Poll: Paul surges ahead of Palin among self-identified morons

MINNEAPOLIS -- In a sign of his increasing prominence in the so-called Tea Party movement, a new poll shows Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul topping former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin among voters who describe themselves as morons.

In the poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, 42% preferred Paul, 36% preferred Palin, and the remaining 22% were unsure what the word "prefer" meant.

According to Davis Logsdon, who supervised the poll for the University of Minnesota, Paul's surging popularity among morons is bad news for Palin, who previously had a lock on that important constituency.

"I never thought I'd say that, but if Palin is going to stay competitive with Paul, she's going to have to start dumbing down her message."

 Thanks, Andy.

Sunday Funnies (gRand Oil Party edition)

The governor's race in 3 minutes, and more postpourri

-- So if you haven't been paying attention you can catch up on the Texas governor's contest in less than three minutes, courtesy Eileen Smith at Texas Monthly.

-- What Eileen left out that developed this week: The Texas AFL-CIO offered Rick Perry a double-wide furnished with his favorite magazine for $1 a year. That's obviously a big savings over the ten grand a month for the mansion he's been squatting in. You'd think in these hard times, when every state agency had to cut its budget by 5% or more, that would be a grand gesture for the governor. He turned it down.

Let's Evict Rick instead.

-- Ta-Nehisi Coates follows up on Rachel Maddow's evisceration of Rand Paul:

That interview would have went a lot better for Rand Paul if Maddow had have just thrown her notes in the air and accused him of being a bigot, and a covert member of the Klan. That's what they want. And I don't simply mean conservatives--I mean people you disagree with. I know I've won a debate when my adversary says, "What the fuck type of name is Ta-Nuh-hah-see, anyway?" It translates to "I've got nothing." Much scarier is the opponent who takes your argument, with whatever nuances it may or may not possess, and politely disagrees with the argument as it is.

-- The SBOE finalizes its social studies standards today. Muse has been on the scene. BOR, Kuffner, the TFN and the Texas Tribune have much more.

Last week on my Vegas vacation I took time off from my intense sports booking and heavy slot action to call in and conference with Judy Jennings and Rebecca Bell-Metereau, two of the Democratic candidates for the state school board. Needless to say, electing these two women in November -- as well as Michael Soto -- goes a long way toward effectively mitigating the current board's whacked-out decisions.

-- Pappas Seafood Restaurants is suing BP for damages related to the Gulf oil spill. BP has tried desperately to keep a lid on photos and video of the underwater gusher, but they lost that battle too. Here's a wrap-up of the latest.  This site has also been terrific for aggregating information, and Eric Berger is good as well.

Update: Hideous.

Ayn Rand Paul, arrogant ignorance, and the Texas SBOE

Chris Good at The Atlantic:

Here's one thing that can, plainly, be said about the controversy over Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act: this is exactly what Democrats hoped would happen.

The Democratic campaign and message apparatus has been banking, for months, on the rightward tilt of the Tea Party to damage the Republican Party in November's midterm elections. They put out a strategy memo to this effect in January.

The idea is, basically: Tea Partiers are crazy, right-wing extremists. If the Republican Party elects them to run in November, the Republican Party will lose. Democrats have been saying this for months.

Paul's statements about the Civil Rights Act, brought up last night by Rachel Maddow and discussed at length, in an interview, have dominated the news cycle today. It has not looked good for Paul, or for the Tea Party.

Joe Klein:

...Rand Paul is now saying that  he regrets the appearance with Rachel Maddow, not the ridiculous statements he made in favor of a private business's ability to discriminate according to race. I suspect that this will be the first of many such disasters for the Tea Party libertarians. They are about to find themselves faced with actual political rivals who will be more than happy to expose the utopian foolishness of their ideology. This will be a rare moment of public education for an electorate that doesn't pay sufficient attention to even the most important aspects of democracy.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, also from The Atlantic:

But what about red-lining? Does Paul know anything about blockbusting? Does he think banks should be able to have a policy of not lending to black businesses? Does he think real-estate agents should be able to discriminate? Does he think private homeowner groups should be able to band together and keep out blacks? Jews? Gays? Latinos?

I think there's this sense that it's OK to be ignorant about the Civil Rights Act because it's a "black issue." I'm not a lawyer, but my sense is that for a senator to be ignorant of the Civil Rights Act, is not simply to be ignorant of a "black issue," but to be ignorant of one of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed. This isn't like not knowing the days of Kwanzaa, this is like not knowing what caused the Civil War. It's just embarrassing--except Paul is too ignorant to be embarrassed.

This is George W. Bush-style prideful ignorance, and it's probably the worst thing about the TeaBaggers specifically and the Republican Party generally.

They don't know, they don't care and they don't like you because you do.

Muse notes among the many atrocities in the Texas SBOE hearings going on in Austin is that -- as Coates points out in the last sentence excerpted above -- the Civil War was fought not over slavery or even states' rights but because an angel fell from Heaven (and became Satan, I suppose is the lesson).

The stupidity is literally breath-taking.

Sestak retires Specter; Lincoln likely in run-off with Halter

The real news here is that Barack Obama and Joe Biden and others in the Democratic establishment supported both of these two losers. Voters are rejecting incumbents, as has been accurately reported in lots of places.

The Democrat, an asinine Blue Dog named Mark Critz, easily held on to the late Jack Murtha's seat -- the only Kerry-McCain district in the country -- despite a million Republican dollars and all manner of doom-filled predictions that the election to fill the unexpired term was a referendum on Obama.  If it is, we will certainly be happy in November.

The progressive, state Attorney General Jack Conway, defeated the Blue Dog -- Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo -- in the Kentucky Democratic Senate primary election to replace the Alzheimer's-riddled GOP retiree Jim Bunning. But all the media wants to talk about is RuPaul Ron Paul's son and the TeaBaggers again, despite the fact that Mongiardo's 2nd-place finish is more votes than Paul's first-place one.

So where's the "Mitch McConnell's boy and GOP mainstream gets thumped" headline?

Update: Blanche Lincoln may not even be the top vote-getter in AR.