US News blogger Peter Roff speculates that Mitt Romney will run for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.

Such an announcement would likely be embraced immediately by the Republicans, who would like almost nothing more than to deny Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada his new, hard-won, 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. As a self-funding candidate who has already been elected once statewide, Romney has nearly 100 percent name ID. And, in an environment where President Obama seems to be dragging the Democrats down, he would be a serious threat to the Democratic hegemony in Massachusetts’s congressional delegation. Meaning Romney likely would win.

If he did, Romney would then have a platform to actually introduce legislation modeled on the proposals he put forward as a presidential candidate
in 2008 and planned to put forward in 2012. No guesswork. No empty rhetoric. Real ideas, on the Senate floor, that could be evaluated, debated, and perhaps even voted on.

From the Senate floor, Romney could show his fellow Republicans, and the country, just what kind of president he would be. How he would approach national problems. As an added political benefit, it would give him the opportunity to establish true conservative bona fides allowing him to finally overcome the suspicions many conservatives in the GOP’s primary electorate still harbor about him. Rather than tie him down, Romney could actually use the Senate seat to lock up the GOP nomination in 2012.

Two minor problems with this: Romney would have to get elected. And he’d have to instantly be an effective senator.

Romney was governor of Massachusetts, a very advantageous platform from which to run for president. Not only did it allow him to demonstrate decisive, executive leadership — as opposed to those pesky compromise votes that tend to embarrass senators running for president — but it allowed him to claim that he was a uniter, able to get things done as a Republican in a highly Democratic state. So, why did he give it up? Because he was unlikely to win re-election. Why would he suddenly be more popular in a state even less receptive to a Republican while wallowing in a sea of Kennedy emotion?

Were Romney to get elected despite this obstacle, he’d have about five minutes to start passing legislation for it to do him any good in a presidential campaign that will start in earnest next February. If it hasn’t started already. He’d have to do this as the Senate’s most junior member in a body where seniority is everything. And as a Republican in a body where the Democrats have 59 percent of the votes.

UPDATE: Alex Massie, Steve Benen, and Nate Silver all agree this is a really bad idea.  So does Steve M., who notes that Romney doesn’t even qualify for Massachusetts residency at the moment.

Implicit in all their arguments is a fundamental point I failed to make in the original post: The positions one has to take to get elected to statewide office in Massachusetts are diametrically opposed to those one has to take to win the Republican presidential nomination.

In my early morning Teddy Kennedy Dead at 77 media roundup post, I observed, “That the Chappaquiddick scandal didn’t make the first several paragraphs — or even first page — of several of these obits is quite remarkable. It would be like writing an obit for Richard Nixon that didn’t mention Watergate or one for Michael Jackson that glossed over repeated allegations of pedophilia.”

Hanna Rosin expands on that point quite a bit, including implicitly pointing out that it was a rather large elephant in the room:

Google Trends this morning is a perfect window into our tabloid culture and the recesses of our depraved minds. While the papers are full of words like “dynasty” and “legacy,” Mary Jo Kopechne, according to Google Hot Trends, is uppermost in our thoughts. Her name comes up as number one in the ranking, and several more places on the list, misspelled. Chappaquiddick shows up high and often, too; once correctly, and then in several illiterate incarnations.

Partly, I blame this discrepancy on the American papers, which are still bent on hagiography. I prefer British obituaries, which tell it like it is. And partly, of course, this is the fault of our vapid tabloid culture. The only surprise today is that Kate Gosselin has been knocked back all the way to number 30. “Michael Jackson alive” is a popular trend. Yeah. Jamming with Elvis.

Finally, there is the issue of the obvious narrative the papers are not stringing together. In my mind, I’ve always equated Ted Kennedy with Chuck Colson, the disgraced Nixon aide who went on to found an admirable Christian organization called “Prison Fellowship.” Public officials who do terrible things and then say they’re sorry (often in a press conference or book) are a dime a dozen. But the ones who do something terrible and then repent indirectly in the form of a lifetime of dedicated public service are rare. Colson and Kennedy are just about the only two I can think of.

