It looks like Sharron Angle sees the House of Representatives as an easier win than the US Senate. Today she announced a run for the US House (NV-2) to replace Rep. Dean Heller, who is running for John Ensign's seat in the Senate.
The 2012 elections will be an interesting test for the Tea Party. Assume they'll be well-funded so blanketing districts with ads and propaganda will be no problem. What may be a problem, however, is how they're perceived given the overplayed hands unfolding right now in many states as well as the mainstream Republican Party's frustration with them in the US Congress. Angle's election to the House of Representatives isn't a given, but it will be a bellwether for the Tea Party's viability.
And just imagine the fun she can have with Virginia Foxx and Michele Bachmann if she wins.
“I just came to the conclusion that I couldn't put my family through this," said the Nevada senator, who said that he had “fully planned” to run for re-election until coming to the decision to retire last week.
Ensign, whose fast-rising political career was derailed after he admitted to an affair with a campaign aide whose husband served as his deputy chief of staff, said that a pending Senate ethics investigation into his conduct had “zero effect” on the decision not to run for a third term.
Ensign allegedly helped the aide’s husband find a new job, and Ensign’s parents paid the couple $96,000.
"There are consequences to sin and when you’re in a leadership role, those consequences can affect a lot of other people," Ensign said during a press conference announcing his retirement from the Senate.
“At this point in my life, I have to put my family first,” he added.
Oh, how noble. Put his family first, or just unwilling to face public scrutiny in a campaign over his C Street connections, his mistress, or his corruption?
George W. Bush is on his Great American Rehab and Book Pimping tour now, with no one asking him any really difficult questions about his time in office, and an intense PR effort to rewrite history with Colorforms and magic markers. By the time he's done, Jeb will be ready to step up in 2012.
And now the latest rehab job, courtesy of the FEC and the ever-grinding Republican PR machine: John Ensign. Ensign's first step to Restored Whole Republican Personhood begins with the FEC's decision that his little $96,000 payoff to his mistress' husband with campaign funds wasn't really something the public should worry about, and so they've ruled it a private matter.
The group said the payment given to and equally divided among Cynthia Hampton; her husband Doug Hampton, a former aide to Ensign; and their two sons was an illegal political donation to Ensign. But the FEC interpreted the payments as a gift made to longtime family friends.
And with that declaration, another, quieter but more troubling one: Ensign will be running for re-election in 2012 after all. After crazy Sharron Angle, what's a payoff to keep the mistress happy? Right? RIGHT?
How do they do this and why are we beating up on each other when they've got such rich targets out there for us to aim at? Tell me...because I really don't get it.
Isn't it interesting that Cokie Roberts spends her Monday morning segment on NPR talking about two admittedly disgraced Democrats who will not be holding their positions come Election Day.
Charlie Rangel and David Patterson are an admitted embarrassment to the Democrats. Rangel, like much of Congress, is long overdue for retirement, and Patterson's made such a mess of his career the sooner gone the better.
But why other than pure partisan hackery would Cokie Roberts spend her Monday morning spot talking about them and not mention that Ensign, Vitter, and Sanford still have jobs? Ensign paid off his mistress's family, Vitter was involved with a prostitute, and Sanford was MIA from his job for days on end. These guys still have the backing of their party? Family values much?
Malice in Wonderland - Outside the Tea Party, she avoids looking at the writing on her hands...Roses Ensign, Sanford, and Vitter look on from their well-fertilized garden...the White Rabbit (McCain) all of a sudden thinks time is running out.
Larger versions are linked (because they're big files) in this post.
Sources in Washington and Nevada say Republican Sen. John Ensign, a rising star in the Republican Party considering a 2012 presidential bid will hold a press conference later today in which he will acknowledge an extramarital affair.
Elected in 2000 and reelected in 2006, Ensign has been a leading conservative among Senate Republicans, playing a key role in demanding the resignation of Larry Craig in September 2007. Ensign called Craig a "disgrace" after he was arrested in June 2007 in an airport men's restroom on disorderly conduct charges. Craig resisted the calls from Ensign to resign but retired from the Senate last November.
Per TPM, the woman worked on the Ensign re-election campaign and her husband worked as one of his Senate staffers. The reason it came to light now?
For a guy who harbored presidential ambitions, this is tough blow to his hopes for 2012. So something had to give. What was it?
Late Update: Politico has more detail, including a reported demand for money from the husband of Ensign's lover: Political insiders in the Senate and in Nevada told POLITICO that Ensign began an affair with a staffer several months after he separated from his wife. When Ensign reconciled with his wife, the sources said, he gave the aide a severance package and parted ways.
Sometime later, a Nevada source said, Ensign met with the husband of the woman involved and had what this source described as a positive encounter. Sources said that the man subsequently asked Ensign for a substantial sum of money - at which point Ensign decided to make the affair public.
“Marriage recognizes the ideal of a father and mother living together to raise their children,” Ensign said. “Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded. For those who say that the Constitution is so sacred that we cannot or should not adopt the Federal Marriage Amendment, I would simply point out that marriage, and the sanctity of that institution, predates the American Constitution and the founding of our nation. Marriage, as a social institution, predates every other institution on which ordered society in America has relied.”
Ensign, in his comments, noted that Nevadans had amended the state constitution to guarantee the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. Ensign emphasized the need to preserve the will of Nevadans who voted overwhelmingly to preserve marriage as well as the need to preserve the will of the majority of Americans.
“I am deeply concerned that a few unelected judges and some locally elected government officials have taken steps to redefine marriage to fit their own agenda,” said Ensign. “It is not right to mold marriage to fit the desires of a few, against the wishes of so many, and to ignore the important role of marriage.”
Yeah, good to see you uphold that sanctity, but my uncle and his partner of 15 years are somehow a threat to it.
