The phrase “we have ways of making men talk” comes from a 1935 movie entitled “The Lives of a Bengal Lancer”. It is uttered by the Oxford-educated Afghan leader, “Mohammed Khan”, as he prepares to thrust lighted bamboo slivers down the fingernails of 41st Lancer officers Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone, unless they reveal the route of a 2 million round caravan of ammunition through the hills.
But what may send shivers down the spines of incumbents is that political activists have found ways of “making men vote” — in the primaries, that is. Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus is finding his path to re-election challenged.
A new primary poll from Alabama’s 6th District shows Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus ahead in the first leg of his reelection race. But the poll also reveals the House Financial Services Committee chairman’s vulnerability to his banking industry connections and recent insider trading allegations.
AdvertisementBachus leads his closest Republican challenger 63 percent to 17 percent, according to the survey conducted on behalf of the Campaign for Primary Accountability, an anti-incumbent super PAC. Yet a follow-up question suggests Bachus’s support is soft one month before Alabamans go to the polls.
Yes, it is handiwork of the shadowy Campaign for Primary responsibility again, one of whose leaders, Leo Linbeck III, comments on this blog. The strategy of challenging Washington incumbents in their home base is perfectly American, but it is also perfectly Afghan. Insurgents have long known that the place to exert pressure was far away from the capital, far from its encrusted defenses yet in a place to which a politician always had to return.
Political insurgents are no different. The Campaign from Primary Responsibility, as Tea Party Patriot co-founder Mark Meckler reminds us, “has a straightforward goal: influencing primaries in congressional districts that are safely Republican or Democratic. That’s the point at which disaffected voters can have the greatest impact on the election, he [Leo Linbeck III] said.” In other words, it is a means of reminding politicians by means of the electoral knock in the night that they work for the voters. They might be safe in Washington, but the long-neglected primary contests, which were for so long simply rubber stamps, have turned into ordeals.
USA Today says that “targeted lawmakers include Rep. Silvestre Reyes, an eight-term Democrat from El Paso; Rep. Jean Schmidt, a four-term Republican from suburban Cincinnati; and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a 15-term Toledo Democrat whose district was redrawn by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to put her in a primary contest with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland.” Silvestre Reyes was not amused.
“This is a clear example of how special interest money and family wealth is being used to undermine the vote and will of the people,” Reyes said. “This contributor is using the super PAC to help influence the outcome of this election.”
Chicago Business has reported that the Campaign for Primary Responsibility has reared its hydra head in Illinois, this time led by Joe Ricketts. “The Campaign for Primary Accountability, a Houston-based group with more than $1.6 million cash on hand, is targeting Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Chicago; Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Hinsdale, and Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Rockford. Under federal law, super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they do not coordinate with the campaign they are trying to help.” Jesse Jackson Jr. is not amused either.
Mr. Jackson is facing former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, his first tough challenger since he was elected in a special election in 1995. He put out a fundraising email alert on Friday calling attention to what he described as a “Republican” super PAC that “is now actively seeking to influence and steal this election.” The group is targeting Republican incumbents in other states as well as Illinois.
But the fact that the movement is attacking incumbents from both parties will make it hard to characterize as partisan except perhaps, in the sense that is anti-Washington. Yet despite the Campaign for Primary Accountability’s recent successes, nobody expects it to overturn the Washington system on its own. But it may play its small part.
And there is always a place for parts.
In “Lives of the Bengal Lancers” the characters played by Cooper and Tone amuse themselves by racing cockroaches in Mohammed Khan’s dungeon, enduring the itch of lice which they are powerless to scratch because of their damaged fingernails. All the while they are thinking of how to weaken Khan’s impregnable stronghold against the forlorn assault of the Lancers which will come, they know, because it must come.
The one doubting officer in the dungeon, who had broken under the torture asks why they would even consider the harebrained scheme which they were even then hatching, to blow up the fort’s magazine from within. Cooper stutters out that the reasons are ones that he does not know himself. Tone answers that is because he is a sucker for lost causes.
McGregor (Gary Cooper): And it’s like – and how can I tell you what it’s all about when I don’t know myself?
Forsythe (Tone): The time had come, the walrus said, for many things. Ships, shoes, and ceiling wax, and cabbages and kings.
McGregor: Oh, shut up!
Forsythe: You don’t like poetry?
McGregor: How should I know? I never read any.
Forsythe: Perhaps something more rugged:
Ever the faith endures
England, my England
Take, break us, we are yours
Life is good; joy runs high,
Between English earth and sky
Death is death, and we shall die
To the song on your bugles blown
To the stars on your bugles blown.If I’d known I was going to say all this, I’d have brought my violin.
Many jaded political observes try to convince themselves that don’t care. And probably many of them don’t. But there’s always the possibility that some voters have decided to entertain themselves by racing incumbents against each other like cockroaches in a dungeon.