Mary Jo Kopechne is on our minds because this narrative about Ted Kennedy makes sense, in some intuitive, appealing way. Kennedy killed a girl. That’s his rosebud. He made up for it partly by declining the ultimate glory of running for president, and choosing the more humble path—helping the underclass using the slow, steady machinery of the Senate.

Other than the fact that Kennedy actually did run for president — in a bitter primary battle with President Jimmy Carter in 1980 — that all strikes me as right. And, indeed, the Guardian obit covers this neatly in a single paragraph:

Kennedy’s career was significantly blighted by the Chappaquiddick incident of 1969 in which the car he was driving ran off a bridge and plunged into the water, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. While he never reached the pinnacle of power, Kennedy eventually shed his playboy image to become a serious political presence in the Senate. His death marks the twilight of a political dynasty and deals a blow to Democrats as they seek an overhaul of the healthcare system, one of Kennedy’s personal goals.

Teddy Kennedy lived an extraordinary life of tremendous accomplishment interspersed with some horrible scandals and family tragedy.  It’s why he was such a fascinating figure. But his story simply can’t be told without the word Chappaquiddick.

UPDATE:  E&P’s Sam Chamberlain tallied how far into the obits the first mention of the incident appeared:

NY Daily News- 13^th graf

Associated Press- 7^th graf

Boston Herald-  10^th graf

Boston Globe-  5^th graf

NY Times- 14^th graf

NY Post- 14^th graf

Washington Post-  9^th graf

Wall Street Journal-  6^th graf

LA Times-  12^th graf

Chicago Tribune-  12^th graf (same obit as LA Times)

Miami Herald-  10^th graf

Reuters- 18^th graf

USA Today- 19th graf

Politico- 24th graf

The Hill-NO MENTION

Roll Call-25th graf

National Journal-11th graf

Times of London- 8^th graf

In fairness, for a variety of reasons having to do with the printing and editing process from bygone days, a newspaper “graf” is often much shorter than a proper paragraph.  Still, the most notable single fact about Kennedy’s life was mentioned well after the average reader would have lost interest.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy died last night, aged 77, succumbing to brain cancer.

Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies (John Broder, NYT)

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77.

The death of Mr. Kennedy, who had been battling brain cancer, was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family, which was already mourning the death of the senator’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver two weeks earlier.

“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port,” the statement said. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever.”

“An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” President Obama said in a statement. “Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time.”

Mr. Kennedy had been in precarious health since he suffered a seizure in May 2008. His doctors determined the cause had been a malignant glioma, a brain tumor that often carries a grim prognosis.

As he underwent cancer treatment, Mr. Kennedy was little seen in Washington, appearing most recently at the White House in April as Mr. Obama signed a national service bill that bears the Kennedy name. Last week Mr. Kennedy urged Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law and let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a temporary replacement upon his death, to assure that the state’s representation in Congress would not be interrupted by a special election.

While Mr. Kennedy had been physically absent from the capital in recent months, his presence had been deeply felt as Congress weighed the most sweeping revisions to America’s health care system in decades, an effort Mr. Kennedy called “the cause of my life.”

Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77 After Cancer Battle (Joe Holley, WaPo)

Edward M. Kennedy, one of the most powerful and influential senators in American history and one of three brothers whose political triumphs and personal tragedies captivated the nation for decades, died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77. He had been battling brain cancer.

His family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the statement said. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all.”

President Obama released a statement Wednesday morning, pointing out that “virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. . . . Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time. . . . Our hearts and prayers go out to” the Kennedy family.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was the last male survivor of a privileged and charismatic family that in the 1960s dominated American politics and attracted worldwide attention. His sister, Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, died two weeks ago, also in Hyannis Port. One sibling, former U.S. ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, is still alive.

As heir through tragedy to his accomplished older brothers — President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), both of whom were assassinated — Edward Kennedy became the patriarch of his clan and a towering figure in the U.S. Senate to a degree neither of his siblings had been.

Kennedy served in the Senate through five of the most dramatic decades of the nation’s history. He became a lawmaker whose legislative accomplishments, political authority and gift for friendship across the political spectrum invited favorable comparisons to Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and a handful of other leviathans of the country’s most elite political body. But he was also beset by personal frailties and family misfortunes that were the stuff of tabloid headlines.

