Matt Ortega

Headline in the Los Angeles Times: “For Republicans, the Senate outlook is bad.”

The outlook for the GOP is so grim that party leaders have readily conceded there is no chance they can regain control of the Senate in 2008, even though Democrats’ current majority is slim, 51-49.

“If you have an R in front of your name, you better run scared,” said Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who says the party will do well if it holds its losses to three or four seats. [emphasis added]

Recently, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who himself is up for re-election this year, conceded that the “numbers make it impossible” for Republicans to take back the Senate. As a result, the NRSC was quick to charge that Senator McConnell was “not admitting defeat.” I wrote at the time:

Mitch McConnell explained that Republicans cannot win — but it is not admitting defeat! According to the NRSC, the 2008 elections are in a netherworld between a word and it’s antonym.

President George W. Bush will speak on the first night of the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. Jonathan Martin of the Politico remarked:

And that will almost surely be the last we hear of him in the Twin Cities.

New York Times:

In St. Paul, Mr. Bush will speak on the convention’s opening night, said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary — a tiny bit of news from an administration that typically keeps a close hold on the president’s schedule. The White House and the McCain campaign said the details were still being worked out. But one Republican close to Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the president would give “an important speech” but that a joint appearance was “highly unlikely.”

There is no doubt that figures like those released by Gallup recently that showed the American people “concerned” that Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) is too similar to President Bush — a third Bush term — played some role in that decision.

The convention starts September 1 and concludes on September 4.

In an unrelated food for thought, New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote:

The last time Republicans dealt with the passing-of-the-torch question, in 1988, the circumstances were very different. President Ronald Reagan was surging in popularity, and the big fear was that he would overshadow the nominee, the first George Bush, at the convention in New Orleans. So their aides worked out a plan intended to let Mr. Reagan “give oomph to the Bush candidacy,” without stealing the show, said Kenneth W. Duberstein, Mr. Reagan’s chief of staff. [emphasis added]

Duncan Black noted, however, that polling numbers at the time of the Republican National Convention in August 1988 — and nearly for the entire year for that matter — did not show any such “surge.”

Job Performance Ratings for President Reagan

Former Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina) died of natural causes in the early morning hours yesterday.

A leading icon of the resurgent conservative movement, right-wing commentators are determined to whitewash the horrible stories of deep-seeded racism and homophobia similar to what the media did when Helms retired in 2001. David Broder of the Washington Post penned a column entitled “Jesse Helms, White Racist” about the polite coverage of Helms’ record on August 21, 2001. Helms’ Wikipedia page is no exception. Notice that the “Controversies” section on the profile no longer exists.

Conservative commentator Mark Levin wrote at the National Review yesterday:

I have noticed some of the smears lobbed at William Buckley in other places since his death; Jesse Helms is in for even more of it. Other prominent conservatives will face the same.  Unfortunately, such is the nature of these things now.

Helms was infamous for blatantly racist and homophobic comments and nearly seven years ago, in response to the downplay of such views of his by the media, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), produced a fact sheet with all the greatest hits.

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