Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Purple Priestess, pico, jlms qkw, ybruti, shayera, and HooiserDeb, with sunspark says running the edit machine because the World Cup is over and she is a little lost lamb.

It's July 17. On this day in 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the US. 179 years later, a whole lot of us would have liked to give it back.

Here are tonight's hidden gems uncovered by the intrepid explorers of the DR:

In the All Things Political category:

• Avenging Angel shows how The GOP Goes Seinfeld as the Party of Nothing. (shayera)
• washunate examines the financial reform bill and subsequently comes up with an excellent question: So we can end corporate bailouts now, right? (Purple Priestess)
• danps examines government transparency and lack thereof through a philosophical lens in The Pneumatics of Washington DC. (Purple Priestess)

In the Despoiling our Coastal Environment category:

• Knucklehead shares the underwater world he fears will soon be gone in GULF COAST 4. (jlms qkw)
• Crashing Vor mourns the impending loss of a unique lifestyle in Shangri-LA..(ybruti)

In the Interesting Miscellany of the Day category:

• aaraujo introduces us to the 21st Century version of a treasure hunt and asks, What's In Your Neighborhood? Geocache! (HoosierDeb)
• jpmassar discusses the recent history and uncertain future of the PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) program in Renewable Energy: The left hand giveth while the right hand taketh away. (pico)

And finally, a history lesson:

• WIds looks at the Scopes Monkey Trail and concludes that we haven't come so very far as a society in Eighty-five years ago today (5) and its next segment, Eighty-five years ago today (6). (jlms qkw and ybruti)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: July 16, 2010.

carolita has Top Comments 7-17-10 - D-Day Edition Edition.

Don't hesitate even for a microsecond to promote your favorite diaries (even your own) in the Open Thread. Pimp away! (But stay out of those shuttered ACORN offices.)

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Purple Priestess, pico, jlms qkw, ybruti, shayera, and HooiserDeb, with sunspark says running the edit machine because the World Cup is over and she is a little lost lamb.

It's July 17. On this day in 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the US. 179 years later, a whole lot of us would have liked to give it back.

Here are tonight's hidden gems uncovered by the intrepid explorers of the DR:

In the All Things Political category:

• Avenging Angel shows how The GOP Goes Seinfeld as the Party of Nothing. (shayera)
• washunate examines the financial reform bill and subsequently comes up with an excellent question: So we can end corporate bailouts now, right? (Purple Priestess)
• danps examines government transparency and lack thereof through a philosophical lens in The Pneumatics of Washington DC. (Purple Priestess)

In the Despoiling our Coastal Environment category:

• Knucklehead shares the underwater world he fears will soon be gone in GULF COAST 4. (jlms qkw)
• Crashing Vor mourns the impending loss of a unique lifestyle in Shangri-LA..(ybruti)

In the Interesting Miscellany of the Day category:

• aaraujo introduces us to the 21st Century version of a treasure hunt and asks, What's In Your Neighborhood? Geocache! (HoosierDeb)
• jpmassar discusses the recent history and uncertain future of the PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) program in Renewable Energy: The left hand giveth while the right hand taketh away. (pico)

And finally, a history lesson:

• WIds looks at the Scopes Monkey Trail and concludes that we haven't come so very far as a society in Eighty-five years ago today (5) and its next segment, Eighty-five years ago today (6). (jlms qkw and ybruti)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: July 16, 2010.

carolita has Top Comments 7-17-10 - D-Day Edition Edition.

Don't hesitate even for a microsecond to promote your favorite diaries (even your own) in the Open Thread. Pimp away! (But stay out of those shuttered ACORN offices.)

As summer finally arrives in Southern California (here close to the coastal part of the LA Basin, we were socked in with low clouds for seven consecutive weeks), things are heating up on the campaign trail, as well.

With the obligatory horrible journalistic pun out of the way, let's dive right into the weekend edition of the Wrap...

THE U.S. SENATE

AZ-Sen: GOP primary heats up with high-profile opening debate
The start of the debating season for the trio of Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate popped off in a brutal fashion on Friday night in their first debate. Incumbent John McCain ripped J.D. Hayworth as a profligate spender, which he cited as one of the reasons why Hayworth was shown the door by voters in the 5th district back in 2006. Hayworth, for his part, blasted McCain as a conservative of convenience, even wryly suggesting that McCain should be outfitted with two podiums so that "both sides of him" could participate in the gathering. The beneficiary in the debate may well have been little-known teabagger Jim Deakin, who said both were cut from the same Washington cloth, and was largely spared the McCain-Hayworth barbs. Hayworth, in particular, was relentlessly aggressive as he tried to resurrect his flailing campaign, even going so far as to mock McCain for his unsuccessful 2008 run for the Presidency.

CT-Sen: Blumenthal still rolling in Senate race, says Q Poll
As was briefly alluded to in an update to my story yesterday morning about the vacillating candidacy/non-candidacy of former Congressman Rob Simmons, a new Quinnipiac poll might well explain why he is staying on the sidelines. Not only does Simmons get beat fairly badly in a prospective GOP primary (Linda McMahon takes 52% to Simmons' 25%), but he also gets hammered by Democratic nominee Richard Blumenthal in a prospective November matchup. Blumenthal handles the entire GOP field with relative ease, however. He locks down Linda McMahon by seventeen points (54-37), Simmons by twenty points (55-35), and also puts a hurt on unlikely GOP contender Peter Schiff (58-31). The GOP primary, which may or may not contain an active Simmons candidacy, will take place next month.

