Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS PAC has just committed $1.2M to helping help former governor Tommy Thompson defeat his democratic opponent in the Wisconsin race for U.S. Senate. This was in additional to prior spends of $500,000 and $961,000, and puts his group’s contibutions at over $2.6M in the dead-heat race.
Professor Jacobson addressed the Tea Party split that is largely considered to have won the Republican nomination for Thompson.
Thompson’s opponent, Tammy Baldwin, is being labeled “too extreme for Wisconsin,” which seems appropriate given her extremely liberal record as a U.S. Congresswoman. Besides being the cofounder and cochair of the House LGBT Equality Caucus, she authored legislation to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
Her list of endorsements is somewhat chilling. In the fall of 2004, the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the U.S., endorsed Tammy Baldwin, calling her status as a lesbian, “symbolically important”:
Incumbent Tammy Baldwin vocally supports equal rights, gay rights, and expanded health insurance benefits, and her public posture as an out lesbian is symbolically important. Left critics widely view her leadership, however, as disappointing and ineffective. Like Feingold, she faces well-funded right wing opposition.
And, according to KeyWiki:
The Council for a Livable World, founded in 1962 by long-time socialist activist and alleged Soviet agent, Leo Szilard, is a non-profit advocacy organization that seeks to “reduce the danger of nuclear weapons and increase national security”, primarily through supporting progressive, congressional candidates who support their policies. The Council supported Tammy Baldwin in her successful House of Representatives run as candidate for Wisconsin.
Crossroads’s commitment to the Wisconsin U.S. Senate race may be not just fiscally important, but also “symbolically important,” showing that, once again, the nation understands that Wisconsin’s fate could impact all our states.
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Comments
The last thing we need is a person in office because somebody thinks that person is “symbolic.” In the not-very distant past, that was known as “prejudice.”
The latest poll (of 1238 likely voters, a large sample size) has Baldwin up 52-40. Rove is throwing his money away on “symbols”! He should be spending it all on the big one, the one that really matters, Romney-Ryan!!!
Which poll might that be and how is it constructed? We see too many polls of late that weight for leanings that aren’t supported by history.
Oh shut up. If your mentioning the latest poll by Marquette, Quinnapiac or any msm poll like wapo/ CBS/ NBC you are smoking something if you want to tout them as fact. All of these polls have skewed their findings so much that they have no meaning anymore. Especially the damn Marquette poll which oversampled Democrats by over 10 pts when historically Republicans have been even or greater than them in the exit polls there. They oversampled minorities, young people, and women.
So again Avi shut up. You don’t know what your talking about.
Hopefully Crossroads spends big in Ohio for Romney, too.
Do I want to spend much time thinking about lesbian symbols?
Who has the first good joke?
Wrong forum, but this needs to be posted. The guy who did the vid is likely an Arab terrorist and not a Coptic Christian. http://www.therightscoop.com/innocence-of-muslims-film-actually-made-by-terrorists/. The whole thing sounds like an Obama plot to advance an anti-American agenda.
OK, Professor, I know you blame the Tea Party’s for this mess. I blame the mainstream GOP. If you (the GOP)continue to put up tired old RINO’s expect vote splitting and people like me staying home come general election.
As far as I am concerned, the “lesser of two evils” is still evil. Give me a good candidate and I will vote for him/her; otherwise I stay home and “vote” by sending a few bucks to someone, somewhere that I like. There are a few.
How does that advance a Tea Party agenda in ANY way?
By electing by default the very opposite of TP values, you do not help the agenda or the nation. And “sending a message” only tells the GOP not to waste time courting you because you are an unreliable ally who quits unless you get your way. No political movement wins by losing.
Tired of voting for what you consider the “lesser of two evils”? Congratulations, join the club, now celebrating over half a century of frustration. Or did you think your experience has been somehow unique?
But always remember that the opponent of the “lesser of two evils” is the greater evil.
As long as you understand this and are okay with it, your vote is of course your exclusive decision. But don’t try to pretend you would be doing anything other than that, because you are not.
There are no perfect candidates and I am not looking for one. However, I am fed up with the RINO’s. If you want my support, nominate an acceptable candidate. BTW, to this old redneck, “acceptable” mainly means “principled”, I can support a lot of difference from my own views if I think the other guy really believes what he says and will stick to it.
You see, I am not a Republican; I am a conservative. I generally vote Republican, but I really don’t care who gets the perks associated with the Majority. The argument that we need to support some tired old RINO because “We need the Majority” has worn out its welcome.
