Man about Murfreesboro

This is the first midterm election occurring during a 6th year of a presidential administration in which the House and Senate both switched parties since 1918. The gains in the Senate are above the average for 6th-year midterms and the gains in the House are slightly below an average that includes the Nixon adminstration 76-seat loss in 1976 and Ike's 48-seat loss in 1958.

Still, the Queen of the Harpies has to have her spin. To her, gaining 29 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate is "pathetic and the "death throes of a dying party." Just when you think you're not going to be able to savor the bitterness of the losing party's avarice, Ann Coulter steps up to the plate.

According to the Palm Beach Post, the Queen of the Harpies didn't vote in the midterms -- possibly because she's under investigation for intentionally voting in the wrong district and any vote she casts now will have an effect: vote again at the same place and increase your crime, vote in the correct district and admit you were wrong to begin with. It's comical. But then, so is she.

They're falling like dominoes over at the Pentagon. Plus the new guy is supposed to clear out the E-Ring at the Pentagon.

The new congress is shaping up. It looks like Steny Hoyer (current minority whip) will be House Majority Leader, Rahm Emmanuel (current chair of the DCCC) will chair the Democratic Caucus and James Clyburn (current caucus chair) wants to move up to Majority Whip. Hoyer faces a challenge from Jack Murtha, but Hoyer's been counting noses in the House for more than 25 years, so when he says he has the votes locked up, I believe him.

In the senate, Tennessee gets a little good news, Sen. Lamar Alexander says he has the votes lined up to take over the No. 2 spot as Minority Whip. This will no doubt disappoint Trent Lott who clearly wants the job. I dislike Alexander because he's been a Bush rubber stamp since his election, but he's making those somewhat familiar "small government" noises again. Another strike against him came when he said he was in favor of eradicating the Department of Education, but only after he was done serving as Secretary. Lott's just an old Mississippi bigot, but he's spent some of his capital on going after insurance companies that were trying to weasel out of paying Katrina victims. In the end, it's a toss-up with a lean toward Lamar because he's the hometown boy.

On the House side, Tennessean Marsha Blackburn is one of three or four candidates seeking the position of GOP Conference Chair -- the No. 4 position in the House. Blackburn would be great at the job because all it requires is to sit and listen to Republicans complain. She's as partisan and knee-jerk conservative as they come.

One of the more entertaining scenes in the Borat film occurs when Borat is picked up in an RV by a group of South Carolina fraternity brothers. Inside the small camper van, they drink and drink and trash talk and drink some more. They watch the Pamela Anderson sex video and make rude comments about women as they get continually more inebriated.

By the end, these representatives of the South, wax nostalgic about slavery, claim that they regularly have sex with women and never call them again because women do not deserve their respect and proclaim that minorities have all the power in America.

"Those guys are never going to get another girlfriend as long as they live," I said to Dollie as the scene ended.

They're suing the filmmakers. The claim is that the filmmakers took them to a bar, encouraged them to drink, had them sign release forms (after assuring them that the film was for Khasaki television and would most likely never be seen in the States and they would not be identified) got them in the RV and had them drink more.

They claim that as a result of the film they have suffered "humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community..."

Yeah . . . uh here's the thing. Alcohol doesn't turn you into an antisemite (I'm looking at you, Mel Gibson) or a pederast (Mark Foley) or a racist misogynist (John Doe's #1 and #2). You got punked by a Cambridge-educated prankster who knew exactly what buttons to push.

Fox News continues it's "fair and balanced" coverage of the election by spinning Tuesday's Democratic victory as a win for conservatives.

In Maryland, the Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (a black Republican) was running for Senate. His campaign recruited a bunch of homeless people from a shelter in Philadelphia to hand out "voter guides" in a majority black voting district in Maryland. The guides implied that Steele was the Democratic choice for Senate. The ploy didn't work and Steele lost his bid.

Hmm, it seems some conservative Christians believe former Sen. George Allen was too soft on gays, which is why he lost his race. I don't recall him being soft on gays, at least verbally. It is well-known in D.C. circles that Allen's office has a lot of gay staffers. I'm against outing anyone. If you're closeted and want to stay that way for whatever reason, fine. But Peter LaBarbara, who is president of Americans For Truth (and has a gay name) believes differently:

LaBarbara also wants the NRCC to end it's non-descrimination policy against homosexuals. So, while he says he wants them to be open in the interest of full disclosure, what he means is he wants them to be open so they can be purged from the halls of government. Which, I suppose, is one reason for a gay Republican to stay closeted.

I happen to know a few gay Republicans. One of them is extremely conservative when it comes to economics, foreign policy and religion. I don't get him at all.

Okay, pop some popcorn becaue here we go. A group of former Abu Ghraib prisoners in Germany have filed suit and are seeking criminal charges against Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, George Tenet, Stephen Cambone, John Bybee, John Yoo and a few others I've never heard of.

Well, my election predictions were slightly off. Ford lost, which, while a shame, was not entirely unexpected. The Corker camp has decamped from the building -- I assume in the dead of night because there's nothing but cobwebs around today.

The gay marriage ban was supported by 80 percent -- again, a shame, but not a big shocker there.

On the bright side, the Dems took back the House. My predictions were slightly off:

	The Dems take back the House with a gain of 30 seats. The Dems win the senate 51-49. Harold Ford edges our Bob Corker by three points.

The Dems have gained 29 seats with 10 still undecided. The picked up six seats in the Senate for a 51-49 majority (provided Lieberman caucuses with the Dems as he said he would) and Corker beat Ford by three points.

