MALAKA OF THE DAY: JOHN KENNEDY

No, not the late President Jack Kennedy, I'm talking about the party switching opportunist who's running for the US Senate in Louisiana as a Republican. Gret Stet Treasurer John Kennedy has been all over the map in his political lifetime: he was a Roemerista (close your eyes when he's on teevee and he sounds just like Buddy) and then became a moderately liberal Democrat. In 2004, he ran for John Breaux's Senate seat and I voted for him because he was the closest thing to a national Democrat on the ballot and Kennedy was willing to not only endorse John Kerry but to appear with him.

But the times they are a changin' Kennedy has not only switched parties BUT he told the press yesterday about his support of Kerry: "I was miserable the whole time, and I made a mistake. "

Poor baby. Sounds like torture to me, sort of like waterboarding. Oops, that's right, he's now a Repub and that's not torture to them. It's interesting to me that when the Republican party is supposedly on the ascendancy in the Gret Stet, they have to turn to a party switcher to challenge Mary Landrieu. Hell, Kennedy's rhetoric in 2004 was well to the left of Landrieu but he was miserable and made a mistake. That describes the way I feel about my primary vote for him now. But Kennedy *was* better than Chris (Vive Cockfighting) John who's sort of like John Breaux without the charm...

While I may not be wildly enthusiastic about Mary Landrieu's voting record, she's preferable to Kennedy who may well be the worst campaigner this side of John McCain as Oyster delights in pointing out. Landrieu has a small lead in a recent poll and I think that her post-K performance will carry her to victory. I'm also more skeptical than most people about the demographic changes that will supposedly doom her re-election bid. I think that a lot of African-American voters who used to live in NOLA have moved to other parts of the metro area and state. Baton Rouge has been less deep red of late and has even elected a Democratic Congressman albeit a Blue Dog. Also, against incredibly weak opposition PBJ got only 54% of the vote instead of blowing those bozos out.

So, Mr. Kennedy, I hope you enjoy being a Republican and having to explain your former positions to the religious right and the Jindalistas. Now that I've called you a malaka, I feel less miserable about my mistake of having voted for you in the past. 

UPDATE- Oyster has more in a wonderfully titled post, Kennedy: office shopper, flip flopper, party hopper.  

tags: malaka  politics  kennedy  senate  louisiana  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit