John’s Hard Lemonade

Hindsight is 20/20, and no doubt John Kerry has had many sleepless nights wondering where it all went wrong for his presidential campaign in 2004. But do you think maybe he would be running for re-election now if we associated him less with soundbites like this and more with photos like the one at right? Because TMZ has some.

Republican Peters Skip The Convention

You know — Peter! The disciple who denied Jesus three times before the cock crew on the night of the Last Supper? Well, anyway, he has some company: Wonkette reports that several Republicans seeking election or re-election to the Senate will be skipping their party’s convention this year in order to minimize their association with the failures of outgoing president George W. Bush and would-be president John McCain. It’s particularly sad given that some people do have nice things to say about McCain.

And that was in a speech, by a Democrat, endorsing the other guy! Sad, sad, sad.

Contemporize, Man!

If you were John McCain, and you knew you were a very, very old man who was out of touch with what’s going on in the world today, would you not try to surround yourself with aides who were younger and more, as they say, “with it”? Evidently the actual John McCain has gone another way by hiring Rick Davis. McCain’s campaign manager was on Morning Joe today telling host Joe Scarborough this.

HA HA HA HA! Wait, what? Is that supposed to be a burn? Last I checked, everyone hated Paris Hilton. Maybe the next time Davis is trying to do a bit about the vapid assholes pop-culture mavens are obsessing about, he should pick up a copy of Us Weekly: if he’d said Barack Obama had more fans than Miley Cyrus, I might have been impressed.

Grim Old Party

Missouri Republicans looking for advice as to which of their party’s candidates best represent their views and needs have been stymied by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The paper weighed all the evidence and came up with one clear answer: it could not endorse any of the Republicans. The reasons varied from  “has never voted in an election” to “liar” (basically), but it’s hard to ignore a general sense of disgruntlement with Republicans as expressed by one commentator in particular.

Ted Stevens’s Re-Election Goes Down A Series Of Tubes

Remember our good friend Ted Stevens? Crusty old man, knows nothing about the internet? No, not John McCain. Anyway, he’s currently working on getting re-elected to his Senate seat in November. Unfortunately, he will face a few hurdles there. First, there’s his aged crustiness. Second, he has that unfortunate reputation as the “series of tubes” guy (which, if you know who Ted Stevens is, is probably the ONLY reason you know who he is). And third: he’s been indicted on federal corruption charges. Yeah, that’s probably not really something you want to feature in your campaign materials.

He’ll Have To Take His Feet Out Of His Mouth First

For the past few years, ABC’s Dancing With The Stars has reliably served as a comeback vehicle for stars from Ian Ziering to that one Spice Girl. But could it work for a widely reviled politician? Rumor has it that one of the potential contestants for next season (joining such luminaries as Lance Bass and maybe Kim Kardashian) is former one-term Vice-President Dan Quayle. If you don’t remember him — and fair enough, it’s not like he really made much of a legislative mark on the nation — here’s one of his lesser hits.

Maybe he’ll be suited to an activity that doesn’t require him to talk.

Who’s Tougher On Extraterrestrials?

American voters have been trying to evaluate the candidates based on their ability to handle such pressing issues as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy, America’s declining position in the international community, failing public schools, the environment…I mean, it’s not like it isn’t already a pretty long and challenging list. But one point we’ve all tended to overlook is that eventually we’re going to be surprised by a sound like this, and it will have finally happened: an alien attack! What then? Thank God Asylum has seen fit to ask which of the major candidates is best equipped to deal with the extraterrestrial threat.

Well, NOW I Feel A Little Bad

We all made some hay last week with the story about Robert Novak hitting a pedestrian with his car and claiming he didn’t know. Well, it turns out that story wasn’t as far-fetched as some of us might have thought: it turns out that Novak has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and “spatial and visual neglect of a certain part of their bodies” can be a symptom.

Er…my bad. But come on, dude, we’re none of us perfect. Feel better.

The Adoption Problem

Surprise — the post with “problem” in the headline is about the McCain campaign. This time, the problem is that McCain is trying to appeal to the conservative base of the Republican party (people who will probably vote for him anyway because they have no other option) by espousing anti-gay views, even though he can’t quite make himself sell them. Specifically, on the question of whether gay couples should be permitted to adopt children, the McCain campaign has had a few recent reversals. The whole thing came up again this weekend, when George Stephanopoulos asked McCain whether it wasn’t maybe better for children to be raised by two loving people of the same sex than in state-run institutions, and McCain gave this tortured response.

(But that’s not all: there was more awkwardness in McCain’s comments on gay adoption.) Clear as mud. Are you placated yet, close-minded Christians? Independents, maybe not so much?

Wasn’t Anyone Even Making The Minimum Payments?

Isn’t one of the clichés about conservative Republicans that they are opposed to Big Government and fiscal irresponsibility? Because if so, I would like to know how it is that a Republican president could have inherited a $128 billion budget surplus and turned it into a record deficit. It’s almost enough to make whichever guy is going to be the next president reconsider whether he actually wants the job. Nevertheless, McCain and Obama will solider on this week, talking about the economy (since it is foremost in voters’ minds right now), though one will have an uphill climb to contend with: not only is Obama’s the party that left the U.S. with that lovely budget surplus, but McCain is the one saying nonsense like this, while even his own advisors are saying — on the record — that McCain has been misleading voters about his opponent’s economic policy. Is this a political campaign or an elaborate performance-art piece?