Send in The Clowns

As our longtime readers know, when appropriate, we give kudos to those politicians and other figures who deserve them - and we excoriate those who have also earned our ire.

We also fully admit - while we're hard on our national politicians, we usually judge Nebraska politicians along a steeper scale than we do politicos from virtually any other place.

We also have a tendency to not want to go out on a limb, in general, when calling political contests. We've berated others for calling elections over before they've begun - so we won't do that today.

What we will say is this: We're pretty sure of the outcome of at least one race for U.S. Senate next year - and you can thank the Tea Party for that.

In case you missed it, the extremist far-right wing group, the Tea Party Express let it leak yesterday that the first official candidate they'll support for 2012 is Republican Jon Bruning. Bruning is one of three Republicans to have formally announced their intention to compete with Senator Ben Nelson for the U.S. Senate seat Nelson already occupies.

We can understand the possibility that you missed the non-announcement announcement on Wednesday. Not only was it one of the worst-kept secrets of the infant 2012 political season, but for those people interested in politics, the announcement only seemed to be a surprise to people outside the Cornhusker state.

We find it infinitely amusing that a foundering fledgling political group, that claims to be more focused on fiscal responsibility than either the Democratic or Republican parties, would choose Mr. Bruning as the first candidate of the 2012 season they'll support - on the same day that former Berkshire executive David Sokol resigned from the Bruning campaign, as the finance chairman, for unethical and irresponsible actions at Berkshire.

Of course, if your memory is like that of many Americans, let us remind you that the Tea Party Express is the same group responsible for Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell, Joe "Free speech for me but not for you" Miller, and Sharron "I'll take Second Amendment remedies if I don't win" Angle.

We'll admit - we've praised Attorney General Bruning in the past for things he's done well, and docked him for things he's done wrong. In general, though, while we're not a fan of many of his political positions, we do think he'd have more potential if he would simply choose to be himself, and push away the insanity of those like the Tea Party Express.

As long as Republicans like Bruning continue to side with the insane wing of the GOP, their futures will continue to look like the approval ratings of the Tea Party: embarrassingly low and falling fast.