Buried in today's Times piece on the Connecticut Senate race is an interesting nugget -- unlike other Republicans, who have ditched GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger but have stopped short of proclaiming support for Joe Lieberman, Newt Gingrich is coming out and publicly endorsing him:

“The right thing for people who believe the world is deeply dangerous is to re-elect Lieberman,” Mr. Gingrich said. That is especially true, he said, because “the Republican Party’s own candidate does not have any possibility of winning.”

It's probably not an endorsement the Lieberman campaign will be featuring in its TV ads and mailings.

With GOP incumbent Frank Murkowski running third in the polls behind frontrunner Sarah Palin, it looks like Murkowski may get kicked out of office in the primary this coming Tuesday. If so, his big $25 billion gas pipeline deal -- which is hastening his political undoing -- is very likely to go down the tubes with him.

This is very interesting. It appears that gung-ho pro-war GOP incumbent Rep. Chris Shays -- under fire from antiwar challenger Diane Farrell -- is planning to hold hearings next month on whether Iraq has devolved into civil war. This is important, because it shows how dramatically Ned Lamont's victory has intensified pressure on Shays to distance himself from his party's leadership on Iraq. What's more, the hearings could spotlight the chaos in Iraq, making life unpleasant for other endangered GOP pro-war incumbents who may soon be forced to break ranks over the war, too.

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As we reported below, the Joe Lieberman campaign has just announced the hiring of GOP pollster Neil Newhouse, whose top clients include Rick Santorum, Jeb Bush and Pat Roberts. But Election Central couldn't help but notice that this announcement is strikingly at odds with the fact that in late June, the Lieberman campaign vigorously attacked Ned Lamont for...hiring a onetime Republican operative as a consultant.

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The Katherine Harris follies continue. TPM muckraker's Justin Rood brings word of yet another campaign fiasco: It seems that the Harris campaign bragged that a bunch of high-profile backers would be coming to show their support for her at a campaign rally -- but exactly zero of the nine expected officials bothered to show up.

Has the Iowa gubernatorial race become a proxy war between likely Presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Bill Richardson? Last night, Romney, who's chair of the Republican Governors Association, announced that the group was donating $500,000 to GOP candidate Jim Nussle's campaign. But Richardson, who's Romney's counterpart on the Dem side, wasn't about to let that pass unchallenged. So today, he promptly announced that Nussle's opponent, Dem Chet Culver, would be given another $500,000, too -- in addition to the $500,000 Richardson had already given Culver in June. So why the huge donations?

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The Joe Lieberman campaign has just sent out a press release announcing the hiring of a GOP pollster. From the release:

To serve as his new pollster, Lieberman hired Republican Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies. Newhouse is a top advisor to Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell and has done extensive opinion survey work in Connecticut.

Joe Lieberman -- who also enlisted Dem consultant Josh Isay -- now joins the company of Newhouse's other top clients: Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Mitt Romney, Senator Rick Santorum, Senator Pat Roberts, Rep. Henry Hyde and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.

The New Jersey GOP went on the offensive against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) yesterday for suggesting that his opponent's father, former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, may have used his board position at United Health Group to pressure executives to donate to Tom Kean Jr.'s senatorial campaign. A spokesman for Menendez said that Senator would not recant or apologize for “stating the facts”.

Yesterday we brought you word that it looked as if some unnamed Republicans were "push-polling" Kirsten Gillibrand, the Dem challenger to incumbent GOP Rep. John Sweeney. In response, a number of readers wrote in to protest that the process we described wasn't push-polling, but a more routine effort to test the potential value of negative arguments against Gillibrand. So we checked in with Mickey Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, and asked: What is a push poll, exactly?

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A fist-fight has broken out at the Pennsylvania Department of State, where GOPers, Dems and Greens are scrutinizing thousands of contested signatures, TPM muckraker's Paul Kiel reports. More details to follow.

UPDATE: The AP has now filed a report on the scuffle. View it after jump.

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Dem Jane Mitakides is running in OH-03, Political Wire confirms. Buckeye State Blog says perennial candidate Charles Saunders and Jude Logan Demers (this one?) have also taken out nominating petitions. But Mitakes, who ran against GOP Rep. Michael Turner in 2004, is the clear frontrunner in the Sept. 15 special election.

Over at TPM muckraker, Paul Kiel has a rundown on the chaos afflicting the Texas GOP in the wake of Tom DeLay's exit.

A new ad for GOP Rep. Zach Wamp says that because American soldiers are in Iraq, we're "safe and secure here in America."

