Tale Of Two

I try extremely hard not to watch the cable nets anymore, but I'm sure they're going on and on about David Letterman's extortion plot and his revelation of an affair with a former assistant. The plotter was a CBS News employee who lived with the former assistant and found out about the trysts from her diaries. It's unclear whether Letterman was married at the time of the affairs - though probably not. Point being, he immediately came clean and stopped the extortionist, people stray and it's his personal life and all that.

But as long as we're talking about affairs and payoffs and the rest, it should be noted that while Letterman didn't give in to the extortion, John Ensign did, and may have broken multiple laws in the process.

Early last year, Senator John Ensign contacted a small circle of political and corporate supporters back home in Nevada — a casino designer, an airline executive, the head of a utility and several political consultants — seeking work for a close friend and top Washington aide, Douglas Hampton.

“He’s a competent guy, and he’s looking to come back to Nevada. Do you know of anything?” one patron recalled Mr. Ensign asking.

The job pitch left out one salient fact: the senator was having an affair with Mr. Hampton’s wife, Cynthia, a campaign aide. The tumult that the liaison was causing both families prompted Mr. Ensign, a two-term Republican, to try to contain the damage and find a landing spot for Mr. Hampton.

In the coming months, the senator arranged for Mr. Hampton to join a political consulting firm and lined up several donors as his lobbying clients, according to interviews, e-mail messages and other records. Mr. Ensign and his staff then repeatedly intervened on the companies’ behalf with federal agencies, often after urging from Mr. Hampton.

While the affair made national news in June, the role that Mr. Ensign played in assisting Mr. Hampton and helping his clients has not been previously disclosed. Several experts say those activities may have violated an ethics law that bars senior aides from lobbying the Senate for a year after leaving their posts [..]

And Mr. Ensign allowed Senator Tom Coburn, a friend and fellow conservative Christian, to serve as an intermediary with the Hamptons in May in discussing a large financial settlement, to help them rebuild their lives.

This will undoubtedly be the last thing I write about this, but I wonder if that comparison will ever be made by the Sarah Palin acolytes or other Letterman-haters on the right?

Buzzards Circle Over Mark Sanford

Despite having some of the best timing in the history of politics, it really appears that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford will be forced into resigning after revealing his walk down the Appalachian Trail with an Argentine woman. The Speaker of the South Carolina House has asked Sanford to resign, and 60 other Republicans in the House hand-delivered Sanford a letter with the same message.

I won't cry for Mark Sanford, who should resign for his disgraceful record as Governor more than anything. But this is starting to feel like a witch hunt to me. There are grounds for dismissal - his abandoning the state for two weeks back in June, for example, or his use of state travel resources for personal business. And surely, given how Jim McGreevey and Eliot Spitzer were run right out of town, it might feel rewarding to a Democrat to see someone like Sanford run out of his office. But personal trysts should not form the basis of an assault on someone's public life. There's a public record that should be sufficient for that.

That said, Sanford does look to have abused his privileges as Governor on numerous occasions, and that ought to be enough for an investigation. I'm happy to have him sit there as a national embarrassment and a walking symbol of Republican hypocrisy on family values, however.

Here's another one.

Sanford's Luck Running Out?

Mark Sanford continues to be the luckiest bastard in the world. Every time another twist and turn comes up in his personal saga, some giant event comes along and knocks him off the front page. When new details came out about his affair, Michael Jackson died. When questions were raised about using state money for his personal travel, Sarah Palin resigned. And when talk of impeachment swirled around South Carolina, with his own Lt. Governor calling for his resignation, Ted Kennedy passes away. The timing is really incredible.

But even this run of luck may not be enough to save Sanford's hide:

South Carolina Republican lawmakers are laying plans for a special session legislative session on whether to impeach and remove embattled Gov. Mark Sanford by the end of the year, several senior state lawmakers have told The Washington Times.

Republican lawmakers in the state House will use a regularly scheduled annual retreat in Myrtle Beach this weekend to discuss the governor's fate and the details on whether to call a special impeachment session of the legislature before its scheduled reconvening in January, Rep. Gary Simrill, a Republican, told The Times on Thursday.

Two bills of impeachment already are being prepared - one by a Republican lawmaker and the other by a Democrat, Mr. Simrill said.