All in all, I did better than most of the punditry.

The aftermath has been interesting. Donald Rumsfeld has resigned. Dennis Hastert will not seek a leadership position. We got rid of Rick Santorum, Conrad Burns, George Allen (he's expected to concede the race today without calling for a recount) and a host of Republican scalliwags.

There will be a woman Speaker of the House for the first time ever. What would really make my day is for Harry Reid to step down in the Senate and they elect Hillary Senate Majority Leader. That might even keep her out of the 2008 elections.

All in all, it was a good day to be a Democrat.

On Rummy's departure:

Some folks are spinning this as Bush's decision. I don't thinks so. If you'll recall, just a few days before the election Bush reaffirmed his committment tor Rummy and Cheney staying the course for two more years. No, Rummy's resignation caught Bush by surprise and the proof is in the fact that, from a political perspective, it looks terrible. Really terrible. Having the Sec. of Defense quit the day after the Republicans get spanked in the midterms? There's no way to spin this one for Bush.

But he tried. When asked about his previous statements supporting Rummy, Bush said, essentially, I was lying:

	In the annals of presidential truth-telling (a thin volume), there is no obvious precedent for Bush's startling admission that he lied to reporters when he offered Don Rumsfeld a strong presidential vote of confidence just before the election. As Bush tried to explain Wednesday, "I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question ... was to give you that answer." Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution whose knowledge of the White House dates back to his days as a young Eisenhower speechwriter, called it "the honesty of the honest lie. Bush was telling the truth when he said he lied."

RNC Chair Ken Mehlman tried it too on "Today":

	"[W]hen it comes to both the House and the Senate, we obviously always knew this would be a tough year. We had a combination of, not only the fact that it's the 6th year of the President's term, where typically you lose more than 30 seats. Also the nation's at war, where typically you lose seats, as Tim [Russert] pointed out last night. And the fact that a number of members unfortunately were involved in scandal.

That little bit of spin is belied by the truth. Josh at TPM pulled some numbers:

1958: Eisenhower--Republicans lost 48 seats
1986: Reagan--Republicans lost 5 seats
1998: Clinton--Democrats gained 5 seats

So only once in the last half century has the President's party lost more than 30 seats in the second-term midterms.

The 1974 midterms, in which the Republicans lost 48 House seats in the aftermath of Watergate, occurred after Nixon resigned.

Rush Limbaugh says he feels liberated because he no longer has to lie for the Republicans. That's an amazing admission:

	"There have been a bunch of things going on in Congress, some of this legislation coming out of there that I have just cringed at, and it has been difficult coming in here, trying to make the case for it when the people who are supposedly in favor of it can't even make the case themselves - and to have to come in here and try to do their jobs."

So, Limbaugh isn't being honest with his listeners. Once more, a shame, but not a big shocker. He's been carrying the water for the Republicans and now that they're back in the minority, he doesn't feel like he has to anymore. So, starting now, I guess, he's going to tell us what he really thinks.

Feh.

You know what I think? I think Rush's attacks on Michael J. Fox helped bring more attention to the Claire McCaskill race in Missouri and pushed her over the top against Republican Jim Talent. So, in essense, Rush helped give the Dems their majority in the Senate. He'll be back on the pills in no time behind that little realization.

Bush is having lunch today with Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi. I'm wondering how that will go. I'm sure it will be very coridal and polite. There will be promises of working together and all that, but in the back of Nancy's head has to be Bush's contention uttered so often on the campaign trail that if the Democrats win, America loses.

Rush isn't alone. Hugh Hewitt (who, if it is possible I detest more than Rush) has his own little confession moment:

	The fact is, we thought our country would be better off with a Republican congress. We made a case to the American people. They didn’t buy it because they thought it was a weak case. And you know what? They were right. In the closing weeks of the campaign season, I felt like I was a lawyer who had a bad client while writing this blog. That client was the Republican Party which had broken its Contract with America from 1994 and had become unmoored from its conservative principles.

So, you've been lying to your radio audience as well, Hugh? Maybe it's just me, but I tend not to support bloggers and media pundits who are lying to me. I mean there are Democrats who will keep their game face on despite the evidence in front of them, but they're Koo-Aid drinkers. They believe their own BS. Limbaugh and Hewitt just admitted that they didn't believe what they were telling their audience.

I'll bet these sheeple just keep coming back for more.

Dollie and I took yesterday off to recover from the long election night and to spend some time together. We saw "Borat." That was a somewhat disturbing, yet very funny film. I don't think I'll be seeing that again. I was entertained by it, but there were some scenes which were so over-the-top that I'm still unable to get them out of my head. It is not, as Entertainment Weekly put it, the funniest movie ever made. But it had a lot of moments. I cackled at one point, but cringed and several more.

Bush's nominee for Secretary of State is Robert Gates, who served as CIA director under Bush's father and currently sits on the Iraq Study Group with James Baker. I believe we're finally seeing Bush come around to the idea that his dad might have undestood that part of the world a little better than himself.

This will make it a little easier for Bush to change course in Iraq as Gates will no doubt take much of the report from the ISG to heart. Hopefully, this will facilitate the creation of an actual exit strategy.

Last night I spoke to a PR class at MTSU. I told my boss I was going to do this and he said I should encourage them to go into medicine or law. "We don't need any more competition."