Did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid privately promise Joe Lieberman that he wouldn't be deprived of his seniority as punishment for running as an independent against Dem nominee Ned Lamont? Today's Hartford Courant quotes Lieberman describing a private conversation between he and Reid, and Lieberman seems to confirm that yes, Reid did make this promise to him. If true, this news would be extraordinary.

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In Maryland's 4th district, another antiwar insurgent is threatening an incumbent Dem who voted for the war, and the result has been a lively contest replete with fistfights and celebrity endorsements. One difference from the Connecticut race: Both these candidates are African American.

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Today's Washington Post has a long article about a study the paper commissioned which says that the GOP is losing the so-called "security moms," who are now more inclined to vote for the Democrat Party -- sorry, Democratic Party -- than at any time since Sept. 11. Kevin Drum comments: "Democrats can maintain this lead if, starting right now, they relentlessly attack the failed militaristic approach to terrorism that Republicans have championed ever since 9/11... I'll bet the American public is finally ready to give [this] a hearing. It's time to start offering the voters some common sense." Well, here's some more grist for that theory.

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WaPo:

Married women with children, the "security moms" whose concerns about terrorism made them an essential part of Republican victories in 2002 and 2004, are taking flight from GOP politicians this year in ways that appear likely to provide a major boost for Democrats in the midterm elections, according to polls and interviews.

This critical group of swing voters -- who are an especially significant factor in many of the most competitive suburban districts on which control of Congress will hinge -- is more inclined to vote Democratic than at any point since Sept. 11, 2001, according to data compiled for The Washington Post by the Pew Research Center.

Read the whole thing here.

Some pretty nefarious stuff is going down in upstate New York: It looks as if Kirsten Gillibrand, the Dem challenging incumbent GOP Rep. John Sweeney, is getting push-polled. Capitol Confidential reports that several voters in the district got a call that started out innocuously enough -- that is, before the nastier questions started.

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The first poll on GOP Senator George Allen's Macaca crack is out, and it found that two-thirds of Virginians (67%) who'd followed the story found the slur "inappropriate." The amount of those who thought Allen's apology didn't cut it? Half.

It looks like outgoing GOP Rep. Bob Ney's handpicked successor, Joy Padgett, is facing a bit of competition in the Sept. 14 primary to replace Ney: Eight more Republicans -- count 'em -- have filed for a spot on the ballot, local election officials tell TPM muckraker's Paul Kiel.

Minnesota gubernatorial candidate and current Attorney General Mike Hatch (D) accused of intimidating a judge. Hatch claims he made no threats, produces cell phone records proving that the conversation in question lasted all of a minute.

Katherine Harris campaign gets caught touting the endorsements of...people who never endorsed her. See the details over at TPM muckraker.

Joe Lieberman may be leading Ned Lamont in the latest Q-poll, but another survey says that he is down to his lowest approval rating in 15 months -- 53%. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum's (R) job approval, oddly, is at its highest in 15 months. And the winner of the coveted Senator-with-the-lowest-approval-rating-of-all award goes to...GOP Senator Conrad Burns of Montana, presumably because of his recent scalding rebuke of firefighters.

This is pretty fascinating. A new poll from Pew -- taken mostly after news broke of the foiled terror plot -- shows that there are more Americans who worry that a GOP-controlled Congress will result in more militarism abroad than there are Americans who worry that a Dem takeover would weaken the fight against terror. And get this: What percentage do you suppose said that "terrorism" is the issue they want candidates to discuss most? Answer: Two percent.

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Redstate.com has just posted a video of Tramm Hudson -- a Republican who's frontrunner in the race for the House seat of Senate candidate Katherine Harris -- saying this:

"I grew up In Alabama, and I understand, and I know this from my own experience, that blacks are not the greatest swimmers or may not even know to swim."

We have the video, which cuts off soon after that remark, after the jump.

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As I reported below, a source on the National Republican Senatorial Committee told The Politicker blog this morning that the NRSC will give no help to GOP Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger and "now favors a Lieberman victory in November." A few minutes ago I asked NRSC spokesman Dan Ronayne if the item's accurate, and Ronayne has now emailed a response.

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Charlie Cook changes his rating of the race between incumbent GOP Rep. Chris Chocola and Dem challenger Joe Donnelly from "lean-R" to "toss-up":

Despite a significant fundraising advantage over Democrat Joe Donnelly, which has helped fuel a barrage of negative attack ads, incumbent GOP Rep. Chris Chocola looks more like an underdog than the frontrunner.