WI-Sen: Feingold leads in rather strange Wisconsin Poll
Certainly, some pollsters press leaners and undecideds more than others, but there are some polls that get released that almost make you wonder if casting an undecided vote was somehow encouraged (PDF). Such is the case with a new poll out at the close of the week by the UW Badger poll, which had only slightly more than half of the electorate unwilling to declare their favored candidate. Of those willing to get off the fence and pick a side, incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold had a five-point lead over Republican frontrunner Ron Johnson (33-28). The poll surveyed only 500 adults (and 297 likely voters), so the margin of error on this one is a lofty 5.7%. The other GOP candidate in the field, Dave Westlake, was not surveyed.

THE U.S. HOUSE

ID-01: Labrador down double digits in his own internal polling
Crisitunity over at SSP catches a really interesting campaign tactic, which both of us would like to see explained. The campaign of GOP nominee Raul Labrador has released an internal poll, from northwest GOP pollsters Moore Insight, which shows him trailing Democratic incumbent Walt Minnick by ten points (37-27). Perhaps the holding the incumbent under 50% thing is the big deal here, but with so many GOPers releasing internals showing them ahead of incumbents, or tied, I don't see the mileage in letting people know that a Democratic incumbent in a heavily GOP district is still up by ten points.

NH-01: Republican stimulus hypocrisy! (Episode #9492)
This might be my favorite story of the week, and it comes with a tip of that hat to DavidNYC over at the always excellent Swing State Project, who ran this in his Friday morning "daily digest" over at SSP. It seems like GOP Congressional frontrunner Frank Guinta probably needs to give a stern lecture to former Manchester Mayor...Frank Guinta. As a candidate, Guinta has ripped Democratic proposals like the stimulus package and the cap-and-trade bill. As mayor, however, Guinta complained that the Granite State wasn't getting its stimulus cash fast enough, and he signed onto municipal petitions endorsing such green-friendly stuff as the Kyoto protocols.

Better still: in his bluster over the stimulus funds, he raised such a stink that he was mocked by the woman who may very well be the GOP standard-bearer in his state this year. New Hampshire Attorney General (and U.S. Senate frontrunner) Kelly Ayotte dubbed Guinta a "grandstander" in a year-old email released last week.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

AZ-Gov: Has immigration tussle moved Brewer towards safe November?
It'll be interesting to see if another pollster confirms these numbers, but the same Behavior Research Center poll that showed John McCain boat-racing J.D. Hayworth in the GOP Senate primary also had GOP Governor Jan Brewer up twenty points on her likely November challenger, Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard. The one saving grace for Goddard in the poll is the relatively high undecideds: Brewer leads Goddard by a 45-25 margin, with nearly a third of the electorate still unsure of their choice.

CO-Gov: Poll confirms McInnis now circling the drain
The Denver Post, in the wake of the McInnis plagiarism scandal, contracted SurveyUSA to conduct a poll about the electoral health of the GOP gubernatorial frontrunner. The results, as it turned out, were pretty stunning: only 19% of Colorado Republicans believe McInnis would be the "strongest Republican gubernatorial candidate." Not only did a majority of Colorado GOPers pick someone else, McInnis did not come in first place--that honor went to (for the moment) non-candidate Tom Tancredo, who got 29% of the vote. Remember that it was only a month ago that McInnis was the choice of 57% of Colorado Republicans to be their gubernatorial nominee.

GA-Gov: Barnes gets last-minute help from state's best known mayor
While it is a foregone conclusion that Roy Barnes will be leading the Democratic field for Governor during Tuesday's primary election, the big prize for the former Governor would be the avoidance of a runoff election. This could help. Barnes accepted the endorsement of Kasim Reed, who was elected as the Mayor of Atlanta in late 2009.

NV-Gov: Sandoval holds lead, but Reid gains ground, in MD poll
Republican nominee Brian Sandoval still holds a double digit lead over Democratic Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid in the latest Mason-Dixon poll of Nevada, but that lead has slipped ever so slightly. Sandoval holds a 47-36 lead over the Democrat, which is three points closer than a similar M-D poll taken six weeks ago. That Reid is even that close is something of a miracle: his approval ratings are woeful (29/38), while Sandoval's are actually excellent for this deep into a campaign (45/19). This could give Reid a modicum of hope--despite the climate, there is quite clearly a generic Dem lean here if he can keep Sandoval under 50% with a thirty-seven point difference in their net favorabilities.

