Day: 5/5/2012

News Corpse Endorses Tea Party Candidate For Indiana Senate

Posted by on May 5, 2012 at 2:24 pm. 1 Comments :

State treasurer Richard Mourdock is challenging veteran Dick Lugar for his senate seat in Indiana. Mourdock is a Tea Party favorite and has been endorsed by Sarah Palin. For those reasons, and the explanation below, News Corpse is jumping on the Mourdock bandwagon.

Richard Mourdock

Lugar is a popular figure in Indiana across the political spectrum and would be a shoe-in for reelection in November. He is seeking his seventh term in the U.S. Senate and is the third most senior member of the body. Were he to win, and if the Republicans gained a majority, Lugar would become the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and third in line for succession to the presidency.

However, Indiana’s Republican primary voters are poised to throw all of that away on an ultra-conservative state pol with a narrow range of support from the Tea Party and right-wing SuperPACs from outside the state. He is presently beating Lugar in recent polls and has a significant financial advantage due to the wealthy PACs who are backing him like the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity.

The good news is that there are some precedents for his candidacy that point to an outcome that Democratic operatives are excited about. In 2010 there were seven candidates who defeated establishment Republicans in the GOP primaries. All seven were supported by the Tea Party (and most by Sarah Palin). And all seven lost to Democrats in the general election. Some of these seats would have gone easily to the Republican that lost in the primary, and but for that, the GOP might have been in the majority now.

The same scenario is playing out today in Indiana. It would be highly unlikely that Democrat Joe Donnelly would defeat Lugar in the general, but he is running neck and neck with Mourdock in recent polling. So a Mourdock victory on Tuesday represents the Democrats best chance to pick up a senate seat that would otherwise not be in play. And history suggests that Mourdock’s prospects are dim. Just take a look at Christine O’Donnell (DE), Joe Miller (AK), Ken Buck (CO), Linda McMahon (CT), Carl Paladino (NY), Sharron Angle (NV), and Carly Fiorina (CA).

So thanks Mr. Mourdock, and good luck on Tuesday. If you prevail in the primary you will be doing the Democrats a huge favor by opening up an opportunity they hadn’t expected. Even if you win in November, it will be better for Dems because you’ll be a junior member with no seniority and the ill will of your colleagues for having ousted their pal, Lugar.

Fox Nation Panic: Run For The Hills, The World Is Ending

Posted by on May 5, 2012 at 10:39 am. 2 Comments :

Sell! Sell! Sell! It’s all over. The stock market is collapsing. Wall Street is bankrupt. The economy is toast. Head for your bunker with your gold bullion, guns, and bibles. The End Times are here.

Fox Nation is feverishly reporting that “Stocks Tank, Nasdaq’s Worst Week Of 2012.” If this isn’t evidence of Armageddon, I don’t know what is.

Fox Nation - Stocks Tank

After this horrific market crash the NASDAQ will only be up 13.5% year-to-date – a mere nine times more than what the average bank savings account is earning for the whole year. If you listened to Fox you would have missed out on one of the most precipitous stock rallies in decades.

And when was the last time that Fox reported that the market was significantly higher in any week this year? Good luck finding that report. Fox is on a mission to make President Obama and his administration look bad. That requires trumpeting bad news about the economy and ignoring the good news.

The problem is that by doing that, Fox also exacerbates negativity that can have the effect of producing a self-fulfilling prophecy and frighten people out of the market. But Fox doesn’t care about that. Hurting Obama is more important to Fox than accurately reporting on the economy.