NC-Sen: Burr In Extremely Bad Shape

It wouldn't just be a pleasure to get rid of Richard Burr because he's a Republican, but because he's a really bad right-wing reactionary Republican. Unlike beating an Arlen Specter or a Gordon Smith or a Lincoln Chafee, who may occasionally have voted with Democrats, Burr is about as hard-core conservative as you get, and way out of step in a newly purplish North Carolina. I don't know much about Roy Cooper, but it's not possible that he's worse than Burr.

A fresh look at how Roy Cooper would fare if he challenged Richard Burr next year yields basically the same results as a December poll, the newest survey from Public Policy Polling finds.

Cooper leads Burr 41-37 in the hypothetical contest, a margin similar to the 39-34 one he held the previous time PPP polled it.

Burr’s approval rating continues to languish in the mid 30s, with 35% of voters in the state expressing support for the job he’s doing and 31% dissenting. 41% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of Cooper with just 20% holding a negative view of him.

“If Roy Cooper enters the race for US Senate this race automatically becomes a tossup, if not even slightly Democratic leaning,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “It’s quite unusual for an incumbent who doesn’t have major ethical problems to trail an unannounced challenger.”

Welcome to the brave new world, GOP.

MCSNBC Sez Dole's A Cooked Pineapple

In the closing days it looked like Kay Hagan would win, but that's an EARLY admission.



Dole not only lost the race, she lost her self-respect with that horrible "Godless" ad.

...Fox News CALLED IT for Kay Hagan. Another Senate pickup. Wow.

...Jeanne Shaheen also called over John Sununu. Three Senate pickups so far. Susan Collins won in Maine. Tom Allen just couldn't make that seat competitive.

Senate Picture

Here's what we're looking at heading into GOTV weekend. Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado are going to be walks - score two for the Udall family in the US Senate. New Hampshire and Alaska look good - I'm still worried about a Stevens backlash, but the polls are showing strong late movement against the convicted felon. Oregon is moving away from Gordon Smith, and I think Jeff Merkley's going to take that race.

So that's six seats, with 9 needed - really 10 due to the Lieberman factor - to get to the magic 60 votes (which isn't all that magic, as I've explained). There's North Carolina, where Elizabeth Dole has debased herself by releasing a second ad harping on Kay Hagan's fundraiser with "Godless Americans". It's really absurd, but she's going with it. And it appears to be backfiring.

As Elizabeth Dole released her second attack ad trying to use Kay Hagan’s faith to attack her, it’s clear that North Carolinians are not buying it. Every major newspaper in the state (listed below), her fellow Republicans and the North Carolina Council of Churches (letter below) agree – Elizabeth Dole’s ads are “indecent,” a “gross misrepresentation,” “worse than dishonest,” and “beyond the bounds of acceptable political disagreement.”

“The overwhelming reaction to this ad has been disgust – directed at Senator Dole – for stooping to this low and attacking a fellow Christian,” said Hagan Campaign Communications Director Colleen Flanagan. “Senator Dole knows Kay is a strong Christian, a former Sunday school teacher and a member of Greensboro’s First Presbyterian Church, and she knows that her advertisements are lies. But what North Carolinians know is that these kind of political attacks won’t create one good job or help turn our economy back around. These are the issues folks here are concerned about and looking for leadership on, and these are the issues that will decide this election.”

Yesterday the North Carolina Council of Churches sent a letter to Senator Dole asking her to remove her ad, saying, “As you no doubt know, Sen. Hagan is a faithful and active member and leader in the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro. To say or even to suggest that that outstanding congregation has chosen a lay leader who doesn’t believe in God is appalling and should be offensive to churches and church leaders throughout the state.

I think this is going to hurt Dole enough to put a nail in her coffin.

Then there's Minnesota, which has had a crazy last week. Norm Coleman sued Al Franken for defamation of character (Hagan actually did the same to Dole over the "Godless" ad), while court documents showed that a CEO was pressured to give $75,000 to Coleman and his family. Coleman has shows flashes of being fabulously corrupt in this campaign (having his DC rent, his utilities, and his suits paid for by lobbyists and contributors), and this is part and parcel. There's more evidence on this particular case here. The presence of former Sen. Dean Barkley (he was appointed by Jesse Ventura to replace the late Paul Wellstone for his final two months in office) on the ticket as an independent makes this completely unpredictable. This is going to be the closest race of the night.