OH-Gov: Kasich new ad a noisy attempt to rewrite history
This is good stuff for a weekend: the campaign of Republican gubernatorial nominee John Kasich has launched an ad which attempts to put to rest Kasich's past business affairs as a Wall Street executive. Besides some acoustical issues (why, for the love of all things, is he yelling at us?), there is another small problem for Kasich. The Ohio Democratic Party evidently anticipated this shot, because they skewered it in a devastating web ad which they put on YouTube over one month ago:

TX-Gov: Perry resolves 2006 ethical lapse, in midst of 2010 lapse
While the Democratic Party is still considering a civil suit over the curious funding apparatus for the petition drive of the Green Party (which almost certainly included the participation of Republicans close to Governor Rick Perry), the Perry campaign settled a lawsuit from his last gubernatorial campaign. Team Perry settled with 2006 Democratic opponent Chris Bell, paying him nearly half a million dollars to settle a lawsuit in which Bell alleged that Perry's campaign deliberately concealed the identity of a million-dollar contribution. At the time, Perry was gaining political yardage by claiming Bell had accepted a seven-figure contribution from a wealthy donor. Perry, as it turned out, had done the exact same thing via well-known GOP donor Bob Perry (no relation). Democrats argued that Perry had run the donation through the Republican Governors Association to conceal its singular source.

WI-Gov: Badger Gov poll more bizarre than Senate poll--GOP leads (?)
The UW Badger poll didn't just poll the Senate race--they also elected to poll the gubernatorial election. They probably shouldn't have bothered--the results were so bizarre that they are only presented here for informational purposes. The poll had either Republican candidate (Scott Walker or Mark Neumann) leading Democrat Tom Barrett by seventeen points. If the margin strikes you as a bit off, the raw numbers will only magnify that feeling--the UW nums say that the GOPers each draw 32%, to 15% for Barrett. Also, as DavidNYC over at Swing State project notes, the poll was in the field for...wait for it...31 days. From JUNE 9th to July 10th.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA

Even the House of Ras cannot disguise the unmitigated disaster that the McInnis campaign in Colorado has become, apparently. They also see movement in the Washington Senate race and the Wisconsin gubernatorial race. Dems will like the vector that one of those races is heading in, at least.

CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 45%, Scott McInnis (R) 43%
CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 46%, Dan Maes (R) 43%
DE-Sen: Christine O'Donnell (R) 41%, Chris Coons (D) 39%**
PA-Gov: Tom Corbett (R) 48%, Dan Onorato (D) 38%
WA-Sen: Dino Rossi (R) 48%, Sen. Patty Murray (D) 45%
WA-Sen: Clint Didier (R) 48%, Sen. Patty Murray (D) 45%
WA-Sen: Sen. Patty Murray (D) 46%, Paul Akers (R) 41%
WI-Gov: Scott Walker (R) 48%, Tom Barrett (D) 44%
WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 43%

(**)--Inadvertently omitted from the Thursday edition of the Wrap

I often see articles showing lists of "things people fear most." Inevitably the #1 item on these lists is public speaking. Somewhere along around #4 you get death. Frankly, I think this is the best proof that most people have something seriously wrong with their priorities. If it would keep me from dying, I'd climb on the stage at Lincoln Center every day and alternate Shakespeare sonnets with answers to math trivia. And I'd do it naked. On a high wire. Surrounded by clowns.

As it happens, I have no fear of public speaking. I'm not saying I'm good at it, just that it doesn't scare me. What does? That noise down in the basement late at night. When I hear that noise, my heart goes into my throat and a little roaring starts in my ears. There are guns in the house, and I guess I could keep one next to the bed, but I don't bother. Because here's the thing: when I hear that noise, I don't think burglar.

I don't hear the creak of the stairs and think that someone is coming to steal my TV (attention potential thieves: by this I mean my crappy, and really not worth the hernia you risk in carrying it, old TV). No. What I expect to see coming up the stairs is something cold. Something dead. Something that moves slowly but implacably forward. Something held together by dried scraps of ligament and shaped by a mass of mold and crawling beetles. Something with a glint of dull red malevolence deep in the socket that once held an eye. Something that could take the blast from a shotgun or the best swing of a bat without missing one awful, lurching, remorseless step.

Which is why I really don't tend to get much sleep.

I could blame this on a youth spent associating with Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie, but really, those books only confirmed what I already knew. The world might look OK on the surface, but underneath there was always something waiting to grab a foot carelessly dangled from the side of the bed. That's why I read horror novels. And so should you. Remember, the knowledge of ghoul habits you pick up today, could save your life tomorrow.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Once upon a time I climbed into an elevator, pressed the button for my floor, and then noticed that the only other occupant of the tight space was Peter Straub. As the box crept upward, I could't resist turning to him to say "Ghost Story is without a doubt one of the finest things ever written in the English language." Moving with surprising speed, Mr. Straub stabbed the button for the next floor and made his escape. But hey, that doesn't affect my opinion. This book is, without a doubt, a classic. A horror story for the ages. Laying down narratives on (at least) three different timelines, relayed by multiple characters whose own view of the world is not to be trusted, this is a novel that could twist Christopher Nolan's mind. Whether it's listening to old men swap stories on a cold winter night in New England, or wondering why one of our heroes has tied up a little girl in a Florida hotel room, this is a book filled with few easy answers -- and plenty of chilling moments.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

There's little wonder why Hollywood keeps returning to this well. Hill House is the haunted house, a subtle blend of attraction and fear that's as sweet as a cake left to mold in some dark cupboard. This 1959 work is a lesson in how subtle, subtle, subtle moments of unease can drive home fear more surely than any huge confrontation. Even if you've watched the attempts to capture this on film, give it a read. It's a book where even the way sentences are phrased seems to be weighted with something not quite visible on the page.