They were attentive (for 5 p.m.) and asked some good questions. They laughed at the appropriate places and a few of them thanked me for coming. All in all it was a much better experience than when I went to the high school for career day. They didn't bother to wake up for my presentation.

Aww man. Ed Bradley died.

As is nearly always the case, The Onion breaks it down for us:

	Republicans Blame Election Losses On Democrats WASHINGTON, DC—Republican officials are blaming tonight's GOP losses on Democrats, who they claim have engaged in a wide variety of...

KTHXBYE:

I read where Britney told KFed about their impending divorce via text message. Classic. I mean how very PoMo of her.

Meanwhile, KFed told Salon that Britney's fame was holding back his hip hop career. Heh.

Bush has officially renominated John "Cap'n Crunch" Bolton for UN Ambassador. But Lincoln Chaffee says he won't vote for him, which makes the entire process moot and will seal in concrete Bush's lame duck status.

If George Allen (R-Macawitz) wasn't such a buttbag, it would be easier to sympathize with him. A senior campaign official says he's sequestered in his home and going through a nightmare.

Tom DeLay, who's seat went to the Dems on Tuesday, doesn't care for Bush's new Secretary of Defense nominee, claiming that he'll "negotiate with terrorists."

Did the White House interfere with the FDA's approval process for Plan B emergency contraception? A federal judge says that the Center for Reproductive Rights can subpoena three years worth of records to find out.

Dobson decides to cut and run from Pastor Ted's spiritual counseling team.

Today I recall the sage words of Karl Rove who just a day before the election was confident of a Republican majority in both houses.

"You're entitled to your math and I'm entitled to the math." In the end, we may have just crushed the myth of Karl Rove's genius.

Bye bye, Mehlman.

Can you feel the tingle in the air? The Corker camp is all out putting up last-minute yard signs. I saw several Ford-istas (as my boss calls them) on the street holding up big signs. It's do or die time. The pollsters don't stop either. OnPoint conducted a poll of likely voters last freaking night. It showed Corker up by 1 point with a 3.75% MOE. The results of all the questions are interesting.

Methodology: OnPoint surveyed 667 likely voters using a random sample of registered voters with a history of voting at least once in the past three years.

While the polls tend to give Corker a slight edge, the race is still a tie. Speaking of race, you'll notice that the poll was weighted toward white Republicans.

I've been avoiding the early reports today because it all tends to be about voter problems, polling places too crowded, voting machines not working, poll workers who don't understand the law and happy photos of politicians voting for themselves.

The Dems take back the House with a gain of 30 seats.
The Dems win the senate 51-49.

The Free Enterprise Fund, those buttbags behind the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth ads in 2004 are running ads in the Illinois with the Democratic candidates home phone number in them.

Max told his mother he wanted a mohawk haircut. She agreed and got out the clippers. Now Max has a mohawk. For his first day at school with his new do, I offered to put some gel in his hair to really make it stand up. He agreed. He was very excited about the whole thing.

Right up until we pulled up to the door of his school. Then he got a little self-conscious. As I drove away, I saw him slinking into school with his arms covering his head. Heh.

Here's something to think about on your way to the polls. In 1994 (the last year of a Democratic majority) the budget had 4,155 earmarks totaling $29 billion. This year, the budget contains 15,832 earmarks totaling $71 billion.

I looked this up after my boss and I were talking about, in his words "the damn Republicans that are acting like a bunch of Democrats."

"Well, on one side you've got the Tax-and-Spend Democrats," I explained. "On the other, you've got the Borrow-and-Spend Republicans."

The fact is that the Dems have acted more responsibly with the economy and the federal budget.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas made the statement that non-Christians were doomed and condemned to Hell. This will come as a shock to his independent rival Kinky Friedman.

I like Kinky. I met him once at the Southern Festival of Books. He signed a copy of one of his mystery novels for me. If he wins in Texas today, he plans on making Willie Nelson secretary of energy.

I'm speaking to a college PR class tomorrow at Middle Tennessee State University. I'm supposed to tell them about a typical day at my job. That's a tough one because I don't have a typical day. I rarely spend two days in a row doing the same thing.

Today, for example, I had an early meeting with a bank client to pitch ideas for a holiday promotion. Then we had a staff meeting. My boss and I went to meet with some Legal Aid folks about a donation of cell phones another client was giving to victims of domestic violence. Then we went to a Christian bookstore to scout out the location of a book signing for one of our other clients.

That afternoon I worked on the podcast and mailing out packets for a legal client who wants to syndicate a newspaper column. None of which will be repeated tomorrow. I like my job, but there's very little that's "typical" about it.

O'Reilly bragged about having access to records from abortion clinics in Kansas on a recent show. Now the clinics have asked the state to investigate who leaked the records and find out how O'Reilly got them. Medical records are protected under HIPA and violating that confidence can mean some serious sanctions.

The morning after the Republican revolution of 1994, I woke up and said to Dollie "Well, it doesn't feel any different."

I was very, very wrong. Here's to hoping that we'll all wake up tomorrow in a better world. See you on the other side.

Dueling polls tell very different stories about the Corker/Ford race. Zogby International (taken Oct. 24-30) says Corker is up by 10. They polled 603 likely voters by phone. Hamilton Beattie (taken Oct. 31-Nov. 1) shows Ford up by six. They surveyed 600 likely voters by phone.

So why such divergent results? According to the Washington Post, it has to do with the sample. Zogby uses what's called random digit dialing of numbers listed in the phone book. Those who receive a call are then asked about their political affiliation and their likelyhood to vote. Zogby takes their word for it and weights the sample 40 percent Republican, 33 percent Democrat and 27 percent unaffiliated.

