Character And Cowardice

It's always a sign of a person's character when we see how they react when faced with a difficult or personally embarrassing task.

A staff acquaintance and one of our regular readers, Randy Moody, showed exactly the kind of mettle this week that we expect to see in those we respect. A former lobbyist for the National Education Association, Moody also happens to be an old-fashioned Nebraska Republican - one with sense. What Moody did that was newsworthy was simple: he stood up for his principles.

Moody submitted a women's health care plank to the platform committee of the national Republican Party in Tampa. His proposal called for women to have the choice to control all their own health care needs - including abortion. As anyone who has been paying attention to American politics and the media must be aware, that plank was immediately tossed out of the debate in Tampa - no surprise to anyone familiar with the current GOP.

Even if the platform debates for either party are little more than a formality, at least the national Republican Party membership showed they know how to debate topics in public.

That's a trick Republicans should show their craven U.S. Senate nominee, Deb Fischer.

In case you've missed the news in the midst of the political firestorms caused by others in the Republican Party, the upcoming debate for the open U.S. Senate seat from Nebraska is the only debate scheduled for that contest so far.

It's not that Bob Kerrey has been avoiding debates. In fact, since Deb Fischer surprised everyone with her May primary win, Kerrey's camp has been attempting to schedule as many as seven faceoffs. He's even agreed to debate Fischer on Fox News, nationally - a hostile climate for any politician who isn't already bought and paid for by the billionaire masters of the far right, let alone a moderate Democrat like Kerrey.

Fischer, on the other hand, has deftly avoided debate - and also most media coverage. That would include many news organizations in the third district, according to our contacts and observation. Apparently, Fischer doesn't trust herself enough to correctly spout the kind of right-wing extremist nonsense that the fanatics of the GOP base love, but that scare the hell out of normal, sane Nebraskans.

In contrast, Bob Kerrey has been more than ready to face the tough questions, both in debates and in person. In fact, Kerrey's readiness to take on the tough questions, from whomever, wherever, whenever, earned him an unusual writeup by journalist Frank Bruni this week.  Bruni made the point that Kerrey is more than willing to address his consistent stands on gay rights, women's rights, debt and taxes - a bold stance dating back decades that many in both politics and the media seem to be stunned to see. Kerrey's more than willing to take a stand on his on ag policies too.

Sadly, since Fischer has been avoiding much of the Nebraska media, few unbiased critiques and interviews of her have been available to the voters of Nebraska. Apparently, she'd rather send out press releases and have her campaign flacks take calls and claim conflicts so she just can't appear at more than one debate.

This Saturday, at the Nebraska State Fair, Fischer will have to face the only debate crowd she's agreed to, so far. We hope neither candidate tries to hide from what we hope are brutally tough questions. We're fairly certain, from Bob Kerrey's actions, record, and history, that he will be ready to show everyone who he is, for better or worse.

As we've said previously, when they show you who they are, believe them. We hope Nebraskans are paying attention this Saturday.

Boom Goes The Dynamite

There's little surprise, for us, that most of the national media is still focused on the issue that blew up in the face of the Republican Party over the last few days, courtesy of Missouri Republican Representative Todd Akin. We've been saying for years now that someday the extremism and lunatic tendencies of the modern Republican party were going to explode at the worst possible time and burn the GOP politically.

What was more interesting for us was the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that came out late on Tuesday. In short, the numbers confirm what we've been saying for some time - that the current Republican Party leadership is at war with America, even if large numbers of Republicans are not.

Before we dig too deeply into the numbers, we want to preface today's commentary by noting a couple things. As the general election campaign expands to a full-on race, our general attitude about polls remains the same: we don't generally trust any single poll or pollster entirely. We do have a significant amount of trust in Nate Silver's research, and some polls have proven themselves over time to be more trustworthy - so we'll likely be quoting more of the trustworthy polls over the next dozen weeks.

According to one of those instruments, the new WSJ/NBC poll, the introduction of GOP House member Paul Ryan to the Republican Presidential ticket got no real bounce from voters. Outside polling confirms that. Nearly half of voters said Ryan was a fair or poor choice.

The overall national race between President Obama and Mr. Romney has tightened very slightly - but not because voters like the Romney/Ryan Plan. Fifty percent of all voters polled pick Obama on the issue of Medicare. Only 34 percent pick Romney.

That's not where the most explosive numbers showed up, however.

Mitt Romney only really leads the President in the polls with old, white, rural, male voters. Midwesterners, suburbanites, and independents are all split evenly.

President Obama leads Mitt Romney solidly in virtually every other major subcategory of voters. African American voters choose President Obama 94-0. That's 94 percent to 0 percent. Latinos pick Obama by a 2-to-1 margin, voters under 35 choose Obama by 52-41, and all women pick the current President by a 51-41 margin.

That last set of numbers, as well as the numbers on Medicare are key.

What they mean, collectively, is that President Obama has massive support from the most powerful blocks of voting minorities, and from women, and now - thanks to the detail-lacking "fairy dust" Romney/Ryan Plan - more seniors than ever.

In the midst of these kinds of numbers, the actions of Tea Party Republican Congressman like Todd Akin merely light the fuse that now has the GOP in a potentially devastating war with itself. It will only highlight the serious divisions in the Republican Party just in time for them to be displayed on prime time TV for all of America to see.

Frankly, the Republican Party may have sent a less explosive clue about their internal troubles if they'd invited the country to a nitroglycerine cookout.

Not Clowning Around

As kids get back to school this week and a few more personal milestones happen to our staff members and their families, it seems like the perfect time to stop and take a moment, and look around at the political landscape around us.

Yes, we're well aware of the circus that's blown up around Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin. Before the general election in Missouri has even begun, Akin appears to have soundly defeated himself, thanks to his misogynistic and ignorant comments about "legitimate rape" this past weekend.

A sane person would think that virtually every American, from almost every political background would have chastised Akin, and driven him out of politics and into another line of work. That would be where sane, logical people go wrong though, as clowns like Akin continue to prove their political careers are not yet over.

The fact is, there are a surprising number of influential members of the Republican Party who continue to support Akin. While not the majority of the modern Republican Party, those who think Akin did nothing seriously wrong include such notable figures as Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, and syndicated media talent Dana Loesch.

If you're wondering how we got to this point, where the current Republican Party isn't even a macabre, clownish vestige of its better days, we can show you the answer with ease. In fact, we've been saying this in words and cartoons for several years now.

The current Republican party leaders don't care about governing. They only care about winning. If they truly cared about governing, they would never have installed a clown like Akin into a position where he could cause them such serious grief. Even after the National Republican Party and Karl Rove's SuperPAC both yanked their ads and financial support abruptly from Akin's campaign, those on the far right of the party insist Akin said nothing wrong. They continue to push for him to stay in the race, and say those like Rove and the RNC are merely cowards.

Frankly, we can't disagree with that characterization.

So now we have the makings of one doozy of an intra-party Republican battle. For those of us who watch these kinds of things closely, this fight has been brewing for years.

It's a battle between several kinds of Republicans. There are those few who are left from the old days, rational Republicans who understand what it really means to govern effectively and to find compromise. Then there are those like the extremists on the far right, who insist that any compromise with those who disagree with them is treason. Finally, there are those who only care about being on the winning side, whatever side that is - in other words, mercenaries.

Regardless of whether Akin resigns from the U.S. House of Representatives, and from the U.S. Senate race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill, the Republican intra-party circus battle will continue.

We're not rooting for the clowns to win this one.