Wendesday Open Thread [7.23.14]

Georgia (where I was this week) had its runoff elections yesterday, with former State Senator Barry Loudermilk defeating former Rep. Bob Barr for wingnut Phil Gingery’s seat in GA-11. Is Barr’s loss a signal that party switchers have no chance? Who knows. This was a Safe Republican seat, so whoever won wasn’t going to be an overall win for the rest of us. State Sen. Buddy Carter defeated surgeon Bob Johnson, who had the benefit of outside spending by the Club for Growth to win the GOP nomination in Georgia’s 1st District. The Rep. Paul Broun-backed Jody Hice defeated trucking company owner Mike Collins to win in Georgia’s 10th District. Hice is a radio host AND a Baptist minister who has been burnishing his Christianist cred by helpfully explaining why Islam should not be protected by the first amendment and that wives should only run for office with their husband’s permission. In the Senate race, establishment candidate David Perdue won narrowly over favored establishment candidate Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA). Perdue spent $3M of his own money for the privilege of representing these wingnuts. He faces Democrat Michelle Nunn, who has been a great candidate so far and who is running about even in polling against Purdue.

Governor 1% (Andrew Cuomo) finds himself at the end of NYT charges that he interfered with his own select panel investigation state political corruption. Apparently, they started looking into the agency that bought ads for Cuomo’s 2010 campaign. The panel was told to back off and when they did not, they were dissolved. That looks like corruption to me.

The New Yorker takes a look at VP Joe Biden’s evolution in the White House:

Over the years, Biden has acquired a singular place in the pop culture of American politics. In a White House that privileges self-containment, Biden ambles between exuberant and self-defeating. He was barely in the West Wing before the Onion declared, in a headline, “SHIRTLESS BIDEN WASHES TRANS AM IN WHITE HOUSE DRIVEWAY,” establishing a theme—“Amtrak Joe,” the hell-raiser at the end of the bar—that is so enduring that it obscures the fact that he is a lifelong teetotaller. (Too many alcoholics in his family, he says. He grew up sharing a room with his mother’s brother, and recalled of the experience, “Even as kids, we noticed Uncle Boo-Boo drank a bit heavily.”)

Instead of raging against the indignities of the Vice-Presidency, Biden luxuriates in the job. Perched in his chair during the State of the Union address, peering down on his former congressional colleagues, Biden makes a pistol out of his finger and thumb, and blasts away, winking and gunning with no evident irony. Last year, C-SPAN taped him getting ready to swear in new senators. He greeted each senator’s family with frisky enthusiasm. To the old ladies, he’d say, “You’ve got beautiful eyes, Mom, holy mackerel.” To the young women: “Remember—no serious guys till you’re thirty!” To the little kids in their Sunday best: “Take care of your grandfather. Your most important job.” The full package—the Ray-Ban aviators, the shameless schmalz, the echoes of the Fonz—has never endeared him to the establishment, but it lends him an air of authenticity that is rare in his profession. It has also produced a whiff of cult appeal, such that his image now has more in common with Betty White than with John Boehner. In May, after a teen-ager invited Biden to her prom, he replied with a corsage and a handwritten note encouraging her to “enjoy your prom as much as I did mine.” On Twitter, people went affectionately berserk.

The interview sections are pretty interesting and the reporting on Biden’s role in dealing with the Ukranian crisis are really good.

What interests you today?