Ba-Dunc-A-Dunc

So Duncan Hunter, or "The Dunc," wanted to visit a refugee camp in Chad and distribute food to the people assembled. Sounds good, but he only wanted to do it if he could hunt wildebeests in his spare time. Only there are no wildebeests in Chad. So Hunter did the right thing. He cancelled the food distribution part of his trip.

Compassionate conservatism.

CA-52: Like Father, Like Son

The real question here is whether these military contractors think they're contributing to the same Duncan Hunter or not.

Records show connections between companies Rep. Hunter has worked with and some individuals who are contributing to his son's campaign.

Rep. Hunter added language to the 2008 Defense Appropriations bill awarding $19 million to L-3 Communications, which has an office in San Diego, for the development and testing of a missile system, according to data compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense. Executives from that company contributed $2,750 to Duncan D. Hunter's campaign.

Rep. Hunter also earmarked San Diego-based Trex Enterprises Corp. $1.5 million for the development of a device that will help helicopter pilots navigate with limited visibility. Campaign finance records show Trex employees, including a scientist, donated $4,800 to Duncan D. Hunter's campaign.

Lobbyists working for the companies have also supported Hunter's campaign. Patrick McSwain and Frank Collins, who were listed as principals at the lobbying firm Northpoint Strategies, collectively donated $2,500. Northpoint worked on behalf of L-3. McSwain and Collins were both former [Rep. Duke] Cunningham chiefs of staff.

You know, why wouldn't they? Hunter was a reliable champion for whatever boondoggle weapons system these contractors thought up, even planes that can't fly. There's no reason to believe that his son won't act the same way.

Calitics has endorsed Democrat Mike Lumpkin in this seat.

Worst Cameo Ever

So Duncan Hunter decided to hold a press conference to make a "major announcement" on his Presidential campaign. Turns out that the press conference was to announce that he's staying in the race, in a pathetic attempt to get some media attention. That's not as pathetic as this, however, when he crashes the set of MSNBC's Morning Joe to yell his head off about how he "got a delegate in Wyoming!!!!"



Chris Matthews said it was like Joey Bishop showing up unexpectedly on the Tonight Show, but I think it was more like a streaker showing up in the middle of the Oscars.

Duncan Hunter: One delegate can't be wrong!

More Iowa Musings

• Damn. My hope was that Ron Paul coming ahead of John McCain in Iowa, which is totally possible, would hurt him severely. But apparently the pre-spin is that any number McCain posts is better than expected because he wasn't even competing in the state (even though he was there as recently as last weekend). The media REALLY wants to write the Comeback McCain story.

• Giuliani, unafraid of terrorists, afraid of a Segway.

• I agree that this bipartisanship virus is a function of leadership. When Obama runs a whole campaign on bringing the country together, then he wins and realizes that the hard-core Republicans don't want to hold hands and will work just as hard to filibuster his entire agenda, what then? Will that be a Republican failure or his failure of leadership? It's a risky and dangerous game to be playing.

• Joe Lieberman is a simpleton. The fact that McCain is hitching himself to that star is one reason why his candidacy doesn't concern me to the extent that other bloggers have shown concern.

• FDL has a rundown of everyone's closing ad in Iowa. Duncan Hunter's cracks me up. He looks like he's selling low-cost insurance or some new wonder knife or something.



What he loses in all manner of professionalism he more than makes up for in savings! Call now while supplies last! Operators are standing by!

Hunter: Illegal Immigrants Doing The Voting Americans Won't Do!

Duncan Hunter, last seen falling behind Alan Keyes in Iowa, despite Keyes being on the campaign trail all of two weeks, is trying to push his way back into the GOP nomination by jumping on the anti-brown people bandwagon. He's now claiming that illegal aliens vote routinely in California, conveniently without any evidence whatsoever. The quote, made in the recent Republican debate on African-American issues in Baltimore, was: "We have right now a real danger of people that are illegally in the country being rounded up, herded into the polls, we've seen that in California, voting illegally. That disenfranchises everybody in that community." Brad Friedman of BradBlog, after getting no response from the Hunter campaign backing up his charges, thinks he knows what Hunter is talking about, making him more of a genius than I am.