For years, many Democrats considered Kennedy’s own presidency a virtual inevitability. In 1968, a “Draft Ted” campaign emerged only a few months after Robert Kennedy’s death, but he demurred, realizing he was not prepared to be president.

Political observers considered him the candidate to beat in 1972, but that possibility came to an end on a night in July 1969, when the senator drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., and a young female passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. The tragedy had a corrosive effect on Kennedy’s image, eroding his national standing. He made a dismal showing when he challenged President Jimmy Carter for reelection in 1980. But the moment of his exit from the presidential stage marked an oratorical highlight when, speaking at the Democratic National Convention, he invoked his brothers and promised: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on. The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

Kennedy dead at 77 (Martin Nolan, Boston Globe)

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who carried aloft the torch of a Massachusetts dynasty and a liberal ideology to the citadel of Senate power, but whose personal and political failings may have prevented him from realizing the ultimate prize of the presidency, died at his home in Hyannis Port last night after a battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” his family said in a statement. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness, and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.’’

Overcoming a history of family tragedy, including the assassinations of a brother who was president and another who sought the presidency, Senator Kennedy seized the role of being a “Senate man.’’ He became a Democratic titan of Washington who fought for the less fortunate, who crafted unlikely deals with conservative Republicans, and who ceaselessly sought support for universal health coverage.

“Teddy,’’ as he was known to intimates, constituents, and even his fiercest enemies, was an unwavering symbol to the left and the right – the former for his unapologetic embrace of liberalism, and latter for his value as a political target. But with his fiery rhetoric, his distinctive Massachusetts accent, and his role as representative of one of the nation’s best-known political families, he was widely recognized as an American original. In the end, some of those who might have been his harshest political enemies, including former President George W. Bush, found ways to collaborate with the man who was called the “last lion’’ of the Senate.

Senator Kennedy’s White House aspirations may have been doomed by his actions on the night he drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 and failed to promptly report the accident in which Mary Jo Kopechne, who had worked for his brother Robert, died. When Kennedy nonetheless later sought to wrest the presidential nomination from an incumbent Democrat, Jimmy Carter, he failed. But that failure prompted him to reevaluate his place in history, and he dedicated himself to fulfilling his political agenda by other means, famously saying, “the dream shall never die.’’

Ted Kennedy Dies of Brain Cancer at Age 77 – ‘Liberal Lion’ of the Senate Led Storied Political Family After Deaths of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (ABC)

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77.

The man known as the “liberal lion of the Senate” had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the Kennedy family said in a statement. “He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it.”

Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family’s political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.

Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy dies at 77 – Liberal lion loses yearlong battle with brain cancer at Massachusetts home (NBC News/wire)

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate and haunted bearer of the Camelot torch after two of his brothers fell to assassins’ bullets, has died at his home in Hyannis Port after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a steadfast champion of the working class and the poor, a powerful voice on health care, civil rights, and war and peace. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving son of America’s most glamorous political family, the eulogist of a clan shattered again and again by tragedy.

[...]

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, when his brother John was president, and served longer than all but two senators in history. Over the decades, he put his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to clear the Congress.

His own hopes of reaching the White House were damaged — perhaps doomed — in 1969 by the scandal that came to be known as Chappaquiddick, an auto accident that left a young woman dead.

Kennedy — known to family, friends and foes simply as Ted — ended his quest for the presidency in 1980 with a stirring valedictory that echoed across the decades: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

[...]

Nancy Reagan, the widow of President Ronald Reagan, was one of the first to speak out from the Republican Party.

“Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family,” she said in a statement.

“But Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research, and I considered him an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him,” she said.

Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose wife, Maria Shriver, was Kennedy’s niece, praised “the rock of our family: a loving husband, father, brother and uncle.”

That the Chappaquiddick scandal didn’t make the first several paragraphs — or even first page — of several of these obits is quite remarkable. It would be like writing an obit for Richard Nixon that didn’t mention Watergate or one for Michael Jackson that glossed over repeated allegations of pedophilia.

That said, Kennedy was obviously much more than his actions on the worst night of his life. While he could be incredibly partisan, even vitriolically so on some issues, he was almost universally acknowledged even by opponents as an honorable negotiating partner and an outstanding legislator.

