The Jesse Benton bribery scandal may be the funniest bribery scandal since Rod Blagojevich. It tarnishes three key Republicans at once – Mitch McConnell, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul. Four if you want to count Kent Sorensen, but he’s only important in Iowa.
The guy holding the baby? Huge crook
I hope it’s enough to finally bury Mitch McConnell, but slimy, corrupt Republicans can be harder to kill than cockroaches, and McConnell himself didn’t do anything illegal. He may be a poor judge of character, having Benton as a campaign manager – more likely he’s a good judge of character and figured a slimy weasel was exactly what he needed as a campaign manager – but, either way, he’s not directly involved.
Ditto Rand Paul. Benton was probably going to manage the Rand Paul for president campaign, and that’s not going to happen now, but Rand will find someone just as lacking in ethics. He may take a brief hit in the polls, he may get a little bit of mud on his suit, but 2016 is a long way away and nobody will remember this little kerfuffle by then.
Rand Paul is old, he’s not going for the top job again, so unless it can be proven that he personally knew about the bribe, this won’t hurt him much at all.
The real victim is the one who was victimized at the time it all happened – Michele Bachmann. She probably would have lost in the Iowa caucuses anyway – mistaking John Wayne for John Wayne Gacy and accidentally reminding the world that her home town’s most famous son is a notorious serial killer and cannibal is a pretty serious faux pas. The actor John Wayne was born -as was I, which is why I mention it – in Winterset, Iowa; not Waterloo.
But the bribe didn’t help. Here’s the story. Benton, who was then Ron Paul’s campaign manager, gave $73,000 to Kent Sorensen, Michele Bachmann’s campaign manager and Iowa State Senator, to switch sides and support Paul.
As I said, she probably would have lost anyway, but what if she hadn’t? What if she’d gone on to get the nomination, and won the presidency? It could be that Republican corruption saved us from a seriously bad Republican president. Thanks, Jesse Benton.
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