And finally, we have the race in Georgia, where a huge African-American turnout would appear to help progressive Democrat Jim Martin. But Saxby Chambliss says that can be a rallying cry.

The Republican is outwardly confident, but there's urgency in his voice as he tours North Georgia, trying to boost turnout in his predominately white base: "The other folks are voting," he bluntly tells supporters.

Just in case anyone was confused about who those "other folks" are, Chambliss gave this quote to the New York Times:

The development is not lost on Mr. Chambliss. "There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early," he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. "It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening," he said.

Nice to see a sitting United States Senator all but yell "race war!"

The thing about Georgia is that the winner must get past 50% or there's a runoff. With a Libertarian and a couple minor-party candidates on the ballot, that's entirely possible. So we could have an election between Martin and Chambliss in December, with the prize of 60 votes in the Senate hanging in the balance.

Kentucky, Nebraska, Maine and Texas may also surprise, but it's unlikely. I think the above represents the top level of competitiveness.

...regarding Kentucky, this is disgusting and sleazy and I hope it backfires, even though Mitch McConnell is a scumbag in his own right.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

Here Come De Sludge, Here Come De Sludge

It's actually no different from how the Republicans have run this entire campaign - using smear campaigns to make the case that Barack Obama is somehow risky, radical, a terrorist, a Muslim, exotic, not like you or your family. The latest is that they're planting these stories in the newspaper - literally:

Citizens United, the conservative group headed by notorious Whitewater scandalmonger David Bossie, is distributing hundreds of thousands of DVDs attacking Barack Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers in newspapers in Ohio, Nevada, and Florida this week, a group spokesperson confirms to us.

A reader in Ohio reports to us that she received a copy of the DVD, called "Hype: The Obama Effect," in her copy of the Columbus Dispatch this morning.

We checked in with Citizens United spokesperson Will Holley, who confirmed to us that the DVD was distributed in the Dispatch today, and will be disseminated in copies of the Cincinatti Enquirer and Plain Dealer tomorrow, followed by the Palm Beach Post and the Las Vegas Review Journal on Friday.

The wingers tried this before by shipping Obsession, a DVD designed to stoke fears about radical Islam. But this one is directly focused at Obama.

However, as ridiculous as the smears against Obama have been, some of the sludge being shoveled in the downticket races is even worse. Elizabeth Dole's desperate attempt to save her career is downright slanderous, not just to Kay Hagan but to atheists.

Dole's campaign has been calling attention to a Sept. 15 fundraiser that Hagan attended in Boston with author Wendy Kaminer and her husband, Woody Kaplan, who was on the advisory board of the Godless Americans political action committee and active in a group that promoted "secular" ideas.

The ad featuring Hagan airs a comment from one the organization’s leaders saying "There was no Jesus."

The announcer says "A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s honor."

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"

The best part of that story is the last line, "Recent polls have shown Hagan with a narrow lead over Dole." Well of course!

Kay Hagan is fighting back. She's a Sunday school teacher, for cryin' out loud. And the attack on "godlessness" evokes nothing so much as the 1940s. Apparently Liddy thinks she's running against Helen Gahagan Douglas.

Then there's outright assault.

On Friday, two Feder staffers approached Congressman Wolf in a public location to ask him some questions. Two different individuals who were accompanying Congressman Wolf (staffers? relatives? friends?) assaulted the Feder staffers, as you can see quite clearly in the video. The first Feder staffer was hit with a cane and then punched. The second staffer (as you will see on the video) was pinned to a wall and forcibly held there. All of this took place in the presence of Congressman Wolf, who stood by and did nothing to intervene.

The thug life has come to McCain-Palin rallies as well, but you knew that.

Fortunately, these clowns are suffering for their own attacks. Michelle Bachmann had almost a million dollars tossed at her from the netroots after her neo-McCarthyite rant. Robin Hayes in North Carolina said almost the same thing ("Liberals hate real Americans") and now he's losing to Larry Kissell. Scott Garrett connected his opponent, a RABBI, to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and now Mike Bloomberg endorsed Rabbi Dennis Shulman. Every attack is having an equal and opposite reaction.

And us progressives have long memories. In 2002 Saxby Chambliss ran one of the most disgusting ads in recent memory, making a connection between Sen. Max Cleland (a war hero who left 3 limbs off the battlefield) and Osama bin Laden. Now, six years later, Chambliss is threatened in a race against progressive Jim Martin, and VoteVets is hammering him.



