As if the failure of his Presidental campaign weren't enough, all that exposure showed the Republicans back home that he aint one of them: Link Paul has since put out a paniced letter on DailyPaul.com looking for money to fight in the Congressional Primary.
The Republican party is clearly suicidal. The only reason Paul hasn't gone Independent or 3rd party is because of Texas' sore loser law. If Peden beats Paul in the primary Paul could well run 3rd party. Even 5% of the vote in the general election is millions of votes, and given how poorly McCain is doing with the conservative wing of the Republican party, they can't afford that 5%.
Well...duh. But, it ain't just Paul. In fact, he's the smallest dot on the list of GOP failures. Explain.
In Texas if you run in a primary and lose you can not enter the general election as an independent for a Congressional or Senate seat.
Well, that's just...stupid. An example of partisan politics at it's worst. Texicans, explain yourselves.
It's not just stupid; it's almost certainly unconstitutional as well if applied to federal elections if anyone bothers to challenge it.
I tend to think if Paul get's bumped out of his own district then the odds of him still attracting 5% of the vote is pretty damn small.
You could make that argument, but you'd be wrong. The Republican willingness to filibuster everything under the sun at twice the rate of any other Senate ever combined with the Democratic lack of spine makes Lieberman almost entirely moot. Given the near inevitability of Democratic pickups in the Senate this year, Lieberman's main power is to hope for a McCain victory so he can avoid being kicked out of the Democratic caucus and can quit gracefully and take a cabinet position.
Even in a landslide victory I doubt the Democrats would kick Lieberman out of the caucus. He surely deserves it, but he and the Democrats agree on enough of the domestic issues that I think in an Obama administration he could still be seen as an ally on many issues.
Probably not technically, but surely they'd come up with a way of stripping his committee chairmanship, where he's been a disaster--remember: he's in charge of homeland security and government oversight and hasn't held a single oversight hearing, meaning about all he's accomplished since Novermber 2006 is to sit down with his thumbs up his ass, a smile on his face, and whistle dixie while the executive branch raped the notion of government accountability--and put a lot of pressure on him to resign to spend more time with his family. Lieberman will be in a very overtly hostile environment if the Democrats pick up a couple of seats, and he'll have no power at all. They agree on a number of domestic issues, more than they disagree on, but Lieberman doesn't really care about domestic issues. His passions lie elsewhere, in crazy land. Lieberman has, at this point, become a very slightly more liberal version of Rudy Giuliani, and while people might think he's not a good Republican, no one would ever mistake him for a Democrat. He may have a number of liberal beliefs, but what he really cares about is killing Muslims and blindsiding the Fourth Amendment.
Well, I guess I retain some hope that they're not really spineless but just profoundly lazy narcissists following the path of least resistance, which, as they're politicians, isn't really too much of a stretch. There's no immediate personal or political gain from Democrats showing a spine, not with Bush ready to veto world peace if it doesn't include telecom immunity and the Republican party lined up behind him. Sure, principle might be involve, and justice might be at issue, but you can't really expect politicians to care about those things. But when Republican petty obstruction and Lieberman's enabling actually start to prevent the Democrats from getting things done, and there's something the Democrats can do about it, and the political cost to the Democrats, while in control of Congress and the Presidency, of being run over by the Republicans as though they were an 18-wheeler running over a bowl of pudding without the bowl is political exile for a generation, they might actually do something. Right now the Democrats aren't getting the blame for nothing good happening in Washington, but they will if things continue as they have with a Democrat in the White House, and they might if things continue as the have with a Republican in the White House but more solid Democratic majorities in Congress.
Seems Paul's not quite so down in the polls as it looks: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzI5MTUyOTY3YTA0MTYzODkyNmNkNWMxYWJiZTAwMGE=
With the redistricting, there's a good chance that the north end of the district will have more influence... Which could get Peden in, or turn the actual election over to the Democrats.
