Before we get into the reckless speculation, some background from the Rush and Malloy item detailing the tales of gubernatorial sex provided by a hooker named "Annie," who also serviced Eliot Spitzer back in the day. She says that the first time she met the mystery governor was on a date with a client named "Michael":

"We went to a restaurant where the governor was dining at another table with two or three other men. Michael said the governor was a client of his. He introduced me to him. I thought it was odd that he'd introduce someone he'd hired, but the governor was very gracious. It was a brief meeting. Later, Michael and I went to an apartment our agency kept. We had sex.

"A couple of days later, Michael booked another appointment. He was supposed to come to the same apartment. I buzzed him in. When I opened the door, it wasn't Michael. It was the governor. He was smiling. I knew what was happening. I was okay with it.

"He was a very standard client. He didn't take the full hour. There was no exchange of money. Michael handled the payment.

"I had two more dates with the governor. Never in public. Always for just an hour, around dinner time. He'd arrive at the apartment in a suit. I never had a problem with him, like I did with Spitzer. He was always nice. There wasn't a lot of conversation. It wasn't a girlfriend experience, but he was relaxed. He was very appreciative, like I was giving him a sort of affection he wasn't getting elsewhere. Later I found out he was married. His wife is quite prominent in her own right."

So, if the story told by Annie is true, there's another hooker-nailing governor running around out there. Even worse, he may have accepted sex with a prostitute as a gift from a lobbyist. Now, taking into consideration what we've learned from "Annie," that the mystery governor is a man who is married to a "prominent" woman, let's take a few educated guesses as to who this may be and assign some Vegas-style odds as we go.


Arnold Schwarzenegger (10-1) Knowing everything that we know, that Arnold's wife is indeed "prominent" and that he's a noted lover of ass, Arnold is an obvious front-runner in this contest. However, what he does have in potential hooker-nailing credentials he lacks in geographical proximity, otherwise he's probably be a 2-1 or 3-1 favorite, though Arnold has made trips to New York during his time as governor of California.


Ed Rendell (15-1) The thought of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell having sex is utterly horrifying, so he's one we'd rather not even think about. However, he's only a hour or so away from New York City by train and his wife, Marjorie Rendell, is a federal judge who sits on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, so he sort of makes sense.


Jim Gibbons (25-1) The Nevada governor's wife divorced the Republican after she busted him for carrying on with the wife of a Reno doctor, which she claims was only one of many affairs he had during their marriage. A few months after the divorce, Gibbons made news for stepping out with Playboy model Leslie Durant. So yeah, outside of the geographical proximity disadvantage thing, Gibbons is an obvious candidate. But with all of that said, aren't there hookers in Nevada he could have sex with, you know, legally?


Deval Patrick (50-1) The governor of Massachusetts, whose wife is a "prominent" attorney, appears to be quite spry for a 52 year-old man. And like Rendell, he's not that far away.


Tim Pawlenty (75-1) The Minnesota governor is considered by many to be a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, thus he merits consideration. Period.


Mark Sanford (100-1) Sanford, a former Wall Streeter with roots in New York, obviously loves to bone women not named Jenny Sanford, but he seems to be more of a lovey affair-haver. The fact that "Annie" said that this governor wasn't interested in talking or a "girlfriend experience" all but eliminates him. Sanford would definitely want to talk about his feelings. And cuddle.


Bobby Jindal (500-1) There's actually no way we could ever conceive of the Louisiana governor sexing with whores (We tend to think of him as an amoeba...he just splits in order to reproduce), but we had to throw him in here, just because.


Charlie Crist (1,000,000-1) There's just no way.


If there are any potential whore-mongering candidates we've missed that you feel strongly about, feel free to offer your own suggestions in the comments.

Eliot Spitzer Not My Only Governor Says Hooker Who Worked For Kristin Davis [Daily News]
pic via

Life, and the news, can't be all car chases, legislative gridlock, affairs by prominent Republicans, unrest overseas, war, and Sarah Palin. It seems eminently understandable that the circus surrounding the early death of a terribly famous man would continue to be considered newsworthy. But no! It is all the liberals' fault, or something.

First, Albany Republicans refused the man his moment of silence last week. Then, New York congressman Pete King called him a pervert. Now, T-Paw, the outgoing Minnesota governor who figures a national career awaits him if he just hangs in there and doesn't attack Letterman or go to Argentina, weighs in:

"[It's] time to move on." He opened his portion of the show talking, unprompted, about the Jackson coverage. "You can't get away from it. ... I've had enough of it.

"It's time to pay our respects and move on."

Are we alone in not being bothered, really at all, by the Jackson coverage, which has already tapered off, and which will be much more muted after the funeral, at least until the toxicology report comes back? We are liberal media elites, though, and so our sympathies, as always, lie with perverts.

(This is not even counting the various hundreds of dumb conservative bloggers who took Jackson's death to be some sort of MSM/Obama plot against them, or something. And here we thought it helped Mark Sanford!)

Sad Republican strategist Mark McKinnon has been handicapping the Republican field over at The Daily Beast. So far, he's identified both Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford as Ones to Watch just days before they admitted extramarital affairs. And then he called on both of them to resign. It is hard, strategizing for this bunch of losers! So let's look at the rest of his list and wonder what will be!