See my followup, “Mary Jo Kopechne.”

DrewM. passes on Michelle Malkin’s post and column noting that the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller by a white “Christian” got scads more media commentary and more intense presidential attention than did the murder of Private William Long and maiming and attempted murder of Private Quinton Ezeagwula by a black “Muslim.”

It’s a fair point and very much worth noting that there are craziest on both sides.

At the same time, the first shooting naturally fit into an ongoing storyline whereas the second seemingly comes out of the blue.  Malkin’s done yeoman work over the years in rounding up little-reported incidents by leftist extremists targeting American troops but it remains a tiny, disaggrated fringe movement whereas the anti-abortion movement is massive and even its extreme elements, like Operation Rescue, are rather large and public.

Nutcases aside, there’s been a loud and bitter debate over abortion going on since at least decision in Roe v. Wade some thirty-six years ago. So, naturally, when an abortionist gets murdered, there’s a ready frame into which to plug stories, sidebars, and commentaries.  Columns from 1986 can be dusted off and re-run by changing a few names and throwing in a new quote or three.

By contrast, those who genuinely dislike American soldiers are so far into the lunatic fringe that they’re not part of the public debate.  Just about every liberal male politician over the age of 50 — John Kerry, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Charlie Rangel — served in the military.  Hell, so did Jeremiah Wright.

To be sure, there are liberals who hate the way our military is used.   Others hate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  But, by and large, those are handled as debates over public policy.  It’s presidents who are the object of that wrath, not American soldiers.  Indeed, when someone dares criticize soldiers — as in the General Betray Us flap — they’re roundly slapped down, even by other liberals.

All that said, I agree with Michelle on the much narrower points.  Yes, President Obama should have said something about the recruiting station incident, especially after his comments on the Tiller murder.  He’s commander-in-chief, after all.  And it would have been good politics, too, earning credit for taking on left-wing crazies without alienating a significant part of his coalition.

And, yes, the press should have used the occasion of the latest shooting to point out that this was not a totally isolated incident.  The press really needs to get beyond its tired story frames and do broader reporting more often.

Photo by Flickr user DRB62 under Creative Commons license.

Jeff Bercovici notes Ann Coulter’s declining book sales:

Coulter’s latest book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, is something of a misfire by Coulterian standards. Of course, what constitutes a disappointment for Coulter would be a mega-hit for most authors; in its two months on sale, Guilty has sold 100,500 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan (a number that only reflects around 70 percent of actual sales).

But with it moving steadily down the best-seller list, it looks certain that Guilty will fall far short of matching her earlier results. Her 2006 polemic, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, sold 279,100 copies in hardcover, according to BookScan; Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror, published in 2003, sold 396,600 hardcover copies, and 2002’s Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, sold 333,100 copies, plus another 108,300 in paperback. (The two other books she published over that period, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) and If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans, are both collections rather than original works, so I left them out for the sake of apples-to-apples comparison.)

Bercovici muses, “Could it be that Barack Obama’s America has a smaller appetite for Coulter’s brand of take-no-prisoners, obey-no-logic conservatism?”  To have any basis for analysis, I’d have to know how other public affairs are doing in this economy as well as the trendlines for liberal and conservative polemnics.

Looking at the best-seller list above, I see that A BOLD FRESH PIECE OF HUMANITY, by Bill O’Reilly is at number 9; A SLOBBERING LOVE AFFAIR, by Bernard Goldberg is at 13; and Coulter’s at 18.   Judging by the authors and titles, no left-leaning polemnics are on the list at all.

To be sure, there are some books that should be popular with liberals: LAST LION, edited by Peter S. Canellos (Ted Kennedy’s career, with contributions from a team of six Boston Globe reporters) at 7;  OBAMA, with an introduction by Bill Keller and biographical text by Jill Abramson at 8; THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS 2009, by Barack Obama at 10; and THE RETURN OF DEPRESSION ECONOMICS AND THE CRISIS OF 2008, by Paul Krugman at 20.  But these are certainly of a different piece.   (Books by Bill Maher and Al Franken, for example, would be comparables.)

