfilled.

“Hurry up and wait is not a good strategy for stimulating our economy. I opposed the stimulus for two reasons: the spending was irresponsibly high, and I saw no way this money could be spent accountably by the federal government. The administration has proven both of these criticisms to be correct,” Emerson said. “We have a real need to spur growth in our rural economy, and we need strong transportation infrastructure not only to create jobs, but also to keep them,” Emerson stated.

Cement plants. Don’t they have something to do with road construction? Just asking.

Update:

Representative Emerson (r) was there:

Jo Ann Emerson Great grand opening event at Holcim today. More than a billion dollar investment, 2000 construction jobs and 250 permanent jobs. Holcim chose SE Missouri over the entire country for this plant. Thanks to the wonderful workforce we have that made this possible!

Chutzpah!

Correction, June 11, 2010: The White House added the following to their press release on their web site:

CORRECTION: An error in this advisory sent on Friday stated incorrectly that Holcim directly received ARRA funds.

The plant didn’t directly receive stimulus funds. Still, all those stimulus infrastructure projects need to be built out of some kind of material, right?

Hat tip to our good friends at Fired Up.

Wedge issues trump everything for republicans.

The White House issued the following statement on yesterday’s votes in Congress in the process of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release May 27, 2010

Statement by the President on Votes to Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

I have long advocated that we repeal ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’, and I am pleased that both the House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee took important bipartisan steps toward repeal tonight.  Key to successful repeal will be the ongoing Defense Department review, and as such I am grateful that the amendments offered by Representative Patrick Murphy and Senators Joseph Lieberman and Carl Levin that passed today will ensure that the Department of Defense can complete that comprehensive review that will allow our military and their families the opportunity to inform and shape the implementation process.  Our military is made up of the best and bravest men and women in our nation, and my greatest honor is leading them as Commander-in-Chief. This legislation will help make our Armed Forces even stronger and more inclusive by allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve honestly and with integrity.

Incumbent Representative Jo Ann Emereson (r), facing one of the most serious and credible campaign challenges in her insider Washington congressional career, took time to “diss” challenger Tommy Sowers’ (D) military career – right before Memorial Day. All because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

8th District candidates split on military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy

Friday, May 28, 2010

By Rudi Keller Southeast Missourian

Democratic congressional contender Tommy Sowers, a former Army officer, on Thursday endorsed plans to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military. Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, however, said she opposes repeal and opposes allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces….

….In addition, Emerson said her opposition is based on comments from field commanders “who have said that in very difficult situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, in combat jobs, that it is beneficial to have knowledge of that because there can be distractions. Since Sowers has never commanded anybody, he might have a different perspective….”

[emphasis added]

A video on Tommy Sowers’ service – from his campaign:

Now, Jo Ann Emerson’s remark doesn’t appear to be very accurate, does it?

As for wedge issues – in 1993 I asked my father, he of twenty-two years of service, about gays in the military. He told me (paraphrased), “There always have been, there always will be. Nobody cares as long as everyone does their job.”

First, there was this item:

CUNA Search for New CEO Nearing End

4/28/2010

…Among the names that have been mentioned include California-Nevada Credit Union League President Bill Cheney, Massachusetts-New Hampshire Credit Union League President Dan Egan, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) and Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.). None of them returned calls seeking comment…

Emerson was elected to the House in 1996, succeeding her late husband Rep. Bill Emerson. She has not been active on financial services issues and although she voted for the most important credit union bill in recent years-H.R. 1151-which passed 411-8, she wasn’t a co-sponsor. If she is chosen, she would be the second consecutive CUNA president with ties to the insurance industry. She was senior vice president of American Insurance Association from 1994 to 1996 (and before that a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association)….

[emphasis added]

And then this, in the St. Louis Beacon:

Mo GOP, Dems raise questions about jobs: Carnahan’s past and rumors of Emerson’s future

By Jo Mannies, Beacon Political Reporter

…The Times said Emerson, among others, had been interviewed by an executive search committee hired to assemble a job description for CUNA’s top post and some candidates for it.

Emerson chief of staff Jeffrey Connor said today that he could not comment on the Times report. But he did note that she was still running for re-election….

And Tommy Sowers (D) campaign pointed out via e-mail today:

Jo Ann Emerson is considering retirement:

St. Louis Beacon, 5/3/10: Jo Ann Emerson is “among several big-name individuals who may be under consideration to become the new president of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), the industry’s national trade association…The [Credit Union] Times said Emerson, among others, had been interviewed by an executive search committee… Emerson chief of staff Jeffrey Connor said today that he could not comment…”

This proves our insurgent strategy is working. If she’s planning her exit strategy already, she must be really scared of us. She’s scared of the buzz we’re building. The press we’re getting. She’s scared of the money we’re raising. According to our intelligence (some of her friends are really ours…) the thing she’s most scared of is that we’re somehow doing this by bringing together lots of people.

This could be a tipping point moment in our campaign and we need to a make sudden show of force. So… we’re launching an emergency offensive. Our goal is to raise 25,000 dollars FAST from tons of grassroots donors. Why? Because she can’t. (And she knows it.)

Please click here and donate to help us launch this emergency offensive.