Our best guess as to what Hunter imagines he was referring to was the contested House election in California's 46th district between Loretta Sanchez (D) and Bob Dornan (R) in 1996. Sanchez was ultimately declared the winner by less than 1000 votes. Dornan then contested the election, alleging thousands of illegal votes by non-citizens.

Actual evidence, as opposed to wild, unsupported allegations by Republicanist media outlets is difficult to come by. But what happened in that race --- after a lot of Googling and even purchased articles from newspaper archives, far more research than we suspect Hunter ever did before making his unfounded accusations in a Presidential Debate --- seems to be this:

Sketchy evidence from 14 months of county, state, and federal investigations suggests that there were some non-citizens who may have voted in the election, though not enough to change the election results even if they did. They did so without the intent of knowingly violating the law. Most of the allegations had to do with an Hispanic group that had registered immigrants to vote as they were preparing to become U.S. citizens. Most of those registrants had, in fact, become citizens by the time they actually voted.

Dornan contested the election under the Federal Contested Elections Act. The challenge was eventually dismissed in a lopsided 378 to 33 vote in the Republican majority-led U.S. House in 1998. That vote came on the heels of an 8 to 1 recommendation by the Republican majority-led House Oversight Committee, after a Republican majority-led task force, comprised of Republicans Bob Ney (now-jailed) and Vernon Ehlers (now ranking member of the House Admin Comm. who replaced Ney when he went to jail) and Democrat Steny Hoyer (now House Majority leader) ran an 18-month investigation into the allegations.

At the state level, the D.A. in heavily Republican Orange County and Republican Secretary of State Bill Jones both investigated the matter as well. Both state investigations ultimately decided against bringing any voter fraud indictments. Both were unable to prove that anyone had the intent of voting illegally, deciding instead that the voters in question "had registered in error and not from criminal intent," according to Lorraine Minnite's 1993 Demos report on "Securing the Vote: an analysis of Election Fraud" [PDF, see pages 40 to 42].

All told, according to Minnite, some $1.4 million in tax-payer dollars was spent in the state, county, and federal investigations. Nobody was ever charged with voter fraud.

This is one of those wingnut zombie lies that refuses to die. They make them with impunity because virtually nobody in the traditional media ever calls them on it. But they are willfully, insistently, knowingly wrong.

Congratulations to California!

CREW just released their 3rd annual "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" report. They list 22 members of Congress as the most corrupt. And with 5 members, California wins for the most on the list!!!

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-CA)

On behalf of all Golden Staters, I want to thank all of these Representatives for having the wisdom, foresight, and venality to give the state this honor. Sure, the ENTIRE Alaska delegation is on the list, making them slightly mnore corrupt. But 5 out of 22 is not bad. Not bad indeed. Especially when you consider that there are only 19 federal representatives who are Republican, and 5 of them made the list! That's called dedication!

These guys might want to worry about the fact that Brent Wilkes just subpoenad a bunch of them.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Republican Whip Roy Blunt and 11 other members of Congress have been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of a defense contractor charged with bribing jailed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

All of the lawmakers said they do not intend to comply with the subpoenas.

Those subpoenad include Hunter, Lewis, Doolittle, and as a bonus, Rep. Darrell Issa, who claimed "This subpoena is a mystery." House lawyers have said it would be against House rules to comply.

It looks like Wilkes' team of lawyers is set to argue that the lawmakers asked for the bribes, rather than the other way around. I think giving bribes is a crime, regardless of who asked for them, so I don't know how this will fly. But clearly, this could damage some Congressional reputations. Or in the case of the CREW list, enhance them! Let's go for 6 in 2008!

Tom Motherflippin' Lantos.