My guess re: Coulter, for what it’s worth, is that people are tired of her schtick.  Not right-wing screeds, necessarily — I predict plenty of success for those in the Age of Obama — but rather variations on the same theme by the same author.  It’s a rare author who can crank out a book every few months that’s worth reading.  Rarer still are authors who can do it using the same subject matter.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan, from whom I got the link, uses the news as an opportunity to  slam Coulter as a “cynical drag queen posing as a fascist.”

About an hour after CNN called it “doubtful,” Ted Kennedy made his first appearance in the Senate since being diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor two months ago in order to cast a procedural vote on a Medicare bill.

I return to the Senate today to keep a promise to our senior citizens and that’s to protect Medicare.

Win, lose or draw, I wanted to be here. I wasn’t going to take the chance that my vote could make the difference.

Demonstrating that collegiality in the Senate is not quite dead, he got a standing ovation:

It turned out that his vote wasn’t necessary — cloture was invoked 69-30 — but a similar vote fell one vote short of the needed 60 two weeks ago.

Good news:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy underwent what his doctor called successful surgery Monday to treat his cancerous brain tumor, and told his wife shortly after that he felt “like a million bucks,” a family spokeswoman said.

Right wing shock jock Michael Savage had fun at the expense of Teddy Kennedy while announcing that the senator had being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Following the announcement that Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage opened his May 20 show by interspersing audio of Kennedy singing “Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes” with clips of news reporters discussing Kennedy’s diagnosis and audio from the 1990 film Kindergarten Cop in which Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character says, “It’s not a tumor.” Later, Savage played the Dead Kennedys song “California Über Alles” after stating: “The poor guy’s been suffering for years, you know? Unfairly he’s been accused of alcoholism, but we see now that it was something much more deep-seated. And so, to cut this out in some respect for Ted Kennedy, here’s a tune coming at you from the Dead Kennedys. Go ahead and play it, please.”

After reading from the lyrics of “California Über Alles,” Savage said, “No gloating today, no laughter, all serious. You don’t joke about a man’s cancer. I do it, but I won’t do it today; it’s something I will not do.” At one point in the program, he told a caller, “You know I’m playing the Dead Kennedys not to mock Ted Kennedy. It’s just appropriate, that’s all.”

While there’s no need to pretend to like a public figure with whom you have strong political disagreements — and in the case of Kennedy, perhaps serious qualms about his morality as well — it’s just in really poor taste to make fun of the fact that he’s likely dying. And to do so while claiming you won’t do it is beyond tacky.

Sad Breaking News from CNN:

Sen. Edward Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor. The hospital treating Kennedy released a statement today saying that the tumor was found during tests after the senator had a seizure Saturday. The tumor is in his left parietal lobe.

AP adds,

His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.

[...]

Average survival can range from less than a year for very advanced and aggressive types — such as glioblastomas — or to about five years for different types that are slower growing.

The Semper Fido Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: charles austin – Goin’ shark fishing with man’s best chum.

Second: Timmer – The smallest member of President Carter’s Secret Service Detail prepares for his turn on Rabbit Watch.

Third: Bithead – Ted Kennedy’s Dog

HONORABLE MENTION

Cowboy Blob – Having conquered the Rio Grande through a quirk in Evolution, packs of wild Mexican Hairless Chihuahuas have invaded south Texas, sitting in laps that American dogs won’t sit in.

radio free fred – This Is What You Get When You Cross UnderDog With ScubiDoo.

yetanotherjohn – We tried to use the bear, but it got real upset as we put on the wet suit.

C Mercer – If he was going to go through with this escape plan, Paris Hilton’s dog knew he had to act now…

floyd – The Rio Grande is at flood stage!

william d’Inger – Walking the dog is no simple matter in Atlantis.

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Catfish Hunter

Anticipating a little extra pressure in the firehydrant this year Pedro?

PETA also frowned on going clubbing with Baby Seals

With the introduction of the Chuck Norris SEAL pup, clubbing came to an abrupt end.

The Thursday Contest is already counting 99 superdelegates Luftballons.

The Most Likely To… Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(Andrei Kasprishin/Reuters)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: Rachel Edith – “To guns and religion!”

Second: Cowboy Blob – Crown Royale. It’s the one in the Bag.

Third: Bithead – I don’t care how much she drinks, Charlie… she’s not going to get better looking.

