Well, maybe not for nothing, but not what it's advertised for -- and let me tell you, these guys aren't dumb (enough to not know what they're doing here).
On Tuesday, BarbinMD asked what people who contributed to Norm Coleman's Senate campaign think about the fact that he'll be using campaign funds for his own legal bills.
That's a question Coleman shouldn't be facing alone. Not when so many prominent Republicans, from John Boehner to Michael Steele with half the Senate Republican caucus in between, made him this lovely fundraising video back in mid February when it was already clear how his court case was faring. (That would be "badly.")
If you took them at face value, while knowing that Coleman had lost and was going to keep losing, you'd think they were awfully naive or something. But no. That's not it -- they just have other priorities, as Judd Gregg made more than clear this week. Eric Kleefeld explains:
But in a 99-member Senate, 40 votes are enough to keep Democrats from cutting off debate on major legislation. "Usually you need 41 votes to get anything done around here. But right now, you can do a lot with 40 votes," said Judd Gregg.
In a 99-seat Senate, 40 votes isn't nearly enough to "get anything done." Not at all. It is rather the bare minimum necessary to make sure nothing gets done. And it explains why so many Republican senators will routinely vote against cloture on major Democratic agenda items. It's called a filibuster--and it isn't typically thought of as way to "get stuff done."
You'll seldom hear Republicans admit that this is their legislative strategy--even though it manifestly is their legislative strategy--but sometimes obvious and uncomfortable truths are hard to deny, and slip out accidentally. And it's an important truth.
This strategy is crucial to understanding the GOP's gambit in the Minnesota Senate race. When that issue is decided, the Senate will have 100 members, and if Franken is declared the winner (as is widely expected) the Republicans' 40 votes will no longer be enough on their own to mount a filibuster.
That's what all these Republicans were raising money for -- months of obstruction, not Norm Coleman's next term. If, along the way, some of the money goes to criminal defense lawyers "to respond to allegations in the lawsuits," lawsuits in which Coleman is of course in no way implicated, well, I guess that was a risk John Boehner and John Cornyn and the rest of them were willing to take.