As Election Central reported yesterday, national GOP House strategists aren't giving Chocola any ad money, either.

GOP Rep. and House Homeland Security chair Peter King calls for racial profiling, says people of "Middle Eastern and South Asian" descent should undergo additional security checks. Airport screeners shouldn't be hampered by "political correctness," King says.

According to a report released by the Election Science Institute on Tuesday, Ohio-based Diebold's touch-screen voting machines are still flawed. In a study of Cuyahoga County's gubernatorial primary results, the electronic and paper records of vote totals in Cuyahoga County did not match more than 75 percent of the time. The ESI also found that 10 percent of paper records were "destroyed, blank, illegible, missing, taped together or otherwise compromised."

Diebold is having none of it. "The initial review and conclusions reached by ESI . . . simply are wrong," the company said in a press release yesterday. They blame poll-workers, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell agrees. Glad that's settled.

Associated Press:

Republicans will play defense in this fall's state legislative races to avoid a "tsunami" that could alter the political landscape in statehouses around the country, the head of the GOP's legislative campaign committee said Wednesday.

Democrats, who currently hold a 21-seat advantage among the country's 7,382 state legislative seats, are hoping the national mood and historical trends contribute to legislative gains.

"Some years you play offense, and some years you play defense," said Alex Johnson, executive director of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee. "And this is a year when we play a bit of defense and hope to steal a few."

Is the National Republican Senatorial Committee actively pulling for Joe Lieberman to win the Connecticut Senate race? A source on the NRSC has just told The Politicker blog in an interview that the party will not give any help to current GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger and now wants Lieberman to win.

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Joe Lieberman, of course, really wants Connecticut Dems to help take back the House. That's why he's working hard to associate them with his (unpopular) position on Iraq.

Yesterday, Dem Diane Farrell attacked GOP Rep. Chris Shays for his strong support of the Iraq war. She said the troops should come home, and that Bush should be held more accountable. Doesn't sound much like Joe Lieberman, does it?

Yet Lieberman aide Dan Gerstein immediately sent out a press release proclaiming that her statement shows "Lieberman's approach is well within the Connecticut Democratic mainstream." Why? Because Farrell stopped short of naming a deadline for troop withdrawal.

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VA-SEN: Macaca Maybe the Least of Allen’s Problems… But Still a Problem

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GOP Senator George Allen continues his frantic efforts to quell Macaca-gate, sits down for his planned meeting with an Indian-American political action committee.

Below we brought you word that GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez's running mate, Janet Rowland, got into a bit of trouble when she essentially said that gay love is akin to a man having a relationship with a sheep. Well, now the tale's taken a new turn.

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Here's some pretty good fodder for a Hillary political ad: In response to yesterday's news that Hillary's GOP opponent John Spencer aired a TV ad linking her with Osama, GOP Congressman Pete King of New York has just released a statement defending her:

"I've known Senator Clinton for a number of years and we may have differences on this or that issue but I would never question her patriotism, question her integrity or her absolute commitment to winning the war on terrorism. Whatever differences we have are honest and to me you should never question, certainly not Senator Clinton's integrity."

A GOP operative for Craig Foltin (R) -- who's trailing badly in the polls to Dem opponent Betty Sutton -- used a fake name to pose as a volunteer and infiltrate the campaign of Foltin's Dem opponent, Betty Sutton. He got busted. But we liked the alias, anyway: "Nick Brinda."

New TV ad for Hillary: Lots of law-enforcement types saying that she's delivered.

GOP Rep. Bob Beauprez just chose his running mate in his bid for Colorado governor: Mesa County commissioner Janet Rowland. Ms. Rowland has some rather strange views. Specifically, she thinks that gay love is akin to relations between men and sheep.

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In his latest ad, GOP Senator Rick Santorum is filmed walking through a roomful of seniors dancing the polka as he discusses Social Security and other matters important to old folks. But a local columnist from Pennsylvania, Chris Kelly of the Scranton Times-Tribune, is now alleging that the ad is a fake.

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Struggling to contain the furor over his "Macaca" remarks, Sen. George Allen plans meeting this afternoon with leaders of northern Virginia's Indian-American conmmunity. Members of the press: you're not invited. Members of the public: You're not invited, either. No word yet on whether the young volunteer, S.R. Sidarth -- and his video camera -- have been asked to attend.

