REX TILLERSON DID CORRECTLY CALL THE PRESIDENT AS HE SAW HIM

SOME TRUMP CREATURES HAVE ANNOUNCED THEY ARE RUNNING FOR THE U.S.  SENATE

 

…Eric Greitens, the former, disgraced governor of Missouri, is running again, 

this time for the U.S. Senate

 

It’s amazing, the backgrounds of the GOP individuals that are running for the U.S. Senate

 

PART 1:

One candidate, Eric Greitens, resigned the Missouri governorship in disgrace, facing criminal charges and allegations that an extramarital affair had turned violent.

Another, an Alabama congressman, Mo Brooks, served as President Donald Trump’s warm-up act for the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.  At the rally, Brooks even urged participants to “start taking down names and kicking ass.”

A third Republican recently had his Twitter account temporarily suspended when the Ohio hopeful Josh Mandel, referred to some of the people crossing the southern border as “Muslim Terrorists” and “Mexican Gangbangers.”

And that could be just the beginning of the bazaar individuals that will be running in 2022.

More than a year ahead of the first state primaries, these super pro-Trump conservatives are rushing into Republican Senate races that have been upended by the impending retirements of veteran lawmakers.  This means that a long battle is ahead over the direction of the GOP, with not only the control of the Senate, but with the nation’s politics totally at stake.

President Donald Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had spoken about possible, future campaigns at a Trump rally in Lexington, Ky., back in November 2019.  But that was before their relationship fell apart following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But McConnell now says he will back pro-Trump candidates, even though Trump now calls McConnell a “political hack”.

This week, former Missouri governor Eric Greitens entered the race to succeed fellow Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, declaring himself “exonerated” of the wrongdoing that sparked his governorship resignation.  He hascommitting himself to “defending President Trump’s America-first policies”.  All this while the pro-Trump Rep, Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) announced plans to run for the seat being vacated by GOP Sen. Richard Shelby at an event where he was flanked by the Trump immigration adviser Stephen Miller.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, former state treasurer Josh Mandel is running hard to the right on a Trumpian agenda, taking a hard line on immigration, attacking big technology companies and questioning the public health guidance of the pandemic.

All three are considered credible candidates with proven fundraising mettle, and similar potential candidates are waiting in the wings in other states, including key Republican targets such as Arizona and Georgia.

“You have candidates that want to keep re-litigating the past instead of litigating what Democrats are doing now, that is a very problematic approach for Republicans,” said Jessica Taylor, who handicaps Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “You’re running against a unified Democratic control with history on your side for winning back seats, and they could very well squander that.”

The early entrance of so many zealously pro-Trump candidates, all of whom have endorsed Trump’s bogus claims of rampant election fraud.  This is an early challenge for top Republican leaders in Washington as they seek to regain the Senate majority from Democrats and to deal with their own internal divisions between those in the party.  Those who remain loyal to Trump at all costs and those who want to forge a GOP identity distinct from the former president.

In interviews, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said his primary concern for 2022 Republican candidates was whether they could beat Democrats.

“My goal is, in every way possible, to have nominees representing the Republican Party who can win in November,” McConnell told Politico. “The only thing I care about is electability.”

Trump, meanwhile, has fingered McConnell as being part of the problem and said in a blistering statement last month that he would back primary candidates where “necessary and appropriate”. This is setting up a potential power struggle between the former president and the Kentucky Republican over who will guide the party through key Senate races.

In the past, McConnell was able to get Trump to mostly back his preferred candidates by selling him on the idea that they represented the best chance for victories.  But the animus between the two men following McConnell’s denunciation of Trump as being “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol makes that type of cooperation unlikely going forward.

“We need better than Mitch McConnell,” Trump said in a podcast interview with Fox News host Lisa Boothe.

Several GOP operatives, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the emerging field of Republican candidates is raising concerns.  Although, they believe the issue is manageable since Brooks, Greitens and Mandel are running in favorable states for Republicans.  But other pro-Trump individuals are eyeing races in other states where Republicans are trying to wrest power from Democrats.

In Arizona, where Republicans are hoping to oust freshman Sen. Mark Kelly, possible candidates include state Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward and Rep. Andy Biggs, leader of the House Freedom Caucus.  They are key amplifiers of Trump’s unfounded voter fraud claims.  In Georgia, GOP hopes of ousting Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) could rest in the hands of a primary voter base that remains squarely focused on the results of the 2020 election.

The picture is more unsettled in the key swing states of Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where longtime GOP Sens. Pat Toomey and Richard Burr, respectively, are departing.  But among the rumored potential candidates in North Carolina are Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law.

Democrats are eyeing the emerging Republican primary landscape with close interest, knowing that their candidates could benefit from extreme GOP nominees and a toxic party message.

“You give Democrats an opportunity when you run candidates that are that divisive and that contentious,” said J.B. Poersch, the president of the Senate Majority PAC.  This is the largest Democratic super Political Action Committee focused on the Senate. “The fact that this stuff is breeding in these [Republican] states tells you that there’s a danger of it occurring across several states.”

In Missouri, the fears of nominating the wrong Republican are especially high, with memories of the 2012 race between Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and Rep. Todd Akin (R) still fresh in many GOP minds.

Akin was not helped by his defense of his position banning abortion, even in cases of rape, saying in an interview shortly after he won the GOP primary that a “legitimate rape” rarely results in pregnancy. Democrats, who had already taken note of his hard-line positions and moved to ensure he won the GOP nomination, they immediately seized on the comment, and McCaskill went on to win a second term.

Greitens resigned the governorship in 2018 after being accused of sexually assaulting a woman with whom he’d had an affair by taking a photo of her tied up and partially undressed. That led to a felony charge of invasion of privacy and a state legislative probe that found the allegations of misconduct credible, prompting impeachment proceedings.  A separate investigation also was underway at the time into Greitens’s fundraising practices.

Key aspects of the accusations against Greitens subsequently unraveled, and the criminal charges against him were dropped, with a key investigator himself charged a year later with lying under oath. The state ethics commission, meanwhile, fined Greitens’s campaign $178,000 but found no personal wrongdoing by the ex-governor, closing the fundraising case and paving the way for a political comeback.

Although Greitens has repeatedly declared himself “exonerated,” political reality is not so simple: The woman who made the claims against Greitens has not recanted them.  IN addition, his allegations of a far-reaching conspiracy to unseat him as governor are circuitous and sidestep the affair and the seamy nature of the allegations.

In a combative interview Wednesday with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, a supporter of McConnell, Greitens struggled to swat away the findings of the state legislative report.  The report was compiled by a bipartisan panel commission by the state House’s Republican majority.

“They’re going to read into the record witness 1, 2, 3, and 4 in front of the Missouri legislature accusing you of ‘half-rape,’ of taking photographs.  They’re going to do that.  How are you going to survive that?  How are you not going to be Todd Akin?” Hewitt said.

“Because, look, we have the people of Missouri with us,” Greitens said. “They’ve seen how the lies have been exposed. All of this is known to the people of Missouri, and it’s why the grass roots are with us.”

Asked to explain why he chose to resign instead of fighting the charges against him, Greitens cited the “tremendous toll” on his family.

Said Hewitt, “Thus far, you’re not overwhelming me with your response.”

Because the up-coming races are so complicated, I have broken this article into two parts.  PART 2 on Monday.

Copyright G. Ater 2021