Hamilton Beattie gets its sample from a state voter file, which allows the company to choose particular people who they know are registered and, due to their voting habits in past elections, are likely to vote in this one. They weight their sample for the Democrats (at about 4 percent).

One of my graduate school professors was Dr. Robert Wyatt, founder of the Middle Tennessee Poll. He taught me that creating the perfect sample wasn't possible. You could get close, but to reduce the margin of error below say 3 percent, you have to increase your sample by several hundred people. At 600 or so, you're looking at about a 4 percent margin of error in a random sample. Since this isn't random sampling, you can reduce that MOE somewhat, but not much.

Regardless of which polls you look at, the overall picture shows that these two are in a dead heat. This is going to be real nail-biter.

Some good news on the Ford fundraising front came yesterday. When Corker wrote his campaign a big fat check, it triggered the milllionare ammendment allowing Ford to tap his donors for more cash to level the playing field. Ford raised a million in a single day.

Ford is widely considered on both sides of the aisle to have run the best campaign for senate in the country. The fact that he is even competative in Tennessee says a lot about both his skills as a politician and the political environment going into these midterms.

Some 756,000 Tennesseans voted early. That's amazing. In the remaining days, Corker is personally funding five more negative attack ads across the state -- according to Neilsen Media Research, Corker is running more ads than any other candidate in a senate race. A fact like that is a cue for the Ford flaks to call Corker "desperate."

"The overall image is a desperate candidate who is using his own money to try and buy the seat and wading through the gutter to get there."

We received word of sentencing this morning in one of the most horrible cases I've seen all year. Lavendar Howse plead guilty to six counts of premediated murder, attempted pre-meditated murder, armed robbery, carjacking and a bunch of other charges.

When he was 15, his mother caught him trying to buy crack and stopped him. He got angry and grabbed his gun from his mother's bedroom, robbed a gas station, stole a car from a customer and drove to RiverGate Mall. While there, he stole ammunition for his gun and then some sneakers from a shoe store. When the clerk confronted him about the shoes, Howse shot him dead and wounded two others, including a 9-year-old boy. Since he plead guilty, there are no appeals.

Haggard denied the allegations to the local media, but then stepped down after meeting with his church board:

Haggard, a married father of five, denied the allegations, but the acting pastor of his church later said that Haggard had acknowledged some of the accusations were true.

"I just know that there has been some admission of indiscretion, not admission to all of the material that has been discussed, but there is an admission of some guilt," Ross Parsley told KKTV-TV of Colorado Springs.

Parlsey did not elaborate, but in an e-mail addressed to congregants, he wrote that the church's four-member board of overseers had since met with Haggard.

"It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true. He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation," the e-mail stated. A copy was obtained by KMGH-TV in Denver.

I first read about this yesterday, but didn't want to post anything on it because it was just allegations and Haggard denied them, making it a he said/he said sort of thing. But his resignation and admission that at least some of this is true has me wondering.

As far as I can tell, the allegations are that Haggard has been paying a male escort for sex more or less monthly for three years and that he used meth in the presense of said escort. I'm curious as to which allegation he admitted to. Both are illegal (snorting meth and prostitution) but one might be easier for the evangelicals to forgive over the other ( I'm spitballing here, I can't say as I'm all that familiar with the evangelical mindset).

I also read where the escort didn't know who the guy was until he saw him on television and realized that he was a crusader against gay marriage. Now, I'm not naive enough to take the work of a gay hooker at face value. He has a credibility problem. But he also has answering machine messages allegedly from Haggard and an envelope Haggard allegedly used to deliver money to him. If Haggard licked that envelope, then Gil Grissom will have him dead to rights.

So, we'll have to see how this shakes out. Lest you think Haggard is some obscure bit player:

Haggard is unquestionably a national figure. Since founding New Life Church in his basement in the 1980s, the son of an Indiana veterinarian has ascended the ranks of evangelical leaders, taking part in White House conference calls, counseling foreign leaders and being named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals.

I saw him on TV saying that the allegations were false and I said to myself "That's the video clip that's going to haunt him if these accusations are true."

I will say this about Haggard, he staked out some middle ground on the gay marriage issue in that he was strictly against gays getting married, but refused to take a position on the other ballot issue in Colorado, gay civil unions.

Now, if you believe that the National Association of Evangelicals has 30 million members, then how do you explain Falwell's contention that a) he doesn't know Haggard and b) Haggard's influence in the evangelical community is negligible?"

ZAHN: The Reverend Ted Haggard, who is the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a man who represents some 30 million evangelicals in this country, is stepping down after allegations he carried on a three-year affair with a male prostitute. You're reaction?

REV. JERRY FALWELL: Well, I don't know him. I haven't met him, and he's been rather critical of activists like Dr. James Dobson and myself. In pastors' meetings, he's said we shouldn't be aggressive as we have. I certainly sympathize with his family and the great congregation that he pastors there…

FALWELL: […] He'll no be longer able to pastor his church or lead the evangelical movement. He doesn't really lead the movement. He's president of an association that's very loosely-knit, and I have never been a member of it. Most of people that I know have not, and no one has looked to them for leadership.