HONORABLE MENTION

Maggie Mama – Hillary doesn’t know what these little people are toasting. However, she believes it’s perfectly fitting for her to down Crown Royal when her cornonation is just ahead.

DaveD – “It’s the only way I can make myself look like I believe what I’m saying”.

Timmer – So…how YOU doin’?

Dennis – Hillary: Say Bob, this IS good, where did you get it? Bob: Jonestown….

Reader – Have you seen my staff? 3 guys with beers looking like they’ve been out in the woods all week? One’s got 4 nipples, you can’t miss them.

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Next on this weeks’ episode of The Biggest Loser

Hillary soon finds that attending church and carrying guns may lead to other bad habits.

… and when I need to cry I drop it instead of drinking it.

So I says, ‘Why should Ted Kennedy have all the fun.’

The Thursday Contest has already done Elton John’s Rocketman for Hillary’s campaign.

The Group W BenchTruck Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AFP/File/Banaras Khan)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: Elmo – ‘Shock & Awe’ … the outgoing Bush administration’s military doctrine. Was promptly replaced by new President Obama … with ‘Aw Shucks.’

Second: Bithead – Unlike these guys, Ted Kennedy has a confirmed kill….

Third: stillearly – Abdul: “Keystone Cops?! What does that mean?…”

HONORABLE MENTION

Venomous Kate – Abdul and his friends head out for a night of cruising the strip in East L.A.

elliot – Next time I ride AK47…

William d’Inger – Laugh if you want, but we still have a better chance of finding bin Laden than McCain does.

DMan – A snow plower’s revenge

Wyatt Earp – Kwame Kilpatrick’s security detail stands guard outside Christine Beatty’s house while the mayor “dupespolls the electorate.”

charles austin – What “hope” and “change” really look like.

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Being bad in Islamabad

What happens in Islamabad, stays in Islamabad.

There’s a Musharraf in town

“Hey how may recon men have you guys lost?”
“Shut up 126″

good thing we got the up-armored Dodge Ram

Meet my network

The Monday Contest is already SSSSSMOKIN’

The Immigrant Song Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AFP/Carl de Souza)

THE WINNERS

First: Kenny – Sen. Obama knew he’d have to endure some unpleasantness for the coveted Kennedy nomination, but he never expected a visit like this …

Second: yetanotherjohn – I really think the press is overdoing the “Ragnarok ‘08″ political coverage meme.

Third: Wyatt Earp – Britney Spears’ rendition of “Ring of Fire” gets a little out of hand.

HONORABLE MENTION

radio free fred – Smokey Back Rooms And Political Deals.

Elmo – The pre-show, before the thursday evening Democratic debate, at the Kodak Theater. Made Barack a little nervous.

William d’Inger – Having discovered Cheney’s Undisclosed Location, the intreipd anthropologist secretly flims the sacred Tax Axe ceremony.

charles austin – We’re going to Disneyworld!

Dennis – Everyone was having fun until Smokey the Viking showed up.

Cowboy Blob – Orange whip? Who wants an orange whip?

RODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Bring us your gold… your women… your lutefisk

dittohead rally

The plans for a Led Zeppelin half time show were curtailed after the first rehearsal.

The Monday Contest finds Bill Bellicheck has a new profession.

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse on the issue, but the continued high pitched battle between conservative Republicans who have rallied around conservative-come-lately Mitt Romney in hopes of defeating Teddy Kennedy’s Good Friend John McCain remains the most interesting story this election cycle.

Conservatives Love Romney

The most recent Rasmussen poll shows that “Romney leads by sixteen percentage points among conservatives while McCain has a two-to-one advantage among moderate Primary Voters.” Of course, Rasmussen shows Romney and McCain tied nationally, whereas Gallup and Fox show McCain leading by 20 and 28 points, respectively. Even Michelle Malkin acknowledges that the poll is “the anomaly.”

Still, that Romney is outpolling McCain among self-identified conservatives is a consistent trend. We’ve seen it time and again in the exit polls.

John Hinderaker asserts that, “as the primary season draws to a close, most conservatives are coalescing around Mitt Romney.” Bill Quick believes we are now engaged in “the War for the GOP” with the “GOP establishment attempting to remake the party in its preferred liberal-conservative image – an image in which the ‘conservative’ part is mostly window dressing for the suckers.