Another quick word on that $40 million ad buy we referenced below that House strategists are planning: It looks as if one of the unlucky pols not getting a cash handout is Chris "the Count" Chocola, even though he's vulnerable and even though House Dem strategists are planning to spend tons of money to win the seat.

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Big score for retired navy commander and Dem congressional candidate Eric Massa: AFL-CIO throws its weight behind him after switching support from incumbent GOP Rep. Randy Kuhl -- further imperiling the GOP's hold on one of most hotly-contested seats in the country.

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Court agrees to hear Minnesota Dem lawyer's novel legal argument: Sitting Congressman Gil Gutknecht should be tossed from the ballot for reelection because he collected signatures before prescribed date.

House GOP strategists are dumping huge sums of cash into the Northeast, in an effort to stave off electoral disaster in the region.

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Rep. Katherine Harris (R): "God wants me to be a senator."

Former Harris top political adviser Ed Rollins: "Maybe God wants you to run because he wants Bill Nelson to be senator."

That exchange and more in today's Tampa Tribune profile of the divinely-inspired candidate abandoned by her party and faring dismally in the polls.

Dina Titus (D-NV) and Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) emerged as the nominees for the Nevada Governor’s race yesterday.  Both beat their opponents by wide margins; however, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the GOP and Democratic primaries were extremely bitter and that the nominees will have to work hard to get the support of their primary opponents. Titus in particular will need to reach out to Jim Gibson, the mayor of Henderson, NV, after leaving a threatening message for one of his supporters yesterday.

CT-SEN: Rough Day for Lieberman, Rougher One for Schlesinger

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Election Central is confused: are the Dems trying to shove Lieberman out, or aren't they? The New York Times says the leadership wants to keep Joe smiling:

Democratic leaders have questioned whether it makes sense to take on the senator — and perhaps anger him — when he appears determined to run and relatively formidable right now.

“No one is going to say anything that is directly related to trying to hurt Joe Lieberman,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader said Friday.

But in today's Hill, Dems are saying some pretty hurtful things:

“At this point Lieberman cannot expect to just keep his seniority,” said [a senior] aide. “He can’t run against a Democrat and expect to waltz back to the caucus with the same seniority as before. It would give the view that the Senate is a country club rather than representative of a political party and political movement.”

A little party discipline might be nice.

Stephanie Studebaker, the Dem candidate arrested with her husband for domestic violence last weekend, withdraws from Congressional race. And Buckeye State Blog speculates as to who will run in the special election to replace Studebaker. One option: Ohio antiwar hero Paul Hackett.

More problems for George Allen: Garance Franke-Ruta of The American Prospect finds that there are troubling questions about his tenure on the board of tech company Xybernaut.

GOP Senator Susan Collins of Maine endorses Joe Lieberman.

Today's Wall Street Journal has published an Op-ed piece by Ned Lamont that basically serves as his opening statement for the general election. Lamont emphasizes his business experience, suggesting that his background will be key to his efforts to resist Joe Lieberman's strategy of painting him as a captive of the extreme left.

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Today's Wall Street Journal has published an Op-ed piece by Ned Lamont. The Democratic nominee for Senate from Connecticut emphasizes his business experience, suggesting that his background will be key to his ability to resist Joe Lieberman's efforts to paint him as a captive of the extreme left.

Lamont also lays out a simple explanation for his election and makes it clear that his campaign message will be about pragmatism, mixing fiscal responsibility with the argument that getting out of Iraq is the right thing to do in practical terms, not just ideological ones. Lamont writes:

In the past week, my victory in the Connecticut Senate primary has been labeled everything from the death knell of the Democratic Party to the signal of our party's rebirth. Beneath all of this punditry is a question that I want to face directly: how the experience I will bring to the U.S. Senate will help Connecticut and the Democratic Party during this time of testing for our country.

I ran at a time when people said "you can't beat a three-term incumbent," because I believed that President Bush, enabled by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, had weakened our country at home and abroad. We're weaker economically, because we're more dependent on foreign energy and foreign capital. Our national security has also been weakened, because we stopped fighting a real war on terror when we made the costly and counterproductive decision to go to war in Iraq.

Read the whole thing here.

Jimmy Carter's son, Jack Carter, wins Dem Senate primary; will face GOP incumbent Jack Ensign in uphill fight.

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Alan Schlesinger was just on Hardball, and it was pretty brutal. Watch the tape:

Senator George Allen's statement to CNN on his referring to a campaign worker for Dem challenger James Webb as "Macaca":

“I’m concerned that my comments at Breaks Interstate Park on August 11th have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media."

