Author: David Weigel

In the wake of Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Ma.) upset victory in Massachusetts, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee issued a memo to campaign managers suggesting a few ways to prevent their candidates from becoming the next Martha Coakley.

“Create sufficient pressure for your moderate opponents to be forced to weigh in on the positions of your far right opponents,” argued the memo writers. The memo set up a hypothetical scenario in which a front-running candidate would have to respond to someone who questioned whether President Barack Obama was a natural-born citizen of the United States. The so-called “birther” question, they argued, could trip up Republicans just as well as questions about the gold standard or nullification of federal laws.

Republicans and conservatives rolled their eyes at the scheme. “That has got to be the most brilliant campaign strategy since Michael Dukakis and [former Georgia Senator] Max Cleland raised questions about their own patriotism,” joked conservative columnist James Taranto in The Wall Street Journal.

But it wasn’t Democrats who fired off the first attack ad on the “birther” conspiracy theory. On Feb. 24, Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) re-election campaign released a 78-second video accusing his primary challenger, J.D. Hayworth, of indulging the conspiracy theorists. Footage of wild-eyed “birther” attorneys segued into footage of Hayworth mulling over the “questions” surrounding the birth of the 44th president.

The attack from McCain followed several days of under-the-radar, intra-Republican rumor-mongering about Hayworth’s apparent indulgence of the “birthers.” While they haven’t launched such full-on assaults, some Republican strategist have also nudged reporters to pose the “birther” question to California U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore and Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul, as well as Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), a candidate for governor of Georgia. Even Sarah Palin, who gave a wishy-washy answer to a conservative radio host when asked about Obama’s citizenship, has taken some quiet friendly fire from Republicans bracing for her to hit the 2010 campaign trail. More than 18 months after the conspiracy theory debuted, it continues to dog the GOP — with some prodding by strategists and activists in both parties.

Most Republicans argue that the prominence of “birther” conspiracy theories is the fault of the left, and of liberal think tanks and bloggers like Mark Stark who have captured Republicans on video fumbling the question. Outwardly, they say it’s a distraction that won’t matter.

“The fact that national Democrats are focusing on birthers,” said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, “instead of the national unemployment rate… is absolutely bearing fruit [for the GOP.] Republican candidates are now ahead in the polls in eight Democrat-held Senate seats along with all five contested open seats. It’s clear Democrats have not learned a thing from their losses in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.”

Still, the issue succeeded in shaking up the GOP primary in Arizona. The “Identity” video sparked a war of words between Hayworth’s and McCain’s press shops, with the former accusing the latter of desperation. But there’s a reason for the “birther” resurgence: a bill in the Arizona state legislature, co-sponsored by most Republicans, that would demand “documents that prove” that any future presidential candidate “is a natural born citizen.” The existence of that measure lengthened the news cycle for McCain’s attack, with Hayworth saying he’d support a version of that kind of legislation and McCain taking a pass, his spokesman Brian Rogers telling TWI that the senator “generally doesn’t tell the state what to do.” Hayworth’s campaign called that a dodge.

“This law specifically requires documentation for the presidential primary,” said Hayworth’s spokesman Jason Rose in an interview with TWI. “It should apply to anyone seeking any office. When J.D. goes to the polls he has to provide an ID, so why have a different, lesser, standard for this office?”

Despite the local legislative issue, Rose clarified that Hayworth’s position on Obama was that “the questions about the president have been asked and answered.” But the hubbub there could be repeated in five other states where legislation about the eligibility of presidential candidates has been introduced — in every case, by Republicans. Indiana’s Senate bill 82 grapples with the legal standing issue that has vexed “birthers,” granting the right to challenge qualifications to “a registered voter of the jurisdiction conducting the election.”

