Beyond Lindsey Graham

I take no joy from Lindsey Graham dying.  I was sorry to see the news.  I also shed no weeping tears.  My hope was always that he’d be beaten in his upcoming election.  And it turns out that that was more possible than I thought.  More on this in a moment.

 I wish I could remember the specifics, but at this point, it’s too distant.  But about 15-20 years ago, Lindsey Graham was seen as one of the few “reasonable” Republicans.  Because he was “reasonable” on a few issues that anyone except a far-right ideologue should be “reasonable” about.  Still, even in those days it was a rarity in the pre-MAGOP Republican Party.  And I remember having a conversation with a friend who said how much he liked Lindsey Graham, for being one of the few good guys in the Republican Party.  And I replied – no, not me, I thought he appeared somewhat even-handed on the surface, but not underneath.  Yes, he was “reasonable” on a few issues anyone should be “reasonable” about – and I appreciated that – but I didn’t think a person gets many points on basic reasonableness, even when admittedly it’s rare in your party, especially when it was just an exception for Lindsey Graham, because when on pretty much everything else he opted for being far-right, histrionic, disingenuous and two-faced.  In the years since, after Lindsey Graham called Trump "a kook, a nut-job...a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” and then became an unrestrained high priest for the kook, nut-job, a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot, smearing his once-close friends, going back on his word and losing most of his remaining decency, I’ve always been glad of that conversation from long ago.  But I’m still sorry for him dying.  I don’t mean that snarkily.  I’m very sorry for the sad news.  I’ll just leave the eulogies for him to the MAGOPs and Trump, at least whatever he decides to muster as sounding like emotion. 

But with Graham’s passing, it does have imminent political ramifications.  And yes, I know he only just passed away yesterday – but those political ramifications are actually imminent.  And I’m sure that behind the scenes the MAGOP is already frantically starting to consider them.  All of them.

That starts with a very surprising poll for the South Carolina Senate race that got released just before Lindsey Graham had passed away.  It showed him with 48% and his opponent Dr. Annie Andrews at 45%, with a margin of error of ±3.7%.  To be fair, it was an internal poll from Andrews’ side, so admittedly it’s not definitive.  But the most notable number was how much she had tightened the race, which last December Public Policy Polling had had her at just 36%.

I didn’t realize the race had become that close.  That said, in Graham’s last Senate race, the polls had Jaime Harrison very close – and Graham ended up winning by 14 points.  So, a close poll with Graham and South Carolina doesn’t inherently mean much.  But – that was a presidential year when Trump was on the ballot of that deeply Red sate.  And this race is a year when Trump’s national approval is just 34%, and Democrats are regularly overperforming.

 What will happen now in South Carolina is interesting.  The MAGOP governor will appoint a replacement, though that would only replace the seat for six months.  The thing is, it’s hard to see the governor fill the seat with the leading MAGOP…since there is no “leading MAGOP” -- and further, anyone in South Carolina who wants the nomination in the General Election will scream bloody murder if a competitor is named by the governor.  Which means it seems most likely that a placeholder will be named.  Which means there won’t be an “incumbent” running for MAGOPs on the November ballot.  But – who knows?  The only thing we do know is South Carolina has already had its primary.  And they will have a special primary to select the party’s nominee.  That will be on August 11.  If no candidate gets at least 50% support, a runoff will be held August 25.

Meanwhile, the General Election is November 3!  And Annie Andrews will keep running through all this.

 Now, South Carolina is, of course, a very Red state.  But that recent poll had the race very tight – against a longtime incumbent.  Annie Andrews has had a long time to build up her public awareness in the state.  And at the moment there’s no MAGOP candidate yet on the horizon. Which is why it’s notable that deep Red South Carolina (bizarrely) may actually be added to the list of states that could, possibly – unexpectedly – be flipped.

And there’s more to this that MAGOPs now have to contend with –

Even if Democrats can’t flip South Carolina – and it’s amazing that it’s an “if” -- MAGOPs will now have to put money in the race.  In deep Red South Carolina!  Money that they were expecting to spend elsewhere.  Like (especially) Maine, to protect the seat of the unpopular Susan Collins.  But the MAGOP can’t afford to lose…South Carolina!

But ramifications go beyond this.