Song of Kali by Dan Simmons

Simmons is better know for his Sci Fi take on the Canterbury Tales, Hyperion. But he's at his best in this shorter story of heat, darkness, and unspeakable evil. The story centers on an American couple in Calcutta who are in search of a new work from a respected poet. The thing is, the poet just may be dead. Don't let the title fool you into expecting scenes out of Indiana Jones. The horror here comes along as slowly and inevitably as any film zombie, but when it arrives it's lush, twisted, and rotten to the core. A warning to those that have been to Calcutta -- you're not likely to be taken with Simmon's view of the city. And a warning to those that haven't been -- if you read this, you may never want to go.

The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

It wasn't so long ago that Barker was "the future of horror." He cranked out chilling short stories with machine gun regularity and his first novel was looked for like the next installment of Harry Potter (if Harry Potter had the habit of tearing body parts off his enemies). But by the time The Damnation Game actually arrived in 1985, it wasn't quite the hit that many expected. Barker's trick is a simple one: he writes really, really well and he pulls no punches. Subtle, he is not, but the text is amazing. It's like having Lord Byron describe a splenectomy. That trick may really work best in his shorter pieces. But this novel will deliver a solid kick -- if you have the stomach for it.

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Because it is not possible to talk about horror novels without talking about Stephen King, I'm stretching my usual list of four books to five this week. How King reshaped the modern horror novel can not be overestimated. He took horror from something that happens to people in far away places and crumbling castles, and remade it into something that strikes at your kitchen table, to people wearing Converse sneakers and enjoying a plate of Oreos. His writing flipped all the conventions of the genre. Ghost Story, the story of a New England town besieged by supernatural forces after a writer comes to town and stirs up old horrors, could not exist without Salem's Lot to show the way. Bag of Bones is the closest thing King has written to his own straight up ghost story. I know a lot of fans who consider The Stand to be King's best, but I don't agree. Bag of Bones may not stretch across a continent or invoke an ultimate confrontation of good and evil, but it's the better book. This is King's most open, most personal, most emotional novel. It doesn't pull cheap tricks like Pet Cemetery , it doesn't go for momentary thrills at the expense of plot like, well, insert any of a dozen other titles here. This book is clever, intense, melancholy, reflective, and self-revealing without being self-indulgent. If you've never liked King, or if you've read enough of his work that you think you know all his tricks, give this book a try.

I often see articles showing lists of "things people fear most." Inevitably the #1 item on these lists is public speaking. Somewhere along around #4 you get death. Frankly, I think this is the best proof that most people have something seriously wrong with their priorities. If it would keep me from dying, I'd climb on the stage at Lincoln Center every day and alternate Shakespeare sonnets with answers to math trivia. And I'd do it naked. On a high wire. Surrounded by clowns.

As it happens, I have no fear of public speaking. I'm not saying I'm good at it, just that it doesn't scare me. What does? That noise down in the basement late at night. When I hear that noise, my heart goes into my throat and a little roaring starts in my ears. There are guns in the house, and I guess I could keep one next to the bed, but I don't bother. Because here's the thing: when I hear that noise, I don't think burglar.

I don't hear the creak of the stairs and think that someone is coming to steal my TV (attention potential thieves: by this I mean my crappy, and really not worth the hernia you risk in carrying it, old TV). No. What I expect to see coming up the stairs is something cold. Something dead. Something that moves slowly but implacably forward. Something held together by dried scraps of ligament and shaped by a mass of mold and crawling beetles. Something with a glint of dull red malevolence deep in the socket that once held an eye. Something that could take the blast from a shotgun or the best swing of a bat without missing one awful, lurching, remorseless step.

Which is why I really don't tend to get much sleep.

I could blame this on a youth spent associating with Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie, but really, those books only confirmed what I already knew. The world might look OK on the surface, but underneath there was always something waiting to grab a foot carelessly dangled from the side of the bed. That's why I read horror novels. And so should you. Remember, the knowledge of ghoul habits you pick up today, could save your life tomorrow.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Once upon a time I climbed into an elevator, pressed the button for my floor, and then noticed that the only other occupant of the tight space was Peter Straub. As the box crept upward, I could't resist turning to him to say "Ghost Story is without a doubt one of the finest things ever written in the English language." Moving with surprising speed, Mr. Straub stabbed the button for the next floor and made his escape. But hey, that doesn't affect my opinion. This book is, without a doubt, a classic. A horror story for the ages. Laying down narratives on (at least) three different timelines, relayed by multiple characters whose own view of the world is not to be trusted, this is a novel that could twist Christopher Nolan's mind. Whether it's listening to old men swap stories on a cold winter night in New England, or wondering why one of our heroes has tied up a little girl in a Florida hotel room, this is a book filled with few easy answers -- and plenty of chilling moments.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

There's little wonder why Hollywood keeps returning to this well. Hill House is the haunted house, a subtle blend of attraction and fear that's as sweet as a cake left to mold in some dark cupboard. This 1959 work is a lesson in how subtle, subtle, subtle moments of unease can drive home fear more surely than any huge confrontation. Even if you've watched the attempts to capture this on film, give it a read. It's a book where even the way sentences are phrased seems to be weighted with something not quite visible on the page.

