PA-07: Weldon goes into hiding

I didn't think it was possible to get worse than the Mike Tyson endorsement for Michael Steele. But Curt Weldon may have come close when he decided to bring in Jim Bunning, the guy who said his 2004 Senate opponent "looked like one of Saddam's sons," the guy who used a teleprompter during one of his debates, the guy who used private security during the campaign because he claimed that people were out to get him, the guy who suggested that his opponent Daniel Mongiardo "beat my wife black and blue," the guy who according to Time Magazine "shows little interest in policy unless it involves baseball."

And maybe Weldon knew that his appearance with Bunning had the potential to backfire. So he closed it to the media:

It could have been a classic campaign media event. Jim Bunning, the famed Phillies pitcher turned senator from Kentucky, had arrived to lend his star power to embattled U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon.

Except there were no television crews, no radio reporters, and few fans.

Bunning told his baseball stories to 200 Republicans on an isolated rural estate Sunday. "I've been to lots of these, but this is the first one I've attended that isn't on a paved road," he told the Republican rally in Chadds Ford.

Maybe the question you have to ask is, who's the one hiding? Jim Bunning or Curt Weldon? Sure, Bunning can go nuts at any moment, but Weldon's the one under FBI investigation, along with his family and close friends. After putting his foot in his mouth by claiming that everyone is out to get him in a vast left-wing conspiracy, and claiming his opponent Joe Sestak's campaign has been coordinating with the FBI based on a tip he got from "an FBI informant" who was one of his own campaign staffers, Curt has gone off the radar screen and into hiding.

Weldon canceled a live appearance Sunday at NBC10. His campaign says he has one public event scheduled so far this week.

"We are in a battle, and its vortex is here," Weldon said in Chadds Ford of the fight for the Seventh House District seat. It includes most of Delaware County and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties.

"We will win," he added to cheers.

"We will win," he said to a handful of supporters on a private estate!

By the way, as befitting this new breed of Fighting Democrats, Joe Sestak is not letting go of this advantage given to him by his opponent:

But Sestak showed yesterday that he wasn't going to let the probe sink out of sight.

The FBI is investigating whether Weldon helped his daughter's public relations firm win contracts from a Russian energy firm, the Itera Group, and from a Serbian family. Federal investigators are also reviewing Weldon's role in trying to help lawyer John J. Gallagher collect a debt in Moldova.

Sestak called a news conference to say voters should ask Weldon: "Why are you focused on that and not on the interests of the people in our district?"

By the way, Weldon hasn't stopped blaming the entire world for his own ethical failings:

It claimed the Sestak campaign on Friday orchestrated a second complaint to the Justice Department from the watchdog group (CREW). That letter, citing e-mails written to Sestak by people in the defense industry, alleged that Weldon had threatened retaliation against Sestak contributors. Weldon is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Puppio called the charges "outrageous." Weldon intends to complain to the Federal Election Commission about the nonprofit watchdog group's partisan role. "We are tired of this stuff," Puppio said.

Sestak and Melanie Sloan, director of the watchdog group, denied the campaign was the source of e-mails she forwarded to Justice.

Ryan Rudominer, Sestak's spokesman, said Weldon "is blaming every single person except himself."

But after falling down in the initial management of this scandal, Curt Weldon is simply trying to hole up and let terror 'n' taxes save his butt. This is not an unfamiliar tactic in this cycle. Brian Bilbray's doing the same thing, trying to remove the target from his head by simply going into exile. Who decided this was a good idea? How is removing yourself from the campaign two weeks from an election considered a pathway to victory?

The answer: it isn't. When you're more toxic showing your face than not, that means it's all over. See ya later, Curt.