There is also a philosophical point: when you vote, you not only vote for the candidate, you vote for the “system”. If no one voted, we would still have rulers, they just couldn’t claim that they were “sent there by the people”. Not voting can be a principled stance; I don’t go quite that far but I don’t view voting as a “duty”. In fact, I view I have a duty to not vote for unacceptable candidates.
I get that you don’t agree with me and that is your right. But, I am far from alone; there are a lot of us and we pre-date the so called Tea Partys by a long time. If you give us someone to support, we can make a difference–as was seen in 2010. If you want us to vote for a lesser of two evils type, simply because he or she has an “R”, forget it. Been there, done that, didn’t even get a T-shirt.
Boy lichau, you must stay at home without voting for the most part. Have you really found the “perfect” conservative candidate?
I live in CA. All statewide races go to the Dem by 15 pts; Charles Manson would win a statewide office if he ran as a Dem, although probably only by 5 pts. The districts are so gerrymandered that whoever the party puts up wins every time, all the time.
So far, I have not actually failed to vote. I only vote for people that I think will make a difference–leave the rest blank. If I can’t understand the proposition, clearly, I vote against it.
So–on the typical ballot I vote for two or three people and against most of the propositions.
My voting these days is $50 to someone outside CA that I think will make a difference. Latest was Mia Love.
Tea Party split? It’s going to happen and there will be losses.
Thompson vs Baldwin? Tea Party will unite against Baldwin.
What’s the question here? We must get rid of the libs and deal with the rest later.
OMG! “Out lesbian”! Wow! How often does that happen? Every lesbian I’ve ever met was, like, in the closet or something.
A significant amount of the lesbians I know are conservative. (Don’t ask me how I know so many lesbians. For some reason, I do.)
The GOP “establishment” is poison. I am convinced they do not want to be the majority party, but merely remain in their high but effectively ceremonial positions as the minority party. That way, they get to spout off at the mouth in ‘outage’ on occasion, then go back to sleep — and still rake in money.
The likes of John Boehner are more interested in whether the file system in Congress is in order, versus battling to prevent his country from being flushed down the toilet. If the country does go down the toilet, Boehner and friends will still be in their stupid office, arranging files, happily touting their successes and bemoaning the democrats (b.s, by the way).
So I say this to all conservatives: “lesbian the White House on November 7th!”
” I am convinced they do not want to be the majority party, but merely remain in their high but effectively ceremonial positions as the minority party.”
I think there is merit in this statement. At the very least, their concern over getting re-elected is by far the most important. If you are a long time, professional politician, being in the Majority is nice, but getting reelected is Job One.
The rest of your post made no sense to me.
The rest of the post was in response to John Boehner’s recent — and bizarre — crowing of his “courage, determination and leadership,” none of which he has nor has displayed as Speaker of the House.
What is the symbology behind huge national debt – the right to “F” yourself?
The poll is by “We Ask America”, which is identified as Republican-leaning by 538. Of the 6 polls done since mid-September, 5 (including Rasmussen) have Baldwin ahead, and the 6th (Quinnipiac) has the race tied. The “We Ask America” poll is the most recent and shows the largest lead for Baldwin. Rove should direct his money to the much more important Presidential contest.
I see it that the establishment GOP prevented a Tea Party candidate from winning, was willing to lose the entire state of Wisconsin rather than allow the Tea Party to succeed. Tommy Thompson should not have run. Rush has said the GOP establishment considers job #1 not to defeat democrats or Obama but to beat conservatives and the Tea Party, that they’ll be as vicious as necessary to do so. They had no problem destroying the country during 8 years of Bush and are on Fox News always insisting Obama’s a nice guy, so it’s not hard to believe. They’ve been trying to destroy the Tea Party anywhere they can including in Wisconsin, 5/2/12, “Will The Tea Party Fight or Retreat?” Erick Erickson: “Last night in Wisconsin the state Republican Party tried a few parliamentary maneuvers to drive tea party members from the ranks of the GOP. For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, the Wisconsin GOP seems willing to sacrifice tea party energy in the Scott Walker recall in order to save Tommy Thompson’s Senate bid….Eric Cantor is going to actively engage in House races to combat the tea party. He wants a more docile, pliable, controllable caucus — one that will do as it is told by its party leaders, not its constituents.” Karl Rove is central to this tragedy so let him throw good money after bad.
With friends like the GOP establishment, who needs enemies?