Archive for March 3rd, 2010
CA Senate Primary: the Mickey Kaus Club
While Jerry Brown drew the lion’s share of attention yesterday when he formally threw his hat in the ring (click here to see said announcement), California’s Democratic Senate primary also grew by one.
Mickey Kaus
Now challenging incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer: Slate e-magazine blogger Mickey Kaus.
Writing in the Washington Examiner, political analyst extraordinaire Michael Barone neatly sums up the underdog candidacy:
“Mickey insists he is a strong Democrat, but he’s an idiosyncratic one: he supports current Democratic health care legislation, but opposes comprehensive immigration legislation that includes legalization of illegal immigrants, and he strongly supported welfare reform in the 1990s.”
So who is Mickey Kaus? A Los Angeles area native, his father was the late California Supreme Court Justice Otto Kaus. A decade ago, the son launched Kausfiles, a political blog that subsequently was absorbed by Slate.
A self-identified neoliberal, Kaus has long enjoyed doing what political bloggers relish most: tormenting politicians in ways mainstream journalists won’t. Among his preferred targets: then-recall candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger and one-time Democratic standard-bearer John Kerry.
Should he get any traction in the Democratic primary, Team Boxer won’t lack for ammo. According to Kaus’ Wiki bio, he’s ”skeptical of affirmative action, labor unions (particularly automotive workers’ unions and teachers’ unions), and gerrymandering of congressional districts.”
Cynics have suggested that Kaus is only running as a media stunt meant to draw traffic to his Web site. In fact, the blogger told the Huffington Post that the goal is indeed to get noticed — and ”to give voice to Democratic counter-orthodoxy”.
“I’m a Democrat and I’m unhappy with the party’s rigidity on a couple of important issues,” he said, pointing to the Employee Free Choice Act, immigration policy and the sway of teacher’s unions over education policy as three prime examples. “I kept running into Democrats who said, ‘I’ve been a Democrat all my life but I don’t like what the party is doing here.’”