His wind-up was pretty long, but he is doing an excellent job. "Anbar Province has only 5% of the Iraqi population." "Removing a brigade is nothing more than a political whisper..." "We need to leave and we need to leave now."

Now Duncan Hunter is decrying the politicization of the Petraeus testimony by comparing any insult of him to insulting the troops ("they are going to watch how we treat him"). Right, that's not politicization. Apparently, David Petraeus is going to bring down the Berlin Wall and bring peace to El Salvador, too.

UPDATE: Lantos' statement:

Dunc-mentum

I couldn't let the fact go by that the surge is working. The Duncan Hunter surge, that is.

California congressman Duncan Hunter won Texas' first Republican Party Straw Poll on Saturday in a low-turnout event that lacked the top-tier presidential candidates.

Hunter got 534 votes, or 41 percent of the vote. Former Tennessee senator and actor Fred Thompson, who is expected to announce his candidacy next week but was not at the event, came in second with 266 votes, or nearly 21 percent. Texas congressman Ron Paul came in third with 217 votes, or 17 percent.

534 people in Texas are buying what Dunc's selling. You tell me this man can't walk into the White House now.

This was actually my favorite part.

Crowd support seemed split between Hunter and Paul, whose supporters waved signs and chanted his name throughout the day. Other candidates attending were Chicago businessman John Cox, who got 10 votes; counterterrorism expert Hugh Cort of Birmingham, Ala., who got three votes; and tool-and-die maker Ray McKinney of Savannah, Ga., with 28 votes.

Ray McKinney is the Tin Cup of this race. He slayed the mighty John Cox dragon. (Seriously, 10? 10 votes?)

The $63,000,000 Boondoggle

Duncan Hunter, the man who wants to be put in charge of the Federal Treasury, has seen the all-too-slow-death of the $63 million plane that doesn't fly, one which he enthusiastically supported for two decades.

Millions of dollars later, Congress has effectively killed a military plane program the Pentagon repeatedly rejected, and which never had a successful flight.

The $63 million Congress poured into the DP2 program over 20 years was not requested by the Department of Defense. Instead, it was mandated through obscure provisions in bills known as "earmarks." Most of those earmarks for the DP2 were inserted by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., in whose district the plane was designed and built, in prototype.

The 2008 defense spending bill does not include an earmark for the DP2. Hunter had wanted to direct $6 million toward the plane's development.

Designed as a plane that can take off straight up and then fly at 700 miles per hour, the DP2 has never attained a height of more than a few feet in prototype tests before crashing to the ground.

I guess the good news here is that, if on the off-chance that everyone's voting rights were taken away but Ann Coulter's, and he were elected, the whole country would be his district, meaning lots of pork for everyone! And since executive branch officials can apparently get corporate-funded trips without any problems, Hunter will be right at home... in Bizarro America, during the Hunter presidency.

Two Million For That!

Here are the results of the Ames Straw Poll, and I have to say, for $2 million dollars or so and against practically no competition, I'd say Mitt Romney didn't have the kind of victory he sought.

1. Mitt Romney 4,516 31.6%
2. Mike Huckabee 2,587 18.1%
3. Sam Brownback 2,192 15.3%
4. Tom Tancredo 1,960 13.7%
5. Ron Paul 1,305 9.1%
6. Tommy Thompson 1,039 7.3%
7. Fred Thompson 203 1.4%
8. Rudy Giuliani 183 1.3%
9. Duncan Hunter 174 1.2%
10. John McCain 101 0.7%
11. John Cox 41 0.3%

Quick thoughts here. Romney paid two million dollars for 4,600 or so supporters; that's a little pathetic. Huckabee ended up coming out of this looking the best. Tommy Thompson said he needed to be in first place to continue. I'm expecting the press conference in Madison any minute now. Frankly, Duncan Hunter couldn't even beat guys who weren't competing in Ames, so he might want to consider taking a hike as well.

And I think John Cox those 41 votes off his music video.

UPDATE: Oh, and there were major voting machine problems. Thank you, Diebold!