Song of Kali by Dan Simmons

Simmons is better know for his Sci Fi take on the Canterbury Tales, Hyperion. But he's at his best in this shorter story of heat, darkness, and unspeakable evil. The story centers on an American couple in Calcutta who are in search of a new work from a respected poet. The thing is, the poet just may be dead. Don't let the title fool you into expecting scenes out of Indiana Jones. The horror here comes along as slowly and inevitably as any film zombie, but when it arrives it's lush, twisted, and rotten to the core. A warning to those that have been to Calcutta -- you're not likely to be taken with Simmon's view of the city. And a warning to those that haven't been -- if you read this, you may never want to go.

The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

It wasn't so long ago that Barker was "the future of horror." He cranked out chilling short stories with machine gun regularity and his first novel was looked for like the next installment of Harry Potter (if Harry Potter had the habit of tearing body parts off his enemies). But by the time The Damnation Game actually arrived in 1985, it wasn't quite the hit that many expected. Barker's trick is a simple one: he writes really, really well and he pulls no punches. Subtle, he is not, but the text is amazing. It's like having Lord Byron describe a splenectomy. That trick may really work best in his shorter pieces. But this novel will deliver a solid kick -- if you have the stomach for it.

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Because it is not possible to talk about horror novels without talking about Stephen King, I'm stretching my usual list of four books to five this week. How King reshaped the modern horror novel can not be overestimated. He took horror from something that happens to people in far away places and crumbling castles, and remade it into something that strikes at your kitchen table, to people wearing Converse sneakers and enjoying a plate of Oreos. His writing flipped all the conventions of the genre. Ghost Story, the story of a New England town besieged by supernatural forces after a writer comes to town and stirs up old horrors, could not exist without Salem's Lot to show the way. Bag of Bones is the closest thing King has written to his own straight up ghost story. I know a lot of fans who consider The Stand to be King's best, but I don't agree. Bag of Bones may not stretch across a continent or invoke an ultimate confrontation of good and evil, but it's the better book. This is King's most open, most personal, most emotional novel. It doesn't pull cheap tricks like Pet Cemetery , it doesn't go for momentary thrills at the expense of plot like, well, insert any of a dozen other titles here. This book is clever, intense, melancholy, reflective, and self-revealing without being self-indulgent. If you've never liked King, or if you've read enough of his work that you think you know all his tricks, give this book a try.

Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance
By Alexander Zaitchik
Hardcover, 288 pages, $25.95
John Wiley & Sons
May 2010

In recent years, Beck has increasingly become a narcissistic demagogue huffing delusions of grandeur, but his ego and his narcissism feed, and have always fed, directly into a larger business plan. They are one and the same. Beck's narcissism and demagoguery cannot be separated from his business success any more than that success can be separated from the spiraling madness we see on Fox News and in Washington, D.C.

Beck's political grandstanding is, at bottom, little more than a circus entertainer's love of an audience, matched with a fine appreciation for the uses of notoriety, spectacle, and shamelessness. Like Barnum's great museums and traveling freak shows, Beck's twice-daily performances, one on radio and one on television, trade in light amusement, canny deceit, and titillating monstrosity.

Glenn Beck, perhaps more than any other figure on the conservative right, presents a dilemma for movement progressives: Is it bad politics for us to take him seriously? Are we merely giving him more oxygen by giving him attention, feeding his popularity by highlighting his extremism? Is fact-checking his numerous distortions and outright lies worth the effort? Surely, we think, anyone rational can see his buffoonery, and those who would be convinced by any fact check already are not believing him. And yet his camp followers won’t be switching any allegiances based on anything Media Matters—or, for that matter, neutral traditional media outlets--debunks. So what’s the point?

Well, the main point for journalist Alexander Zaitchik in his excellent critical biography Common Nonsense, is that Beck is tying into a dark side of America that’s been with us for a long, long time, combining the fan-flaming of Elmer Gantry and Billy Sunday with the mushy, god-based, red-white-and-blue streak of reactionarianism that rejects modernism and embraces an America that never, ever was. It’s not so much Beck's getting history so very wrong that is so disturbing—it’s that so many Americans are eagerly egging him on, seemingly begging to be brought into his Very American Fantasy.

Reality doesn’t matter. Sentiment does. “Gut feeling” does. Tears and confessionalism, militarism and simplistic, unquestioning nationalism does. And Beck is both riding that frothing wave and, to a certain extent, channeling it. But clearly, it's not entirely under his control.

Zaitchik’s book sketches the outlines of Beck’s early life and career, his years as a regular old AM shock jock who wasn’t really successful until he stumbled onto the sentimental nationalism circuit. The trademark mean streak, however, shone through even in the early years; the author relates how Beck took to the airwaves to “kid” a former radio show partner after his wife suffered a miscarriage that he couldn’t even make a baby right.

This is a beautifully written and insightful biography—thoughtful, considered, and very intentional about the need to understand Beck both as a symbol of something larger going on in America and as a person, or as the author so brilliantly phrases it, “Our very own crackpot capitalist Che Guevara—fueling his legend and pushing his ideology with one hand, selling the T-shirt—millions of them—with the other.”