New Hampshire’s House bill 1245 mandates that “the names of the candidates shall not appear on the ballot unless the secretary of state has received certified copies of the birth certificates of the candidates.” And in South Carolina, freshman state Rep. Tommy Stringer has introduced legislation that would amend the state’s election code to make sure that “a candidate for President or Vice President of the United States may not have his name printed on a ballot in this State unless there is conclusive evidence that he is a natural born citizen of the United States.” In an interview with TWI, Stringer said the Certificate of Live Birth made available by Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 “satisfies” him, unless “someone comes up and proves he was born in Kenya or someplace.” The rationale, he said, was not shaming Obama, but demanding transparency.

“As far general opinion goes, Americans don’t trust the government at either the federal or state level,” Stringer said. “Whatever we do to enforce trust and accountability — something like proving citizenship for office — that’s a minimal thing that could establish some trust.”

Stringer was bearish on the chances of his legislation — he doubted it would pass in 2010, though he plans to introduce it again in 2011. The “birther” movement itself has been just as persistent. At last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, two leading “birther” attorneys drew a mixed response from attendees and a negative response from politicians. Phil Berg, the Pennsylvania attorney who filed the first suit against Obama in 2008, handed out advertisements, occasionally finding sympathy. But Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli pulled out of a panel because Gary Kreep, a California attorney who has represented Alan Keyes in a “birther” lawsuit, would be on the podium.

After chatting with Berg, Ken Timmerman, a Newsmax.com reporter and former editor of Reader’s Digest, told TWI that the media’s blackout on the conspiracy theory had affected him, too. He’d had articles about the subject spiked. Conservatives, he said, were worried about tackling it.

“What they do is use the Saul Alinsky response,” said Timmerman, “just to ridicule us. ‘Well, it’s the birthers again, the crackpots.’ I think that’s what a lot of the hesitation is about. They don’t want to allow the left to dismiss a legitimate movement because of something like this.” Timmerman understood the thinking of conservative leaders, and understood why liberals thought it was a target for mockery. He just thought they were both going to proven wrong.

Arizona Democrats, meanwhile, are enjoying the circus.

“John McCain hasn’t been a leading voice in the anti-birther movement,” said Jennifer Johnson, a spokesperson for the Arizona Democratic Party. “He saw this as a way to draw a distinction and paint J.D. as an extremist, and less of a legitimate candidate.” And McCain, she said, had no reason to worry about offending hard-right primary voters. “He lost them years ago.”

Mike Stark talks to Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a conservative in a safe seat who has no qualms about discussing abortion in extreme terms, and Stark gets the congressman to say legal abortion was worse for African-Americans than slavery was.

“I don’t believe for one second that he intends to insult anyone,” says Stark. “I don’t think he sees the racism (or paternalism) in what he’s saying.” I agree. Franks has been a huge proponent of this argument, going so far as to show the documentary “Mafaa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America” to his House colleagues. That film argues, as some black conservatives argue, that legal abortion came about as a plot by white eugenicists to destroy black America. So that’s where Franks is coming from.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on his ABC News radio show, Sarah Palin chastised President Obama for telling Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), during the health care summit, “the campaign is over.”

“Todd and I both saw that,” said Palin, “and we both said, you know, how arrogant for our president to say that.” She called McCain “an American war hero who has sacrificed so much,” arguing that for him “to be dissed like that on national television did not speak well for our president’s character.”

It was about as soft an interview as these exchanges can be. “I like it when you say common-sense conservatism,” said Hannity. “That, to me, means Reagan conservatism.”

The senator-cum-radio host, who has one of the most smart-aleck twitter feeds in conservative politics, makes fun of the Secretary of Homeland Security’s tennis injury. (In typical, sleepy Thompson fashion, he’s reacting to old news.)

Jonathan Rauch — one of the few libertarian/conservatives, like Bruce Bartlett and David Frum, who has remained more hopeful than partisan in the Obama era — pens a compelling essay about the roots of modern GOP populism. It’s all about the legacy of former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, argues Rauch. (Wallace, a Democrat and independent, gave his final presidential endorsement to Bob Dole in 1996.)