CA-52: Residency

Duncan Hunter's son lives in Boise, Idaho. Which would be fine, if he wasn't planning to run for Congress in San Diego. Didn't Bilbray have the same issue last year? The funny part is that the revelation comes from Hunter's own Presidential website.

A biography of the veteran San Diego County congressman and long-shot Republican presidential candidate has this to say about the congressman's son, Duncan D. Hunter: "Duncan D. and his wife, Margaret, have three children, Duncan Lee, Elizabeth Grace and Sarah Louise, and reside in Boise, Idaho.

One problem: Duncan D. is running for his father's 52nd District seat in East San Diego County. Of course, members of Congress aren't required to live in their districts, but living more than 1,000 away in another state might be a tough sell on the campaign trail.

Of course, Hunter isn't likely to be on the campaign trail, but in Iraq at the time of the campaign. For his part, Hunter
(through his wife) claims that the site is outdated, and that he lives in Lakeside now. Mm-hm. Doesn't that reflect horribly on Hunter's Presidential campaign, that they can't even get the basic information right of where his own son lives?

Election News You Can Use

A mini-roundup:

• The only reason that you would know Tommy Thompson was running for President was the fact that he stepped in it yesterday by praising Jews for, essentially, being money-grubbing Jews. He kept insisting that it was a compliment, that he was just saying that Jews were great businessmen. You mean like Shylock? This isn't offensive, it's just clueless. He should join Joe Biden in the foot-in-mouth primary.

• If there were one Congressional seat that Democrats had to leave open, I would offer that it should be Duncan Hunter's open seat. It's a tough red district, and even though open seats are attractive, the fact that Hunter's son is running, and that he may be over in Iraq DURING the election, makes him almost unassailable.

• I really hope Brad Miller runs for Senate in North Carolina against Liddy Dole. Being only 10 points down a year and a half out, and with Dole at 44%, makes it a prime opportunity. Miller is a netroots hero, and really understands how to be a proud Democrat in North Carolina and not back down.

• Sen. John Warner raised five hundred dollars for the whole quarter? That's the kind of money you raise if you're not raising money and somebody gives you some by accident. I don't think he's running again, and if his namesake Mark Warner runs, that seat's going to flip.

• In another case of Democrats who came very close in 2006 who will run again in 2008, Dr. Victoria Wulsin will challenge Mean Jean Schmidt in OH-02. This is the best way for a challenger to defeat an incumbent, by raising their profile first, and then running to win the second time.

• The other shoe is dropping for Rep. John Doolittle. A former senior staffer to Doolittle, Kevin Ring, abruptly resigned his job as a lobbyist yesterday. Ring also worked for Jack Abramoff from 2000 to 2004, and he was basically Abramoff's way to get to Doolittle. After this trail appeared to have gone cold, this is a major sign that it's heating up again:

As The Politico notes, Ring seems poised to follow the path of other aides who've pled guilty in the Abramoff scandal -- pleading guilty to lesser charges in return for delivering their former bosses to investigators. Ex-Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) former chief of staff Neil Volz, who also worked with Ring with Abramoff and then later at Barnes & Thornburg, resigned abruptly from that firm in January last year. He pled guilty to corruption charges in May, agreeing to cooperate and implicating Ney.

Of course, another repeat candidate, Charlie Brown, is challenging Doolittle, and he raised over $100,000 in the first quarter, and since Doolittle has been busy erasing massive debt, holds a $200,000 cash-on-hand advantage. Of course, if things keep going the same way for Doolittle, he'll be spending the 2008 election in court.

All Apologies

There's this ritual in Presidential politics of the gaffe, or hiring of someone untoward, followed by outrage and recrimination, followed by apology or firing. It's getting to be depressingly routine:

Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter has dropped two top South Carolina advisers a week after they were appointed because of their inflammatory statements about immigrants and religious minorities.

Hunter spokesman Roy Tyler confirmed Thursday that former GOP lieutenant governor candidate Henry Jordan and Horry County Auditor Lois Eargle would no longer serve as campaign co-chairs.