Payback's a bitch.

The Strange Death Of Republican America

The campaign arm of Senate Republicans just pulled out of Louisiana to focus on saving their seats in Georgia and Kentucky. Louisiana, where Karl Rove personally recruited a former Democrat to face Mary Landrieu, was the only Democratic-held seat where Senate Democrats were playing in 2008.

This guarantees not only that Democrats will keep the Senate, but that Republicans won't pick up one single solitary seat for the second campaign cycle in a row.

Meanwhile, some of the very Southern states where Republicans picked up their last seats, way back in 2004, are holding competitive races in 2008. The money is pouring into Georgia, where progressive Democrat Jim Martin is trying to unseat Saxby Chambliss. The early voting there has been so huge, with such a high black turnout, that Martin has an excellent chance. In North Carolina, listless Liddy Dole is in big trouble.

As economic turmoil has driven down support for Republican candidates in recent weeks, several polls have suggested that Mrs. Dole’s opponent, Kay R. Hagan, a relatively unknown state senator from Greensboro, has closed Mrs. Dole’s double-digit lead or even pulled ahead, and many analysts are now calling the race a tossup.

Ms. Hagan is a crucial part of the effort by Democrats to gain a 60-seat majority in the Senate, a margin that could limit Republican filibusters. From Nov. 16, 2007, to Oct. 5, the Democratic senatorial committee spent more than $4 million on advertising in North Carolina, more than in any other Senate race, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, a political data firm in Arlington, Va. The Democrats have reserved television time worth millions more.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has less money, has also spent more in North Carolina than in any other state, $1.7 million. That disparity between parties is reversed when it comes to the candidates’ own treasuries. By the end of September, Mrs. Dole had raised $12.9 million, and Ms. Hagan, $4.8 million.

If Republicans need to pull out all the stops to win in Georgia and North Carolina, they're in worse shape than I thought. And it's not simply the economy, IMO; these are BAD lawmakers. Liddy Dole never spends a second in her home state and has no accomplishments. Saxby Chambliss is arguably worse. They were in the majority for four years and did nothing to distinguish themselves. When you are a robotic rubber stamp, there's no way to show leadership - you're spending all your time following. And I think people understand this.

The House And Senate Picture

Just wanted to update the look of things in the Congress (outside of California this time):

• MN-Sen: Al Franken has surged ahead of Norm Coleman and looks like he's going to take this one in Minnesota. The Coleman campaign tried to drive up Franken's negatives over the summer by scrutinizing some ticky-tack tax statements, all of which had very simple explanations. This turned out to be a fatal mistake considering all of the skeletons in Coleman's financial closet, especially all the gifts he receives from lobbyists and contributors - his rent, his utility bills, and even his CLOTHING. This led to an excruciating press conference where his spokesman was resigned to repeating "The Senator has reported ever gift he's ever received" over and over. Wow, what a flameout.

• AK-Sen: In Alaska, however, I'm not nearly as sure of this one as I was. The prosecution has been so incompetent in the Ted Stevens corruption case that the judge tossed out key evidence and the defense will again call for a mistrial. If Stevens is exonerated, whether through mistrial or acquittal, there will be a significant rebound in his poll numbers, and he's already nearly even right now. This ad from the DSCC is good, but I'm not sure it'll be good enough. I think Mark Begich is in some trouble.

• NC-Sen: VoteVets is back. They've revived their wildly successful body armor ad and set their sights on Elizabeth Dole. It's just as powerful as it was in 2006.



Liddy Dole is toast.

• ME-Sen: Interesting happenings in Maine. Susan Collins was popular enough for national Democrats to kind of leave the Tom Allen challenge for dead, but the twists and turns in the economic picture makes any Republican toxic. Sensing the changing winds, Planned Parenthood, which has endorsed Collins in the past as a bone to throw to a Republican for a couple good votes, turned around and endorsed Allen. Recent polls are tightening and there really could be a late rush.

