Republicans need to buy more wheels, 'cause all of the ones they've got have come off

Can't get away from the blog tonight. I think this is a record number of posts for one day.

Maybe that's because there's so much going on. As if Wyoming Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin threatening to hit a man in a wheelchair wasn't enough, look what else is going on in the continuing story of investigation, impudence and insanity that is the Republican Party:

• Rick Renzi in AZ-01 is now under federal investigation regarding shady land deals designed to benefit contributors and business associates. And a SECOND federal investigation is underway over Renzi pushing legislation that benefited a defense contractor where his father worked as an executive vice president. A double whammy!

• PA-SEN: Rick Santorum claims that control of his particular Senate seat is all that stands between peace on earth and a fate worse than Nazism:

"If we are not successful here and things don't go right in the election, there's a good chance that the course of our country could change," he said. "We are in the equivalent of the late 1930s, and this election will decide whether we are going to continue to appease or whether we will stand and fight while we have a chance to win without devastating consequences.

"And you here in Pennsylvania — you here in this room — will have a huge role to play as to what happens."

Meanwhile he's apparently off the air in Pennsylvania, which is puzzling because he has a major cash advantage. Maybe he's trying that "run and hide" strategy all the cool incumbents are practicing these days.

• NV-GOV: Speaking of double whammies, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons not only allegedly assaulted a cocktail waitress during an all-night drinking session over the weekend, but then made his illegal immigrant nanny hide in the basement when people came to his house.



The Las Vegas Gleaner, a great local blog, has more.

• TN-SEN: So the RNC runs a racist ad playing on white male fears of black men coming to take the womenfolk, and Bob Corker says he can't stop it because it's an RNC ad, and Ken Mehlman at the RNC says he can't stop it because even though it's an RNC ad, it's an independent expenditure, except Mehlman is not telling the truth because he could call for the ad to come down, and Corker hasn't even called the RNC to ask about that possibility.

This is just what's happened TODAY. Either Republicans are cracking under the pressure, or this is just another week in the culture of corruption, or news outlets are doing their typical pre-election digging, but this is an astonishing amount of breaking news. Seems to me that the wave is growing ever larger.

UPDATE: Jim Pederson within six in Arizona's Senate race. I was hoping for another Senate seat to pop up. I'm not comfortable relying on two Southern seats in elections that are shaping up to be about race, in many respects.