Unintentional Truth Of The Day

Rep. Steve Pearce (Crazed - NM) is about to lose a US Senate race to Tom Udall by 25 points. Today he shows why by confirming everyone's assumptions about Republicans and Big Oil:

"At a time when we're facing $4 gasoline, I think that you need people who've been in the energy industry to tell us what to do," said Steve Pearce, a House member from New Mexico who is running for the Senate.

After all, when have they ever steered us wrong?

Big Oil has invested about $600,000 into Steve Pearce over his career, and his statements reveal him to be a kept man. But in fact, this is true of the entire Republican Party in Washington. As this chart shows, the GOP leadership has consistently voted against every single effort that may actually lower gas prices instead of filling the pockets of the oil companies.

It's rare to see the truth made so explicit.

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

I'm still mad at the Democratic Congress, but there is a silver lining - they're not Republicans. I can hardly believe these two stories.

In New Mexico, Senate candidate and all-around wingnut Steve Pearce decided to attack his opponent Tom Udall for language in a bill that would prevent leases to extract oil from shale in the Rocky Mountains. Only problem is, it wasn't Tom Udall's bill. It was MARK Udall's. He's also running for the Senate, and when both of these Democrats get there they can have a laugh about how pathetic their opponents were.

In Minnesota, Sen. Norm Coleman put together an ad featuring his family. His wife actually lives in LA and drops in to Minnesota every now and again for campaigning. So maybe it isn't surprising that he's appeared to green-screen her into the ad the way she's green-screened into his personal life. You can see for yourself - something certainly look weird:



"Keystone Kops" would be a competent version of Republicans circa 2008.

Keeping It To 8 Losses Would Be Nice

Fresh off of failing to recruit anyone decent to run as a Republican for the US Senate and seeing:

• loony Steve Pearce use Club for Growth money to beat the more moderate Heather Wilson in New Mexico's primary, putting that Senate seat against Ton Udall out of reach

• an 85 year-old former Green Party candidate win the Republican primary in Montana

• the golden boy candidate Jim Ogonowski fail to get on the ballot in Massachusetts

...NRSC Chair Jon Ensign (won't be NRSC Chair for long-NV) has settled on a at least we're not going to lose the right to filibuster strategy to fire up his base:

NRSC chair John Ensign has moved the goal posts, according to the Savannah Morning News, saying that the GOP will have succeeded if they don't lose more than eight seats.

Ensign pointed out that if the Dems win nine seats they'll get to the filibuster-proof magic number of 60 -- at which point, Ensign warned, "they will be able to do pretty much whatever they want."

So if the Dems can't get to a 60-seat super-majority, the GOP will have won. Talk about lowering the bar.

That's not lowering the bar, that's throwing the bar on the ground and stepping on any ants that try to get near it.

Meanwhile, Democrats have great recruits almost everywhere, including Al Franken, who won the endorsement of the DFL Caucus in Minnesota this weekend.

It's a good time to be the Senate Guru.

Other Races On The Radar Tonight

Besides that little matter of the Democratic nominee clinching victory tonight, there are primaries all over the the country outside of California, some of them worth noting.

TPM Election Central mentions two Senate races, in New Mexico and New Jersey. The entire Congressional delegation in New Mexico is running for the seat vacated by Pete Domenici, and on the Republican side, wingnutty Steve Pearce is facing wingnut in moderate clothing Heather Wilson. Weirdly, Domenici waited until the weekend before the primary to endorse Wilson, so there was probably no impact of that. Pearce is favored in this primary, but the winner will be stomped by progressive Tom Udall in the general election, IMO.

In New Jersey, Frank Lautenberg was challenged from inside the party by Rob Andrews, a moderate (at best) Congressman. I think he's just trying to raise his statewide name ID for when Lautenberg (who's 84) eventually steps down, because he's getting smoked by all accounts. Andrews is having his wife run for his own Congressional seat and will probably try to get it back by having her step down if he loses. I hope he gets crushed today.

And in IA-03, Ed Fallon is challenging Bush Dog Leonard Boswell for a seat in Congress. Stoller calls this race an experiment in grassroots campaigning but I don't think that's true. Maybe it's because I'm in California, but in most parts of this state you can't put an ad on the air unless you're running statewide or get a king's ransom from an independent expenditure campaign. So I see this "experiment" every cycle. And it usually doesn't win, unfortunately. And most observers don't expect Fallon to win, either. But if he can make Boswell sweat, maybe he can alter his behavior.

Iglesiasgate: And Out Come The Subpoenaes

David Iglesias and 3 other former federal prosecutors will be summoned to testify on Capitol Hill by the House Judiciary Committee to explain their assessment of the Justice Department's prosecutor purge. This is a serious abuse of power, and things are looking worse and worse for the White House on this one. Meanwhile, Wilson and Domenici met the press today:

David Iglesias said in published reports this week that he believes he was forced out of office as U.S. attorney after resisting pressure from two members of Congress to push an ongoing investigation of a kickback scheme that might have helped Republicans in the 2006 elections [...]

Iglesias, a Republican, has not named the lawmakers who contacted him. All but Domenici and Wilson said Wednesday that it wasn't them.

In a brief interview Thursday, Domenici also denied the accusation. "I don't have any comment," he told The Associated Press. "I have no idea what he's talking about."

Wilson tersely referred questions to Iglesias' government supervisors.

"You should contact the Department of Justice on that personnel matter," she said.

Or maybe the DoJ will be contacting you. Or at least the ethics committee.

Joe Monahan has much more, and this little tidbit struck me: could Republican Reps. in New Mexico be throwing each other under the bus?

The Alligators were besides themselves over the statement of Rep. Steve Pearce quickly denying that he was one of those congressional reps who Iglesias is saying made improper contact with him before the election.

"Did he really have to issue a statement right away? It could be read that Pearce was isolating Heather as the one who made the call." Argued one political veteran.

It's no secret that both Wilson and Pearce have their eye on the Domenici senate seat if and when it becomes available, so fairly or not, all actions of the two are going to be weighed in that context, this imbroglio being the latest example.

Veddy interestink.