This wedding of capitalism, anger and misty-eyed American exceptionalism is a constant throughout the book. As a reader, you well might end up with dozens of highlighted pages that perfectly capture this mix. Take Zaitchik describing the particular flavor of Beck’s 2003 Rally for America:

If this was political theater with Riefenstahlian overtones, it was fascism on a picnic blanket. The events were a strange American hybrid that combined Nurembergian expressions of power, blind allegiance to a divinely anointed leader, and TNN schmaltz.

Or Zaitchik’s take on Beck’s bestselling blockbuster:

The content of Common Sense, which debuted at number one in June 2009, is standard Beckian corporate-populist quack-quack. Underneath the colonial theme-park prose are the usual bromides held together by spit and venom. It is spiced with idiotic historical assessments  ("Our collective experience since the Founding has taught us all governments are fascist in nature") and sprinkled with Mormon dispensationalism ("Great and powerful miracles are about to unfold before us").

The greatest value in the book is Zaitchik’s patient exploration of the affect Beck’s conversion to Mormonism has exerted on his politics and beliefs, but also on his methods of message of delivery. Beck has managed something fairly difficult in the presentation of his schmaltz to the audiences he’s dog-whistling: he’s using the tried and true confessional style of his chosen religion to rope in evangelicals and even more secular (but teary-eyed) members of the hard right. This is no small feat, as Mitt Romney can testify; many on the right are not all at ease with Mormonism, and Beck's bridging of its style with old-fashioned knee-jerk patriotism is part of his unique appeal.

It is hard to imagine a religion better suited to Beck's emotional needs and personal style than the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Mormonism has institutionalized Beck's favorite mode of speech, the sentimental monologue. It also encourages a certainty of spirit based on self-revelation that lies outside argument, fact, or logic. What Beck does on radio and television is amped-up version of the testimony ritual; he fervently talks about what he believes—knows—is happening, describes the dark secrets he has uncovered, conveys the transcendent importance of these discoveries, and frames it all in a Manichean narrative—America as a battlefield on which God-fearing defenders of liberty face off against evil big-government conspirators...

Along with being the teariest form of Christianity, Mormonism has developed maudlin sentimentalism into an art and an industry. Mainstream Mormonism is the closest thing the United States has to a Disney religion, with orthodox culture that has replaced the tragic sensibility with a masochistic addiction to uplift. The church produces and promotes a steady stream of LDS-approved books, music, and films that form a G-rated Wellbutrin-fueled world unto itself. In this world, the grand Wurlitzer of human experience is reduced to a single-note caricature of the redemption theme.

That revisionist history nationalistic schmaltz was ushered in the front door of American politics by Ronald Reagan certainly doesn’t hurt Beck’s cause or style. In fact, it could be argued that Beck, had he preceded the “Morning in America” soft focus presidency of the Great Communicator would not be the raging (in both senses of the word) success he is today.

Central to this over-the-top sentimentalism is an undercurrent of persecution and falling prey to mysterious powers that are plotting the nefarious undoing of America behind the scenes. “Beck has been quietly mainstreaming right-wing consirpacy culture for the better part of a decade,” Zaitchik writes. And we’d all better start taking this seriously. It’s very American, very alarming and has some very serious implications for the future of democracy:

Beck is the latest in a long tradition to prove that a vision needn't be serious to package and sell. It need only be compelling on its own deformed terms. His brand of righteous antistate conservatism tantalizes so many precisely because of its operatic nostalgia, opiatic history, and tin-can Orwellian imagination. It is a vision of America as a rugged farmer with no need or care for subsidies, who watches The Lawrence Welk Show from a rocking chair in the heartland of a country whose birth God Himself performed. In this America, patriots choose Chevy trucks over bullet trains, an immutable Constitution over case law, and extremist, conversation-stopping rhetoric over informed, reasoned debate.

How we, as progressives, engage with a population that yearns for this non-existent version of America, particularly when so many of our citizens are in economic crisis, is something that Common Nonsense can at least begin to help us with. Glenn Beck and his appeal, no matter how ridiculous we may find it, is most certainly real. This sensational book is a great place to start exploring the phenomenon.

Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance
By Alexander Zaitchik
Hardcover, 288 pages, $25.95
John Wiley & Sons
May 2010

In recent years, Beck has increasingly become a narcissistic demagogue huffing delusions of grandeur, but his ego and his narcissism feed, and have always fed, directly into a larger business plan. They are one and the same. Beck's narcissism and demagoguery cannot be separated from his business success any more than that success can be separated from the spiraling madness we see on Fox News and in Washington, D.C.

Beck's political grandstanding is, at bottom, little more than a circus entertainer's love of an audience, matched with a fine appreciation for the uses of notoriety, spectacle, and shamelessness. Like Barnum's great museums and traveling freak shows, Beck's twice-daily performances, one on radio and one on television, trade in light amusement, canny deceit, and titillating monstrosity.