Eargle said the California congressman's decision was disappointing.

"I am so disgusted with politicians who do not have the backbone to stand up for the concerns of the American people," Eargle said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.

Does anyone credibly believe that Duncan Hunter was duped into hiring these two xenophobes in the first place? Of course not.

Then there's the case of the inconvenient word:

Republican Sen. John McCain announced his candidacy for president during a TV appearance, and then announced he will announce his candidacy again next month [...]

Discussing the war with Letterman, McCain repeated his assertion that U.S. troops must remain in Iraq rather than withdrawing early even though the war has been mismanaged.

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said. "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

In February, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama described the lives of troops in Iraq as having been "wasted" but then apologized a day later for making what he called "a slip of the tongue" that he said was not meant to diminish their sacrifice.

There was the beating of chests from the DNC, followed by a McCain apology. But aside from the facts that everyone in the insanepsphere, who were so riled up about Obama's exact same comment, said nothing about McCain's, has any harm been done here? Whether you use the word "waste" or "sacrifice" (and I would say "waste" is more accurate), doesn't anybody NOT know what you're actually saying?

These bubbles of outrage are very easy for the press to cover and dissect. No reporting is required, just people spitballing back and forth about what the candidate should do and who won what round and will the candidate condemn the comments of such and such. It's a huge game of kabuki and it has nothing to do with the issues people actually need to hear. In some cases the press goes and creates the controversy they so desperately want to see (h/t FDL).

In an article for the March 5 edition of Newsweek about Maureen Dowd's controversial February 21 New York Times interview (subscription required) with Hollywood mogul David Geffen, a longtime donor to former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) who is supporting Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Evan Thomas reported that Dowd told the magazine, in Thomas' words, that during her interview with Geffen, "Geffen did not seem out to get the Clintons," adding: "Dowd says Geffen was initially reluctant to be interviewed for her column. … Dowd says she was the one who brought up questions about Bill Clinton's past as a campaign issue."

I'm a little ashamed that the blogosphere seems to be following the herd on this one, although the spikes in posts that Ezra sees could be attributed to people like me yelling about the meaninglessness of these fake controversies. I just wish we didn't have to go through this ritual of self-flagellation and public disavowal every day, and that we could actually weigh policy matters. And at any rate I think it's far too early to begin with.

Dept. of Not Smart Republican Presidential Candidates

You shall be known by who you hire for your campaign. Case in point number one, from long-shot Duncan Hunter:

In his latest appeal to the Republican base, Duncan Hunter has named Dr. Henry Jordan as his South Carolina campaign co-chair. This Henry Jordan:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (May 16, 1997 12:25 p.m. EDT) -- A state Board of Education member, talking Tuesday about displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools, had a ready suggestion for groups who might object to it.

"Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims," Dr. Henry Jordan said during the board's finance and legislative committee meeting. "And put that in the minutes," he added.

The remarks made Tuesday were expunged from the written minutes, but were recorded on tape. The (Columbia) State obtained the tape under the Freedom of Information Act.

Jordan, a surgeon who failed in a bid to get the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 1994, said Thursday he thought the meeting was over and members were engaged in private conversation.

His apology was "Is this thing on?"

Case in point number two, from Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas:

Exclusive: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee plans to make a splash on Capitol Hill on Friday with the surprising announcement that Rep. Don Young of Alaska has signed on as congressional chairman of his Republican presidential exploratory committee.

In a letter to House Republicans, Young says Huckabee will help produce “a reawakening of the conservative values that make our country a land of opportunity.”

What The Politico doesn't mention, because it would require actual reporting and analysis, is that Don Young is the same guy who called for the summary execution of 250 members of Congress on the House floor, claimed that the quote came from Abraham Lincoln when it didn't, and then refused to correct the record even after acknowledging that the quote was false.

Huckabee's supposed to be the sharp dark-horse candidate, right?