Supporters of Sarah Palin won’t like this passage — to say nothing of neoconfederate Wallace-lovers:

The hottest ticket in the Republican Party is Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee. In a recent column, George Will compared her insurgent libertarianism to that of Goldwater’s, which electrified the Right in 1964. Fair enough. But Goldwater served for 30 years as a respected insider in Washington’s most exclusive club, the U.S. Senate; he was never interested in cultural and social issues; resentment and rage were alien to him. Palin’s style and appeal are closer to Wallace’s.

Palin: “Voters are sending a message.” Wallace: “Send them a message!”

Palin: “The soul of this movement is the people, everyday Americans, who grow our food and run our small businesses, who teach our kids and fight our wars…. The elitists who denounce this movement, they just don’t want to hear the message.” Wallace: “They’ve looked down their noses at the average man on the street too long. They’ve looked [down] at the bus driver, the truck driver, the beautician, the fireman, the policeman, and the steelworker….”

Palin: “We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.” Wallace: “We have a professor — I’m not talking about all professors, but here’s an issue in the campaign — we got these pseudo-theoreticians, and these pseudo-social engineers…. They want to tell you how to do.”

Palin: “What does he [Obama] actually seek to accomplish…? The answer is to make government bigger; take more of your money; give you more orders from Washington.” Wallace: “They say, ‘We’ve gotta write a guideline. We’ve gotta tell you when to get up in the morning. We’ve gotta tell you when to go to bed at night.’”

Reid Wilson has the details of a National Journal interview with Newt Gingrich in which the former speaker of the House — resigning 12 years ago, Democrats like to point out, after an election defeat and several scandals — mulls a presidential run. He’s also launching a PAC, becoming a skin-in-the-game political player (as opposed to a floating wise man and commentator) for the first time since, I think, 1998, when Democrats used his unpopularity to beat up on Republicans.

As he reflected on the arguments of a potential campaign, Gingrich mused, “I think that the three questions are: who are we [as a country], what do we have to do to compete successfully with China and India, and what threatens us and how do we stay safe?” If a GOPer could effectively organize a campaign around those themes, Gingrich said, “You’d be a [Ronald] Reagan or bigger majority coming together to say, ‘Yep, that’s the direction I want to go in.’”

Ronald Reagan’s majority or bigger! No one’s going to chasten Gingrich for his lack of self-confidence. I’ll just point out that Gingrich remains a fairly unpopular politician, a fact that his omnipresence in the Beltway and on Fox News sometimes obscures.

The news that Gov. David Paterson (D-N.Y.) won’t seek a full term of his own in the wake of a new scandal reminds me of this TV ad that Paterson and gubernatorial nominee Eliot Spitzer ran in 2006, and which first became darkly ironic when Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal.

Video after the jump:

The “all the way to the end” line is especially bitter now. And it’s especially hard to see how Spitzer’s rumored designs on a comeback campaign for state comptroller will work now that his hand-picked successor is going to leave in disgrace, loathed by most of the state’s voters.

A friend passes on this high-quality video of Rand Paul’s closing statement at a candidate forum for Kentucky U.S. Senate candidates. If you’ve watched enough video of his father, Ron, debating Republicans, the resonances and contrasts are remarkable. Rand looks and sounds like his father, but he’s got a yen for partisan combat and a crispness to his arguments.

Ron, who vastly expanded his support as a kind of cult figure in the 2007 campaign, was always more comfortable making philosophical arguments than grappling with his opponents. Rand makes those arguments, then fires bullets back at his opponents, Trey Grayson and Bill Johnson. It’s an illustration of how a candidate whose first media coverage was of the “isn’t this an amusing sideshow” variety has put himself in position to be the GOP’s nominee in Kentucky.

