Haley Barbour, Crook

by Hunter
DailyKos

Tue Sep 09, 2008

I want to hit this again, because it's a fine example of Republicanism devolved into pure, simple corruption. There's a special election for Senator in Mississippi, filling the seat that until recently was held for-freakin'-ever by Senate fixture Trent Lott. The newly appointed Republican interim Senator is facing a formidable Democratic challenger, and may in fact lose.

So what does Republican Gov. Haley Barbour (the former RNC chair) and the Republican Secretary of State do? They shuffle the placement of the race on the ballot in order to bury it. They put it last, under all the local and minor races, things like school board races and so on, so that it's difficult to find. They do their best to hide it, knowing that it will lower the response rate and help the Republican incumbent.

The problem is, it's plainly illegal. It's not "arguably" illegal, or "a little" illegal. It's just plain illegal. Barbour, however, doesn't care. He's gonna do it anyway, because the advantage of getting that race buried, thus helping the Republican, far outweighs the odds that anyone can actually do anything about it in time to make a difference for the election.

So let's make this perfectly clear -- yet again. This isn't "political hardball", or "an aggressive campaign strategy", or any of those other rancid euphemisms that we've taken to using in our national discourse instead of calling corruption out as corruption. Haley Barbour is doing an illegal thing because he thinks he can, and because doing an illegal thing will help his Party.

(Continued here.)