These two should be auditioning for the lead roles in a remake of "The Beverly Hillbillies,"

[NNN0LHI]

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2009/04/republican_party_irrelevance_i.html

Republican Party irrelevance: It's not funny what's happened to the GOP

Posted by Paul Mulshine/ The Star-Ledger April 30, 2009 5:28AM

It is a fact provocative of mirth that the Republican Party is on the verge of being rendered irrelevant in the United States Senate by a comedian.

Al Franken, formerly of "Saturday Night Live" fame, holds a 312-vote lead in the race to represent Minnesota in the Senate. If that state's supreme court upholds the lead, as seems likely, Franken will be seated sometime this summer as the 60th member on the side that votes Democratic. After that, the Dems can do what they want, unchecked by the threat of filibuster.

This would represent a fitting end to the George W. Bush era, as my fellow conservative commentator Larry Auster points out. On his View from the Right blog, Auster dissects the way in which the Democrats picked up that crucial 59th seat that will put them over the top if Franken is seated.

Auster recalls that back in 2004, liberal Republican Arlen Specter was facing a challenge from conservative Pat Toomey in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate primary. Specter began his political life as a Democrat and left the party in the 1960s for reasons of convenience rather than conviction. Nonetheless Bush campaigned actively for him against the conservative congressman.

Specter beat Toomey by a slim margin. And then the other day, he repaid the Republicans by returning to the party where he started out. Now, that's funny! snip

Meanwhile Barack Obama has achieved overnight the popularity among Hispanics to which Bush could only aspire. A Gallup Poll released the other day showed he has an 85 percent approval rating among Latinos. Throw millions more of these voters into the mix and the Dems will be translating "Happy Days Are Here Again" into Spanish.

That's especially true when you look at the potential GOP nominees for president in 2012. At least when the Democrats choose someone from "Saturday Night Live" to run for office, they pick the person who writes the jokes rather than the person who is the butt of the jokes. Sarah Palin's name appears on most top-five lists for the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, right up there with that of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. These two should be auditioning for the lead roles in a remake of "The Beverly Hillbillies," not the leadership of the free world.

[peekaloo]

1. supporting players in a 'Deliverance' remake would be more apt.

;-)