Video after the jump:

Brooke Obie documents a paranoia that had escaped my attention up to now — the worry that the Obama administration was altering the Missile Defense Agency’s logo to look like a Muslim crescent. Seen here on Fox News:

Josh Gerstein has the rundown on how a Muslim academic, whose political connections probably sunk 2004 Senate candidate Betty Castor in Florida, has won a starring role in California’s combative GOP Senate primary. Carly Fiorina’s campaign is hammering Tom Campbell, who recently entered the Senate race and has become the frontrunner, over his ties to Al-Arian.

“I am deeply troubled by these reports. I think the people of California deserve to know more about Tom Campbell’s association not only with Sami Al-Arian but also … with other people of questionable record,” Fiorina said in a statement. “What is clear is that Tom Campbell and I couldn’t disagree more when it comes to policy regarding our nation’s relationship with Israel.”

The Fiorina campaign held a call today with skeptical-sounding reporters, who were unsure what Campbell had to answer for given the passage of time from Al-Arian’s controversies. “There’s a definite problem here with Tom Campbell in terms of who he’s taking money from and who supports him,” said Marty Wilson, Fiorina’s campaign manager.

Reid Wilson, a must-read for everything related to the Republican National Committee, has the latest on Chairman Michael Steele’s kindness to the island territories that provided his January 2009 margin of victory for the job.

State and local development dir. Shannon Reeves and new media dir. George Alafoginis, 2 top RNC officials, are in Guam this week as part of Steele’s commitment to provide more party resources to U.S. territories, they told the Pacific Daily News. It is Reeves’ second trip, after visiting last year. The 2 top staffers will also attend the party’s Lincoln Day Dinner at a local resort.

“The visit is a part of party building activities the committee undertakes everyday to ensure the Republican Party is competitive in every state and territory, which is an important priority for Chairman Steele. To do otherwise — and not make critical investments in our state and local parties — would be political malpractice,” said RNC communications director Doug Heye.

As I’ve said before, as long as the Republican Party is doing well, it’s hard to see how annoyance with these sorts of decisions will really hurt Steele.

The “Republican Obama” — who doesn’t really push back against that term — gets the first real negative coverage of his Florida campaign for U.S. Senate, and fundraises off it in terms reminiscent of the Obama-Biden campaign.

Full email after the jump:

Charlie Crist and his campaign are incredibly desperate and may well have hit rock bottom.

This week, two polls show Charlie Crist is losing by 18 points in the primary, while two staffers have deserted his campaign.  Jeb Bush called his support for the stimulus “unforgivable.”  In response, Crist has reacted by going on national television to announce his intentions to smear Marco in the upcoming election.  Meanwhile, multiple media sources reported this week on Governor Crist possibly running for the Senate not as a Republican but as an Independent.

As a result, earlier this week, the Crist campaign leaked copies of Marco’s American Express card statements from his time as a Florida GOP leader to at least one Florida-based media outlet. Given that no one had access to these records other than Marco and the previous, Crist-selected state party administration, copies of these internal documents could only have been obtained for them through the efforts of former Chairman Jim Greer and his team.

The fact that the sitting Governor of Florida, who was elected as a Republican, would go on to leak private internal RPOF documents is outrageous and appalling, especially in light of the scandals and destruction left behind by his handpicked choice for Chairman.

When Marco first entered this race, he was warned that there was nothing Charlie Crist would not do to save his political career.  Now we all see how true that is.  The Crist campaign is leveling every made-up charge and sleazy innuendo it can come up with.

I am sure that before the day is done, Charlie Crist and his campaign will respond to this story with expressions of shock and outrage. Perhaps he will go on to profess his supposed longstanding adherence to transparency. We think this would be a wonderful opportunity for him to prove that.

He should apologize for the irresponsible spending of his hand-picked state party leaders, former Chairman Jim Greer and Executive Director Delmar Johnson, and demand a full accounting of their spending.

He should also call for an audit on the work performed for the party by consultants linked directly to him, as well as examinations into any direct or indirect contributions the party has provided, in possible violation of party rules, to his Senate campaign.

