Which Republican is in the sorriest shape?

Case #1: Katherine Harris in Florida.

Sorting through the imponderabilities and damning mis-leading lies Katherine Harris has in her campaign literature — up to and including the indiscreprency between Jeb Bush “endorsing her” and the truth that Jeb Bush said “She cannot win”, and beyond the non-stop soap opera where her campaign workers quit en masse, the one detail that pops out in this story to me:

Finally, Harris’ fundraising letter cites a Zogby International poll that shows her trailing Nelson by only 3.9 percentage points. That poll, however, is at least 10 months old. Since early this year, a series of independent polls have shown Harris trailing Nelson by more than 20 points. Most recently, she has been down by more than 30.

That’s not a very good trend-line.

Case #2: Alan Sclesinger, polling at 6 percent in the 3 way Connecticut race between Ned Lamont, Democrat, and Joseph Lieberman, now of the newly formed Lieberman Party (and that is not much of an exaggeration). When asked if George Bush would support Alan Sclesinger, Tony Snow answered:

“The President supports the democratic process in the state of Connecticut, and wishes them a successful election in November.”

Case #3: Bill Sali, running for a House seat in Idaho. More than likely he’s going to win, but he has the indignity of ending up in an actual competitive campaign in the state of Idaho, against a Democrat no less, where one could be excused for not knowing that there even was a Democratic Party:

With a sharp new website and an insightful column from the Idaho Statesman’s Dan Popkey, Republicans for Grant came out swinging this morning, the very day that Vice President Dick Cheney will be in town for a fundraiser for Grant’s opponent, Bill Sali.

The race to replace Butch Otter in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District between Democrat Larry Grant and Republican Bill Sali is the hottest contest in the political zeitgeist in Idaho, and the newest twist, Republicans for Grant, will likely fan the flames even higher.

The quotes are pretty entertaining.

“That idiot is just an idiot. He doesn’t have one ounce of empathy in his whole fricking body. And you can put that in the paper.” Bruce Newcomb, Republican Speaker of the House, Idaho Statesman April 8, 2006

Which, I heard last night on Public Radio, “recreated” for some reason or other. Try doing that, “recreate” that statement as though you wee Bruce Newcomb and put feeling into it. “That idiot is just an idiot” is a rather redundant sentence. I’d go with “That idiotic idiot is just an idiot.”

“If you want to debate this, I’ll put the House at ease and we can go back into my office and I’ll throw you out the window.” Republican Mike Simpson, Speaker of the Idaho House

“The third floor wasn’t high enough. You should have taken him up to the fourth floor.” House colleagues of Rep. Simpson, Idaho Statesman, April 7, 2006

Case #4: Tom DeLay. The indicted House Majority Leader who played that dicey game winning the primary, and then withdrawing from his race — to spend his campaign funds on his Legal Bills. The upshoot is that the courts wouldn’t allow a replacement for DeLay (always a slapshot and random proposition) — there is not a Republican on the ballot for Tom DeLay’s old seat.

Case #5: I’m tempted to mention George Allen of Virginia — but I can’t because he will probably win his seat, despite his recent controversy and the ensuing bizarre series of explanations on why he called an Indian-American “Macaca”, replete with the statement of “Welcome to America” — the two most amusing explanation being that it was a take on his haircut — a mohawk, except of course the man does not have a mohawk (it’s a — mullet)… and the second:

According to two Republicans who heard the word used, “macaca” was a mash-up of “Mohawk,” referring to Sidarth’s distinctive hair, and “caca,” Spanish slang for excrement, or “shit.”

Said one Republican close to the campaign: “In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance.”

So instead I’ll say Montana Senator Conrad Burns, who tried to score political points by dissing on out-of-state fire-fighters.

Sen. Conrad Burns’ verbal attack on a firefighting team for its work on a Montana blaze angered some firefighters, drew harsh criticism in newspapers and has left the Republican scrambling to repair the damage.

Burns, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the fall elections, confronted members of a firefighting team at the Billings airport July 23 and told them they had done a ”piss-poor job.”

The Hotshot crew had traveled 2,000 miles to help dig fire lines and was awaiting flights home when Burns made his comments. The senator said he was expressing the frustration of ranchers who were critical of the way the fire was handled.

The report by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation said Burns pointed to one firefighter and said, ”See that guy over there? He hasn’t done a g– damned thing.”

I cannot recall the name of Republican who lashed out on the highly non-partisan National Journal for calling him “loyal Bush Republican”. I think it was Mark Kennedy, but it may have been Jim Talent.

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