 Lindsey Graham was on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which starts hearings this Wednesday for Todd Blanche to be Attorney General. So, the MAGOP now only has a one-vote margin.  If just a single MAGOP votes 'no', the nomination stalls in committee – and two members of the committee are Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, who Trump helped defeat!  Tillis has said he expects to approve Blanche (though I guess that can change), but Cornyn is on the fence.

Further, MAGOPs are now down two votes in the Senate overall, with Mitch McConnell not there.  So, their margin is 51-47.  That’s not a big deal, since South Carolina’s governor will likely appoint someone soon – but even once that happens, they still can only lose two votes on anything now.  And they have to deal with Tillis, Cornyn and Bill Cassidy, none of whom likely have much love for Trump, after he helped end their Senate careers.  Plus Susan Collins, who now has to be very careful with her voting, as well as the more independent Lisa Murkowski.  So, that’s five votes that are shaky, and they can only lose two.  In fairness, there aren’t likely to be all that many bills to vote on.  But there are a few notable one.  The SAVE Act, of course, and a Defense bill coming up.

It turns out that a great many things could, right now, be finer than to be in Carolina.

Let's Do Lunch

On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, co-hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild welcome Julie Haggerty and Robert Hays/  As the show writes, “SURELY you can't be serious that Phil and David welcome the stars of ‘Airplane! to ‘Naked Lunch’ -- and don't call us Shirley! The episode starts off with Julie, then Robert makes his entrance as they discuss everything from making the original film and their current live tour together where they show and discuss the 1980 comedy classic. And eventually Monica Horan Rosenthal and her friend Dani Modisette join this joy ride.”

It’s a very fun and charming episode, filled with some terrific behind-the-scenes tales.  I especially enjoyed their stories about Leslie Nielsen who I worked with on “The Naked Gun” films – and I will only say that their stories about his love of his whooping cushion “fart machine” are 100% true, he absolutely loved it and carried it with him everywhere, even on set.  (He’d hide it under his belt.)  And he was as enjoyable a guy as they make him appear in this conversation.  Though I didn’t work on “Airplane!” with the ZAZ team (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker), I did work on four movies with David Zucker, and his “Rules of Comedy” overlap with all they say here.

Two comments on things said in the conversation:

When asked who the guy was in the taxi cab that’s left running the whole movie, the best they can remember is that he was a politician involved with “Proposition 13,” a very controversial ballot measure to block property taxes from being raised.  Actually, that’s only sort of right – his name was Howard Jarvis, but he wasn’t a politician.  He was just a longtime advocate for the property tax measure (that was a bit more contentious than it might sound. It had great benefits of keeping property taxes down, but also problematic for not allowing the state to have the income needed to make improvements.)  And Jarvis was sort of a blowhard character who the ZAZ guys wanted to have fun with, which is why they chose him to be they guy suck in the taxi with the meter running the whole time.

Also, they briefly discuss Ken Finkleman, who wrote and directed the sequel to “Airplane!,” and no one seems to know anything about him, other than he also did “Grease 2,” and so they all basically dismiss him.  As they note, the ZAZ guys didn’t want to be involved with the “Airplane!” sequel and distanced themselves from it.  But that aside, Ken Finkleman was a talented Canadian filmmaker who, among other things, wrote, directed and starred in an edgy, dark, wonderful comedy series called “The Newsroom.”  This was not the later HBO series, but ran for three seasons on PBS from 1996-2005, and in between they made a two-hour TV movie.  (Finkleman was asked in an interview about the title, and said that HBO asked him for permission to re-use the title.  He said he was okay with that because he didn’t plan to revive his series.)  It was done is a sort of documentary style that predated the original British version of “The Office.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ear3_aOdQsg

Let's Do Lunch

On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, co-hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild welcome Don Was -- record producer, musician and Blue Note Records President for the first of a two-part conversation about, as they write, “Don's remarkable life in music and all that jazz. They start by paying tribute to the late great Brian Wilson, the subject of Don's brilliant 1995 documentary, ‘I Just Wasn't Made For These Times.’ Coming in Part 2: Don talks about working with Bonnie Raitt, The B-52s, John Mayer, Was (Not Was) and much more.”

NL Don Was

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