Focus on the Family founder and Chairman James C. Dobson, Ph.D., issued the following statement today addressing an allegation by a male prostitute in Denver that Ted Haggard was one of his clients:

"It is unconscionable that the legitimate news media would report a rumor like this based on nothing but one man's accusation. Ted Haggard is a friend of mine and it appears someone is trying to damage his reputation as a way of influencing the outcome of Tuesday's election -- especially the vote on Colorado's marriage-protection amendment -- which Ted strongly supports.

"He has shown a great deal of grace under these unfortunate circumstances, quickly turning this matter over to his church for an independent investigation. That is a testament to the character I have seen him exhibit over and over again through the years."

Sen. George Allen (R- Macacawitz) S. That would not bode well for his campaign. Allen says the rumor is just a Dem plot to dispirit GOP voters. I would imaging that Virginia GOP voters are pretty dispirited already.

I've never seen a senate campaign implode like Allen's. From that first bullying moment caught on video to the recent tackling of a constituent -- Allen has stumbled his way through this race leaving a trail of sleazy accusations and non-denial denials behind him. This is a desperate campaign waiting for Tuesday to end the misery.

Let me reiterate something here that I shouldn't have to. The First Ammendment to the Constitutions provides for freedom of expression. We are allowed to express ourselves without fear of the government getting up in our collective grill.

CBS News reports that a Seattle school bus driver flipped off the presidential motorcade as it went by. Evidently, president Bush (who has himself used the "one-finger salute") saw the gesture and mentioned it to Rep. Dave Reichert, the congressman traveling with him.

Now the busdriver is fired. Ostensibly, the school system maintains that it wasn't because driver flipped off the leader of the free world, but because kids in the bus could have seen it. Reichert claims that he called the the school superintendent a week after the incident and the decision to fire the bus driver was already made. Well, that's what he told the press.

When he was making a speech in front of a friendly Republican crowd, he told a different story.

As the motorcade went by the President and I drove by on I-5. The President was having a great time. He was waving at everybody. And waving at the kids he got the biggest kick out of the kids leaning out the window to say hello to the President of the United States. The sad part of it is, though, we got to the last bus...the bus driver flipped the President off. [Loud boos.] So the very next day, you know what I did? I called the superintendent of that school district. And that bus driver no longer works for that school. [Loud cheers.] That's the old sherriff part of me still around.

The Democratic guide for pollworkers in Maryland instructs poll workers on how to make sure that the parties eligible voters get the opportunity to vote. The guide emphasizes what to do if a voter is turned away.

The GOP guide for poll workers in Maryland outlines ways to intimidate voters and poll judges. It declares that it is the duty of poll workers to challenge voters and to tell the judges that they can face jail time for not listening.

Wow. The congress fired the one guy in Iraq who was conducting any oversight. That's what he gets, I guess, for embarrasing the president.

Rothenburg predicts a 35-40 seat gain for Dems in House and a 6 seat gain in the Senate, meaning the Dems sweep into both houses. They list Tennessee as a toss-up.

Checking out the U.S. Map of known hate groups, it seems Tennessee has 36 hate groups listed and Murfreesboro has it's own chapter of the KKK.

Ah. It's a good thing he didn't go to a legitimate massage therapist because that might have looked unseemly. Plus, they won't sell you meth to . . . not use. This borders on the ridiculous.

He told reporters that the allegations were catagorically false. Then he admitted to his church board that some of them were true. He told reporters he didn't know the guy. Now he says he went to him for a massage.

As a PR professional, I can tell you this is the exact wrong way to handle a public image crisis. You don't let fact dribble out a few at a time. As far as I can tell, there is no criminal investigation, so Haggard has the opportunity to get out there and put the story to rest. He's finished no matter what, but he can minimize the damage to his church and his movement by coming clean. For one thing stop lying. He's admitted that it is his voice on the recordings trying to buy meth, but claims he only bought it once. Now read the transcript:

"Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply. And I could pick it up really anytime I could get it tomorrow or we could wait till next week sometime and so I also wanted to get your address. I could send you some money for inventory but that's probably not working, so if you have it then go ahead and get what you can and I may buzz up there later today, but I doubt your schedule would allow that unless you have some in the house. Okay, I'll check in with you later. Thanks a lot, bye."

How long do you think it will take before more information comes out and he has to backtrack from this version of his story as well? It's hard doing the right thing, but surely no harder than living with the hypocrisy for three years.

ABC News is now running with the story that despite running ads attacking Ford for accepting (and returning, btw) money from porn producers, the RNC has accepted (and kept) money from "Army Porn Movie Producer."

A woman from the Corker campaign came by with the building manager looking for someone to help her with her Blackberry. I couldn't help her, as I'm not familiar with Blackberrys. I did try though because I'm a nice guy and I like figuring out little stuff like that.

After they left to find a solution elsewhere, she came back to my office and closed the door.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I know you participate in a blog," she said. I felt my face get hot and my palms start to sweat. I never enjoy meeting someone who reads this blog. "Anything you saw on my Blackberry was not for public disclosure."

I assured her that I wouldn't reveal any secrets. The truth is I didn't see anything to reveal and even if I did, I don't play dirty pool. She came back and stuck her head in the door.

She seemed very good natured and nice. It was good to meet someone from that camp that can take a joke.

Five more days. Five more days. Man, this is driving me crazy. If the Dems can win back at least one house of Congress this election, then I give up. I really will.

The NYT's political blog "The Caucus" is devoted to the Tennessee Senate race this morning. They point to a new ad from VoteVets.org that features Iraqi vets and Gen. Wesley Clark saying we have to change our strategy in Iraq. The idea here is, despite the axiom that all politics is local, and despite the use of fear by the GOP to scare voters in the last two elections, the Dems may have a foothold to take advantage of Iraq as a political issue.