Mr. Simrill, who said he has voted about 80 percent of the time with the Republican governor, met privately with Mr. Sanford on Tuesday and urged him to resign but to no avail.

One thing not discussed throughout this is the economic troubles in South Carolina right now. The legislature wants to get this distraction off the table so they can focus on the skyrocketing unemployment happening there. And this may not be as big an issue if the economy was humming along.

As to whether Sanford should be impeached, you have a better argument basing it on misuse of public funds and abandoning the state for a couple weeks, not a personal issue.

The Opening On Tom Coburn

Other than it being a breach of ethics, I don't care about the mini-Peyton Place going on with John Ensign and the Hampton family who worked for him, including Cindy, with whom he had an adulterous affair. I guess Ensign paid the family, but he didn't actually do it, his mother did. Adulterer, conservative, hypocrite, got it.

What does interest me is the role of Tom Coburn (R-OK) in all of this. Hampton's husband Doug suggested that Coburn came up with the idea to pay off the family. Now remember, Coburn is the guy who goes on and on in the Senate about fiscal responsibility and debt and how we can't afford anything. The hundred-grand to clear up your wandering willie problem, I guess, is OK. But here's the kicker.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Thursday said he would not testify in court or before the Ethics Committee about any advice he gave Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) on how to handle his affair with a former staffer, citing constitutional protections for communications during religious counseling, as well as the patient confidentiality privilege.

“I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon. ... That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the Ethics Committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody,” Coburn said.

First of all, Coburn is an Ob/Gyn. Unless Ensign was trying to grow a womb, I don't know what the medical nature of their conversations would be. Second, I don't think any of this rises to the level of criminality or even a breach of Senate rules. But it's sublime to see Coburn, the self-styled pillar of moral rectitude in the Senate, arrogantly deny any view into his own behavior at the Ethics Committee. Smart Democrats would throw this right in his face every time he tries to derail a bill by talking about the cost or the possibility of corruption. They could make his life miserable. After a few months of it, I'll bet the WATB would decide not to run for re-election. He's only happy being a thorn in the sides of others, after all.

...now, if this was federal campaign money being tracked through Ensign's parents, then we have some kind of hush money deal. But I think he structured it with just enough plausible deniability to get away with it.

Censure and MoveOn?

The South Carolina Republican Party took a page from the largest progressive organization in America. Never thought I'd write that.

After nearly four hours of deliberation and multiple rounds of balloting, the South Carolina Republican Party voted Monday night to censure Mark Sanford for traveling overseas to visit his mistress -- but stopped short of calling on the governor to resign.

Members of the South Carolina GOP's executive committee approved a resolution censuring Sanford for conduct that demonstrated "repeated failures to act in accordance" with the party's core principles and beliefs, according to GOP sources on the teleconference.

The resolution also reprimands the governor for "falling below the standards expected of Republican elected officials."

Sanford issued a short response to the censure through his spokesman late Monday.

"The governor fully appreciates the party's position, and he intends to work diligently to earn back its trust," said spokesman Joel Sawyer.

The censure is a first for any sitting Governor in South Carolina, but it looks like the state GOP will let it lay there.

Just like they did for Bill Clinton.

Right?

(Incidentally, Clinton didn't leave America without telling anyone to go huddle with Monica Lewinsky for a week. That would be the difference.)

Luckiest Man On Earth

Mark Sanford made his big announcement about walking the Appalachian Trail with a woman not his wife, and the next day Michael Jackson died. He gave maybe the biggest no-no of an interview to the AP, where he called his mistress his "soul-mate," and within a couple days the Quitta from Wasilla stepped up to the mic. At this rate, Sanford will strangle a bear cub live on South Carolina television, and the next day Osama bin Laden and Britney Spears will announce a secret wedding in Vegas. The guy has timing.

But while it's slipped off the radar nationally, locally in South Carolina the story continues. FWIW, Sanford doesn't want to resign.

After spending the holiday weekend with his family in Florida, Mark Sanford is apparently intent on fighting off calls for his resignation and staying in office, according to one South Carolina Republican who spoke with the governor on Monday.

Richard Yow, a member of the South Carolina Republican Party executive committee from Chesterfield County, received a phone call from Sanford on Monday afternoon. Yow said he spoke to the embattled governor for ten minutes, during which Sanford asked Yow for his forgiveness.