• GA-Sen: I knew the polls were very close in Georgia, and nobody deserves to lose more than Saxby Chambliss, who unleashed that shameful ad in 2002 relating Max Cleland to Saxby Chambliss, but I didn't know a lot about Jim Martin the person. Turns out he's a progressive in Georgia:

With little money, but with a lot of gumption, energy, and a truly progressive message, Jim Martin has closed to a dead-heat in this race. He is pro-choice, pro-gay rights (supports ENDA and LLEA), a consumer advocate, committed civil libertarian (with ACLU awards for his efforts), opposes FISA telecom immunity, opposes the war in Iraq, is a strong environmentalist, a strong labor guy, a strong supporter of affirmative action, and so on. He is also a Vietnam vet, so perhaps he's destined for a Chambliss Special, but we can get his back. This is the kind of Democrat we can't even get in some Blue states, yet running on an explicitly progressive agenda, has a chance to represent the great state of Georgia while ousting the odious Chambliss at the same time.

If he can pull it off, it would be a clarion call that progressives can win anywhere and Democrats shouldn't be afraid of standing up for their policies.

• House of Reps.: I can't keep up with all the developments in the House - that's what Howie Klein is for. But what is clear is that the Republicans have a ton of seats to defend, more every day, and not a lot of cash to do it. That's why their campaign arm, the NRCC, is taking out an $8 million dollar loan to compete. Wait, House Republicans can GET A LOAN? In this credit market?

NC-Sen: Residual Effects

North Carolina is a dead toss-up at the Presidential level this year, but nobody has high hopes for the incumbent.

A poll out Friday shows Sen. Norm Coleman could now easily lose his Minnesota seat to comedian-turned-candidate Al Franken. A Colorado race that initially looked like a nail-biter has now broken decisively for the Democrats. A top official in the McCain camp told us Sen. Elizabeth Dole is virtually certain to lose in conservative North Carolina [...]

Top Republicans say they have no hope for Dole in North Carolina. “There’s no point in even counting the votes,” said a top McCain official.

North Carolina is being lumped into the same column as Alaska, New Hampshire and Oregon in the second tier of winnable Democratic seats (Colorado, Virginia and New Mexico are in the first tier and are pretty safe to flip to the Dems). Why? Ed Cone explains why Elizabeth Dole's days are numbered.

--Dole has disappointed North Carolinians, including those of us who disagree with her positions on many issues, who expected her to be a star in the Senate.

--Dole has been an absentee Senator. We all knew it, but recent reports that she spent a total of 33 days in NC over the course of two years in her term resounded like coffin nails.

--Dole is closely identified with Bush.

--The DSCC has pumped a ton of money into NC to get the message out on all of the above, and the ads have been good.

--Hagan, a powerful member of the state senate, got immediate buy-in from party leaders and was able to raise money early.

--Hagan has run a steady campaign, criss-crossing the state in the style of her uncle, Walkin' Lawton Chiles. She's an appealing, centrist Democrat who plays well across North Carolina.

--Dole doesn't seem to be trying very hard. Her public appearances have been limited, and her ads have been lame. National support for her seems desultory, perhaps a result of her leadership role in the disastrous 2006 GOP Senate effort.

--Hagan has Obama's strong ground game, and the tech-smart, energized NCDP behind her (watch party chair Jerry Meek -- he's a star).

I would add that Dole is clearly a corporate Republican, who was pushing for more deregulation in the banking industry as recently as March of this year, right before the Bear Stearns collapse.

There's a common thread here, and that is the lengths to which swing states where Obama is contesting strongly have impacted those Senate races. Virginia (Mark Warner) and New Mexico (Tom Udall) have been out of reach for a while, but a state like North Carolina, with the impact of the Obama ground fame, gives Hagan a real leg up.

I think Cone is absolutely right calling Hagan a centrist. She is not going to put a lot of smiles on progressive faces with her votes, although her transit policies are first rate. Hagan refused to say whether or not she'd vote for FISA, and she'll be a moderate vote that at best will approach maybe Blanche Lincoln, and at worst Mary Landrieu. I'll be happy to see Liddy Dole out the door, but Hagan is a lesser priority for me, although I think an energized electorate in fast-changing North Carolina might pressure her into some better votes.

My hopes are with Jeff Merkley in Oregon and, to a lesser extent, Al Franken in Minnesota. By the way, this is an affecting ad:

Senate Campaign Report

Just a few items of interest:

• MS-Sen: What do you do when your handpicked GOP Senator is about to go down to defeat to a Democrat? You try to hide the race on the ballot, that's what!

A judge has temporarily blocked a state ballot that places the U.S. Senate race between Ronnie Musgrove and Roger Wicker near the bottom of the ballot.