Haley Barbour: Barbour is McKinnon's new favorite, because he is the opposite of Barack Obama. He is a fat old white Southerner who used to be a lobbyist. So, as you can imagine, he will definitely help with that whole "GOP is only the party of old white Southerners now" thing. But McKinnon is pretty sure that the next election will actually be held on opposite day, which will definitely improve Haley's chances.

But there is a problem: he is a crooked lobbyist with crooked lobbyist children!

Tim Pawlenty: Tim is the Governor of Minnesota. He is a charming cipher. He is completely inoffensive. He would maybe convince Republicans that they could put some more upper midwestern states back in play.

But there is a problem: even being a charming cipher was not enough to net Pawlenty a majority of votes cast in either of the elections he won. And now he is retiring, rather than face possible defeat. Meanwhile, the state has gone completely broke. And he made a bridge collapse. Also he's on the road toward revealing some embarrassing personal secret: claiming he has nothing to hide and almost challenging people to dig something up.

Newt Gingrich: People have heard of him, but they have also forgotten why they used to hate him, mostly. He likes to pretend to be full of exciting new ideas for remaking the party. He is an elder statesman. He, uh, hasn't cheated on his wife lately.

But there is a problem: he's Newt fucking Gingrich.

Mike Huckabee: He's a charming, roly-poly former Arkansas governor with his own talk show on Fox. He used to be fat, then he got skinny, and now he is kinda fat again. He is friends with Chuck Norris. A lot of liberals find him surprisingly tolerable, and he is more than willing to charm them without losing his Conservative Christian Cred. He plays the bass.

But there is a problem: he says a lot of dumb shit and is hard to take seriously, especially now that he's doing his "Conservative White Male Oprah" thing at Fox.

Sarah Palin: She is really famous, and really good at getting on TV, and also she is a lady. She has those kids, and that husband, and a lot of people seem to think she is a wonderful lady. Also she talks funny, which appeals to millions of Americans who also talk funny.

But there is a problem: she is really fucking dumb and no amount of media training can ever make her appear confident and prepared, which is weird, considering her local news background.

Mitt Romney: He has money, and nice hair.

But there is a problem: he is a Mormon!

But that is not actually the best argument for Mitt. The best argument for Mitt is that, barring news that he secretly slept with Joe the Plumber, he basically already has this locked up.

This is how Republican primaries work: if there is a Republican President or Vice President who would like the job, he gets the nomination. If not, the guy who came in second in the last contested primary gets the nomination. (Unless it's Pat Buchanan.) This is the way they have done things since World War II. It means the candidate will be Mitt Romney (or maybe—maybe!—Mike Huckabee). All this John Ensign and Mark Sanford talk was bullshit even before they all took themselves out of the running by sleeping around.

But, you know, good luck to Haley Barbour.

Pawlenty's numbers in Minnesota have been trending a bit downward of late, though a third term was still a definite possibility against a largely uninspiring slate of potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Unfortunately, Tim was trying to balance his newfound popularity in the national Republican party with his reputation as a moderate back in Minnesota.

A realistic moderate seeking a third term would probably just fucking sign the papers that allowed Al Franken to be seated as a Senator, which most Minnesotans support. The friendly future of the Republican party would fight tooth and nail to let Norm Coleman take it all the way to the US Supreme Court.

So! What is Tim's end game here? Who the hell knows. He can't be a Senator for years still—he had time to get part of a third term in before losing to Amy Klobuchar in 2012—and the House is a step down from being a Governor. Maybe he just wanted to salvage his career before the Minnesota economy finished completely, utterly tanking? Maybe he'll get an hour-long Sunday show on Fox? (Horn O' Pawlenty!) Either way, now he's free to be a pain in the ass to would-be-senator Stuart Smalley.

"I'd have to see," he said when asked about the Alaska governor, and suggested he might support Louisiana Governor Bobby "Kenneth the Page" Jindal or Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Anyone hear the sound of a bus running over someone?

The GOP hasn't won Minnesota in a long, long time. Minnesota is, in fact, the only state in the entire US to not go for Reagan either time. The last time the state went Republican was in 1972—before that, 1956. So if the Republicans want to recreate that Eisenhower magic, they could do worse than to pick a Minnesota politician.

But Pawlenty is not actually particularly loved in Minnesota. He has a 54% approval rating, which is great, but Crist is at 60% with Florida Democrats. He won the governorship twice, but couldn't manage to get a majority of votes either time. Also he made a bridge fall down!

Pawlenty vetoed transportation funding bills and ignored reports that massive infrastructure repairs were needed. Then the part of I-35W that goes over the Mississippi river just sort of fell down, right in the middle of the day. A Minnesota legislative report recently indicated that a lack of Minnesota's Department of Transportation may have contributed to a lack of maintenance at that bridge, but Pawlenty insists that bridges just fall over sometimes for no reason. More importantly, he's rushed to complete the new bridge, months faster than he should, so that it will be finished in time for the GOP National Convention, which will be held in St. Paul.

Perhaps most importantly, Pawlenty would be the very first American Vice President to have attended school with a member of Husker Du, but drummer Grant Hart probably won't endorse him: "'I knew the guy for years,' Hart once told columnist Jim Walsh, 'and it’s still like he’s a cipher. He’s Chauncey Gardener'—the idiot philosopher in the comic novel and film Being There—'with a lot less Zen.'"