Yow said he told Sanford he could forgive him, but he told the governor that he should resign for the sake of the state and his family. Sanford, he said, rejected the idea.

"He said resigning would be the easy way out," Yow told CNN.

There's a conference call for the South Carolina Republican Party to decide on a formal response to the Sanford troubles. That could range anywhere from a show of support to a formal call for resignation. It's really anyone's guess.

Words You Shouldn't Use To Describe Your Mistress

Especially while you clain to be still trying to patch things up with your wife:

"soul mate"

Forget this guy being done in politics, which I think is starting to become a foregone conclusion. He's done in polite society. Could any women, single or married, with any sense of self-respect look at this guy without finding the nearest cane or umbrella and letting him have it?

The other thing is, yes, dude, go be happy, if Maria Belen Chapur will have you. That's clearly your wish. I mean, Argentina's ruling party just lost an election, maybe there's a political opening for a neo-Hooverist with a romantic side.

Sanford's Peculiar "Honesty"

I heard a lot of liberal commentators react to Mark Sanford's tearful admission of an adulterous affair with admiration that "at least he got everything out there" and told the truth like a stand-up guy. Except, of course, he didn't:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Tuesday that he saw his Argentine mistress more times than previously disclosed, including what was to be a farewell meeting in New York chaperoned by a spiritual adviser soon after his wife found out about the affair.

In a lengthy and emotional interview with The Associated Press in his Statehouse office, the governor described five meetings with Maria Belen Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up.

He said he met her two other times — their first meeting in 2001 at an open-air dance spot in Uruguay and a coffee date in New York in 2004 during the Republican National Convention. He said neither time was romantic.

It was the first disclosure of any liaisons with Chapur in the United States and contradicted a public confession last week during which Sanford admitted to a total of five encounters over their eight-year relationship.

By next week, we'll learn that he created a backdrop of Charleston somewhere in Buenos Aires and lived there all last winter.

The guy's obviously in love with this Argentine woman, and he should probably just follow his heart and go off with her. I don't think that, at this point, the people of South Carolina will miss him.

...Now there are multiple women.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress — but never had sex with them.

The governor says he "never crossed the ultimate line" with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed Sanford's once-promising political career.

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

He says that during the other encounters he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.

So honest and forthright!

What're You In For? Adultery?

The fact that Mark Sanford's adultery may be criminal under South Carolina law isn't a black mark on Sanford, but on SOUTH CAROLINA. While as Governor, Sanford probably should have known the relevant statute, I cannot believe that adultery would be punishable by fine or imprisonment. That's kind of appalling, yet unsurprising in a "The Ten Commandments should be the basis of our legal system" kind of way.

Of slightly more importance is the report that some of Sanford's trips to Argentina were taxpayer-funded. That does strike me as serious, although there's no specific causality that's been revealed yet.

Anything Happen While I Was Away?

I was out this morning until now, anything up?

Anything at all?

After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair. Wiping away tears, he apologized to his wife and four sons and said he will resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.

"I've been unfaithful to my wife," he said in a bombshell news conference in which the 49-year-old governor ruminated aloud with remarkable frankness on God's law, moral absolutes and following one's heart. He said he spent the last five days "crying in Argentina."

Sanford, who in recent months had been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, ignored questions about whether he would step down as governor.

At least one state lawmaker called for his resignation. As a congressman, Sanford voted in favor of three of four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, citing the need for "moral legitimacy."

Oh, that. Anything else? Slow news day.

OK, a few things. First, powerful men thinking they're invulnerable? Go figure. These things are actually not widespread; despite the anecdotal evidence, a small percentage of politicians have affairs on their spouses. But to the extent that they are, they are internal matters between these people and their families. Nobody really knows what goes on in someone else's marriage, and I really don't care about my representatives' faithfulness. In fact, none of us should. But where this breaks down is when these sanctimonious "family values" types want to police personal behavior of their constituents when they cannot keep it in their pants themselves.

