NYT
The election season is starting in earnest, and already one thing is crystal clear. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are hopeless. It seems inconceivable that either party can possibly win anything. This may be the year when the Whigs finally get to make their comeback.
The whole world is expecting a cataclysm for the Democrats in November. After all, the economy is still a mess, and the party is still ... the party. In Illinois, which was first out of the box this season, the Democrats have already moved beyond the primary and into buyer’s remorse. They’ve already dumped the voters’ pick for lieutenant governor. This week, their question is whether they can get rid of their Senate nominee, Alexi Giannoulias, the son of a Chicago banking family, whose bank failed on Friday.
The Democratic disaster scenario would make absolute sense if it did not also require that the Republicans do something right. But in one state after another, they seem bent on nominating the worst possible candidate. The world is one big scavenger hunt, and their clue says, “Find somebody unelectable.”
In Connecticut, having driven Senator Chris Dodd from the race, the Republicans are racing into the corner of Linda McMahon, whose claim to fame is her role in exporting professional wrestling around the globe. In Florida, they got tired of having their popular governor, Charlie Crist, as the senate nominee even before they actually nominated him. Now Crist is expected to run as an independent, and the G.O.P. will try to live happily ever after with a conservative state legislator who has issues about his use of the party credit card.
In Nevada, where Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, appeared to be hopelessly unpopular, the Republicans’ favorite, Sue Lowden, got caught up in a controversy over whether she favors returning to the days when people paid their medical bills by giving the doctor a couple of chickens. This is truly not the sort of policy debate you want to use to jump-start a campaign. And Lowden has yet to explain how much poultry it would cost for a colonoscopy.
(More here.)
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