More on the 6th

First, welcome to all of the people coming from City Pages' Blog, Shot in the Dark, King Banaian and many other places.

I am guessing the anti-Bachmann crowds (from the ethics-over-party segment of the Right and from the Left) are expecting some more scathing words from here. I will say that I am trying to follow up on a lead I was given. If it comes through it will result in an interview that will be a very big story in the election. Until that story either falls through or comes through there will be little from me about Bachmann.

You all know my reasons for thinking Bachmann does not deserve the vote of any ethics-supporting person. Some of you let your partisanship overwhelm your ethical center and ignore the facts. Instead you choose to attack the dissenter. I expect that. It is the new page of the GOP playbook (well, I saw it added last year by Kennedy supporters and Eibensteiner supporters, so 'new' is relative).

What I will say quickly is to Mitch's post.

We're at war. We're also nursing a strong, vibrant economic recovery. Both of them can and will go straight to hell if the Democrats and their "happy to pay for a better _____" take over the House. For all their caterwauling about Bush's deficits, a Democrat Congress (and we're not talking Clinton/Lieberman/DLC Demcrats, these days - remember that!) would drag us back to the glory days of Tip O'Neill faster than you can say "national malaise".

Sorry, the responsibility of the delegates was to take that kind of stuff into consideration. Electability I believe is the general category. Ethics is another major category (one that the GOP has been casting aside recently). Each candidate was asked if there was anything in their backgrounds, past or present, that would embarrass the GOP should it be made public. Bachmann answered "No" and the committee knew that was a lie. They had the opportunity to not forward Bachmann's name for endorsement and from what my source inside that committee reported that was close to happening. The only reason it didn't was for fear of their own personal safety the exact wording was, "we would not make it out of this building alive", and was mostly toungue in cheek. I don't think they actually meant they'd be killed.

You had the chance to put forward a candidate that did not have the baggage--most of which you already knew about. Instead the GOP endorsed Bachmann and with it lost a good number of conservative supporters.

There is a danger in Speaker Pelosi actually coming to fruition. If that happens it is not my fault, but the fault of the endorsing convention.