Trust me, after taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money.

That should be the Republican Party’s slogan.

So come August, when it’s really hot, does that mean that the RPV is wrong?

Remember, kids: the plural of “anecdote” is not “fact.”

The theory behind the simple algorithm is that bill cosponsorships is a form of a social network. Whenever a legislator cosponsors another legislator’s bill, has his bill cosponsored by another legislator’s bills, and the total overlap between one legislator’s copatroning relationships and another’s, allows one to see with which legislators a legislator has the greatest number of sympathetic connections, legislatively-speaking.

Under this ranking, the six least partisan (that is, most likely to work with Republicans) Democratic members of the senate are, from least partisan on down, Edd Houck, Chuck Colgan, John Edwards, Roscoe Reynolds, John Miller, and Phil Puckett. Of those six, all but Edwards voted for HB10. In that regard, this system seems to have performed pretty well.

Incidentally, the most partisan Democratic members of the senate appear to be Mary Margaret Whipple, Patsy Ticer, and Chap Petersen.

One more fun fact: Fully half of the Republican members of the senate are ranked as less partisan than Democrats. Robert Hurt is the single least partisan member of the senate, again, in terms of bill cosponsorship relationships.

McDonnell’s appearance runs from the 1:20 mark through 3:10. It’s pretty funny, and encapsulates my response to his Potemkin SOTU.

Perriello to the rescue. He’s introducing a simple bill—and I do mean simple; it’s 10 lines long—that would prohibit corporations with foreign shareholders from contributing to campaigns.

I’ve only mulled over this for a few hours, but there’s really nothing to dislike about this. It fixes a significant loophole in the law in a simple, elegant way.

While I’m on the topic, here’s the good news about allowing corporations to donate to campaigns: it’ll force repatriation of some of these good-for-nothing faux-American companies who have moved their corporate headquarters into a mailbox in Bermuda. Stanley Tools was all set to move, but the outcry was great enough to keep them…but it doesn’t matter, I’ll never buy anything from them. Remember Tyco? They weaseled out of $400M/year in taxes by having their business in a country that they didn’t go to, where they had no offices, and required no services. If anti-American companies like these can’t get any skin in the game without paying U.S. taxes, maybe they’ll rethink this strategy.

That’s the worst silver lining I’ve ever ginned up.

But that’s basically the opposite of what we’re seeing here in the fifth congressional district, where at least two of the Republican candidates are just rich guys self-financing their campaigns. Lawrence Verga was the first to do it. Having just moved to the district, he’s totally certain that he should be in charge. We can see that not many other people agree with him, since he’s had to give his campaign $226,579 just to get it off the ground. (A bunch of that went to Joe the Unlicensed Plumber to buy an endorsement.) The rest of his money—a grand total of $11,025—came from thirteen people, eight of whom live in the district, $6,250 in all.

Now Jim McKelvey has given his campaign a half million dollars, too. Haven’t heard of McKelvey? Well, that’s basically his problem in a nutshell. But, don’t worry, he’s got other supporters. Well, another supporter, singular. A Roanoke packaging salesman who gave him a grand.

For comparison, Feda Kidd Morton—for my money, far and away the most unhinged candidate in this race, and definitely the most vocal—has raised $14,301 from a grand total of seventeen people. I’ve worked on congressional campaigns in the pre-primary phase, and watched closely many more. Seventeen people contributing is not good. Seventeen people pledging $14,301 is cause to consider entering the race. Several months into the race, those kind of numbers are cause to pack up and go home.

But what’s even worse is McKelvey and Verga who, in dollar values or number of contributions, are in terrible shape when compared to the wretchedly unsupported Morton. (These three are the only candidates who have filed their reports yet. They’re due Sunday. No doubt some of those will be equally revealing.) As I’ve written, there’s nothing wrong with candidates contributing to their own campaigns. But when they use their money as a substitute for actual support, or to provide the appearance of support where there is none, that’s a sign of a fatally flawed campaign. In 2001 Mark Warner pumped millions into his own race, but not until October, and not as a means of feigning support, but to supplement his own already-healthy coffers.

With these kinds of numbers from candidates desperately jostling to be the Tea Party darling, it’s awfully tough to why in the world they’d want to tie themselves to such a wretchedly ineffective group. Given the well-lined pockets of McKelvey and Verga, the reality of Tea Party dynamics is becoming clear: they’re exactly like any other party. They talk a good game about being salt-of-the-earth types, but it’s the rich folks who run for office, trying to blend in with their supporters. The trouble is that their supporters don’t have any money. They’re just the proletariat, so star-struck by ostensible politicians listening to them—so utterly naïve about the political process—that they’ll hang teabags from their ears to demand that the government cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans who, not coincidentally, are the very politicians standing in front of them.

We’ve got a word for that: suckers.

[Robert] Hurt is a likable person personally, [Mike] McPadden said, but “Democrats and moderates like Hurt will vote to raise taxes when the going gets tough.”

That’s right—if the U.S. were (say) invaded by China, that namby-pamby Tom Perrillo or the spineless Robert Hurt would probably do something pathetic, like fund the war with a two point tax increase on the wealthy. When the going gets tough, it takes a real man like Mike McPadden to recognize a great business opportunity for Chinese language tutors. The free market to the rescue again!