That's the usual disclaimer. But this Sanford case is much, much different. He left his state, in fact he left the country, for seven days without telling anybody. Setting aside the fact that going to Argentina to "say goodbye" for seven days doesn't make any kind of sense, and if he got away with this I'm sure there would be additional hikes on the Appalachian trail, so to speak, in the future, leaving the country with no proper explanation is a severe dereliction of duty. He apparently lied to his own staff, lied to the Lieutenant Governor, and left his state in the lurch, despite the unpredictability of events (aren't we in hurricane season?). That's probably a firing offense. If I was a South Carolinian, it would be to me, regardless of party.

The larger story is the complete ineptitude of this crop of Republicans to capitalize on what could actually be a treacherous road for Barack Obama in 2012. Sanford has an affair. John Ensign has an affair. Bobby Jindal does an impression of Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock in his coming-out party. Newt Gingrich calls Sonia Sotomayor a racist. And on and on and on. If the economy fails to improve, and if health care fails to pass, Obama is actually vulnerable. That is, if there was a second political party in this country.

The Little Ensign That Could

This John Ensign story just gets worse and worse for him. As it turns out, he wasn't being blackmailed by a cuckold; he was pre-empting a potential disclosure on Fox News, and a lot of people had prior knowledge about the affair, including the network and key Senators, while it was happening.

The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year. In fact one of the confrontations took place in February 2008 at his home in Washington DC (sic) with a group of his peers. One of the attendee’s (sic) was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma as well as several other men who are close to the Senator. Senator Ensign’s conduct and relentless pursuit of my wife led to our dismissal in April of 2008. I would like to say he stopped his heinous conduct and pursuit upon our leaving, but that was not the case and his actions did not subside until August of 2008.

No wonder the Republicans don't really want to talk about this--they've known about it for over a year. Here's what Coburn had to say:

Reporters mobbed Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who shares an apartment with Ensign on Capitol Hill. "I'm not answering any Ensign questions," he announced. "You can ask all you want."

"You don't have any thoughts?"

"I don't have any thoughts."

"Have you had a chance to talk about it?"

"I'm just not going to comment."

Finally, Coburn was badgered into making a defense. "He is a bright young man," the senator said of his 51-year-old colleague. "Lots of people make mistakes."

The details in the letter are pretty juicy. I would say Ensign's in some trouble and this won't go away. But the best take I've seen is from David Kurtz:

While Norm Coleman was battling for his political life in 2008 in a race he ultimately lost to Al Franken by a mere 312 votes, his colleague John Ensign -- whose job as chairman of the NRSC was helping GOP senators like Norm get re-elected -- was off having an affair and finding jobs for his mistress' family.

Hilarious

Ensign Provided The Hush Money Already?

The John Ensign story, to me, was simply one about conservative hypocrisy on family values, and I left it at that. Now, in the wake of Ensign quitting his leadership post, we're seeing all kinds of allegations of hush money and use of campaign funds or even taxpayer-funded Senate staff funds, and now we're getting into the realm of the illegal.

The son of the couple at the center of the sex scandal that has engulfed Sen. John Ensign was being paid by National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008 at the same time his mother was having an affair with the Nevada Republican.

Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton were already working in senior positions for Ensign when their son Brandon Hampton was hired to do “research policy consulting” for the NRSC in March 2008.

The younger Hampton, 19, was paid $5,400 before he left the Ensign office in August last year, Federal Election Commission records show.

That means during March and April 2008, three members of the Hampton family were working for Ensign. Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton stopped working for Ensign at the end of April 2008.

In addition to the son, both Hamptons saw bumps in their salaries around the time of the affair.

Reportedly, Doug Hampton sought hush money in exchange for keeping the affair private, possibly because the family lost a bundle in the housing market in Nevada. But it looks like the Senator may have already been paying the family. And payoffs with taxpayer money takes this into a whole new area.

...Paul Blumenthal has more.

The Gingrich Faction

Adding John Ensign to Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, in all likelihood John McCain given the timing, etc., we're getting close to a MAJORITY of the Presidential candidates from the "family values" party, Republicans, having extramarital affairs. Plenty of Democrats have them, too - but there's a difference in sanctimony here. Republicans have this self-delusion that they are somehow pristine and pure, and the hypocrisy is staggering.

...In case I didn't make my point clear, I'm saying that what goes on inside one's marriage is the business of that couple and only that couple, period, and we all should generally stay the hell out of making value judgments because we're all imperfect people (ESPECIALLY politicians with a lot of power). My perception is that Republicans continue to stick their noses in people's bedrooms, despite the fact that they have proven themselves to be just as fallen. I don't think they'll take the right message from Ensign's troubles, either.

