"The system is corrupt and broken...exactly how our Founders intended it to be." (VIDEO)

The Daily Show's interview with Senator Ted Kaufman (D-DE).

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Senator Kaufman makes a couple of really good points. One, that the system, as bad as we think it is, was designed to be this way by the founders. Now, granted Mitch McConnell has taken unique advantage of it in ways the founders never intended (and in ways the GOP is going to live to regret), but even with historic GOP obstructionism, this Congress, hell this Senate passed more stuff than any since FDR's time.

Oh, and the President will be in studio, tomorrow. Holla!

The Daily Show Schedule for the D.C. Shows (October 25-28)

Here's the rundown of guests.  I got it on my DVR originally, but now its available at the Daily Show's website.

Monday: Austan Goolsbee (officially now the coolest Economist ever, if that's not a complete contradiction in terms.  Third Daily Show appearance, and he's done Colbert)

Tuesday: Senator Ted Kaufman (D-DE)

Wednesday: Some guy named Barack Obama (hear he's a pretty powerful dude in D.C. circles).

Thursday...ummm, ahhh, nothing yet.

My bet is, depending on how the interview shoot goes on Wednesday, we're looking at a two-parter for the President.  I know Jon's got a lot of questions.

I need both of these guys to be on their A-games.  I need Jon to hit the President with some hard questions.  He can even be a touch angry.  Then I need the President to hit 'em out of the park.

I'm afraid Colbert didn't get the "big" gets for the Nation on his nights: Nicholas Negroponte might be good, with his one laptop per child intiative, but Gary Willis? Apolo Ohno?  Maria Kalman?  Doesn't seem to match the D.C. mood.  Then again, he has been known to stick interviews in the first segment, so we can see some action there.

Rachel Maddow's Interview with the Vice President, Part 2 (VIDEO)

The complete video, including tonight's segment (if you want to watch uninterrupted), can be found here.

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Biden: "Don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative."

No, this is not ego on the Vice-President's part, it's an old quote from Boston Mayor, Kevin White.

This is from Rachel Maddow's complete interview with Vice President Joe Biden conducted earlier tonight. There will be more tomorrow, and I plan to post the rest of the video right here. (And so I have, see Part 4 below)


Part 1:

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Part 2:

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Part 3:

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Part 4 (Segment from Sept. 16, 2010):

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Ed Kilgore: "In 2012, they will face a very different electorate..."

Ed Kilgore (The New Republic) sums up his piece with a very nice warning for the Tea Partiers and the Conservative wingnuts:

In the long run, though, the real test of this year’s conservative triumph will occur immediately after November 2. Whether it’s a matter of Republicans in Congress being forced to write a budget or of Republican presidential candidates having to come up with a positive message and agenda, they will not long enjoy the luxury of moving to the right without consequences. If they take control of the House and begin investigations and maybe impeachment proceedings against the president, their craziness will be apparent. And in 2012, they will face a very different electorate than the old-white-voter–skewed midterm crowd of 2010.

Steve Benen asks "Where are the adults [in the GOP]?"

An interesting little tidbit Steve Benen noticed in a Politico piece, on the results of the Delaware race:

The Politico item on yesterday's primary results was interesting, if for no other reason because it offers a sense of the deep frustration within the Republican Party establishment about the decisions of its base.

[T]he Delaware results, in particular, were a shock to Republicans who were previously able to find some plausible explanation for why one of their incumbents or top candidates had taken a loss. Castle, unlike Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Robert Bennett, went after O'Donnell aggressively, exposed some damning information about what Rove called her "checkered background," and hadn't been the target of notable dissent within the state party.

But voters shrugged their shoulders.

"People didn't care," lamented one GOP strategist involved in the race, referring to the reaction to reams of oppo research on O'Donnell.

Well, no, they didn't. But that's largely the result of the Republican Party telling its most loyal voters not to care about substance, and to prioritize ideology above all.

The GOP had a 95% chance of gaining the Delaware Seat, and then...

From Nate Silver, yesterday (talking about the Delaware race):

The first race in Delaware, where Christine O’Donnell, a political activist and commentator, is running against Michael N. Castle, who has held elected office in Delaware for 30 years as its governor, lieutenant governor and lone United States representative. The contest originally appeared to be a mismatch. Republican strategists were thrilled to have a well-known and manifestly electable candidate like Mr. Castle, who announced his interest in running for the Senate last October. Ms. O’Donnell, meanwhile, was far from a fresh face, having been the Republican nominee for Senate in 2008, when she was badly defeated by Joseph R. Biden Jr., now, of course, the vice president. Ms. O’Donnell was also on the ballot for the Republican Senate primary in 2006, finishing in third place with barely more than 2,500 votes.

But then a strange thing happened. Joe Miller, who had the backing of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, upended the incumbent Lisa Murkowski in the Republican Senate primary in Alaska. Although the outcome arguably should not have been such a surprise – a dearth of polling concealed whatever momentum Mr. Miller might have been gaining – it emboldened Tea Party activists and some other conservatives, who were reminded that in this topsy-turvy electoral cycle, few incumbents and establishment politicians are safe. Mr. Castle — a moderate who is unambiguously a member of the establishment – was next on their target list. And so Ms. O’Donnell, who already had the support of the Tea Party, last week received endorsements from Republican thought-leaders like Ms. Palin, the National Rifle Association and Senator James DeMint of South Carolina.