On a day when Floridians are focused on finding a job, working hard to keep the one they have, or concerned about what may come of today’s Obama Health Care Summit in Washington, it’s sad that Charlie Crist has resorted to this type of campaign.  It’s especially sad when you consider the major challenges our nation faces.

Have you had enough of these desperate smears against Marco?  If so, here’s what you can do:

Send Charlie Crist a signal that you’re not going to let him get away with it. Help Marco fight the smears.  Donate today and help Marco fight back.

Thanks for your continued support,
Team Rubio

The influential conservative site gets into some of the issues I covered in my story today about the sleeper special election in PA-12 — the seat opened up by the death of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) — and backs a first-time candidate against the man who gave Murtha his last, stiff challenge.

Credible rumors are circulating in Pennsylvania that should Tim Burns, an outstanding candidate, get the Republican nomination for the special election, Russell would try to go Doug Hoffman and rally people against the establishment. Were this true, it would be unacceptable as Tim Burns is stellar. None of this is intended to slight Bill Russell or the admirable service he has rendered to this country. Rather, it is an expression of our judgment that Tim Burns is the better candidate to run a post-Murtha campaign that will encourage the voters of Pennsylvania’s 12th District to think positively about the future and the Republican party.

My story here.

If Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants to make his primary opponent J.D. Hayworth flinch at embracing the conservative fringe, he’s got work to do. Hayworth sat for a CPAC interview with the John Birch Society-affiliated Liberty News Network, right in front of the JBS booth.

“There is every indication,” write the Birchers, “that Hayworth’s challenge to McCain in the primary election for the Senate will prompt the four-term incumbent to mute or outright reverse his liberal stance on issues such as climate change, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, gays in the military, and the bailout of banks.”

Newt Gingrich spent the last week promoting a liveblog of the health care summit at his Center for Health Transformation, with “expert commentary” and the “voice of the American people.” And here it is:

Eventually, an expert chimes in:

Michael Ditmore, MD  – We are contemplating expanding Medicaid coverage and have not considered the consequence of these actions. Even now we do not have enough physicians enrolled to provide adequate care in this system, let alone quality and preventive care. This is because of inadequate reimbursement to providers and therefore lack of participation. You see this in the ER’s being overwhelmed because patients can not find a participating physicain. There are other reasons but that is a primary cause.

Another issue in providing care based on “best practice” is a little discussed part of the Medicaid regulation that states a state program must provide “medically necessary” care. The courts have elected to interpret that to mean that if any physician states that a procedure is medically necessary the program must cover the procedure.

Again, before we expand a broken, expensive program we must fix the problems we already know about.

Will this mix of trite sloganeering and prefab comments get better over the course of the day? Stay tuned.

Michael Calderone recaps an amusing spat between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Mediaite.com, after the gossipy website ran an item about the Dallas Tea Party’s video knocking MSNBC for its all-white line-up of hosts. The headline is Olbermann’s  criticism of Dan Abrams; the part that interests me is just how much attention the Dallas Tea Party — one of the more media-savvy local groups in the movement — got for a simple and apples-and-oranges video. I think the Atlantic’s John Hudson offered the strangest take on the video:

However often the left makes the charge, the right is quick to rebut that the Democratic leadership–let alone the MSNBC line-up–are hardly bastions of racial diversity.

In case you’ve forgotten, the Democratic Party is led by this guy. I don’t think it matters, but suggesting that the Tea Party movement is not, like the Republican Party, less racially diverse than America as a whole, should really not be controversial.

In the final weeks of the 2008 campaign, Lt. Col. (ret.) Bill Russell got a taste of political superstardom. He’d been running against Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) for a year, inspired by the congressman’s opposition to the Iraq War. In a bad year for Republicans, he’d struggled to get traction. And then, two weeks out of the election, Murtha told a newspaper’s editorial board that he represented a “racist area” that wouldn’t support Barack Obama for president.