Go-To Source

I know that whenever I seek guidance on whether a policy is Catholic or anti-Catholic, I hit up the twice-divorced guy who was committing adultery while chastising the President for doing the same, thus breaking two of the Ten Commandments at the same time.

I mean, he seems like the best judge to me. After all, he's going to become a Catholic on Saturday, meaning it's all fresh in his head.

I apologize in advance for giving a crap what Newt Gingrich says or thinks.

Food for Thought

I think there's much more to talk about Sarah Palin about than personal issues - her extremism, her habitual lying, her abuse of power. But we all know what gets the eyeballs - train wrecks.

Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.

The McCain campaign personally put out a statement two days ago threatening to sue the National Enquirer for their imminent printing of a story regarding an affair between Palin and her husband's former business partner.

As I said, we all know that train wrecks get eyeballs.

... better link. Also, I hear that the motion was denied.

The United States of Puritania

It is hard-wired into the American DNA to look pruriently into other people's sex lives, to gossip and titillate ourselves, to become the world's Gladys Kravitz whenever anyone in a position of power shows a human failing. We have a deep problem with sex in America to an extent that is not replicated worldwide. When an adulterous affair or a dark secret sexual past comes to light we obsess over it. We come descended from a people who thought Eve's original sin extended to all women, and religious doctrine collectively weighed the nation down with near-constant guilt.

This residual Puritanical bent characterizes the reaction to John Edwards' revelation yesterday. It's the reason that no amount of violence in a contemporary film can garner the same rating as a film with any amount of full frontal nudity. We are really dysfunctional when it comes to sex and more so when it comes to judging other people's families. Elizabeth Edwards' statement yesterday shouldn't even have been necessary.

We also are hung up on the idea that a politician's personal life must be a reflection of how he or she would govern. And that's just not the case. Aside from moralistic hypocrisy based on, for example, voting against gay rights while being gay yourself, there's simply no reason to bring these personal peccadillos into the public square. If fidelity was a harbinger of Presidential success, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon would be triumphs while FDR would be a failure.

But more to the point, it's the priority orders we conjure up based on this Puritanical past that become truly maddening. The post I was going to write about this has already been ably penned by clammyc, so I'll just reprint a bit of it and urge you to head over there.

But moving past the issue of sex, which is really only important to people who have so little in their own lives to be proud of that they have to obsess and point fingers at others to feel better about themselves, there are so many other reasons to be absolutely frustrated with the hypocritical moralists and smarmy narcissists that are once again rearing their ugly heads. Over the past week, we found out that the White House not only passed off forged documents to sell the Iraq invasion, but they forged their own documents to sell the Iraq invasion, and there is not a peep about it?

We found out that the US attorney scandal is now focusing on the White House inner circle, yet there is a collective yawn. The much ballyhooed military tribunal of Hamdan resulted in a 5 month sentence even after a kangaroo court trial - basically a repudiation of the entire administration view on military tribunals.

We just passed 500 military deaths in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi Congress adjourned without meeting one benchmark that was supposed to be the main result of the so-called "surge", yet all we hear is the foregone conclusion that the surge worked.

Torture is still on the table. One Attorney General approved of torture memos, while also being part of voter suppression lawsuits while the latest Attorney General approves of waterboarding as long as it isn’t being done to him, and also is a chief obstructor of justice when it comes to the Executive Branch. Iraqi prisoners are being put in small wooden boxes, which of course is most certainly not torture.

Spying on Americans has been given the thumbs up by Congress, criminal defiance of subpoenas by Rove, Miers, Bolton are being allowed to set a dangerous precedent, there is more saber rattling about attacking Iran - with similar lies being trotted out by this administration, and the current republican nominee.

I would add this remarkable story, which received almost no coverage on the blogosphere and in broadcast media after being stuffed into the middle of the Washington Post yesterday:

At least 17 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay were subjected to a program that moved them repeatedly from cell to cell to cause sleep deprivation and disorientation as punishment and to soften detainees for subsequent interrogation, according to U.S. military documents.

