Where have all the governors gone?

(ed. note — this post is adapted from my comment at the Florida Progressive Coalition Blog)

As I continue to wend my way through the maelstrom of Democratic presidential candidates without being able to settle on one firmly (although I still lean Edwards), I can’t help but wonder why Democrats, and indeed many Republicans, persist in thinking that the U.S. Senate is some kind of great stepping stone to the White House.

The last sitting Senator to be elected president was John F. Kennedy in 1960. So, who’s out there for the Democrats?

Of course, the only sitting governor who is running on the Democratic side is Bill Richardson. I’m not convinced that he’s the answer, although he definitely has some attractive features as a candidate. But he’s no Howard Dean, and I’m probably going to have to get over that formidable psychological obstacle in order to feel good about my vote in 2008.

There’s also Virginia’s Mark Warner, a former governor, but he seems a lock to win John Warner’s (no relation) Senate seat next year. (Why he wants to be a senator, I’ve no idea.) I absolutely love Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, but unfortunately she’s not eligible for the presidency, having been born in Canada. Some Dem governors, like Ted Strickland in Ohio, John Lynch in New Hampshire, Elliot Spitzer in New York, and Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, are just too new to consider. Others, like Illinois’ Rod Blagojevich, Pennsylvania’s Ed Rendell, New Jersey’s Jon Corzine, and Louisiana’s Kathleen Blanco, have had a lot of problems that make them less than attractive candidates.

Having said all that, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Spitzer or maybe Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as a running-mate to whoever takes the Democratic nomination. Tim Kaine of Virginia is another up-and-comer out there. But indeed there just doesn’t seem to be a top-notch Democratic-governor-as-presidential-candidate (arguably, other than Richardson) out there.

Why is this? Where are the Bill Clintons and Jimmy Carters on the Democratic side? We’ve seen in recent years the lack of success that sitting senators have when running for president: John Kerry in 2004, Bob Dole in 1996, and Walter Mondale in 1984 were singularly poor choices in many ways, ultimately winning their nominations as compromise or consensus candidates but unable to oust popular incumbent presidents. By contrast, of the presidential elections without an incumbent or where the incumbent was defeated, each winner since 1960 was a sitting or recent governor or vice president: Nixon in 1968, Carter in 1976, Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1988, Clinton in 1992, and Gore/Drunky McStagger in 2000 (take your pick). Since we don’t have an incumbent vice president running this time, nor would we on the Democratic side, that leaves governors … and the cupboard is rather bare.

The three Democratic front-runners — Clinton, Obama, and Edwards — are all sitting or former senators. But on the Republican side, former governor Mitt Romney is trailing former mayor (!) Rudy Giuliani and former senator Fred Thompson, while sitting senators John McCain and Sam Brownback and sitting congressmen Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, and Tom Tancredo are in the mix. Other than Romney, only former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has been a chief executive.

Every presidential election since 1976 has featured at least one candidate who at one time had been the governor of a state. Are we going to buck that trend in 2008? And can the U.S. Senate truly be a launching pad to the presidency?

UPDATE (4:23 pm 10/16/07): Yes, I forgot some candidates this year, like Chris Dodd (sitting senator). So sue me.

Today’s Daily Schadenfreude: the Republican Party

This is the very definition of schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, for the uninitiated): the headline in today’s Los Angeles Times reads:

Retirement season hits GOP hard

Aw, poor babies … but you can’t deny that the Repukes are dropping like flies. No fewer than seventeen GOP members of Congress have announced their retirements at the end of their current terms, and of those, only one is stepping down to run for higher office (from the House to run for the Senate).

The reasons they give range from the old “spending more time with their families” excuse to more, um, honest ones:

“I don’t like being in the minority,” said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), who was first elected in the 1994 GOP landslide and will retire after this term. “It’s not that much fun, and the prospects for the future don’t look that good.”

Here, have a tissue, Ray. It’s “not … fun” to be in the minority, you say? Wow, what a shitty reason to retire from Congress. I’m sure your constituents are heartened by your perseverance.

The wave of retirements compounds the challenge facing the GOP in the 2008 congressional election, because the party is significantly trailing Democrats in fundraising. That means Republicans will apparently be defending more House and Senate seats with less money, and they will be fighting battles in places that otherwise might have been secure.

What is more, many of the Republicans choosing to retire are older, more pragmatic lawmakers, such as Rep. Ralph Regula of Ohio; moderates like Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio and Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia; and mavericks like Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. These departures reflect the generational and ideological changes that have pushed the Republican contingent in Congress steadily to the right over the last decade.

Eddie Mahe, a former GOP official, says it is no surprise that many Republicans are thinking about quitting politics at a time when President Bush’s popularity is low, Iraq is in turmoil and the U.S. economy may be going soft.

