Anh Joseph Cao, a little-known 41-year-old community organizer and GOP attorney, knocked off nine-term Democratic Rep. William Jefferson in a stunning upset in Louisiana’s Second District to become the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress.

In recent years Jefferson has been fighting scandals and a federal indictment for money laundering, bribery and misusing his congressional office, which he denies. Last year the FBI reported finding $90,000 in marked bills in Jefferson’s freezer.

This is rare bi-partisan good news.  The Republicans get a member of Congress to add to the “R” side of the ledger and aisle and another vote on most issues, as well they get another victory which, combined with Saxby Chambliss’s thumping in the Georgia Senate run-off race, gives them cause to attempt with a straight face to say that the Republican Party is in absolutely splendid shape.  The Democrats get to be rid of a corrupt politician who was caught with $90K in a freezer — imagine yourself in Nancy Pelosi’s position in 2006 of having to place Jefferson in committee seats lest you rid an especially vulnerable constitutency (post Katrina New Orleans residents) which just re-elected him.  And, as 2010 is likely to be a year Republicans make electoral gains, this represents one number scratched off the “Republican gain” number — it’s a Congressional District where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 26 percent–, which may look good psychologically if, say, this Democratic pick-up is the difference between 10 Republican pick-ups and 9 or 20 and 19, or… you get the picture.

So… we are truly in a post-partisan political world.  And a good year for Community Organizers at that!

From what I suppose we can call “The Right“:

Prohibition was the pièce de résistance of the early 20th-century progressives’ grand social engineering agenda. It failed, of course. Miserably.

From what I suppose we can call “The Left“:

The Temperence Movement of the 19th Century would look familiar to us today.  The movement, led mainly by pious women, opposed alcohol on moral grounds.  They weren’t just trying to stop their no-account husbands from drinking away the family’s nest egg; they wanted to stomp out alcohol altogether. Imagine a beet-faced Southern preacher imprecating gays, and shift the nown to demon liquor and you get the picture.

It’s not quite that we see what we want to see.

Anyone who has lived in Portland for any appreciable amount of time knows the story of Bud Clark.  Eccentric tavern owner, best known for this image which is the explanation for the joke “noted art critic”, in 1984 he decided Francis J. Ivancie was getting a free pass to the mayor’s office, so he threw his hat in the ring.  He was thought to be a joke candidate.  Or, he was thought to be a joke until he won.

The story goes that Ivancie felt his first sense of trouble he was in trouble when the two candidates were both in a parade.  The public booed him.  The public cheered Clark.  Ivancie’s campaign turned negative as it became apparent Clark was on path to victory, as he couldn’t quite believe such a thing was even possible.

Now, here’s an odd thing.  Go to the wikipedia article on Bud Clark to the section on that election, and you get this:

In 1984 he ran for mayor because no other candidate would come forward to challenge Francis J. Ivancie. Clark won in the primary with 54.6% of the vote. He was re-elected in 1988 after defeating 11 candidates in the primary and beating former Chief of Police Ron Still in the general.

There is no sense of the election as stunning upset.  But go to the wikipedia article on Ivancie and you get this:

In 1983, a coalition of progressive activists in the city, disenchanted with Ivancie’s politics, sought out a challenger to run against Ivancie in the 1984 mayoral election. This was a proposition that local political observers considered unlikely to succeed, given Ivancie’s strong political connections with local business interests, The Oregonian, and organized labor. They found an unlikely candidate in J. E. “Bud” Clark, a local tavern owner and former beatnik. Clark announced his candidacy less than six months before the May 1984 election, but was widely dismissed as a “joke” candidate who had no chance to win the election. However, dissatisfaction among Portlanders was running high – the economy was in recession and crime was on the rise.

In March 1984—two months prior to the election—Clark trailed Ivancie by 35 points in one poll. However, the Clark campaign put together a large number of volunteers who canvassed the city. After an early May poll by The Oregonian showed the race tied, the Ivancie campaign replied with negative advertisements questioning Clark’s religious beliefs (Clark has claimed to be a “born again pagan”). The ads offended Portland voters, who elected Clark to be the next mayor on May 15, by a margin of 13 points.

The story is told, though for the sake of wikipedia needs to be substantiated (easily done if one were up to such a task) and fleshed out somewhat.  But it’s told in one candidate’s bio and not the other one.  It seems rather significant to both people’s careers.

I suppose I should open up a wikipedia account, but good golly I have no interest in engaging in prolonged article-changing attempts.