Statement continues after the jump.

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Cynthia McKinney speaks! She blames news media and electronic voting machines for her loss in last week's primary run-off against Hank Johnson. She describes herself as a "black political paramedic" and says the "black body politic is near comatose."

And of course there was almost the obligatory flash of violence from her handlers:

She refused to answer reporters' questions after her speech. A woman in McKinney's entourage got between the representative and a reporter. A male bodyguard said McKinney would not take questions.

Rep. J.D. Hayworth's efforts to get the Times' press credentials revoked may not have paid off, but he just won a smaller battle against the paper. Today, under pressure from Hayworth, the paper printed a correction to a graphic linking the congressman to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Hayworth is being clobbered by Dem challenger Harry Mitchell for his Abramoff ties, so he's particularly sensitive on the matter. Under Hayworth's picture, the Times' erroneously wrote that Hayworth took money from Abramoff's gambling cruise-ship company. That, the paper corrected. But the Times also reported that Hayworth took contributions from Abramoff's associates and tribal clients. That part was accurate -- and still stands.

As we reported below, Hillary's GOP foe, former Yonkers mayor John Spencer, is airing a TV attack ad linking photos of Hillary and Osama bin Laden and charging that she opposed President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

But it looks as if the Spencer campaign, in its rush to paint Hillary as a friend of terrorists, misspelled the word "fascist." Here's the screen grab:

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Dems are charging that GOP-owned Green party candidate Carl Romanelli benefitted from signatures forged by GOP Senator Rick Santorum's staffers, TPM muckraker's Paul Kiel reports.

Though Joe Lieberman declared before losing the primary to Ned Lamont that he would support Harry Reid as Democratic Senate leader, many have since raised the question of whether Lieberman would unequivocally promise to back Reid again, now that Lieberman is running as an independent, is getting campaign donations from Republicans, and needs some GOP votes to win the general election.

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Governor Jodi Rell, the most important Republican in Connecticut, is remaining neutral in the Senate race, and doesn't appear to be endorsing the GOP candidate, Alan Schlesinger.

I just got off the phone with Rell's spokesperson, Rich Harris. And I gave him three or four chances to say that Rell is supporting Schlesinger. He declined in every case, saying over and over again: "He is the state party nominee." Asked each time if that meant she was endorsing him, he just repeated the phrase. Until there's a more definitive statement, that means no endorsement.

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GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick's chief of staff infiltrates a conference call between Dem challenger Patrick Murphy, John Kerry and reporters and bloggers, then harangues Murphy about some upcoming debates.

After Kerry and Murphy get off the call, bloggers pounced on the chief of staff, Mike Conallen. First he says he isn't Fitzpatrick's Chief of Staff. Then he admits that he is. Then he claims he's ... on vacation. The Democratic Daily has a transcript and audio.

Fitzpatrick, reached later by the Inquirer, says he didn't tell Conallen to make the call, but was "proud" of him for "pinning Murphy down." "That's what press conferences are for," Fitzpatrick says.

Below we brought you word that Hillary's GOP opponent, former Yonkers mayor John Spencer, is airing a new TV attack ad linking Hillary with Osama.

Now The Politicker has just posted the video of the ad, so you can see it for yourself.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D) is taking the Dem lead in demanding that Congress pass all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

One surmises that Menendez is doing this in the full knowledge that one of the commission's co-chairs -- former Gov. Tom Kean (R) -- is the father of Menendez's opponent, Tom Kean Jr. (R). Nice touch, that.

The latest Gallup poll says that President Bush has the support of only 30% of independents. Since independents are a critical voting bloc in the midterm elections, the Republicans have to hope very hard that the Dems don't succeed in turning the November contests into a referendum on their leader.

Here's yet more proof that the national GOP really isn't throwing any support at all behind Alan Schlesinger, the party's hapless candidate in the Connecticut Senate race.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee's Web site doesn't even bother highlighting Schlesinger, even though the site does just that for GOP challengers in other states.

Bill Clinton has just inserted himself into the Connecticut Senate race in a big way, hammering Joe Lieberman's stance on Iraq as the "Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld position" in an interview with ABC:

JAKE TAPPER: Joe Lieberman said that this was basically liberals in the party purging moderates such as him and you out of the party, and that there needs to be a voice for more moderate national security voices.