Online donations flooded in to Russell’s campaign. Polls showed him on the verge of knocking out Murtha, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee and one of the senior members of the House. National media trekked into the rural, southwestern 12th district of Pennsylvania looking for a ray of Republican hope. In the end, Murtha rallied and won by 16 points — his lowest margin in decades, but enough to make the Russell surge seem like a mirage.

On February 8, Murtha died unexpectedly, setting up a May 12 special election in his district — the only one in America that voted for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in 2004 and the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008. It’s the sort of largely white, largely pro-life, conservative area where political reporters once found ticket-splitting “Reagan Democrats,” and the sort of district that needs to flip if Republicans are to take back the House of Representatives in 2010.

But taking this seat, say Republicans, won’t be as easy as it looks on paper. Democrats interested in the race include former state Treasurer Barbara Hafer and former Lieutenant Governor Mark Singel, as well as Murtha’s plugged-in district director Mark Critz. Republicans, however, are grappling with Russell and one other candidate — elected Republicans in the district have, so far, begged off on the expensive-looking race.

Some local party leaders, who will choose the nominee on March 11 in a private vote, are looking past Russell at Tim Burns, who has more personal wealth and deeper ties to the district. Russell isn’t budging, telling TWI that he’ll wage a primary campaign for his party’s nomination — also on May 12 — even if denied the special election endorsement. Base Connect, the campaign firm that has managed Russell’s fundraising in both cycles — taking a substantial amount of it back in fees — is working to convince conservative voters across the country that denying Russell the nomination would be tantamount to a betrayal of the base.

State Republicans aren’t buying it.

“Bill has, the last time I checked, $216,000 in the bank,” Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Rob Gleeson said in an interview with TWI. “You and I know that’s not a lot of money for a House race.”

Russell, in an interview with TWI, said that Gleeson had always written him off because, despite their partisan differences, he was “directly beholden financially to John Murtha” thanks to business that Gleeson does in Johnstown, the district’s biggest city and Murtha’s old political base.

“In the last campaign, he did nothing for me,” said Russell. “The party produced a slate card for voters with the names of the candidates on the Republican ticket, and my name was left off. When the presidential campaign stumped here — three times — I was never invited to speak at the rallies. So I have very little trust and very little faith in the state committee. I’ve been busy building support with the people of the district.” Having moved to the district after retirement, Russell argued that his work has erased the “carpetbagger” charge that Murtha clubbed him with.

Gleeson shrugged off the criticism. “Bill’s always had a chip on his shoulder,” he told TWI. “I knew John Murtha for 38 years, and he weakened our Republican ticket by being larger-than-life. I lost a state legislature race in 2008 because Russell was surging in the polls and Murtha turned out his forces to come out for the Democrats. He hurt me!”

Nonetheless, Russell’s campaign team has been driving home the message that to nominate another candidate would be to throw the seat to liberal Democrats. At last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Base Connect employees handed out “No NY-23 in PA-12″ buttons, comparing Russell’s race, and his quest to win over local Republican leaders, with the mess that ended up sparking an intra-Republican Party war and electing Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.). Freedom’s Defense Fund, a 527 group which shares office space with Base Connect and works for the same candidates, showed conference attendees an ad campaign it was running in the district, selling Russell as a tried and true conservative who deserved the nomination. The 527 group even paid Zogby and Associates for a poll — it revealed Russell as the choice of Republican voters by 30 points, although most voters had heard of neither candidate.

Neither the poll nor the ad has done anything to dissuade Tim Burns, a small businessman and Tea Party activist who told TWI that he was confident of lining up the Republican leadership support he needed to grab the special election nomination.