While studies show that coverage of President Elect Obama far outweighs coverage of President Bush, coverage of President Elect Obama having a similar tinge to it as if he were indeed president,

The Bush Era is not quite over.  Leaving aside pardons and last minute de-regulating executive orders and procedual movements, witness this banner-ad I’ve been seeing around the Internet today, reduced to half its height and half its width:

It is, I guess, a last minute sell-off before this happens.  But really, it’s something of wistful nostalgia for the past eight years.

It will take a bit of time to adjust this point of impulse sales click through for a mocking Barack Obama banner ad market.  But it’ll come.  Everyone is just feeling the way around right now.  It took until Bush choked on a pretzel for people to learn how to laugh at Bush again in the post 9/11 world — Obama’s time enfused in banner ads topping general interest only tangeantally political Internet websites is coming.

There’s a bit of a symmetry between this (which I picked up via Andrew Sullivan here, and will thus just go with his pull-quote as a demonstration.):

I’m sure the comments section will fill with various conspiracy theories over Indonesian school records, Kenyan births, and so on.  None of it — absolutely none — has any real, solid evidence showing that Obama was born anywhere else than Hawaii apart from sheer speculation and hearsay, and even less evidence that Obama’s stepfather renounced Obama’s birthright citizenship, which he didn’t have the power to do anyway.  It’s a conspiracy theory spun by conspiracy theorists (Philip Berg is a 9/11 truther) who use their normal thresholds of evidence for this meme.

AND… this, where you see Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California moving from an unequivocal stand on non-torture standards for interrogating detainees to a position loaded with equivocation and weasel words.

The “birth certificate” business is irresponsible and detrimental to a conservative cause.  We arrive at such a point, where it persists and becomes currency enough to inandate comments of Republican bloggers, due to current desperation.  Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, as one moves from the role of critic to the role of governing — some well-held positions become fungibleitems in which politicians end up moving to the establishment position of the administration due to them being on “their team”.  That is what is lost,  even as some conspiratorial obsessions fade from the mind of liberals.

Well, that birth certificate story ends today.  Right?  Or can Alan Keyes flog it right up to the next Senate race in Illinois?

Yesterday mid afternoon, I looked around at some comments at various websites, and picked up the anecdotal evidence that Saxby Chambliss was on the way to a victory.  Reports were that Atlanta voting spots were empty, emptier, and emptiest.  The urge to get Democrats to a 59th seat as opposed to a 58th seat was a rather unspectacular goal — Obama has been elected, that’s all anyone cared about, this is an anti-climax.  Meanwhile, Republicans spot this election as the only thing standing between Complete Democratic Socialist Domination and … not exactly divided government, but cracked government.  The election surrogates itself — try to spot the “Which of these people is doing its own thing” in this list:

on the Republican side, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The Democrats sent former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and the rapper Ludacris.

The New York Times article on the election also brings, or brought, one interesting item from a 16 year old campaign worker who trucked in from out of state to campaign for Chambliss — and, not being able to find it in the article I have to dredge it out of a search… On why we need Chambliss to prevail.:

“America is a center-right country,” he said. “We need to have a balance of power.”

This saddens me.  His reasoning is a weird meaningless talking point.  He has a couple years to knock that out of his system before he comes to voting age (and I’m not referring to his partisan politics), but knowing the world of politics, he probably won’t.

Okay.  Where were we?

Writing in the Oct. 31 edition of Executive Intelligence Review, leading U.S. statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche issued a major report, one which, he wrote, “may come to be considered by some among the world’s leading circles of today, as the most important political document you have read, or might have read, during your lifetime to date.”

You know how television shows always advertise with “The final 15 minutes of Tuesday’s night program will be the most shocking 15 minutes in television history”?  You know how the major comic book publishers always used to plaster their covers with “Special Collector’s Edition”, salted liberally?  You know how a used car seller or a mattress seller advertises with “The Deal of the Century”?  How many of these proclamations of “most important political document you have read, or might have read, during your lifetime to date” can there be?

But this is all old and stupid.  When I get the chance I am going to look into the functionality of Alex Jones’s websites — are these things user input with a helpful editor that tracks the desired conspiracy mongering to the front?– because I note this:

Conspiracy theories abound throughout the Internet, as occurs when anything of this magnitude occurs – and one of the most astounding theories I’ve come across is that Great Britain was actually behind the attacks as published on Alex Jone’s site.

