Are the Republicans having an internal war and cleaning house? And if so what does that mean for Pawlenty? Is Pawlenty or Romney, the chosen one, by the Cheney-Rove-like insider team?
First let's remind you all that Republicans do not play by laws, rules or moral codes. See video, after the fold, for reports on how far Republicans have gone in braking laws and morals to deal with Democrats. Republicans violate even the most sacred of protection vows by outing people in secret intelligence, Valerie_Plame, simply for political gain. Torturing innocent people to gain false confessions is in the Republican playbook. So why would Republicans play by any rules inside the Republican party? The current process looks more like a Mafia-run power grab with political death instead of physical death.
Isn't it just totally suspicious how many Republican political front runners are all falling by the wayside, right now in this time when political news is least covered and noticed by the American public?
Alaskan governor Sarah Palin resigns. The Brad Blog is citing Alaskan reporter Shannyn Moore that the reasons may involve federal indictments. It seems that housing materials for Sarah Palin's personal house remodel came from the same source as the publically paid for Wasilla sports stadium.
South Carolina Mark Sanford goes AWOL on being governor for four days without even leaving the lieutenant governor in charge, facing possible impeachment.
According to Tarr, the South Carolina constitution gives "unusually broad" removal powers to the legislature. Not only can the legislature impeach a governor for "serious crimes or serious misconduct in office," it can also remove a governor in a process called "address" for any "willful neglect of duty" or "other reasonable cause which shall not be sufficient ground of impeachment."
Nevada Senator John Ensign disclosed an affair with a female campaign staffer who was married to one of his top Senate aides. The disclosure of the John Ensign affair also shed a spotlight on the secretive influential Christian Washington C-street group.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, may never recover from the embarrassingly bad Republican response to President Obama's February 24 speech. Long term, I think that larger problem is the fact Bobby Jundal, who holds no ministry, claims to have performed an exorcism.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is haunted by far too many pictures of him in woman's dresses. A Republican party that totally rejects GLBT equality cannot have a Republican leader who cross dresses, even in jest.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney still has to get past how the religious Mormon practices of wearing sacred underwear, marrying the dead, converting the dead to the Mormon religion (obviously without permission) and other practices appear to traditional Christian part of the Republican party. Remember it only took one anonymous phone call for help to have news stories about forced child-bride marriages in the Mormon church.
Now the remaining list is getting smaller and less well known: Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and of course, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.
It almost seems like every Republican candidate is encouraged to have illegal house remodeling deals, extra-martial affairs, wild parties or some vice that can be used against them. So that begs the question, will the Teflon-armored Tim Pawlenty be able to stand up against these attacks or is Tim Pawlenty, the anointed one?
It seems that actual bad governance like "bridge maintenance so bad that they fall down" is out of bounds for the internal Republican war. So real question becomes "Does Tim Pawlenty have any vices?". Also note that in previous Republican battles, making things up, was not out of bounds.
So we wait for the next move in the ongoing Republican internal battle for power.
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Important note: If you ever had a question about how far Republicans will go in breaking rules, laws and morals to get power, then this video will remove all doubt.