Make this decision easy for her — chip in to Jo Ann Emerson’s retirement fund:

http://www.sowersforcongress.c…

Let’s pack that Golden Parachute!

[….]

Heh. Don’t you just love a campaign that knows how to take it to an inside the Washington beltway republican incumbent?

Previously:

Tommy Sowers (D) in the 8th Congressional District: on CNN

Missouri republicans in Congress: teabaggers “r” us

Scotland on ten dollars a day? That’s for the little people…

Todd Akin’s official response to the health care reform victory is, as one might expect, shrill in the extreme. He has managed to jam almost every GOP screaming point into a few short paragraphs. Since the event that occasioned this vitriolic outburst is the passage of  what is actually very moderate legislation, it might be instructive to deconstruct his florid imagery in order to figure out what Republican rage is really all about:

“Today Americans are reacquainted with the danger of an arrogant all powerful government, a deadly enemy within, a clear and present danger in Washington.”

“Americans” in this context refers to Tea Partiers and corporations. “Arrogance” refers to the fact that the Democratic congress defied corporate initiated Tea Party tantrums and inept Republican legislative tactics in order to help the president fulfill one of the campaign promises that got him elected. “All powerful government” refers only to elected Democrats; when Republicans lie in order to force-march the country into deficit-busting wars, they are patriots. “A deadly enemy within” means that these same Democrats threaten a resurgent Republican hegemony, since they pose “a clear and present danger” to the GOP by revealing its sabre rattling to be nothing more than empty noise.

“In spite of nationwide opposition socialized medicine is being forced down our throats. That medicine is toxic to freedom. But freedom dies hard in America.”

Akin considers “nationwide opposition” to be the 43% of the respondents to a  recent CNN poll that disapprove of the health care reform because it is “too liberal” – although, if truth be told, many of those probably only disapprove because they have bought into the Republican misinformation campaign, and will no doubt be pleasantly surprised to find that the passage of Health Care reform has not, in fact, killed Blaine Luetkemeyer’s father. Akin clearly does not consider worthy of consideration the other 52% who approve of the legislation, or who think it is not liberal enough.  

“Socialized medicine” reflects the Republican tendency to characterize as socialism any effort to govern for the good of the people rather than corporations or cronies. Their use of the term reflects their inability to distinguish between (1) social welfare and social justice; and, (2)  the goal of social justice (or social welfare) and the means used to achieve it; hence any legislation that has a stated goal of securing social welfare or social justice is, ipso facto, socialist, communist, or even facist (which explains those pictures of Obama as Hitler, as well as Glenn Beck’s fear of almost all Christians).

“Forced down our throats” (alternatively, the ubiquitous “crammed down our throats”) is Republican speak for the democratic process that has led to health care reform, including the decision to finally ignore Republican obstructionism. The goal of the phrase is to make relatively straightforward and commonplace legislative processes seem far more unpalatable than they really are.

“Freedom” is a fluid concept on the right. It usually means minimal or no taxes –  often without cutting social services fringewingers themselves find useful, although there are a few more sophisticated souls who understand it in the Friedmanesque  sense of untrammeled capitalism, the “nature red in tooth and claw” of the Social Darwinists revisited, this time from a macroeconomic rather than a biological perspective. In this sense, Akin is correct that “freedom dies hard in America.” The nasty, obstructionist mess that the GOP helped orchestrate during the past year bears witness to the fact that this type of ersatz “freedom” is indeed resilient, especially when liberally fertilized with money from health care industries that really, really love the freedom to run roughshod over the rest of us.*

“I do not believe that the majority of Americans will submit passively to the gold chains of socialism.” True patriots choose the bright light and fresh air of freedom where people can dare to dream- to succeed or fail.”

In this exhortation to action, Akin is calling for the Tea Party dupes to continue with their rabid displays in order to give him cover as he continues to work against their and our best interests. To create the emotional tenor that gets these babies revving their engines, he sets up an opposition in which health care reform is equated with passivity and slavery, while the advocates of unregulated market “freedom” and their corporate beneficiaries, the very folks responsible for our broken health care delivery system, are associated with words like “patriot,” “bright light,” “fresh air,” and the fulfillment of striving.

“I have confidence that freedom will rise from the ashes of socialism and that this nation under God will have a rebirth of liberty and a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

In this final trope Akin brings into play themes that will recur as Republicans attempt to use health care legislation as a lever to undo Democrats in the next election. In one grand, if rather derivative swoop, he dresses anti-health care forces in both Godly and constitutional garb. Sadly, substituting rhetoric for reasoned argument does not create a well-fitting garment, but rather one that will have to be discarded sooner or later.

Akin’s agitprop language is far from original. The words may differ slightly, “totalitarian” substituted for “socialistic,” for example, but most members of the Grand Old Party are expressing nearly identical sentiments. The Republican obstructionist message serves the same goal: getting the GOP back into power. Representative Jo Ann Emerson said it far more succinctly than Akin when she helped egg on the Tea Party thugs over the weekend, joining three other Gopers  on a balcony waving  signs reading “Kill” “The” “Bill.”  What she was really saying, of course, is “I’ll do anything, no matter how depraved, to stay in Washington.”

*The text of this sentence has been edited slightly.