Esquire magazine for the first time in 75 years endorsed a presidential candidate - Barack Obama.
Typically Esquire doesn't do election endorsements but something got to them 2 years ago when they first started endorsing candidates for election - in all seats that had elections going on. A massive effort and a patriotic effort, no doubt. And they did it this year too.
See how Democrats fared.
First, the Presidency.
"We thought this election would be a serious fight over the future of this country, but only one candidate showed up."
However, that doesn't mean they're too hot on Obama, considering his lofty rhetoric of change as an undefined buzzword. They have some valid points on how Obama should have defined change and strongly criticize him for the Rick Warren side show as unbefitting a Democrat especially since it was a foregone conclusion that Warren would not be sympathetic to anyone but a Republican.
Warren responded by giving an interview after the forum in which he compared an evangelical voting for a pro-choice candidate to a Jewish voter supporting a Holocaust denier.
They come down heavily against the ruins that the Bush administration left behind.
For seven years, for the purposes of deceitful war-making and constitutional vandalism, the president chose to preside over "the base," and the devil take the common good. For several years, before the war soured, and New Orleans drowned, and he meddled grotesquely with how a woman's family in Florida chose to allow her to die, and mocked the very institutions he was to protect, this was praised as the height of political acumen. The incompetent president and his wolfish advisors were encouraged and enabled in their various schemes and praised for their cleverness into the bargain. Anyone who questioned what was going on -- any member of what was once memorably described to writer Ron Suskind as the "reality-based community" -- was of no consequence, their voices ignored, their concerns as foreign as those of a tribesman in New Guinea.
They also come down heavily against Senator McCain as "the first Presidential candidate in history to run as a parody of himself" and how his co-option of the "change" message is "profoundly absurd" especially as he "spent the past few years dancing like a monkey on a string, making brave noises in public that he later abandoned in private."
"Not even the Presidency is worth what it's made John McCain do to himself." And that was printed long before the shenanigans of the past couple of weeks.
Now, onto more fun stuff.
First, the 10 Worst Congress critters and yes, there are some Democrats. Click on the link and see why these are the worst.
- Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R), GA
- Rep. Michele Bachmann (R), MN
- Sen. John Cornyn (R), TX
- Sen. Joe Lieberman (I), CT
- Rep. Pete Stark (D), CA
- Rep. William Jefferson (D), LA
- Rep. Steve King (R), IA
- Rep. Joe Baca (D), CA
- Rep. John Murtha (D), PA
- Sen. Ted Stevens (R), AK
Second, the 10 Best Congress critters, and yes, there are some Republicans in the list we would rather not see. Click on the link and see why these are the best.
- Rep. Mike Pence (R), IN
- Rep. Henry Waxman (D), CA
- Rep. Jeff Flake (R), AZ
- Rep. Ike Skelton (D), MI
- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D), RI
- Rep. Mike Simpson (R), ID
- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R), ME
- Sen. Lamar Alexander (R), TN
- Rep. Artur Davis (D), AL
- Sen. Mark Pryor (D), AR
And finally, the long list of endorsements in each district.
Follow each state by state endorsement and reasons. There are some surprises for us.