"He promised that in future campaigns, 'I will always be well financed, and I’ll be well financed early.' He has kept that promise."

The following liberally snipped passages refer to a politician we all know quite well. See if you can guess who "he" is.

Both (consultants) remembered being underwhelmed by their new client ... (he) wasn’t an interesting person ... he had no “aura” to exploit, and “he ... doesn’t make a dominant physical presentation.”

But then these two old hands discovered a less obvious trait in their client that more than compensated for his dearth of God-given political appeal. (The political candidate) was prepared, even eager, to do whatever was necessary to win the election. Neither had ever had such a malleable client. “He was very easy to deal with” (and he was) the "best client” ... "he didn’t argue ... we were absolutely starting from scratch. We could build something [that is, a candidate] just the way we wanted, with no pushback.”

Why was (this politician) so eager to run and win an election?

The truth is that very few of us expect to be at the center of world-changing events when we first file for office, and personal ambition usually has a lot more to do with it than most of us are willing to admit. That was certainly true for me, and I never saw the point in pretending otherwise.

(The politician's) career spans the era in which money has become the dominant force in our elections, and this suits him fine. Money is the most important ingredient in winning elections, (he) decided after that first victory ... "everything else is in second place,” he said in a post-election interview. He promised that in future campaigns, “I will always be well financed, and I’ll be well financed early.” He has kept that promise.

(The candidate) did not formulate his own message to try to win over the voters—again, he left that to his consultants. The message they created was ingenious, entertaining, and factually misleading, and had nothing to do with public policy or political philosophy. Just as soon as it was clear that he had won, he began raising money for his reelection campaign ... he quickly built a substantial bank account, and never stopped looking for more.

Wrong!

It's Mitch McConnell, not Jeff Gahan, though only because the latter hasn't written an autobiography or been the topic of a book ... yet. But when he writes his own book, we can be sure that Bob Caesar will act as publisher.

The Closed Mind of Mitch, by Robert G. Kaiser (The New York Review of Books)

The Long Game: A Memoir
by Mitch McConnell
Sentinel, 278 pp., $28.00

The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell
by Alec MacGillis
Simon and Schuster, 141 pp., $14.00 (paper)

Seeking enthusiasm, Mitch McConnell pays for metaphorical fellatio.

My Google search for "mitch mcconnell slimeball" yielded 1,840,000 results ... or, roughly one for each senatorial election vote cast in Kentucky in 2008.

Thanks to B for the link.

McConnell will pay expenses in return for 'enthusiasm' at events, by Alexandra Jaffe (The Hill)

The Kentucky Republican Party is offering volunteers all-expenses-paid trips to join Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) campaign bus tour and "contribute to an enthusiastic atmosphere" at his events.

In an email sent earlier this month and obtained by The Hill, Taylor Bumgardner, a Kentucky Republican Party regional political director, offers volunteers the opportunity to join McConnell on his tour, which launched Monday. Meals, lodging and transportation are included in the trip.

"Senator McConnell is seeking volunteers to join him on a 3-day campaign bus tour around the state on October 20-22 to show our support for Kentucky coal. You would join local supporters in contributing to an enthusiastic atmosphere at each of his events," she wrote.

Bussing in supporters isn't a new tactic for McConnell ...

Kerry Stemler: Once an asshole, always an asshole.

Three years later, only two of the faces have changed

In Louisville Courant, Curtis Morrison reports from California.

Still no word from my attorney, meanwhile Kerry Stemler wants attention

 ... In the meantime, Joe Gerth with the Courier-Journal published what I would characterize as a pretty fair profile of me.

Laughable that Kerry Stemler thought he should have input, since we've technically never met.

A piece of oligarch-fluffing work, that Kerry Stemler. Presumably the carnage of the ORBP, which he has done so much to unleash on the region, is to be lauded because it emanates from self-effacing and rational motives.

Spare me, little man.

If memory serves, it wasn't just Curtis Morrison that Stemler wouldn't consider debating during the run-up to the bridges debacle. It was anyone and everyone expressing opposition to the concrete, steel and automotive sycophant's cadre of boondoggle fetishists -- you know, those wild and crazy suit wearers who drink a single watered-down margarita at a chain Tex-Mex place and then want to jump Ayn Rand's dusty bones while wearing a garter fashioned from toll chits.

Here's what Kerry Stemler has to say about Curtis Morrison, as reported by Joe Gerth. Stemler's fascistic big-business power trip is about to lay waste to the metro area. Remember this small factoid as you read.

“Do you think sometimes people want their 15 minutes of fame?” asked Kerry Stemler, former co-chairman of the Louisville and Southern Indiana Bridges Authority, a project about which (Curtis) Morrison has been outspoken.

Stemler doesn’t have much sympathy for Morrison ...

... While Stemler said he disagreed with (Tyler) Allen — who also worked against building the downtown bridge — he always felt that Allen was sincere. But he said Morrison seemed to be opposing the project just to oppose it.

“If I was ever asked to debate Curtis, I wouldn’t have done it,” Stemler said. “He was too irrational in his motives.”

John Dean should know Nixonian, and the McConnell tape ain't it.

Where else but the Commonwealth might we expect to experience such a heavenly confluence of pure entertainment?

At The Ville Voice: It’s Progress Kentucky Scandal Round-Up Time

Who knew the story of the Progress Kentucky-Mitch McConnell scandal would end up involving guns, drugs, murder, gay escorting and full-on mental illness?

It’s a story so crazy no one would believe it without documentation to back it up.

Here’s a round-up of our coverage for those who still haven’t dipped their toe into the water ...

What's being lost in all this is that Mitch McConnell is an incredible dirtbag, and far more Nixonian than whatever bumbling antics are being directed against him.

John Dean: The McConnell Tape Isn't Watergate and May Not Be Illegal, by David Corn (Mother Jones)

This is interesting. John Dean, Richard Nixon's White House counsel and a star Watergate witness, has weighed in on the McConnell tape controversy. His take: This ain't Watergate, and the making of the tape probably wasn't illegal.

Mitch McConnell is corrected by Charles P. Pierce.

The culminating disappointment of Indiana's political drift toward quasi-Neanderthal Mussolini cult is that it prevents proper, civilized guffaws at Kentucky's senior tool.

In Which I Help Mitch McConnell, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

... Hold on a second there, terrapin head. I consider one of the curators of that most precious of all political pejoratives — "Nixonian" ... (and) Nixon would laugh at your outrage.

Mitch McConnell cracks me up.

Arlen Specter has switched parties, and Kentucky's slightly less objectionable of two right-wing Republican dinosaurs has declared it a grave national emergency:

Not long after Specter met privately with Republican senators to explain his decision, the party's leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, said the switch posed a "threat to the country." The issue, he said, "really relates to ... whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority party to have whatever it wants, without restraint, without a check or balance."

Whatever. It didn't bother Mitch when the GOP had the same majority, did it? Then it was righteous and patriotic, wasn't it? Now, I'm just hopeful that Al Franken gets past the latest legal challenge mounted by the party that once urged Democrats (in 2000) to back away fro recounts and lawsuits for the good of the country.

Hypocrites. Meanwhile, thanks to JR for this link: More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops, by Laurie Goodstein (New York Times).

Polls show that the ranks of atheists are growing. The American Religious Identification Survey, a major study released last month, found that those who claimed “no religion” were the only demographic group that grew in all 50 states in the last 18 years.