In contrast to Alaska, however, where Mr. Miller is the favorite to be elected unless Ms. Murkowski finds her way onto the ballot as a Libertarian or write-in candidate, Delaware is a blue state, and the electoral prospects of Mr. Castle and Ms. O’Donnell there are wildly divergent. Whereas Mr. Castle is nearly a 95 percent favorite against the Democratic nominee, Chris Coons, according to last week’s FiveThirtyEight forecasting model, Ms. O’Donnell would have just a 17 percent chance of winning a race against Mr. Coons.

Sorry, a 95 percent chance with Mike Castle. Whoops.

The GOP Circular Firing Squad (Delaware Edition)

The funny thing is that I remember Christine O'Donnell from her appearances on the old Bill Maher Show, Politically Incorrect. (And some operative out there should start mining YouTube for this stuff.)

I remember being amazed that she was fairly attractive yet a complete know-nothing all at once. Strange for back then, now in the Bachmann-Palin-Overdrive era...completely the norm for the GOP.

Well, very little of that has changed, except for the fact that she has beaten Mike Castle for the Republican Nomination for the Senate Seat formerly held by Vice President Biden, and his Chief of Staff Ted Kaufman.

Within an instant, this seat went from a safe Republican pick up, to a clear Democratic Hold.

Roughly, and I'll have better numbers (Nate's numbers) in just a little bit, but Rep. Castle's odds at winning election at 86%. Christine O'Donnell's odds? 17%.

In 2008, when the Vice-President was running for both Vice-President and his Senate seat, and everyone in Delaware knew it, Biden still crushed Mrs. O'Donnell 65-35.

So, please get ready to meet your new Democratic Senator from the great state of Delaware, Christopher Coons.

Still, let's not get too cocky. Please give to Mr. Coons' campaign, and give often. O'Donnell is nuts.

The ongoing Conservative Civil War.

On top of the threats being dropped on GOP Party Leaders, we have this from Jonathan Chait. The establishment GOP is finally coming after the Tea-Bagger GOP. The problem is, is it too late?"

A couple months ago, I mused about the outbreak of tactical radicalism -- the belief that ideological extremism carries no political cost whatsoever -- among Republicans. Why, I asked, were Republicans standing aside and letting primary voters select nominees who had a much lower chance of winning? Where was the Republican establishment?

Now the establishment is taking a stand in Delaware. The establishment choice is Mike Castle, a moderate-ish member of the House who is running for Senate, where he would be a prohibitive favorite in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. Running against him is Tea Party favorite Christine O-Donnell. If she defeats Castle in the GOP primary, O'Donnell would turn a strong likelihood of a Senate pickup into a near-certain loss. And you're starting to see the Republican establishment take her on. The Washington Examiner, the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal editorial page have lambasted O'Donnell, whose ideology closely mirrors their own. The Delaware GOP is going after O'Donnell hard.

But O'Donnell seems to be surging anyway. A new PPP poll has her ahead of Castle. Castle's image has turned sharply negative within the Republican base, and understandably so. In a party in which even the tiniest whisper of a hint of deviation is no longer acceptable -- Robert Bennett was swept out for having briefly considered a bipartisan health care reform that went nowhere -- Castle's votes for cap and trade, pro-choice stance and other acts of moderation are totally intolerable.

Now, the fact is that Castle is the only Republican who can win in a state like Delaware. But that argument is very hard to make to Republican voters in the current climate. They are intoxicated with their belief that they represent The People, that there is no political price for being too conservative. The party establishment has been stoking that intoxication for a long time. Now it's coming back to bite them.

Good choice using a still from the Empire Strikes Back in your article, Jonathan! Star Wars is always appreciated here at Fort McHenry.

Tea Partiers deliver death threats...on other Republicans!!

What?!?!?

The chairman of the Delaware Republican Party received a death threat last week over his support for Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del) over Tea Party challenger Christine O'Donnell in the state's upcoming Senate primary, a party official confirmed to the Huffington Post.

The threat, issued in the form of an email, told chairman Tom Ross that he deserves "a bullet in the head" for backing "political ass-kissing RINO's" [Republicans in name only].

"It is one thing to have your country screwed over by socialists, it is far worse to be backstabbed by people pretending to be your friends," the email read. "We will either rid the GOP of pieces of shit like you, or we will start a new 'Common Sense Conservative' party and render you all useless."

The threat was serious enough to compel Ross to leave his home, temporarily, and to spur an investigation from the Department of Justice said the official with the Delaware GOP (a DoJ official did not immediately return a request for comment). It also was sinister enough to alarm state party officials who are unaccustomed to not just threats of violence but even to heated political contests like the one unfolding in the state's Republican primary.

"It is just scary what is going on right now," the official said. "Tom is a loyal and dedicated Republican officer in Delaware... the position is unpaid and his job as party chairman is to defend and promote the candidates... It is disgusting, it is amazing and it has no place in our democracy."

Granted, normally Tom Ross is an enemy, but he's a political enemy. That's all. He's the opposition. At the end of the day, you want him beaten at the ballot box, and that's it.

Okay, maybe...MAYBE...you go Nyah-Nyah-Nyah, but even that's pushing things.

The guy quoted in the piece is absolutely right, threats like this have no place in our Democracy. If you have half a brain cell in your head I shouldn't have to state the obvious but we're dealing with Teabaggers here.

I hope the Justice Department finds this guy (or gal) and puts them away for a long stretch in the clink. I hope Tom Ross and his family are okay, and are able to get home soon.

Meet your new United States Senator from Delaware...

Gov. Ruth Ann Minner said today she will appointed Ted Kaufman, a longtime, close adviser to Sen. Joe Biden to fill the senator's seat until a 2010 special election.

UPDATE (12:30pm Pacific): The Hill beat me to it.  Nuts.  One of these days!