Earlier today, the state Election Commission approved placing the Musgrove-Wicker race in the special election section that comes after regular election contests on Nov. 4.

But Pike County Election Commissioner Trudy Berger filed a lawsuit in Hinds County Circuit Court only hours after the commission meeting.

“My client's responsibilities are to the voters and the law is clear. Elections for federal office should be at the top of the ballot. The proposed ballot buries the most prominent election in the state and will cause confusion on Election Day,” said Jackson Attorney Sam Begley, who is representing Berger.

There's just no precedent for this. There's a clear dropoff of votes as you go down the ballot, and any coattails that the top of the ticket would have are nullified by placing the Senate race so far away. This is a novel way to suppress the vote by Mississippi Republicans. I'm almost in awe.

• NC-Sen: Elizabeth Dole is from Kansas. Her husband represented Kansas in the US Senate for decades. She ran for President as a citizen of Kansas. She moved to North Carolina when a seat opened up. That's not unprecedented (Hillary Clinton), but Dole tries to cover for this by saying that her family had a business in North Carolina for many years. Kay Hagan has been tweaking her Kansas roots, leading Dole to respond. But she couldn't actually name the family business that she uses to cement those ties to the state:

Dole (while laughing): I think (Hagan) has indicated many times that I’m from Kansas. But my roots are very deep in North Carolina. Very deep. Here, I grew up in Salisbury, went to the public schools, spent 11 years on the Duke board after I graduated from Duke, own a home there. I own a business in North Carolina, for goodness sake. My family roots go way, way back.

Reporters: What business do you own?

Dole: We had a family farm, which was turned into a real estate development. And it’s just outside of Salisbury. It’s just a beautiful development.

Reporters: What’s the name of the development?

Dole: [10-second Pause followed by nervous laughter] Well…

[Another pause]

Reporters: It’s fine if you …

Dole: I have to stop and think for a moment.

She eventually came up with the name (Forest Glen). Good for her.

• GA-Sen: Jim Martin has been impressively polling close to Saxby Chambliss in this race, which is kind of off the radar screen. And now he's brought in Max Cleland, the former Senator who Chambliss smeared horribly in the 2002 matchup (comparing him to bin Laden), to cut an ad. Keep an eye on this one.

• AK-Sen: The thought was that Ted Stevens wanted a speedy trial to prove his innocence before his Senate election. I guess he's less secure in the court case now, because he's clearly trying to drag it out. His lawyers are asking for reams of documents and plan to present a long, aggressive case. That may be good courtroom strategy, but it's terrible for Stevens' re-election hopes.

• MN-Sen: This is hilarious. No comment necessary.

Interviewer: I just want to know how you feel about the last eight years of George Bush.

Norm Coleman: Well, uh, belehduh belehdudeduh.

That's a verbatim quote.

House And Senate Report

Just a few things I've seen around.

• NC-Sen: Elizabeth Dole is the subject of the worst profile I've seen of a candidate in a while. It starts with her saying that she's been in her home state a lot lately. Um, it's kind of your job to be connected with your constituents all the time. Then there's this amazing statement:

Dole said she also supports drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, where drilling would have a small footprint that wouldn’t harm much wildlife.

“Even the caribou like to snuggle up to the pipeline,” she said.

This flavor of crazy leaped from right-wing Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota over to Dole. The idea that Liddy Dole can read the minds of caribou - and that PLAYS INTO HER POLICY THINKING - is just incredible. If I'm Kay Hagan I play that for the next 11 weeks.

• AK-Sen: Ted Stevens is going to be standing trial in Washington, losing his battle for a change of venue in his corruption case to Alaska, where he has been providing everyone with their own personal bridge for 40 years. Sound judicial decision. So he'll be spending September and October in DC while fighting for his political life back at home, returning on weekends to campaign after a 8-hour flight. And he's in his 80s. Those will be some energetic rallies.

• CO-Sen: VoteVets has gone up with a very good ad basically calling Bob Schaffer a war profiteer for negotiating oil contracts in Kurdistan in the middle of the Iraq war. It's gotten some local coverage, where you can see Schaffer's campaign manager blowing a gasket.

Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, demanded the group apologize to the candidate.

"That is the most reprehensible and disgusting attack that could be leveled," Wadhams said, adding that three of Schaffer's five children are officers in training in college and will be deployed within a few years [...]

