| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty August 6, 2014 The McDonnells and Our Increasingly Insane Political Class Ladies and gentlemen, I suspect you'll understand that my kind words for former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell rank among my biggest professional regrets. This is for several reasons, but preeminently, it appears the governor and his wife turned themselves into walking infomercials for the dietary supplements produced by one of the governor's top donors. And they may very well have behaved in a manner you and I would consider . . . not quite sane: A day earlier, a onetime aide testified that after then-governor McDonnell endorsed Mitt Romney for president in 2012, McDonnell's wife sought out the candidate at a news media session in South Carolina to promote the dietary supplement. Phil Cox, Robert McDonnell's chief political adviser at the time, said that he put a stop to that plan but that Maureen McDonnell went on to talk up the supplement to Romney's wife on a campaign bus. He said she told Ann Romney that the anti-inflammatory supplement could "potentially cure MS." While Ann Romney, who has multiple sclerosis, listened politely, Cox said, he feared the episode would reflect poorly on his boss, who at the time was considered a possible Romney running mate. "I was horrified," Cox testified. "I thought it was a train wreck." How do you do that? How do you go up to a woman with multiple sclerosis and tell her that a dietary supplement produced by one of your top donors might cure her disease? Are people crazy when they get into politics, or does the process of politics drive them crazy? Every profession has their share of people who are "crazy", and your garden variety of eccentricity and odd behavior is in the eye of the beholder. (In the first Blackford Oakes novel, Saving the Queen, a character declares, "Other people's rituals always seem strange.") But doesn't it feel like, with increasing regularity, we hear about behavior on the part of elected officials that might get them steered to a psychiatric clinic, or at least counseling? Yes, politics always had its Jim Traficants and Jesse Venturas. Some would toss Marion Barry into that mix, although I'm not sure mere poor impulse control and disregard for the law necessarily meet the threshold of "crazy" we're examining. Jim Bunning's behavior in his later years, perhaps. Mike Gravel's campaign ad. Perhaps Representative Sheila Jackson Lee's belief that Neil Armstrong planted a flag on Mars qualifies, or her assertion that "Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working." Or perhaps Representative Hank Johnson expressing a fear during a hearing that the island of Guam could "tip over and capsize" if too many military personnel were stationed there. How do we explain the behavior of, say, Anthony Weiner? Or David Wu?
"It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rival . . ." I suppose politics requires a person to be particularly good at two sometimes challenging tasks: (1) being particularly charming and appealing to immensely wealthy people, so charming and appealing that they're willing to write checks to your campaign and (2) being appealing to the electorate at large. There's undoubtedly stress, fear of defeat, desperation, a widening gulf between the private self and the public face held up for approval. Does this, at some point, wear down one's mental health? Is shamelessness such a prerequisite for running for office that candidates and their spouses lose a sense of what's abnormal human behavior? Or is political ambition by itself a bit of abnormal human behavior? The Nation's Unrelenting Economic Gloom Over on the homepage of NRO today, I have a piece knocking around those inattentive "low information voters" and the folks so oblivious to national and world events that they're insisting that the country is on the right track. I begin by asking what those "right track" respondents think is going right for the country. Yes, the Dow Jones has been on a tear and we've had a quarter of good economic numbers. But other polling refutes the idea that there's a lot of economic confidence or optimism out there. This came out late last night: Still scarred by a recession that ended five years ago, Americans are registering record levels of anxiety about the opportunities available to younger generations and are pessimistic about the nation's long-term prospects, directing their blame at elected leaders in Washington. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that despite the steady pace of hiring in recent months, 76% of adults lack confidence that their children's generation will have a better life than they do—an all-time high. Some 71% of adults think the country is on the wrong track, a leap of 8 points from a June survey, and 60% believe the U.S. is in a state of decline. What's more, seven in 10 adults blamed the malaise more on Washington leaders than on any deeper economic trends, and 79% expressed some level of dissatisfaction with the American political system. And if you're wondering how old Hope and Change is doing . . . The president's approval rating dropped to 40% in this latest poll from 41% in a June survey, and he notched a disapproval rating of 54%, matching a previous high. Meanwhile, 36% approve of Mr. Obama's handling of foreign policy, compared with the 60% who disapprove—his worst-ever marks. There are still some ominous indicators for the GOP: Republicans enjoy a narrow edge on the question of which party those polled want controlling Congress, but there are few signs at this point the party will enjoy a wave like the ones that swept Democrats to power in 2006 and Republicans back to the House majority in 2010. "What we're seeing is a good Republican cycle, but not yet like the wave elections we saw in 2006 and 2010," said Mr. McInturff, the Republican pollster. While dissatisfaction with the nation's course and its president have marked prior "wave" elections in which one party made big gains, enthusiasm about the election remains low among all but the most conservative Republicans. What's more, women continue to turn their back on the GOP. Women favor a Democratic Congress, 51% to 37%. A Troubling Report About a Charity for the Troops Pro Publica and the Daily Beast offer a damning assessment of Move America Forward, contending the group "repeatedly misled donors and inflated its charitable accomplishments, while funneling millions of dollars in revenue to the men behind the group and their political consulting firms." (This assessment from Charity Navigator is not encouraging.) The charity offers a response to the charges at Hot Air (which I cannot link to without interrupting delivery of the Jolt to certain e-mail addresses) but not, strangely, on its own web site. A portion of their defense: Our records have been audited by the IRS and were found to be well within the laws and compliance required, in fact our auditor told us privately that our books looked better than most of the charities they've dealt with. The explanation for their tie to their particular IT contractor: Donationsafe helps provide IT support, and one of their guys often helps set stuff up on the MAF website when we come across something that I don't know how to do. He helps us with it because we are a client and because we have a long relationship. It's much better than paying gobs of money to have a dedicated web guy. Donationsafe doesn't get hardly anything from MAF because most of our money comes in through care packages. Before we started using Donationsafe, MAF used to use a big company, Aristotle, which was more expensive in fees, and they didn't have the easy to reach support staff. With Donationsafe I know the support staff guys are local; I can call them anytime day or night with a crisis, and I know they will drop everything and help me out. Donationsafe also gives us a way to process mass orders that we get from our partnerships with radio stations, so without them we would have to pay another staffer to do it manually. At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey assesses, "The close proximity of MAF to [Tea Party Express] and its officials' businesses are more serious, and perhaps that issue hasn't been fully appreciated in the past. It should be now; whether or not it makes life less convenient, there should be enough separation to keep donors from worrying that their efforts aren't going for someone else's profit, especially when it comes to the rental arrangement. It may well be legal, but it doesn't look good, and that does make a difference when you're asking people to part with their cash and time for your charity instead of someone else's." ADDENDA: Matt Lewis declares, "The best way for conservatives to derail Obama is to shut up and stay out of the news." I look forward to his series of recommendations on how conservative officeholders should "stay out of the news" during a midterm election campaign. How universally can we apply this principle of becoming more influential and more liked through absence and silence? Will Matt Lewis stop appearing in public as part of this approach? . . . I'm scheduled to appear on the panel on Greta Van Susteren's On the Record this evening. I see 1.84 million of you watched last week's appearance. Now if I could just get all 1.84 million viewers to buy the book . . . From Our Sponsor:
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