That actually is a rather unastounding and very boring theory.  And you know why that is.  If I hadn’t plucked this from the realms of the Internet by way of the keyword search “Larouche”, I would still know the source of this crap.  The British Empire — to quote the fellow, “And the British are also in heat right now.”  Is there no end to their sex-starved treachery?  What will they think of next?  (Well, this.  But that’s been floating in Larouche’s mind since the summer.  To paraphrase a drunk Mel Gibson, “The British are responsible for all the wars in the world.  And presidential assassinations.  Are you a Brit?”  I look forward to the upcoming Robert Beltran narrated L-Pac video on the British treachery of germ warfare which gave President William Henry Harrison pneumonia.)

Continuing:
This is an article that all should read, and when I first read it, my first thought was “WTF???” Then, I took the time to read-up on Lyndon LaRouche’s track-record for being correct – and if you read it yourself – it’s mind-numbing how often Mr. LaRouche has been correct in his predictions and analysis of several issues that have actually been absolutely correct, and this time, I hope that he’s dead-wrong!

Is there some sort of memo on how a Larouchie interacts on the Internet?  “Always act surprised, yet intrigued at the reading of a Larouche tract.  State that you’ve heard about him, and some bad things, but have never looked into him yourself.”  Anyway, I’m eating my 20 dollar loaves of bread and am waiting with the horror of our up-coming Michael Bloomberg Administration.

The link, I guess, came to us from sort of the fringes of the Alex Jones website.  Meaning, the fringe of the fringe.  The front page would tend to entreat you with information that Webster Tarpley will be on the next Alex Jones show, Alex Jones to be on the next Webster Tarpley show — Tarpley having more credence in the world of Kookery than Larouche (though, this may be by design).  The last time I spotted, in my slightly askewed glance over the Internet, Larouche being in the Alex Jones web-sphere — it was with a youtube clip where Larouche babbled on about how everyone is going to be killing everyone else — and, if you imagine 2 straight days of speeches along those lines, the not entirely unfeasible portrait of a lone LYM taking things into his own hands at an isolated conference in Germany becomes a little easy to picture.

If the Alex Jones sites operated with this sort of user-based variety, I can entertain myself with an odd version of how things work with dailykos — where we see this post has been deleted.  Karole Noymann contributed for consideration and deletion an entry which began:  Maybe Lyndon LaRouche isn’t so crazy after all25 Nov 2008
OK maybe my title is a bit misleading since this diary is about Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, for over thirty years the wife of Lyndon LaRouche, who has worked closely with her husband and reflects his own views and philosophy.  Perhaps this makes Markos Moulitsas and his website are one of those dreaded “Gate-keepers” conspiracy theorists talk about, keeping this view or that view outside the purview of respectable opinion.  I wonder if I were to create an account and post some rather tame donkey versus elephant partisan horse race item at Alex Jones’s website if I would be similarly deleted.  Well, it’s a thought.

But, in terms of the Internet, wikipedia is probably the front-line of any Larouchian fight.  I tend think the wikipedia article on Larouche right now is a little lame, the Larouchies have successfully gotten a good focus on their roaming batch of any figure who has given the man validation.  On the other hand, I appear to have indirectly affected the entry on “James Bevel”, this post seeming to have lead to a further explication of Bevel’s career of the time — which had been posted at wikipedia as simply “getting his educational viewpoinits to the public” (appreciate the dark humor there) to include such items as “booed off stage in front of black Nationalists” and more importantly the Nebraska Child Molestation hoax he played a part in propagating (irony or ironies) and… Perhaps there is more to the story of Bevel’s career in his Larouchian phase and why, but researchers would have to figure it out and document it.

In other news, Funny this, though ironically something of a Larouchian tactic:

The lowest of low blows was lodged anonymously against a House GOP leader candidate, New Hampton Rep. Fran Wendleboe.
Titled “The Truth About Fran,’’ the two-page attack called her the “Lyndon LaRouche of NH politics’’ in referring to her past unsuccessful bids for Congress, party chairwoman and state Senate.
It had a character assassination of Sam Pimm, who had led the Reagan Network political action committee that Wendleboe formed and which opposed the renomination of moderate-to-liberal GOP House members.
And it contained a picture of Miss Piggy the Muppet and a picture of Wendleboe with the caption “Separated at birth?’’
The letter was sent with no return address to all House Republican members the weekend before Monday’s leadership vote.

And,  Satanists are upset with Larouche.  Supposedly a pivot for the org would be to seek funding sources and feign support for and around a sort of Sarah Palin supporting Christian sources — this  a good start to that goal, I suppose.  (Look into this story yourself.)

In other news — David Icke has been making some rounds and figuring in the Franken — Coleman recount here in the states… in Britain — it gets even odder.  (Franken is seen here playing Henry Kissinger in an enactment of the scholarly polemic “Henry Kissinger and the Politics of Faggery.)

