Discussion for article #229259
["ā¦[S]he had been accused of āstalkingā her ex-boyfriend last year and trying to enter his house without permission. She survived the primary four days later; a week later, a report surfaced that her her ex-husband also accused her of āongoing harassmentā in filings to police. Then came revelations that her health care plan was plagiarized from Karl Roveās group. Pouring fuel on the fire, her new health care plan was also found to be plagiarized ā from her former GOP opponent, whom she dispensed with by attacking him on health care.
Perhaps most damaging was her tendency to go underground when facing fire."]
**Hard to see the problem. Sounds like the typical āfamily values,ā ākinder and gentler,ā ācompassionate conservative,ā candidate from āthe party of personal responsibility.ā **
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Color me as having never been concerned.
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Sheās the kind of rubber stamp the Kochs wanted in the Senate. The only good thing that came out of that was the Kochs flushing millions down the toilet.
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The Great Question: āWhere does the GOP find these ladies?ā may not be as instructive in this case as āHow does the GOP find ladies?ā in the first place. We saw this with the rapid promotion of Sarah Palin, and the odd career of Katherine Harris. As their career arc turns downward we see Sarah and family doing reality shows, self-improvement lecturers, riding quads, shooting stuff, and getting in slugfests, while Floridaās GOP struggled for a decade to shake Harris after the 2000 election despite exposure on bribes, scandal, and pissing off the religious and non-religious alike. Maybe they need more mainstream search criteria. Elizabeth Warren, for example, could be found teaching contracts at Harvard Law School. Diane Feinstein occupied the mayor job in SF. Monica Wehby, seems to have been found doing unnecessary tethered spinal cord surgery and claiming it was her life mission.
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No, no. Theyāre just being job creators.
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Yup! Sheās a rather typical Kochdroneā ā¦Andā¦Although not as perfected, she also has a lot of that āMichele Bachmann Batshitcrazy Eyesā going on.
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"So, how did it all go wrong?ā
Well, once upon a day, Josh Marshall offered Sahil Kapur money for writing storiesā¦
Seriously, I understand Sahil is a closeted right winger, but a sympathy piece on this woman??
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I wouldnāt say heās closeted about being a wingerāIād say heās lazy and a lousy reporter.
And I speak to this subject with some authorityāI was a reporter in a previous life, and my mother spent over a decade as a reporter. We both worked for an award-winning small newspaper under an award-winning and very tough editor who would never have let us get away with the slipshod crap Sahil puts out.
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I would say technically, Sahil is not a reporter. His actual āreportsā are almost always entirely lifted from AP or some other source. And the majority of his articles arenāt even news, they are simply conjuncture, almost always with a right wing spin.
What if God was a republican? What if after winning the 2014 midterms handily, republicans decide to make America a monarchy?
These are the sort of articles that Sahil toss out there. And, in keeping with that theme, notice that he is dredging up a crazy GOP candidate and wondering why she isnāt easily winning Oregon (because its such a purple state leaning red, right??)
In an election year where the elections are pretty local, and no clear national issue is motivating the electorate, Sahil has missed the boat entirely. He locked into a republican wave meme right after the 2012 elections and has refused to let go of it, despite all evidence indicating that there is absolutely no GOP wave out there.
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Itās not so much Monicaās ālife goes better with Kochā values that are the problem: people east of the Cascades are solid (if generic) Republicans. What people canāt stand about the Doctor is her being a GOP analogue to former Rep. David Wu.
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The shrew has been tamed.
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Hmmmm, sex therapy and stalking her boyfriend, an odd combination, no?
The Kocks can afford to lose and that is a good thing for them because they are losing a lot.
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Also, too - Jeff Merkley is hardly āa generic Democratā. He is a dependable progressive and led the fight for filibuster reform. The canard that he hasnāt had any bills passed is because he has consistently pushed to the left. That is why the Republicans in this state want him gone. Luckily for us, as they did with Chris Dudley in the governorās race 4 years ago, they chose an inexperienced novice who looks good on paper but canāt compete in the real world.
Personally, I enjoyed watching her slow implosion. Looks like we keep our stellar record of not electing Republicans.
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Iām curious, where did this GOP meme that doctors are exquisitely qualified to be politicians come from?
We have kooks like the Pauls, Carson, this nitwit Wehby, Bill Frist and others who have been shown to be monumentally unsuited for the role, yet they keep trying to send Olā Doc Everyman (bullshit) to Washingtonā¦and in some cases, they succeed.
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Here in Oregon, we donāt cotton to Koch money, stalking, or plagiarism.
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Passing on second hand information isnāt really my thing (he says); but having practiced in Oregon for a few years and having trained with some people who still practice surgery there, I can say she was held in low regard by her professional peers, well before she entered politics. At least Ben Carson was a good surgeon. What is it with conservative docs, anyway? They manage to get through med school somehow, and then become creepy and stupid.
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A āSTALKER MOMā, WHO wouldnāt want one of those as their Senator, HMMMMMM!!! LOL While doing the āvettingā process for their princess, they asked, do you go to church, she said āSUREā, they asked, are you pro-file, she said "SUREā, they asked, do you hate Obama, she said āSUREāā¦And there you have it folks, the GOPās formula for finding their āBINDER BABESā, just look in our āBLACK BOOKā for a āBABEā to run on our ticket. Itās a Romney āCLASSICā.
Besides, there could be something to that OLD saying. āitās all in the name of.āā¦MONICA.
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Speaking as an Oregonian, this race was never that competetive. Merkeley vs. generic republican was polling middlingly, but against any hypothetical opponent, Wehby included, he always had a lead. Oregon has overall been lurching westward (yes, the counties w/o population centers vote republican, but Multnomah, Washington, Lane, Marion and Deschutes counties all go blue and more than carry the state).
Wehby was potentially the hardest opponent for Merkeley, who isnāt exactly a spectacular campaigner, but the stalking charges havenāt factored into her decline as much as her policy statements.
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Time and time again, Republicans produce candidates, adorned in faux virtue, seemingly above reproach, and offering salvation from Liberal oppression. Wehby, Joni Ernst, and Tom Cotton, just to name a few, are all cut from that same WalMart cloth.
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