“Lives of the Bengal Lancers” received seven Academy Award nominations in 1935. But one can’t help but think that in fourteen years the Empire depicted in the story would be gone, though maybe that is not really true. Service to an empire hides the fact that men are also in service to their private star of honor. It is empires that pass. The things men strive for remain.
Maybe the political incumbents should be worried, with the bugles are blowing in the distance and the fortress is assailed from within. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the incumbents.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
Amazing to discover “undermin(ing)….. the will of the people” simply means defeating an incumbent at the polls. If radicals had only known. Over the years think how much angst would’ve been saved.
Go, L3
I live in AL-6… Spencer Bachus is a decent enough fellow, but he is now in trouble due to an ethics investigation over his personal investments. He is one of the legislators that has helped start the firestorm over ‘congressional insider trading.’ He of course maintains he did nothing illegal or unethical.
He is, however, and perhaps for the first time since he was sent to Washington 20 years ago, running a blitz of ads on the radio, during Rush no less. He received some token challenges last year, and they received some attention from local radio personalities, but none ever gained traction. This year is a little different, as he is now challenged by (among others), State Senator Scott Beason. I have not met Beason, but his name is known for two reasons: He has been a key witness against some of his colleagues in a casino-interest vote buying scheme in Alabama, and is the Senate sponsor/author of Alabama’s new immigration law. I was surprised when the poll Wretchard mentioned came out the other day. I expected it to be much closer.
AL-6 pans 5 counties: northern Tuscaloosa (Roll Tide, but the district is to the north of the school and town), Shelby (perhaps the most Republican county in our very red state, and where I live), Bibb and St. Clair (similar to Shelby), and the non-Birmingham portions of the infamous Jefferson County. (Yes, that one.) This is one seriously conservative district. Bachus has been a reliable vote, but he is essentially a placeholder. I have met him several times, and his handshake has never firmed up. (Completely dead fish. I hope it’s not from an injury or something, because then I would feel bad for complaining about it all these years.) I get the impression this district would like to have more of a leader than seat warmer.
If anyone doubts the existence of the Republican ‘establishment’, then look no further than AL-6. That Bachus still garners a majority in that poll is a testament to his allies both inside the party ranks and the monied ol’ boys propping him up. If Beason is the kind of individual that can speak the language of conservatism naturally, and he is willing to pound the pavement, he can make a run at it. A challenge here is not going to be easy. Bachus in not disliked, and Beason has yet to light anyone’s hair on fire, that I know of. There isn’t much time left.
Leo, I wish you all the luck in the world in this one. You’re going to need it.
We don’t have to defeat a lot of incumbents to achieve our goals – we just have scare them into obidience. One or two sitting congressmen going down to defeat in primaries will clarify the thinking of MANY others. Even close calls will do it.
They do need to know that we’re serious. While they can buy votes, at some point, we all run out of money.
O/T, but it is Valentine’s Day, and I want to share a valentine or two with my fellow BCers. The first is for the first girl you were in love with, and still see her as she was then, if only in an occasional and fragmentary dream. The second is for a daughter, and as every father knows, having a daughter makes a man feel like he accomplished something.
TO A YOUTHFUL LOVE
At the end of the day, and particularly this day, Valentine’s Day, when dusk is about to settle into night, thoughts sometimes go to a youthful love, and we wonder where she is, and what she is doing. And sometimes, just sometimes, we see her again in our dreams.
I saw her yet again last night
As radiant as then
With flowing hair and red red lips
And eyes that whispered ‘when’
She smiled a smile that stopped my heart
I tried to speak but no
So long it’s been, why did we part?
I whispered please don’t go
Those golden days when we were young
And loved each other so
All gone, for us the song unsung
The why I’ll never know
She smiled again and turned away
I called but she was gone
I lay awake and prayed for day
Just hoping that the dawn
Would find me still in blessed sleep
To dream and dream again
Of flowing hair and red red lips
And eyes that whispered ‘when’
TO A DAUGHTER, ON SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY
The dawning paints the night sky pink
With rose and amber hue
To look at it I have to think
The morning loves you too.
The rising sun climbs in the sky
Too bright for us to view
Another reason I know why
The noontime loves you too.
As sunset draws the curtain low
And sky turns dusk from blue
I ken full well that this I know
The evening loves you too.
And as I trundle off to bed
I think always of you
And count the thousand times I’ve said
Your father loves you too.
Franchot Tone and Gary Cooper could have joined Rick Rescorla in a rendition of “Men of Harlech.” Some things are worth fighting for.
We need electoral reform. We need smaller more compact districts. We need to stop those who draw their wealth from the public treasury from voting for those who control that purse. We need real voter ID and election security. We are unlikely to get them.