Defense Department investigations of abuse had previously revealed that the program was used in a limited manner and only on high-value detainees, but the documents indicate that the program was far more widespread and that the technique was still used months after it was banned at the facility in March 2004. Detainees were moved dozens of times in just days and sometimes more than a hundred times over a two-week period.

So the techniques were banned by the Defense Department, banned by international convention and federal statute, and yet were still used and authorized, and if you go back you'll see that authorization coming from the highest levels. This rates barely a whisper.

It is of no consequence to those guardians of the discourse to spend weeks discussing the literal hijacking of our government (for which they receive a handsome sum, indirectly) but we, as the descendants of the Puritans, must go hog wild at the mention of an affair. I think John Edwards is a total idiot for thinking he could keep this secret during a high-stakes Presidential campaign, and for risking the loss of the White House by running, knowing the political environment in the US and our Puritanical lizard brains.

I know these appeals to reason, to assess the gravity of competing situations, often fall short. It's hard to compete with human nature, particularly American human nature. I wish we were in a country where we could accurately determine what shocks the conscience, at a human level, free from ideology or politics. That is unlikely. But I'm still going to let that determine what I prioritize to the best of my ability.

The Saddest Part

of this story is that it offers Mickey Kaus an opportunity to gloat.

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby's birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.

He was at the Beverly Hilton, as the National Enquirer suggested, too.

This has been a really bad year for the personal lives of candidates that I respected and admired. First Eliot Spitzer and now this. But I can't say that it's much of a surprise. Politicians, power, sex; it's always been part of the stew. This is true on the left and true on the right (McCain's first marriage, anyone?). The difference is that only one side consistently attempts to legislate morality.

I really feel bad for Elizabeth Edwards and the family, more than anything.

UPDATE: Reading Edwards' statement about this, the phrase "increasingly egocentric and narcissistic" jumped out at me. If you're a Presidential candidate, you run around the country in limousines and airplanes. You are greeted warmly to cheering thousands wherever you land. You give speeches and people clap and cheer. It's probably not hard to get a full head. I don't understand how someone could be so stupid but I've never been in that position. And in addition, unless you're inside a marriage you have no idea what goes on.

Nevada's Electoral Jackpot?

Todd Beeton looks at Barack Obama's Western state appeal, and while he agrees that Colorado and New Mexico look pretty good, Nevada may be out of reach.

Polling says otherwise. Rasmussen Reports found Barack Obama trailing John McCain by 6 points last month. Bush won Nevada in 2004 by just 3%. The poll represents a 1 point uptick for McCain in Nevada since April and is a full 11 points worse than Hillary Clinton polled against McCain in the state. Obama is performing this badly at a time when, thanks to the hotly contested caucuses in January, Democratic registration and involvement is up.

Of course, since that Rasmussen poll was there's also been an additional facet to the race: the all-important "the governor's a scumbag adulterer who won't be able to show his face in public and campaign for the ticket" effect.

Gibbons filed for divorce last month, saying he and Dawn were incompatible. Since then, the first couple has brawled over custody of the 23-room governor's mansion. (Dawn finally agreed to sleep in the guesthouse.) She has accused him of cheating. He says "absolutely not."

Gibbons, 63, lacks the looks and charm of a Gavin Newsom or Antonio Villaraigosa -- yet the governor is now trailed like a club-hopping starlet.

The Republican governor has been spotted with his alleged paramour, according to published reports, at a sushi bar and at her daughter's high school play. He escorted another woman to the movie "Sex and the City." A Las Vegas paper posted video of him chatting with a dark-haired woman whose face is mostly obscured. The headline: "Video of governor with 'other woman' surfaces." [...]

Conservative activist Chuck Muth says the governor needs to clean up the mess. "If they get divorced -- this is Nevada, for crying out loud -- it's not a big deal. But a messy divorce, that's trouble for everyone."

The governor won't face voters until 2010 -- a political eternity -- but GOP activists fret that his purported philandering could hurt the party in November. What if fed-up Republicans pare back campaign contributions -- or stay home on election day? That could flip control of the state Senate, where Republicans cling to a slender majority -- or even hand Nevada, which twice voted for President Bush, to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"You're going to have candidates begging the governor not to come into their district because he'll make things worse," Muth says.