“If I was talking to my favorite brother-in-law and he was thinking about running for Congress, I would say, ‘Why would you want to do that now?’ ” Mahe said. “If anybody’s not smart enough to figure that out, I don’t want them around anyway.”

Shorter Times: the Democrats want to thank you in advance, Republicans, for 2008.

It’s not just the retirements that have the GOP gripping:

Republicans will probably be fighting on that turf with less money: As of the end of August, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had $22.1 million on hand, compared with $1.6 million held by the GOP House committee.

There is a similar imbalance in fundraising for Senate races: As of the end of August, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had $20.6 million in the bank; its Republican counterpart had $7.1 million.

That financial disadvantage is especially problematic for Republicans because next year the party must defend 22 of its 49 Senate seats, compared with 12 Senate seats to be defended by Democrats.

For the GOP, the climb to recapture the Senate majority it lost in 2006 has gotten steadily steeper, as one veteran senator after another announced retirement. Warner cited his advancing age. Hagel and Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado each said he was abiding by his promise to serve only two terms. Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico is leaving due to illness.

Those announcements were a big blow to the GOP, because Democrats would have had little hope of being competitive in Virginia, Nebraska and New Mexico against those popular incumbents. They have a good shot at those states now — especially in Virginia, where Republicans are divided over whom to nominate for the seat and the leading Democratic candidate, Mark R. Warner, is a popular former governor.

Indeed, a report this morning revealed that Mark Warner, who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. John Warner (R), raised over $1 million for his campaign in just a couple of weeks, while one potential opponent countered with just $78,000.

So, this morning I take great pleasure in celebrating the misfortune of Republicans. You hitched your wagon to a bum mule, GOP — several, actually, led by your erstwhile hero Drunky McStagger. The rest of the world knew years ago that he was a drooling, incompetent fucking idiot, but you stuck with him. And now you get to reap the benefits. Couldn’t happen to a nicer more corrupt and repulsive group of people.

At least you can take solace in one good thing, though: today’s Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!

Too much bad language on TV? Fuck that shit

The Los Angeles Times‘ Martin Miller is clutching his pearls a wee bit hard with his latest column, wherein he bemoans the persistent creep of profanity on network television. Now, I’m not saying that the news should be full of doom and gloom and Iraq and Drunky McStagger, but as with the IKEA hubbub here in south Florida, I do think there are more important things to worry about than a few curse words on television.

But when did that ever stop our friends in the mainstream media?

“It’s a clear path from not too long ago where we had standards for language to where there are practically no standards anymore,” said Tim Winter, president of the Los Angeles-based [Parents Television Council] whose 1.1 million members generate the overwhelming majority of complaints the government receives about TV’s offensiveness. “We’re talking about broadcast television in prime time, not a New York taxi stop, not a football locker room, not the way a vice president may talk in private.”

The trend has occurred during a time when the major networks are battling for audience in a freewheeling, crowded entertainment universe. Rougher words can mean the difference between being seen as hip and relevant and being square and extinct. In fact, if you compare what passes for uncouth on nighttime TV with popular music, adult-oriented movies and snarky Web sites, it’s practically an oasis of civility.

Words such as “hell” or “damn” that only a generation ago were practically verboten are common today across the prime-time schedules of all the major networks. From 1995 to 2005, the percentage of shows that threw around sexually derived vulgarities shot up from 41 percent to 64 percent, while shows that incorporated scatological vulgarities rose from 58 to 83 percent, according to the PTC, which tracks offensive language, sexual content and violence on television.

In fact, only one of the so-called seven dirty words — as coined by comedian George Carlin in the 1970s — has not been aired on prime-time broadcast TV, if one includes ABC’s showing of the graphic World War II drama “Saving Private Ryan.” Three of the words have been spoken in scripted prime-time shows.

Now, if I remember my middle school American history well enough, I believe the Puritans fled from England to America to escape religious persecution. So now, four hundred years later, apparently their descendants are trying hard to persecute the rest of us.

Folks, look: it’s just words. Whether or not they are decent or indecent is immaterial and subjective to boot. More to the point, if you don’t want to hear the words, turn off the TV or change the channel. Send the kids out to play or something. You think they’re not seeing worse (albeit maybe not “dirty words” when they’re playing World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto or just throwing the football around in the backyard? If you really believe that, then you’re farther gone than I thought.

I have no doubt that the people braying the loudest about obscenity on television are the ones who are voting for the so-called “family values” candidates, i.e., Republicans. You know, the party of Larry Craig and Dick “Go Fuck Yourself” Cheney and Mark Foley and David Vitter. The party of “less government” that wants to have government tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies and gays/lesbians that they can’t marry or adopt and all of us what we can and can’t watch on our own fucking televisions. Less government, my fat white ass …

Hey, Puritans — keep your laws off my television.