The Great Race

With cameos by all your favorite has-beens.

OK -- The election is eleven months away, and I am already sick of the campaign. And I've been ignoring it as much as possible.

I think what finally did it was the sight of those several states scrambling to see who could have the earliest primary, i.e., who could retain their disproportionate influence on the party selection process.

A big part of it is things like this:

I don't get this. According to Media Matters, CNN apologized for allowing General Kerr to ask that question at the Republican debates about "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and expunged it from their re-broadcasts because he is a Clinton supporter.

I could see it if the question itself was rude or shockingly partisan, but there is a GOP "special interest group" called the Log Cabin Republicans who actually sued the government over the same issue. One of them could have asked it just as easily. It's obviously a salient political issue in America and I don't see why any news organization should apologize and expunge the record just because of the political leanings of a citizen who asked a question. Apparently, after all these years of Bush's canned Townhall meetings with sweet softball questions, the media has decided that's the only form of legitimate debate.

The pearl-clutching over this is simply astonishing. I really can't understand where the idea that only party members were allowed to submit questions at a public debate by presidential candidates came from, unless, as Digby points out, it's a legacy of Bush's hand-laundered "Town Hall" meetings.

Dave Neiwert, in an unusually sharp post, makes the point:

Republican presidential candidates have, for the past six years, been operating almost completely inside a bubble -- creating campaign appearances that have been almost completely insulated from anything resembling the real world. It's helped, of course, that during that time the GOP has had only a single candidate -- George W. Bush -- which has made the job that much simpler.

Essentially, it's been a simple process: Shut out anyone who might raise any "controversial" (i.e., "dissenting") voices, pack the audience with True Believers, and foster the illusion of broad and fervent support.

If you start opening up these things, you might get some real questions. Maybe that's the problem. Musn't let the news get out of control. (Although as Sadly, No! points out, the Democrats managed to cope just fine.)

Or, as Digby puts it, "What a big bunch of babies."

Update on the Lizard Brain

Digby has further information on that focus group nastiness from the debate. Seems that it might have been somewhat of a fluke (and keep in mind that Joe Klein was telling the story, so the source is not unimpeachable).

There are Americans in the Republican party -- still.

Now, why is everyone trying to court the lizard vote?