While Bush screams that the terrorists win if Republicans lose, the latest polls show that a majority of Americans believe that if Republicans win, then America will be even less safe. The GOP's strongest issue has backfired on them. 80 percent of Americans believe Bush's latest rhetoric is a change of language and not policy. Even the people who have benefited most from Bush's presidency -- the super wealthy -- are using their fortunes to fund Democractic candidates.

Slate has an article about how the negative campaign ads this cycle are worse than they ever have been. This article is different from all the others on the same subject because it puts the blame squarely where it belongs: in the Republican camp.

The other familiar excuse for negative advertising is that "everybody does it." Newspaper stories about attack commercials usually include a sampling of harsh Democratic spots in an effort to appear evenhanded. But there's really no comparison between what the two parties and their respective surrogates are doing. According to factcheck.org, a respected site that reviews the accuracy of various ads, "the National Republican Campaign Committee's work stands out this year for the sheer volume of assaults on the personal character of Democratic House challengers." Negative Democratic ads tie Republican candidates to President Bush, and to the Iraq war, or accuse them of being in the tank for the oil or pharmaceutical industries. But Democratic ads do not charge that their opponents "prey on our children"—even though one recently resigned following accusations that he did precisely that. One can only imagine the ads Republicans would have made this year if Mark Foley had happened to be a Democrat.

It's ugly and it is poisoning politcs. Outside groups have spent $10 million on ads in Tennessee this cycle. The candidates themselves have spent $21 million.

In the Tennessean this morning I read where Corker wrote his campaign a check for another $1.35 million, [The Knoxville paper says $2 million] bringing his total personal expenditure to be elected senator more than $4.8 million. This expenditure triggers the "millionare clause" allowing Ford to go back to his donors who have maxed out their contributions and raise up to 10 times more cash from them. So while Ford travels the state campaigning and raising money to fight, Corker just whips out his checkbook.

That being said, Ford is brought in the Big Dog and Barack Obama to campaign for him in Memphis. Gen. Wesley Clark campaigned for him in Clarksville.

So what's worse, Kerry flubbing a joke that gets misconstrued as an insult to the troops or Majority Leader John Boehner actually insulting the troops? On Wolf Blitzer's show yesterday, he layed the Iraq debacle at the feet of the generals in the field:

Boehner: ...[L]et's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld.

Blitzer: But he's in charge of the military.

Boehner: But the fact is the generals on the ground are in charge and he works closely with them and the president.

Which is a pretty stupid thing to say when you consider that, at the beginning of this war, the GOP was singing the praises of Rummy because he didn't take the word of these generals. Rummy was going to transform the military.

Word is beginning to leak out about the Mark Foley investigation. Specifically, Tom Reynolds, the chair of the RNCC who was one of the first to hear about the most recent emails participated in damage control conference calls two days before the scandal became public and earlier than was previously disclosed.

Here's an effective ad that's kind of fun, too. It stars the sheriff from "Eureka" offering people on the street $100 of they can read aloud the entire list of Republicans under a cloud of scandal in a single breath.

I'm a little ticked at the media and for once, it has nothing to do with the Corker/Ford race. Last week, in Baghdad, an American soldier of Iraqi decent and married to an Iraqi woman was kidnapped by the Shiite militia. U.S. troops moved to blockade the area and set up what was described as a "near siege" condition to stabalize the city and find their kidnapped soldier.

Then yesterday Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the U.S. to stop their checkpoints and abandon their fellow soldier to the Mahdi Army. And what did the media cover?

John Kerry flubbed a joke and the Republicans demanded he apologize. President Bush can tell a crowd "if you vote for a Democrat, the terrorists win and America loses" and the media doesn't say "boo." But John Kerry (who isn't even running for anything this election) mispeaks (and let's be honest, that's what he did) and you'd have thought the sky was falling.

Since when do American troops take orders from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki? Since when do we abandon one of our own to the enemy? This stinks.

In Virginia, a constituent was trying to ask Sen. Allen (R- Macacawitz) a question about his arrest record and the sealed divorce proceedings from his first marriage. The guy wasn't a protester (though he is characterized as one in the media), he didn't disrupt Allen's event, he just made his way to the senator and asked some uncomfortable questions.

Allen's goons shoved him, put him in a headlock and threw him against a window. This morning, I was listening to CNN on the radio and after they ran the story, the anchors chatted about how you couldn't be to careful because the guy had a backpack. Sheesh.

The facts are that Allen was arrested twice in the late 70s. The rumor is that one of those arrest warrants was for assault and comes out of the divorce hearings. The question that caused all the ruckus was "Did you spit on your first wife?"

I also read yesterday where the federal government is going to expand it's abstinence-only education program by $50 million and to people up to 29 years old. The federal government wants to tell adults not to have sex.

"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq . It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq ."

"My friend Lincoln Davis, who chairs this campaign, says there is one big difference between us and ... Republicans when it comes to our faith," Ford said. "He said 'Republicans fear the Lord. Democrats fear and love the Lord.'"

Ford has since apologized, saying he didn't mean to offend anyone, but I have to say, this was a bonehead thing to say for no other reason than it hands Corker the opportunity to say: "unlike what Congressman Ford is saying, Republicans do love the Lord."