Glenn Beck, perhaps more than any other figure on the conservative right, presents a dilemma for movement progressives: Is it bad politics for us to take him seriously? Are we merely giving him more oxygen by giving him attention, feeding his popularity by highlighting his extremism? Is fact-checking his numerous distortions and outright lies worth the effort? Surely, we think, anyone rational can see his buffoonery, and those who would be convinced by any fact check already are not believing him. And yet his camp followers won’t be switching any allegiances based on anything Media Matters—or, for that matter, neutral traditional media outlets--debunks. So what’s the point?

Well, the main point for journalist Alexander Zaitchik in his excellent critical biography Common Nonsense, is that Beck is tying into a dark side of America that’s been with us for a long, long time, combining the fan-flaming of Elmer Gantry and Billy Sunday with the mushy, god-based, red-white-and-blue streak of reactionarianism that rejects modernism and embraces an America that never, ever was. It’s not so much Beck's getting history so very wrong that is so disturbing—it’s that so many Americans are eagerly egging him on, seemingly begging to be brought into his Very American Fantasy.

Reality doesn’t matter. Sentiment does. “Gut feeling” does. Tears and confessionalism, militarism and simplistic, unquestioning nationalism does. And Beck is both riding that frothing wave and, to a certain extent, channeling it. But clearly, it's not entirely under his control.

Zaitchik’s book sketches the outlines of Beck’s early life and career, his years as a regular old AM shock jock who wasn’t really successful until he stumbled onto the sentimental nationalism circuit. The trademark mean streak, however, shone through even in the early years; the author relates how Beck took to the airwaves to “kid” a former radio show partner after his wife suffered a miscarriage that he couldn’t even make a baby right.

This is a beautifully written and insightful biography—thoughtful, considered, and very intentional about the need to understand Beck both as a symbol of something larger going on in America and as a person, or as the author so brilliantly phrases it, “Our very own crackpot capitalist Che Guevara—fueling his legend and pushing his ideology with one hand, selling the T-shirt—millions of them—with the other.”

This wedding of capitalism, anger and misty-eyed American exceptionalism is a constant throughout the book. As a reader, you well might end up with dozens of highlighted pages that perfectly capture this mix. Take Zaitchik describing the particular flavor of Beck’s 2003 Rally for America:

If this was political theater with Riefenstahlian overtones, it was fascism on a picnic blanket. The events were a strange American hybrid that combined Nurembergian expressions of power, blind allegiance to a divinely anointed leader, and TNN schmaltz.

Or Zaitchik’s take on Beck’s bestselling blockbuster:

The content of Common Sense, which debuted at number one in June 2009, is standard Beckian corporate-populist quack-quack. Underneath the colonial theme-park prose are the usual bromides held together by spit and venom. It is spiced with idiotic historical assessments  ("Our collective experience since the Founding has taught us all governments are fascist in nature") and sprinkled with Mormon dispensationalism ("Great and powerful miracles are about to unfold before us").

The greatest value in the book is Zaitchik’s patient exploration of the affect Beck’s conversion to Mormonism has exerted on his politics and beliefs, but also on his methods of message of delivery. Beck has managed something fairly difficult in the presentation of his schmaltz to the audiences he’s dog-whistling: he’s using the tried and true confessional style of his chosen religion to rope in evangelicals and even more secular (but teary-eyed) members of the hard right. This is no small feat, as Mitt Romney can testify; many on the right are not all at ease with Mormonism, and Beck's bridging of its style with old-fashioned knee-jerk patriotism is part of his unique appeal.

It is hard to imagine a religion better suited to Beck's emotional needs and personal style than the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Mormonism has institutionalized Beck's favorite mode of speech, the sentimental monologue. It also encourages a certainty of spirit based on self-revelation that lies outside argument, fact, or logic. What Beck does on radio and television is amped-up version of the testimony ritual; he fervently talks about what he believes—knows—is happening, describes the dark secrets he has uncovered, conveys the transcendent importance of these discoveries, and frames it all in a Manichean narrative—America as a battlefield on which God-fearing defenders of liberty face off against evil big-government conspirators...

Along with being the teariest form of Christianity, Mormonism has developed maudlin sentimentalism into an art and an industry. Mainstream Mormonism is the closest thing the United States has to a Disney religion, with orthodox culture that has replaced the tragic sensibility with a masochistic addiction to uplift. The church produces and promotes a steady stream of LDS-approved books, music, and films that form a G-rated Wellbutrin-fueled world unto itself. In this world, the grand Wurlitzer of human experience is reduced to a single-note caricature of the redemption theme.

That revisionist history nationalistic schmaltz was ushered in the front door of American politics by Ronald Reagan certainly doesn’t hurt Beck’s cause or style. In fact, it could be argued that Beck, had he preceded the “Morning in America” soft focus presidency of the Great Communicator would not be the raging (in both senses of the word) success he is today.

Central to this over-the-top sentimentalism is an undercurrent of persecution and falling prey to mysterious powers that are plotting the nefarious undoing of America behind the scenes. “Beck has been quietly mainstreaming right-wing consirpacy culture for the better part of a decade,” Zaitchik writes. And we’d all better start taking this seriously. It’s very American, very alarming and has some very serious implications for the future of democracy:

Beck is the latest in a long tradition to prove that a vision needn't be serious to package and sell. It need only be compelling on its own deformed terms. His brand of righteous antistate conservatism tantalizes so many precisely because of its operatic nostalgia, opiatic history, and tin-can Orwellian imagination. It is a vision of America as a rugged farmer with no need or care for subsidies, who watches The Lawrence Welk Show from a rocking chair in the heartland of a country whose birth God Himself performed. In this America, patriots choose Chevy trucks over bullet trains, an immutable Constitution over case law, and extremist, conversation-stopping rhetoric over informed, reasoned debate.