Wadhams challenged VoteVets.org to release its list of donors to prove it is not funded by "labor unions and leftist organizations."

Touchy, touchy!

• MS-Sen: This race between Roger Wicker and Ronnie Musgrove is far closer than you would expect for a race in Mississippi. So it's time for the Bush Administration to step in and sabotage the election.

When the Democrats and their attorneys began claiming last year that the Bush administration was using its prosecutorial might to target opposition candidates and their major financial supporters, I greeted the allegation with a skeptical eye.

I’m not so sure anymore.

This past week’s developments in the four-year-old investigation into the failed Mississippi Beef Processors plant seem timed to help derail Democrat Ronnie Musgrove’s bid to snatch one of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats from Republican hands.

Read the whole thing.

• FL-13: CREW has filed an FEC complaint against Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan, and there are a couple interesting signatories to the complaint - Buchanan's own employees.

Today, CREW and Florida citizens Carlo Bell and D.J. Padilla (both of whom worked for Buchanan's car dealerships) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) against Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) alleging serious violations of campaign finance law. The complaint and affidavits of Bell and Padilla can be found here.

Rep. Buchanan owns several car dealerships in Florida. In September 2005, dealership employees were pressured into contributing to Rep. Buchanan’s congressional campaign and some were reimbursed for making contributions. Former employee Carlo Bell was called into a manager’s office and told that if he was part of the “team” he would make a contribution. Fearing for his job, Bell agreed to make the donation and was handed $1,000 in cash. Bell also saw two other employees, Jack Prater and Jason Martin take cash in return for promising to write checks and FEC reports confirm that both men made $1,000 contributions to the Buchanan campaign.

• MN-03: It's Blog Day for Ashwin Madia, a former Marine corpsman and solid progressive. He also ended up writing a great piece about Sen. Lieberman and Iraq today.

Today, the Republican Party announced that the loudest defender of status quo policies on Iraq, Senator Joe Lieberman, will be a prominent speaker at the Republican National Convention in my home state of Minnesota. Senator Lieberman and I do have one thing in common. We’ve both changed political parties. I left the Republican Party in 2002 after it replaced “balance our budget” with “borrow and spend” and after we started a war without a plan for success; a war we did not need.

With all respect to Senator Lieberman, talking tough about Iraq is not brave. Bravery is not demonstrated through words but instead through action.

Senate Campaign Report

Let's see what's happening in the races to move into that august body.

• VA - Mark Warner, who's all but assured of beating Jim Gilmore to become the next Senator from Virginia, will be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in two weeks. There are two virtual locks for pickups on the Democratic side this year - Warner, a centrist, and Tom Udall, a progressive from New Mexico. Picking the former to deliver the keynote isn't exactly surprising, but it's a little depressing.

• MN - I really liked this YouTube debate - a real YouTube debate, where the questions and answers come from Web video - between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. I thought Franken made some excellent points and the issues were handled with an appropriate amount of seriousness. But this election in Minnesota has been more about silliness than seriousness, with allegations of improper payments of taxes and untoward language in jokes among the smears being lobbed at Franken. Now Coleman is getting a taste of this, as his sweetheart lease at a lobbyist friend's house in DC is being questioned.

Sen. Norm Coleman didn't have a lease for the first year he rented a garden-level bedroom in an upper-bracket Capitol Hill row house owned by a longtime friend and Republican operative.

In addition, Coleman didn't make a payment for utilities for the living space until last month, under a verbal agreement he had with his landlord -- St. Paul businessman Jeff Larson -- to settle up after a year in residence, Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said.

Coleman's Washington living arrangements, first reported in a National Journal article in June, have been a target of criticism by DFL officials and DFL election opponent Al Franken.

I'd rather stay on the issues in a perfect world, but when you're slimed like this you have to fight back. Good for Al Franken.

• AK - You know things are going bad for Ted Stevens when the governore who appointed him to the seat thinks his career is over.

• OR - Gordon Smith, in his time-honored tradition of painting himself as a moderate despite voting strongly with Republicans for the last six years, has dropped his state co-chairmanship for John McCain's election campaign. Very convenient, coming at a time when Smith is featuring Barack Obama and John Kerry in TV ads.