I thought Junior was smarter than that. Meanwhile, a new poll shows that 42 percent of Americans "are not absolutely certain" there is a God.

There's a little fallout from the Corker daughter Facebook page. When I linked to it, I questioned whether it was fair game to involve a politician's daughter in an election. This was before I saw the Corker ad which featured his daughters. It is one thing to have your offspring appear at a campaign event, but to feature them in an ad opens the door to this kind of response. Corker attempted to use his kids for political gain. That makes the Facebook photo fair game in my book.

We didn't hear too much this year about evangelical "hell houses." I suppose that they can only remain controversial for so many years before America loses its outrage. Newsweek ran a story about one house that caused a stir because one of the features was a young boy who reads Harry Potter books and grows up to be a school shooter. A woman who attends a rave gets gang raped. A braindead patient is taken off life support and his relatives suffer the damning consequences. Two men get married to each other as Satan performs the ceremony.

It's all very over-the-top, which is the point I suppose. Now church groups can buy Hell House kits for $300 that include a script, a CD with scary noises and an instruction manual. It seems they've really lost their cache.

Well, the paramilitary corporate soldiers are pulling out of Iraq. They say it's too dangerous. Kroll and Bechtel are both pulling their people out saying it's not worth risking their lives.

The D-to-the-triple-C has a big finish planned. This ad is going to run nationally during this last week before elections:

An aquaintence of mine told me she voted early. I replied I did as well. She asked if the marriage ammendment was on my ballot. I replied that it was a statewide initiative, so yes. She said "do you mind telling me how you voted?"

"Though I have no doubt my fellow Tennesseans will vote to discriminate against my homosexual brothren," I said. "I cannot be a part of it."

"It's not discrimination . . ." she paused again. "I don't want to say anything else. I can feel myself getting hot over it."

She brought it up, knowing full well my politics as I knew hers. So, I'm not sure why she bothered. I'm reminded of the wisdom of Wanda Sikes who said "Why do people get so worked up over something that doesn't affect them? If you are against same-sex marriage, then don't go marrying somebody of the same sex."

The Queen of the Harpies says she won't cooperate with a voter fraud investigation in which she was caught voting in a district in which she didn't live. The case is going to Palm Beach County prosecutors. I say we waterboard her until she confesses.

It was a great weekend. Friday night, Max, Rozzy and I carved jack-o-lanterns and I blew my flex points for the week on Pizza Hut. I bought the kids pumpkin kits that included plastic pegs they could hammer into the pumpkin like an old Light Bright set. The kit also included an LED to put inside so the pegs will glow and change colors. Very spooky -- and, since it didn't require knives both Max and Rozzy could handle it in relative safety.

Saturday was the big tourney at the comic book store. I came in in the middle of the pack somewhere, but had a great time. Max had fun playing Super Smash Bros. on the big-screen TV.

I took Max with me to early vote. Then he went to his buddy Jake's house to spend the night, while Jake's sister babysat Rozzy, while Dollie and I went to her coworker's annual Halloween party.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan has a bit where he talks about Halloween. He says Halloween is basically an excuse for women to dress slutty.

About a week ago, Dollie asked if she should just beg off going to an annual Halloween party thrown by the teacher who's classroom is next door to hers. I was incredulous.

"To an adult Halloween party? Yes! Do you realize how many slutty pirates, schoolgirls, nurses and witches are likely to be there?"

So I went there fully expecting to have a great time. I love Halloween. I'm fortunate enough to be married to a woman who not only loves Halloween as well, but has access to a room full of costumes from dozens of high school productions. She and I went as a lounge act. I wore a shiny silver jacket, she had a slinky black dress and feather boa. We rocked.

We found the right house and saw that these people really went all out for Halloween. The front yard had a cemetary with a strobe light. Bones hung from the front door like a creepy beaded curtain. When the door opened, they spread apart automatically. They had put up fake stone walls in their living room. The windows had static clings that looked like skeletons were crashing through. There was a full bar and enough food to feed an army of zombies.

The food was creepy: cupcakes that looked like eyes. A cream cheese dip that had been set in a brain mold. Oh, and a kitty litter cake. Uhg.

We got there fairly early and met some nice people. The host and hostess were dressed as Roman centurians. Very cool. They played nothing but 80s music plus The Electric Slide because as one partygoer noted "No matter what club you go to they are going to play the Electic Slide." One of the neighbors came as Little Red Riding Hood. A nurse showed up dressed as a school girl.

An hour or so later another of Dollie's coworkers showed up with five friends -- all former college volleyball players and all dressed from the Party City Halloween Slut collection. Tall, athletic and dressed as Wonder Woman, Xena, a geisha, a gangter's moll and a gold digger.

As the party rolled on, more guests arrived. There were sexy pirates and sexy cops. It was a spectacle. What I wouldn't have given to have the fishnet stocking concession on that place.

Dollie introduced me to her friend, who in turn introduced me to her Amazon companions. She said that they were all single at the moment and were all looking for boyfriends. She said she was looking for a "sugar daddy" herself.

Several of the guys who showed up didn't bother with a costume, which made them look like dorks for being "too cool" to dress up for Halloween. As the alcohol flowed (I stuck to Dr. Pepper) and the music brought back memories of high school, people started loosening up. It was a sight to see. I told Dollie how happy I was to be there with her.

"The best part is that I've got you," I said. "I'm not the loser with no date trying to desperately impress a woman six inches taller than I am."