How we, as progressives, engage with a population that yearns for this non-existent version of America, particularly when so many of our citizens are in economic crisis, is something that Common Nonsense can at least begin to help us with. Glenn Beck and his appeal, no matter how ridiculous we may find it, is most certainly real. This sensational book is a great place to start exploring the phenomenon.

What’s coming up on Sunday Kos ....

• Laurence Lewis will wonder why the Obama administration is allowing federal agencies to prevent both scientists and the public from having full access to information about the BP oil disaster.
• Dante Atkins will wax slightly romantic this Sunday.
• Brooklynbadboy will explain why public confidence in the American military remains high despite tough challenges in multiple wars.
• How are you spending your weekend? Steve Singiser will be rifling through the 2010 FEC campaign finance reports, so you won’t have to! He’ll let you know which House campaigns are on the rise, and which races are getting hotter as the summer rolls along.
• Doom! Doom, Mark Sumner will say! And he'll explore how we handle it.
• While 71% of Americans believe we're still mired in recession, it's natural that the focus is on dealing with the acute crisis, the devastating jobs situation. But Meteor Blades will ask, why is there so little attention paid to our nation's chronic economic problems, and, worst of all, our ever-growing economic inequality?

Dave is a voter registration veteran, and his technique is down pat. With his local team, Dave registered 2,200 voters in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Today, Dave and a group of volunteers returned to the Penn’s Landing waterfront area to register voters for this November, one of the spots where they registered voters in 2008. They had many folks to talk to, from the groups out listening to the Global Fusion music festival to tourists and locals looking for a cool drink on the hot, sunny afternoon.

Dave explained his voter registration technique. Step one is holding up his clipboard that spells it out in big letters: “Register to Vote.” Holding up the sign, he says, makes it clear what he’s about, right up front. “Are you registered?” he asks. “100% of people will say they’re registered, but many aren’t. You have to give them the opening to turn around and talk to us, ask ‘Who’s running?’ or say ‘I’m not sure, I moved recently.’ I just try to make it funny, like ‘Register to vote, all the cool kids are doing it.’”

Shirley, another Philadelphia volunteer, volunteered with the Obama campaign alongside her 104-year-old-mother, who has since passed away. Shirley’s mom had always taken her to vote as a child, but until Obama came along she had refused to disclose which candidate she was supporting. “That’s how I knew it was a big deal,” said Shirley.

For Shirley, the excitement of election night and the desire to keep the momentum for change alive fuels her work today. “I want that to continue,” she said. “I see all this negative stuff and we have to keep up the mission of hope and getting things done.”

The volunteers offered passersby shade and a chair to sit in while they registered, getting many to take them up on their offer. When people said ‘I can’t vote,’ they made sure they knew if they were able, and responded to 'I'm too young,' by seeing whether their birthday was before Election Day.

Shirley, who wore buttons with pictures of the Obama family, had also made her own buttons she passed out to those she registered. They said 'Vote. Every vote counts.' She told people walking by: “It’s hot, you’re tired, but I know the President would be grateful.”

The second-quarter fundraising numbers are in, and in New Hampshire's second district, things are looking good for Orange to Blue candidate Ann McLane Kuster.

Kuster raised $316,307 and has $745,048 cash on hand. According to her campaign, the average contribution was $55 and more than half the money she has raised to date came from New Hampshire citizens.

Katrina Swett raised just $187,983 and has $1.15 million cash on hand, having entered the race with around $800,000 cash on hand from her aborted Senate run in 2007.

Two big things have always given Katrina Swett an edge as a candidate for office in New Hampshire: her name and her fundraising. Her name, of course, is shared with her husband, who represented New Hampshire's second district for two terms in the 1990s. Her fundraising was very much aided by her father, long-time California Congressman Tom Lantos. As such, it was to be expected that it would suffer after his passing -- but I have to admit, I'm still surprised by the drop-off. She had enough cash on hand entering the race that continued massive fundraising wasn't necessary to match or outpace her opponents, but it's striking how quickly and decisively it happened.

Meanwhile, Kuster's strength isn't just showing in her fundraising. A blogger doing original reporting on all the candidates in the race writes:

It’s hard to put your finger on why, exactly, Ann McLane Kuster‘s campaign seems so different.

Maybe it’s the enthusiastic young interns who have come from all over the country to support her. Maybe it’s the impressive efficiency and organization of her campaign, or the crowds that flock to her house parties. Or maybe it’s the candidate herself, incredibly warm and down to earth.

But it seemed perfectly summed up by the supporter who told me, “you just know when you see the real deal.” For a lot of voters, Kuster seems to be the “real deal.”

Meanwhile, Kuster has just announced endorsements from the Professional Firefighters of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition.

Isn't it nice when the candidate who's better on the issues is running the superior campaign, combining strong grassroots organizing with impressive fundraising?

Ann McLane Kuster for Congress
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