Republicans Voting for McCain, Not Romney

Yet, for reasons Eric Kleefeld lays out nicely, McCain is likely to emerge Tuesday night as the prohibitive favorite to win the Republican nomination. AllahPundit, who strongly prefers Romney but maintains a realistic outlook, concurs.

So, we have two countervailing trends:

• Conservatives prefer Romney over McCain, hands down

• McCain is winning Republican primaries against Romney

This, incidentally, despite Romney having outspent McCain by ridiculous margins in television advertising.

What is one to conclude from this?

Perhaps “conservatives” are now a minority, even among Republican primary voters? If so, given that there are virtually no conservatives remaining in the Democratic Party these days and that voters who aren’t aligned with either party are almost by definition non-ideological, that would mean that conservatives are a small minority, indeed, among the American electorate.

Alternatively, perhaps the definition of “conservative” has become so narrow and esoteric that it’s become virtually meaningless?

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and again in 1984, he did it by putting together a coalition of small government conservatives, social conservatives, and anti-communists. He famously engendered the support of blue collar folks who were dubbed “Reagan Democrats.” Most of that group simply became Reagan Republicans.

Has the country gotten that much less conservative since then?

In some ways, yes. We’re much more tolerant on lifestyle issues, notably the role of women and acceptance of homosexuality, than we were a generation ago. Abortion has now been legal for 35 years, not a mere seven. We’re also much further removed from the days of the military draft, which means fewer of our menfolk have served.

But, fundamentally, we’re the same country we were in 1980. We’re still the most religious country in the developed world and probably the most patriotic. We’re more citified and more homogenized than we were but we still cling to the John Wayne rugged individualist mythos to a large degree.

The conservative majority has become a Conservative minority.

The Conservative Movement has morphed from a handful of intellectual true believers trying to shape the debate into something approaching a civil religion with loyalty tests and a clericy that has the power to excommunicate.

John McCain was part of the 1980 wave that rolled into Congress on Ronald Reagan’s coattails. Indeed, McCain was among those Reagan was honored to stand with at 1974’s CPAC convention. But someone with an 82 percent lifetime ACU rating is considered a traitor to the cause. Much better, apparently, to flip 180 degrees on election eve and spout the right Party Line talking points.

As I wrote last year from CPAC, when throngs of so-called conservatives lined up for Ann Coulter’s autograph moments after she referred to John Edwards as a “faggot,” “Somehow, I can’t imagine Ronald Reagan being pleased.” Yet, the modern Conservative Moment seems to be dominated by the shrill nonsense of Coulter and Jonah Goldberg[*] and Michael Savage and Neil Boortz. In short, the Conservative Movement is no longer particularly “conservative” at all.

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[*] UPDATE: See Goldberg, Coulter, and Savage for a follow-up to this point.

Floridians are being treated to some robo-calls attacking Mitt Romney that HuffPo’s Sam Stein and some homosexual activist leaders call “gay bashing.” Here’s the ad in question:

Mitt Romney thinks he can fool us. He supported abortion on demand, even allowed a law mandating taxpayer-funding for abortion. He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn’t changed the law. He told gay organizers in Massachusetts he would be a stronger advocate for special rights than even Ted Kennedy. Now, it’s something different.

Some of the reactions:

“It’s ironic that Sen. John McCain is using the same tactics that George Bush used against him in 2000; surreptitiously trying to exploit anti-gay prejudice for votes,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “So much for John McCain being above that.”

“I think this is definitely an attempt at gay baiting,” added Jon Hoadley, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats.

According to many in the community, the robo call hit is not simply a timely attempt to scare voters away from Romney, but a reflection of McCain’s true colors on social issues.

This gives “straight talk” a whole new meaning.

Does this amount to “gay baiting”? That seems a bit much, since the target of the attack is Romney, an open heterosexual. The main thrust of the message is that Romney is a dishonest flip-flopper who’ll tell you what you want to hear. But, certainly, the choice of abortion and gay rights among the dozens of issues on which Romney has changed positions to highlight would appear to be aimed at social conservatives.

Photo source: Practical Reasoning