By the way, I've been remiss in mentioning that I had the chance to meet Jeff Merkley, Smith's opponent in Oregon, at an event last week. Merkley's an impressive guy - a former exchange student in the poorest parts of Ghana, a nuclear freeze activist who eventually worked in the Defense Department, the Democratic leader in the Oregon House who led them back into the majority and worked hard to pass a solid progressive agenda. Merkley and his family will have no health care after January - his wife went part-time during the election campaign and lost her coverage, and Merkley's coverage with the state will run out after he is replaced in the state House. This is someone who's really running for health care, and I found him to be intelligent, engaging and progressive on the issues. Oregon is really the tipping point - it will make the difference between a potential 5-seat Democratic pickup and something much larger.

• NC - The DSCC is pouring money into this race, attacking Elizabeth Dole in her battle against State Sen. Kay Hagan. I confess to not being Hagan's biggest fan, but Dole is a rubber stamp and a terrible legislator.

• NJ - The Republicans are bugging out of this race, pitting Sen. Frank Lautenberg against Dick Zimmer. Practically every year, Republicans pour money into New Jersey and come out with nothing. They appear to have learned their lesson. Republicans literally have only one pickup opportunity this cycle, in Louisiana.

...Senate Guru is always the best source for Senate campaign news.

Bargaining For One More Positive Balance Sheet

We have a combination energy/environmental crisis going on. Gas prices are so high that people are working to fill up the fuel tank, paying as much as a quarter of their income on transportation. The Antarctic ice sheets are collapsing and falling into the ocean on what seems like a daily basis. The current energy infrastructure is unsustainable from a financial, military and environmental perspective. And yet we're seeing freshman Democratic members of Congress quite literally being bribed to maintain the status quo.

Moderate House Democrats -- even freshmen with little obvious influence -- have seen a surge of campaign contributions from the energy industry, whose giving patterns have long favored Republicans.

Data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics show the overall industry and individual energy companies giving a larger percentage now to Democrats than they have in a decade. Though powerful committee chairman are seeing a major share of those new industry dollars, a large portion is also flowing to rank-and-file lawmakers who have agreed with the industry on some key issues [...]

[T]here is no denying the importance of moderate Democrats. They have already left their marks on pivotal debates, forcing party leaders to scale back legislative proposals on the renewable electricity standard, fuel economy and oil leasing [...]

Last year, Blue Dog PAC -- which distributes money to group members and other moderate candidates -- received $96,000 from electric utilities, oil-and-gas companies and energy industry groups, according to Federal Election Commission figures.

As long as the energy industry can pick off enough Bush Dogs, they can keep a working conservative majority on these issues and defer the eventual breakdown of their profit margins. Obama and Clinton both have decent enough energy plans but even they have been touting "clean coal" as they hit a series of coal-producing states in the primaries. And even potential incoming members of Congress are being bought off by big energy interests during their stays in state legislatures. Here's a report from someone who's unbought and unbossed, US Senate candidate from North Carolina Jim Neal:

I was surprised and frankly shocked while reading Greensboro’s Yes Weekly article about State Senator Kay Hagan.

Kay points to Senate Bill 3 (SB 3) as an example of how “we do things right in Raleigh.” The legislation adopted by the state senate last year gives away the store to Duke Energy, one of the top contributors to Kay’s state senate campaigns .

You may not know about SB 3. And the problem is I don’t think you’re supposed to. The Raleigh News-Observer says SB 3 was “an insiders' deal from the get-go,” passed with “virtually nonexistent” public debate and no “serious financial analysis of its total impact on consumers.” http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/martinez/story/626147.html

SB 3 shifts the cost of building new power plants from industry to consumers. Duke will be allowed to bill consumers for the costs of building new power plants - before the plants produce even a single watt of electricity. Instead of borrowing money to build power plants, Duke Energy and Progress will charge you more on next month’s bill. This fundamentally changes the law and how the utilities do business in North Carolina.

Only by strengthening and growing the progressive movement and winning primary races such as this one in North Carolina are we going to break this stranglehold that's choking off our ability to move meaningfully on mitigating the impact of climate change. Public mass transit has to be a part of that solution. Here in California it looks like high speed rail will finally get an opportunity on the state ballot. Private investors will be involved, but if they want to be part of the solution rather than the problem I'm OK with it. We're not going to stop industry from bargaining for one more positive balance sheet, but if they're incentivized to work toward solutions that are profitable and sensible for our energy and environmental future, there can be a pleasant compromise that expands the economy as a side benefit.