MENTAL NOTE: KERRY = ASSHOLE

What do John Kerry, Evan Bayh, Marty Meehan, Frank Pallone, Bob Andrews, and Lloyd Doggett have in common? They're all 100% safe Democratic incumbents in Congress who are unopposed in 2006. They also have more than $2,000,000 in their campaign funds yet won't kick any of it out to the DNCC or highly competitive races elsewhere.

It's not like the Democratic Party is habitually outspent by the GOP, and it's not as if there are a bunch of competitive or open races going on right now. Heavens no. Evan Bayh certainly doesn't live in a state in which the two most expensive House races in the nation are taking place. Heavens no.

While Kerry and Bayh are hoarding their money for a 2008 Presidential run, the House members sitting on piles of cash right now have no excuses. None. And hoarding for a presidential run isn't exactly a good excuse. We'll remember this in a few years, guys. I'm guessing your fellow Democrats will too. Something tells me that Evan Bayh could afford to pony up half a million bucks for IN-8 and IN-9 and still have plenty of change. And every safe/unopposed/incumbent Democrat in both chambers could easily afford to pony up $500 apiece for ID-1 and WY-At Large. Will they?

BUT SHE WAS THE PRO-FAMILY KIND OF FUCKBUDDY

Voter guides. God, how I love voter guides. They're the very best kind of comedy, and best of all they're free.

If you're not familiar, voter guides are "scorecards" put out by most major politically-active interest groups and non-profits. So, for example, the NRA will distribute guides to its members (and anyone else who's interested) in which incumbents and challengers are rated, either by letter grade or percentage.

Why are they so goddamn funny? Because the "ratings" are based on the select issues of interest to the organization issuing the ratings. And nothing more. So, for example, the NRA voter guide might give Mark Foley a 100% Super-Duper A++ because their ratings only count his votes on gun-related issues. How he votes on anything else (or who he tries to bang) is irrelevant to the NRA. Therein lies the potential for comedy.

To wit: Don Sherwood. If you're not familiar with Congressman Choker, in 2004 his mistress made a 911 call frantically asking for police to come to the hotel where she and Sherwood were screwing. Apparently Donnie saw fit to beat and choke his mistress for reasons known only to him. After attempting to deny that he and Ms. Cynthia Ore were anything but friends, he finally admitted a 5 year extra-marital affair with her.

Sounds pretty "anti-family" in the language of the GOP, doesn't it? Not according to James Dobson! In the eyes of Focus on the Family's Family Research Council, Don Sherwood gets an 85% rating and a strong recommendation. See, as long as the member in question votes appropriately on a small sample of abortion and gay marriage related issues, he or she is pro-family. Amazing, isn't it?

Closeted child molestor? Adulterer? Abuser? Alcoholic? It doesn't matter! Just vote against gay marriage (and for protecting the pledge of allegiance, which is apparently somehow relevant) and you're well on your way to being Offically Certified as Pro-Family. By no less of an authority than James Dobson!

And before you ask, they quickly took Mark Foley off their sheet last week. But fear not, archived copies of the guide reveal that he got a 42%. Not great, but ahead of over 200 Democrats - the overwhelming majority of whom got 0%.

In summary:

DESPERATION

Now that the national Republican apparatus is starting to realize just how badly things are going to go in November they're attempting to set up a "firewall" in the Senate. That is, they've written off the House. It's already gone. But now they're contingency-planning for the unthinkable, which is losing the Senate as well. As ginandtacos predicted a few weeks ago, the possibility of a 50-50 Senate - or even a small Democratic majority - is very real.

So the GOP has decided to set up its firewall around three (OK, two. More on that in a minute) Senate races to make sure that doesn't happen. States in which it was previously unthinkable that the GOP could lose now need to be saved, triage style, at any cost. Virginia, Tennessee, and Ohio used to be GOP slam-dunks. Now they're desperately trying to hold on.

That means that all pretense of fairness and decency are tossed out the window. Ginandtacos has highlighted how the language of the GOP has resorted to race-baiting, gay-bashing, and rural-urban division in the last few weeks. But it's failing in Ohio. Sherrod Brown has a big lead (as much as 9 to 12 points in recent polls) and that's being written off as a loss per Ken Mehlman's comments on Meet the Press last Sunday.

So they're really, really getting desperate in Virginia (where George "macaca" Allen is treading water) and Tennessee. So desperate, in fact, that they've decided to throw caution to the wind and engage in some blatant racist pandering in the Ford-Corker race.

Now, the ad in question is nowhere near as racist as, say Willie Horton or Helms-Gantt (the most despicable ad of my lifetime, hands down). But really, short of painting someone in blackface and showing them cashing a welfare check while eating watermelon, nothing could be more racist than Helms-Gantt.

Nevertheless, this RNC ad from Tennessee shouldn't feel too bad. It's still really racist! Top work, guys.

Can you believe there are still two more weeks in which this can get worse? I'm really afraid that by early November they'll be making ads that say "Look, if you don't vote Republican, negroes are going to rape your daughter and Jews are going to sacrifice your sons for their heathen blood rituals."

YOUR VALUABLE WEB-BROWSING TIME

Ennoble your internet-instead-of-working time by devoting 8 minutes of your life to watching this.

The Iraqi Army - standing up so we can stand down!^(tm)

Freedom is on the march!^(tm)

We're winning!^(tm)

WELL, I DO HAVE A BIRTHDAY COMING UP...

Cost: $6000
Composition: solid steel
Weight: ~400 pounds
Practicality: nil
Being able to do this: priceless

Why play a bass drum when you could be playing a bass drum that's audible from space?