It is Election Day Part 2 in Georgia, with the run-off between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin deciding the difference between Democrat #58 and Democrat #59, and Republican #40 and Republican #41 — the Minnesota race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman still outstanding, state court having ruled a swarth of absentee ballots won’t be checked and Franken’s hopes hanging on a higher court reversing that decision with perhaps one dreaded action from the goddamned US Senate.

The money is that Jim Martin will win only in a fluke, and a wonky turn-out model — I suppose a conceit already dissolved because Sarah Palin made an appearance in Georgia to bring out her base.  Should Chambliss win, it’ll be his seat as long as he wants it, I’d suspect.

With all that in mind:  Georgians, Vote.  A rendition of the old joke on “voting early and voting often”, another variation of the joke about “Get to the polls, if you’re a Martin supporter, and if you’re for Chambliss, go ahead and sleep in.”

Also, while by definition — run-off election — there are only two names on the ballot and no blank spot write-in slot, that wouldn’t stop voters of “Lizard People”.  Remember, though:  a vote for “Lizard People” is a vote for Saxby Chambliss.  And vice versa:  a vote for Saxby Chambliss is a vote for Lizard People.

I’m trying to remember.  Was Neil Young portrayed at the end of Ed Brubaker and Eric Shanower’s 1994 “Prez” (reviewed here, and with a quotation of regret here)– sitting alongside the ham-handed likeness of Kurt Cobain and a supporting band made up of … well, the comic book was kind of embarrassing.

I would like to call Brubaker and Shanower’s recreation of Prez ridiculous, but that would ignore that the original creation was rather ridiculous.  The first image on this page shows the teenage president’s Cabinet.  When I get a chance, I’ll save and post the second image, which shows the corrupt Political Boss, Boss Smiley.  I don’t know if Boss Smiley counts as a “bad guy”, but other “bad guys” battled by Prez — he’s more hawkish than you think.

In that sense, this was a more faithful to the spirit of the original than I’d suppose.  Brubaker has done better work.  The answer to the question “What?” would be roughly everything before this and roughly everything after — I’m particularly fond of the third issue of Lowlife, the DHP serialization “Here and Now”, and the Wildstorm comic “Point Blank”.  A caveat against the rule that everything else was better might be that weird and pointless tiny 8 page mini-comic “Bad Eggs”, a comic about the “Little Lowlifes” going out on a night of egging — which seemed to exist to run through a batch of green ink.

Actually, come to think of it, that weirdly haloed world of rock musicians might fit Prez into the same genre category as Sonic Disruptors … (hm.)  And Neil Young figures into Prez, if he did, because — as classic rock radio always said through the 1990s — he is the grand-father of Grunge  — (er… I … guess?  Because, as noted elsewhere, he looks a wee bit rugged… and is of the “crunchy” aesthetic as opposed to smooth).  The politics of the thing has something to do with the music as a force of uncorrupted good against a sea-shore of a corrupt political machine.

Hm.  I wonder how Liberality Now is doing in our new Obama led political epoch.

This is something which has been percolating around in the psyche in the post-Bush era: there is no obvious point of departure to parody Obama.  How bad is it?  Check out how this panel discussion is reported.

Will political comedy be easier or more difficult under President Obama? That was a key question discussed by a panel of experts here Wednesday night.

Cartoonist Ted Rall even predicted the age of Obama would be similar to the presidency of John F. Kennedy. “JFK was a good time for comedy,” he said. “Obama is so stuffed and uptight. Maybe he is asking for it.”

Conservative commentator Monica Crowley, however, said she has generally heard from comedians that they find little fun in Obama. She can’t wait to see how things will work out once Obama moves into the White House, she added.

The panel, under the title “We Have a Winner,” took place at the 92nd Street Y on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Good so far.  Even if I’d leave out Ted Rall if I had the chance.  But then things got ugly.

For a long time, the panel’s discussion revolved around the question of how the U.S. media covers the news and whether they provide a representative picture of the world around us. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also took up much time. Repeatedly, groups of audience members got up and left.

I note that this is a cut off where a lot of newspapers ended the story.  Which is a really strange conclusion, disconnected to anything.  Disconnected to this:

In an emotional moment during the Q&A session, one woman in the audience picked up on that and said that she enjoyed the comments, but she had expected more punchlines and fun. “This was marketed as part of the comedy festival,” she said and earned applause from much of the remaining crowd.

“I’m not disappointed!” yelled a man in the audience, and he also got some applause.

They needed to break out their Obama impersonations.