All elections, but especially low-interest midterm elections, turn on certain meta-narratives. While individual races may be decided on local issues or through the talent and resources of the candidates, the overall trend on election night is driven by stories the electorate is telling themselves. In the leadup to the 2006 midterms, Democratic activists pressed the argument that the Republicans and the president had no accountability because they controlled everything. The argument that a divided government will be a better government is dubious at best, but it’s the Republicans’ main selling point. The way to combat that argument is to convince the public that the Republicans won’t provide accountability but obstruction, gridlock, and pointless witchhunts. In this effort, Rand Paul will be a gift that keeps on giving. But probably no one could be a bigger gift than Orly Taitz:
Orly Taitz is an Israeli émigré who has spent the past two years filing lawsuits challenging President Barack Obama’s right to be president on the grounds that he was born in Kenya. In the process, she has earned herself $20,000 in court fines.
Now she’s running for the GOP nomination for secretary of state, and with her establishment-backed primary opponent mounting a less-than-stellar campaign against her, operatives say there’s a chance she could win.
“It’d be a disaster for the Republican party,” says James Lacy, a conservative GOP operative in the state. “Can you imagine if [gubernatorial candidate] Meg Whitman and [candidate for Lt. Gov.] Abel Maldonado — both of whom might have a chance to win in November — had to run with Orly Taitz as secretary of state, who would make her cockamamie issues about Obama’s birth certificate problems at the forefront of her activities?”
“There is no Republican candidate for statewide office that would be willing to have her campaign with them,” says Adam Probolsky, a spokesman for the Orange County Republican Party.
I hope Taitz wins her election tonight because it will shine a bright light on what the Republican Party is becoming. We can hang Taitz and Paul around the necks of Republicans in every race this fall. And it will be very, very helpful in beating back the idea that we’d benefit from a divided government.
