Welcome to primary day in Delaware! Be sure to vote! (You will have no cause to complain if you don’t vote.) I have to admit that I’m practically vibrating with excitement. Tonight we find out whether we’ll have a Senator Coons or whether it’ll be a slog to November. So what are you seeing at your local polling station? Is turnout high? Are disappointed O’Donnell voters being turned away? Are you dodging reporters left and right?
Some good news! It looks likely that Elizabeth Warren will be appointed as the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
The White House is considering appointing Elizabeth Warren as interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, bypassing a likely Senate confirmation battle, according to sources.
Under the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform law signed July 21, the Treasury Department has the power to appoint a temporary head of the new agency until a permanent one is nominated and confirmed.
By naming Warren interim head, the White House would sidestep — for now — a likely fight over her nomination. Obama can still choose to formally nominate Warren sometime next year, or select another candidate if she becomes too polarizing.
Warren supporters are urging the White House to make the appointment quickly, which would give the Harvard professor time and authority to get the new agency running.
The White House may be thinking about November, trying to get the base excited.
John Richardson at Esquire‘s politics blog muses on why Republicans lie:
I have two theories about this. One is that the conservative intelligentsia is deliberately training the Republican base to be irrational. I can almost see them chortling: “If we can get them to believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, we can get them to believe anything!”
But while this theory provides a little consolation, I don’t actually think it’s true. Far more likely is theory No. 2 — that Republicans have lost all confidence in their ability to convince the American people with honest arguments. Their triumphalism about November conceals a stink of desperation.
Consider the big picture: Conservatives have lost the culture war so completely. They can’t even keep military gays in the closet anymore. Their most celebrated evangelical politician — Sarah Palin — admits to premarital sex without a blush or an apology and nobody even notices. Their one useful idea is the old fiscal conservative ideal, which has become so tarnished by their own abuse that they have to tart it up in silly cries of “socialism.” (I respect those who would add abortion, but oddly enough that is no longer a Republican preoccupation.) And they’re doubling down on hatred of outsiders like Mexicans and Muslims, an ominous sign that is always a sign of weakness.
I don’t think the American people are going to fall for it. Sure, Republicans will probably pick up a lot of seats in November. But when they get to Washington, they will either compromise in order to run the country or live up to their rhetoric and wreak havoc, thus revealing themselves as either hypocrites or irresponsible extremists. There are no other choices. And opportunistic liars like D’Souza, the cheerleaders of this episode of madness, will bear much of the blame.
I think it’s simple – they have to convince the majority of American people to vote against their own interest. Facts have a well-known liberal bias so they are inconvenient.