Politicians are shocked. The living are voting. They may run out of dead people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NuTaQsMNaE&NR=1&feature=endscreen
Zulu Film – Men Of Harlech + Final Battle Scene
Men of Harlech stop your dreaming
Can’t you see their spear points gleaming
See their warrior pennants streaming
To this battlefield
Men of Harlech stand ye steady
It cannot be ever said ye
For the battle were not ready
Stand and never yield
From the hills rebounding
Let this song be sounding
The TEA Party, The Club for Growth, now the CPR working the primaries….nah, couldn’t be a trend, nothing to see here, just a few bitter clingers….I see the stock in companies that manufacture rope and pitch forks seem to be bucking the trend.
I remember a story of a Brit who went back to India for a visit with old friends. They went to his old club and he said it was deja vu all over again. Voices in English asking the servants for a “sutah peg” and etc. The only difference was instead of English officers it was Indian officers taking up the roles.
If you get the chance read the book. Different from the movie but still touching in some ways.
Some very strange things are happening, similar to what Wretchard reports about the Islands. At CPAC members of a minor Japanese party show up to talk with Herman Cain about their 7-7-7 plan and about how the Tea Party in the US works.
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/02/10/japanese-tea-party-leaders-emb
dude…it’s sealing wax
rs: 8
don’t be so sure.
After all,
“I love my ceiling more, since it’s become a dancing floor.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHBo0OfOhZc
Urban B
“Leo, I wish you all the luck in the world in this one. You’re going to need it.”
Not quite. We’re gonna need it.
Walt, would compose some lyrics along the lines of “Glockamara” except ask about Zimbabwe ? ‘How are things in Old Zimbabwe ? Da-da da …”
I haven’t the talent to do it myself.
How are things in old Zimbabwe
Are the farms and lands still growing there
Or has Mugabe stolen them
And dolin’ them
To poor folks to be fair
How are things in old Zimbabwe
Does Mugabe force the whites to flee
Has he forced on old Rhodesia there
Amnesia there
Of mem’ries of once free
Oh I see the rich black farm lands
That the settlers made to bloom
And the happy, prosperous farm hands
Who got slaughtered to make room
For Mugabe’s friends and cronies
Who now run a land of doom
How are things in old Zimbabwe
Urban B @2,
The poll in the Bachus race is closer than the segment quoted by W would seem to indicate. The next paragraph reads:
If a seated incumbent polls at less than 50% among informed primary voters, they’re in trouble. It will be a tough race to win given how little time is left (the primary is 4 weeks away), but the level of disgust about Bachus’ activities (he bought put and call options on various financial companies after attending closed-door meetings during the height of the financial crisis) is very high. And the poll was taken before his scandalous behavior became publicized; the questions about Wall St. in the poll were much milder than his actual behavior.
In any event, I appreciate the support, and wish you all the best,
Cheers,
L3
Walt @4,
You never cease to amaze me, Walt. The second poem, in particular, is lovely.
It’s been too long since I thanked you for all of your contributions here at the BC. Too often I have read and enjoyed your work, and failed to note my gratitude. For all those times, and others: thank you. And have a blessed St. Valentine’s Day.
Cheers,
L3
charles #6
From the accounts I have read, the men at Rourkes Drift were firing the Martini’s so rapidly they were forced to rip the sleeves off their coats to insulate their hands from the barrel heat. since resupply was iffy, they were freezing a month later….
Walt- how very sweet- thank you1
Whatta club we visit here! Walt, thank you for those poems, and chapeau on Zimbabwe (written, apparently, in minutes.) And L3, thank you for scaring some incumbents. I hope you succeed with more than just a few. And Wretch, thank you for bringing us together. Amazing. And I say again amazing.
Seconding LL3. Thank you Walt. I sent a link to your Valentine’s Day poems to my daughter and told her that her mother loves her, too.
And LL3, your work is very much appreciated, as well.
Another great post and thread, W.
I hope (and pray) the CPA/CPR is effective.
One thing to be aware of is that success puts you on the radar screens of the incumbent lawmakers. I would not put it past them to write new legislation which further kneecaps their primary challengers in response.
I just noticed my first term representative in Congress (Reid Ribble R-8th WI) just put forth a Congressional term limit proposal. Good luck, but I am not optimistic about that one having much chance and so we have to rely on limiting incumbency the old fashioned way — by going after the turkeys in the primaries.
Also, one a different but related topic, Politico confused the WI State flag with a local union flag during Obama’s appearance in Milwaukee.
“He of course maintains he did nothing illegal or unethical”
Since he helped write the law, he didn’t do anything illegal. The fact that he doesn’t find that unethical is the problem.
In addition to sending most of my discretionary cash to CONSERVATIVE candidates for the last 3 years, I’ve taken to answering phone solicitations from the RNC with plain speech telling them not another penny until the leadership of the Republicans quit rolling over and begin to resist Obama and the Democrat Leadership.