This is alternatively known as the Robert Taft (Ohio Gov. caught up in Coingate) effect. Ohio went completely blue in 2006 because the Governor's troubles impacted every Republican. So too in Nevada, perhaps. Especially since John McCain loves him some nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, which I'm sure Obama will spell out in ads.

Libertarian Nevada doesn't care about a high-profile politician getting divorced and fooling around on the side, but enough people might - social conservatives and Latinos in particular - to flip a very close state. And if Gibbons can't help the state GOP, they're robbed of a valuable asset.

UPDATE: Ooh, text messages.

You know that unidentified estranged wife of a Reno doctor that the governor of Nevada is not having an affair with?

Well, during one month last year he exchanged 850 text messages with her phone from his official state phone, at 15 cents per.

This is going to get worse and really damage the Nevada GOP.

NY-13: Bye Vito

Yet another House Republican drops out and goes home, but in Vito Fossella's case, it's out of necessity.

In a bombshell announcement that brings the curtain down on one of the most storied careers in Staten Island political history, fifth-term Republican Rep. Vito Fossella will not seek re-election this fall.

Mired in scandal after revelations about the secret daughter he fathered with Virginia divorcee Laura Fay became public, Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) tells constituents in a letter to be posted on his Web site tomorrow that he will no longer serve them in Congress after his current term expires on Jan. 3, 2009.

"After a great deal of consideration, I have made the decision not to seek re-election to the United States House of Representatives this November," Fossella says in the statement. "This choice was an extremely difficult one, balanced between my dedication to service to our great nation and the need to concentrate on healing the wounds that I have caused to my wife and family."

The announcement comes almost three weeks after Fossella was arrested for DWI in Alexandria, Va., on May 1, and it removes one of the most recognizable faces from the Staten Island civic and political scenes.

These guys always leave to spend time with their family, when they got into trouble in the first place due to a lack of spending time with their family. Why would anyone think they'll actually put in the time now?

NY-13 Blog is all over this race. It's not a layup for Democrats, but it's yet another seat that will be hotly contested in November. Republicans are bracing for the worst.

Guiding Light Would Reject This Script

It looked like the Vito Fossella story was pretty standard - a politician has an affair with a woman while in Washington, and has a kid with her. This has been happening since Washington became Washington. But there were a few notable twists in this tale.

First of all, not only did the wife not know about the mistress, but the mistress didn't know about the wife:

Vito Fossella's admission that he fathered a love child exposed another of his lies: He had told his girlfriend he was separated from his wife, the Daily News learned Friday.

Retired Air Force Col. Laura Fay told those around her recently that the Staten Island congressman had split with his wife, Mary Pat, one source said.

"Fay thought - up until the release of the statement - that Fossella was separated," said the source, who is familiar with the relationship.

The source said Fay learned of the lie when a friend who saw a draft of Fossella's statement realized it didn't say he was separated.

So the wife might leave him AND the mistress might leave him. One person that isn't leaving is ... Vito Fossella.

Reports that Rep. Vito Fossella’s (R-N.Y.) resignation is imminent are incorrect, according to the lawmaker’s public relations firm.

A spokesperson at O'Reilly Strategic Communications told The Hill that Fossella has no public appearances planned this weekend and that he spent Friday with his family on Staten Island.

I know I'll go big-time when my own public relations firm talks to the media to deny rumors.

Meanwhile, it turns out that this guy is 31 flavors of hypocrite:

Vito Fossella built a career as a staunch "family values" pol, polishing his image in his predominantly Catholic district with a string of anti-gay votes.

He even shuns his gay sister, Victoria Fossella, refusing to go to family events if she and her partner attend, a source close to the family said [...]

As congressman, Fossella voted to prohibit any funding for joint adoptions by gay couples.

He has voted for the Marriage Protection Amendment, a federal prohibition on gay marriage.

He also demanded housing funds be held back from San Francisco unless it repealed its domestic partnership law.

Victoria Fossella is openly gay and marched in Staten Island's gay pride parade with her partner, according to an article published in Gay City News.

She adopted twins who were delivered by her partner, according to the story.

"She is known in the gay community and she is known in the gay community as an out lesbian," Adrian said.

The guy's so into the family values thing that he shuns his own sister, and yet he goes ahead and lies to everyone in his life and believes so much in the sanctity of marriage that he holds down two families (that makes him TWICE the marriage defender!).

Wow, what an a-hole.