“Bill Russell sat in my house,” said Burns, “and told me that the reason he got into race was that he was upset about what John Murtha had said about the Marines at Haditha.” Murtha had accused eight Marines of complicity in a 2006 massacre in that Iraq town; seven were later cleared. “He moved into district to take on Murtha. I grew up in the district, in Johnstown. And I will outwork the competition. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

At CPAC, some Russell allies told TWI that the local party committees backed Burns, who made a fortune in pharmacy technology before selling the business in 2003, because he could spend enough money to help the rest of the ticket. Gleeson didn’t knock down that speculation.

“Tim Burns has indicated he can be a self-funder, to a certain point,” said Gleeson. “I told him he’d better get ready to cut some checks. Raising the money you need for a race like this in two months is, like, impossible.”

The possibility of a self-funded race by Burns appeals to Republicans who worry that Russell’s fundraising might not translate to expenditures in the district. According to FEC reports, Russell has raised more than $2.8 million in this election cycle but only has, as Gleeson pointed out, $216,000 in the bank. Base Connect — which changed its name from BMW Direct in 2009 — is well paid for its work. In the final quarter of 2009, Russell’s campaign paid $85,542.83 for “direct mail – creative” to Base Connect. It also paid $2490 to Electronic Reporting Systems, $64,017.79 to Legacy List Marketing, and $18,400.70 to MacKenzie and Company. All are headquartered at Base Connect’s offices at 1155 15th Street NW in Washington. But Russell told TWI that he had built on their work to find more than 5000 donors and 1700 volunteers inside the district.

“Base Connect has raised a lot of money with direct mail,” Russell said, “and in our district that’s the best way to get your message out. It’s incredibly gerrymandered.” There are, he pointed out, five different TV broadcast areas covering the district.

Typically, races for open seats draw more candidates than challenges against incumbents. But the absence of Murtha — despised by conservative activists, dogged by investigations for his relationships with lobbyists — has cooled down national enthusiasm for this race. Russell, who’d been a conservative hero at blogs like HotAir.com in 2008, isn’t attracting much attention for his new bid.

“He’s an appealing candidate,” HotAir.com blogger Allahpundit told TWI in an e-mail. “But between the loss of anti-Murtha sentiment and the fact that there’ll be so many more races attracting attention and conservative dollars this year, I’m skeptical that he’ll do especially well. I haven’t heard any chatter about him in awhile, either; the buzz around GOP veterans who are running for House seats all seems to belong to Lt. Col. (ret.) Allen West.“

The conservative author who makes a living offending liberals takes a tiny step into the land of Obama birth certificate theories with a throwaway line in her new column.

If they could, Americans would cut the power to the Capitol, throw everyone out and try to deport them. (Whereas I say: Anyone in Washington, D.C., who can produce an original copy of a valid U.S. birth certificate should be allowed to stay.)

It’s hard to figure out the joke there unless it’s about Obama’s citizenship. Just as Rush Limbaugh moved forward the “birther” conspiracy by joking about it on his show in 2008, Coulter has the power to yank this out of the fringes.

The former governor of Florida does some helpful tackling for Marco Rubio, spending several minutes with a Newsmax interviewer to make the point that Crist’s support of the 2009 economic stimulus can never be forgiven. It emphasizes how much Rubio’s “insurgent” campaign is one of various Republican Party interests against Crist’s machine. And it’s interesting that Bush singles out “giv[ing] the president a huge victory” as a reason Crist should have opposed the stimulus package.

And the first use of Orly Taitz in a 2010 campaign video goes to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), facing a stiff challenge from former congressman/radio host J.D. Hayworth, and going after him on his flirtation — not uncommon for right-wing talk radio hosts — with the “birther” movement.

The 78-second web video introduces Taitz and Philip Berg, then Hayworth, and states that “the only difference between these people is that one is running for the U.S. Senate.”

As I first reported, the McCain campaign investigated the “birther” rumors and found them baseless — although there’s a difference between pure birther questions about Obama’s documentation and the Obama-can’t-win arguments of Taitz (who claims that Obama’s father’s citizenship prevents his son from legally serving as president).