RUTHFULLY YOURS

Perhaps the best thing about the unhappy Barney Frank’s victory on Tuesday was that, to borrow an expression, we will have Barney Frank to kick around for two more years.

As you all must know by now, that career politician was reelected to a sixteenth term on Tuesday, with the lowest percentage of the vote of any incumbent Massachusetts House Democrat this year.  He won with 54% of the vote, his lowest showing since his first election in 1980.  But, that self-righteous partisan did not take his victory gracefully.

I couldn’t watch the whole thing.  He seemed, as Michael Graham put it, “outraged that he had to run a race at all”, even calling Republican campaigns “beneath the dignity of a democracy”.  ”This”, Graham adds, “from a guy who ran millions of dollars in attack ads, repeatedly insulted Bielat, and shouted down his own constituents.“

“In this train wreck of a victory speech,” Ed Morrissey observes, “Frank spent more time attacking the media and his opponent, Sean Bielat, than most losing candidates do in conceding their races.”  Glenn Reynolds thinks Barney “is actually hurt that he had to take it, not just dish it out this time around. But the Tea Party movement has not yet begun to dish . . .“

Glenn encourages us to muck self-righteous politicians like Barney, “don’t treat them with the respect they — wrongly — feel is their due. They’re not used to being challenged. Keep it up, and odds are they’ll either quit, or embarrass themselves fatally.” Well, that’s just what we’ve been doing her at GayPatriot, mocking the mean-spirited man from Massachusetts.

And we’re not going to let up.

Barney may have survived this bout, but Sean Bielat performed better than any challenger Barney has had since he took office.  Barney, he’s coming back.  And we’ve got his back.

Barney’s no longer chair of the House Financial Services Committee, so he won’t be able to raise as much cash in 2012 as he did this year.  And Bielat will be a seasoned candidate.  Not just that, redistricting may give Barney some less friendly territory.

Bruce, I think we just found our first endorsement for the 2012 elections.