The music came around to the Electric Slide again and nearly every woman ran to the living room to dance. The guy I was talking to at the time remarked that "All women have that electric slide gene. I don't have it."

I was talking with Wonder Woman later and she was trying to remember the name of a song by Journey that the characters on "Family Guy" sang.

At one point in the evening, Dollie mentioned that she'd considered inviting our buddy Badger to come, but figured he didn't want to get out. That made me smile.

In the middle of this bachanal, I noticed that several of the guys had moved to the living room and, despite the primo seats for the gyrating hotties, were glued to the UT game on television.

After the night was over and I was driving us home. Dollie said "That was the closest you've been to a strip club in a long time."

Yup. Later, as I recounted the evening to Badger, I mentioned that Dollie had considered inviting him, but figured he'd have begged off.

"No!" he said. "That's the old Badger. I'm the new out-going Badger. I'd have pulled out my Star Trek uniform and gone."

Last Friday morning as Max and I piled into my car so I could take him to school, Max noted that it was still very dark.

"I know, buddy. As the winter approaches, the days get shorter and the nights get longer due to the tilt of the Earth."

"This weekend, we're going to compensate a little bit by setting our clocks back an hour. This time on Monday, it will be nice and bright out."

Had lunch today with the Nashville Downtown Rotary Club. A client was the featured speaker and I went down to fly the flag. They have their weekly meetings at the Wild Horse Saloon, made famous for the countless yokels who line danced there on CMT.

There are about 450 members of this particular club and I have to say, they put out the best spread of any of the civic club meetings I've been to. And I've been to more than my fair share.

But the guy moved some books today. They were taking them out of there in double handfuls.

I like the Rotary folks because they go out of their way to be overly friendly. I got there early to help set up and in the process, got my lunch early and sat alone at a big table in the middle of the floor. As the Rotarians streamed in and took their seats, there were a few tables in the back where you can tell the cliques were ensconsed, but otherwise, people just sat anywhere. They introduced themselves to each other. My table eventually contained six others who were all members, but had never met.

One guy, who had joined the club in April, had just gotten back from visiting Russia. He attended three Rotary meetings while there. He said the younger people in Russia really like Rotary, but one of the meetings was strictly older men who were more interested in getting the meeting over with so they could get to drinking. Heh.

The parking lot here at work now has about half a dozen Ford stickers. One guy, who's hand I'd like to shake, has positioned his truck so that when you leave the building, the first thing you see is a Ford sticker in his back window.

One of the big accusation thrown at Ford was that he took money from porn producers. This was alluded to in the infamous "Playboy" ad. Corker, in an effort to score some points said it shows the dangers of taking money from people "outside of Tennessee who don't share our values."

Here's the deal. Ford took contributions totaling $3,600 from a group of five "adult entertainment broadcast companies." As soon as it was pointed out to him where the money came from, he returned it.

As a good liberal, I've got no problem with people who own companies that produce a legal product to engage in the commerce of politics. Gay porn moguls and actresses who have sex on camera for money have just as much right to contribute to Republicans as anyone. But the RNC made such a big stink over Ford's contributions (which he returned) that one can't help but savor the hypocrisy of it all.

Someone caught a photo of a mobile shredding truck heading to Dick Cheney's house. You don't suppose he's resigned to losing the Congress do you?

Now NBC News has a report about capaign dirty tricks being bipartisan, but like ABC, could only identify Republican examples.

CBS'S BOB SCHIEFFER: Why is the Republican National Committee spending its money on an ad down in Tennessee, the purpose of it seems to be to suggest that the Democratic candidate Harold Ford is an African-American?

RNC CHAIRMAN KEN MEHLMAN: The ad that you're talking about is an ad that is being run independently of the Republican National Committee.

SCHIEFFER: Just a minute, let's run the end of the ad, let's hear what it say.

[Woman's voice: "The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising."]

SCHIEFFER: Yes.

MEHLMAN: The way that the law works, unfortunately it's a law that I think ought to be changed, and by the way it's a law on which people on both sides of the campaign reform think ought to be changed, is that if I talk like I do on a regular basis to candidates like Mr. [Republican Senate candidate Bob] Corker then the TV ads that are run beyond a very small limit are run independently of me. This ad is down, I'm please the ad is down, and I'm pleased that the focus of that campaign is now about questions like...

SCHIEFFER: But you paid for it.

MEHLMAN: I've talked to Senator McCain and to Senator McConnell, both of whom have been on different sides of the campaign reform issue. Both agree that a law which says the Republican National Committee pays for the ad, but it's also illegal for the Chairman of the RNC, for the political director of the RNC, or the communications director of the RNC...

SCHIEFFER: But, but Mr. Mehlman, the logic... if I think something is wrong but I take advantage of a law that allows me to take advantage of that, that's pretty lame, if I may say so.

MEHLMAN: My response to that ad is the same response Mr. Ford had from a race perspective. I would not have put the ad up. I did not think that it was necessarily a racist ad, at the same time...

SCHIEFFER: But you approved of it.

MEHLMAN: I did not approve of it.

SCHIEFFER: You said you thought it was "fair." You're on the record saying that.

MEHLMAN: Well I thought some of the issues raised in that ad, the issue of taxes, I think those are fair issues, on the other hand I personally would not have put that ad up.

SCHIEFFER: But what does that say, you talk about "values" and stuff, that you're taking advantage of an ad when you know what it says is wrong and you admit that it ought not to be that way but you're willing to take advantage of it.

Republicans Blame Election Losses On Democrats