CLINTON: Well, if I were Joe and I were running as an independent that’s what I’d say, too. But that’s not quite right. That is, there were almost no Democrats who agreed with his position, which was I want to attack Iraq whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction. And his position was the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld position.

New ad by Hillary's GOP opponent, former Yonkers mayor John Spencer, juxtaposes pics of Hillary and Osama Bin Laden and slams the Senator for opposing President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping.

VA-SEN: George Allen, Hell of a Guy!

You’ve no doubt heard by now – Senator George Allen (R) is not smart. Allen was addressing a crowd at a campaign rally in southwestern Virginia Monday when he turned and looked directly into the camera held by S.R. Sidarth, a Jim Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent who had been following the Senator on his “listening tour.” Recognizing the 20-year-old Sidarth as an operative of his opponent, Allen employed his trademark rapier wit to put the youngster in his place: “This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent… Let’s give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.” Sidarth is a University of Virginia student, born and raised in Virginia.

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About one week out from Alaska's August 22 Republican primary, an independent poll conducted by a one-time adviser to Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) has terrible news for the incumbent.

Garnering only 17% of the vote from eligible GOP voters, he's a distant third againt Sarah Palin (40%) and John Binkley (29%).  The results are highly similar to a Rasmussen poll released August 8.

Don't miss the Washington Post's long piece on the different career paths followed by Ben Cardin and Kweisi Mfume, who arrived in Congress on the same day in 1987 and are now duking it out for the Dem nomination to succeed retiring Senator Paul Sarbanes.

Cardin has his eye on a classic insider's power-post on the Senate Finance Committee, while Mfume is contemplating the national fame -- see Obama, Barack -- that comes with being a black Senator. Primary on Sept. 12.

If you're interested in seeing Senator George Allen (R) call a 20 year old of Indian descent "Macaca," as the James Webb (D) campaign is alleging he did, you can now see the video of Allen here.

You have to hand it to New Jersey Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr. (R) -- he's certainly an optimist. Though Ned Lamont won a decisive victory based on his anti-war campaign, and though Kean's opponent, Dem incumbent Bob Menendez, is one of the few pols who actually voted against the war, Kean has still figured out a way to interpret Lamont's win as a good sign for...Kean.

How? Kean, who's said he would have voted for the war, said the other day that he thinks if the voters were mad enough to toss Lieberman, they'll be willing to toss incumbent Menendez, too -- nevermind that Menendez is against the war and Lieberman's for it. Who cares what the candidate's actual positions are, after all?

Dem challenger Stephanie Studebaker and her husband arrested on domestic violence charges. No details yet available.

Meanwhile, Studebaker's campaign Web site is down. Both not good signs.

UPDATE: Now the Associated Press is running a story on the arrest.

GOP incumbent Rep. Sue Kelly may be a little-known pol from Westchester, but she's facing some pretty high-profile opposition: Her main foe is Dem singer-songwriter John Hall, who's backed by the likes of Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle and Nancy Griffith.

Sure, first Hall has to get past a trio of contenders who want the Dem nomination, too, but with stars like the above playing at his fundraisers -- as they will be on Aug. 20 -- Hall should have little trouble getting past his challengers.

Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) -- you know, the "Mean Jean" Schmidt who recently called former Marine Jack Murtha a "coward" -- is now saying that she has just struck her very own blow for this country's war on terror. How? She announced that she bought an ethanol-powered SUV.

And how did this strike a blow for the war on terror, you ask? Easy! As Schmidt put it to the Cincinnati Enquirer: "I'd rather give my money to a farmer in Ohio than a Saudi sheik or an Iranian terrorist."

Needless to say, the comment didn't go over well with readers. For some reason, they think she shouldn't be showboating about the war when young Americans are dying overseas. Schmidt's Dem challenger, Dr. Victoria Wulsin -- who's tied in the polls with the incumbent at 44% -- didn't think much of Schmidt's remarks, either.

Jack Orchulli -- the wealthy businessman who says he'll run on the GOP line for Senate in Connecticut if hapless current GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger steps aside -- has just told me that he'd spend at least $1.5 million of his own money to make the race.

Such an expenditure would allow Orchulli, who ran statewide against Sen. Chris Dodd in 2004, to mount a credible challenge. That could have a huge impact on the contest by depriving Joe Lieberman of the GOP votes he needs to prevail in a three-way contest, thus throwing the race to Dem nominee Ned Lamont.

Asked how much he’d be prepared to spend, Orchulli told me in an interview: “At least a million and a half. It would be more if you spent money and it looks like you’re going somewhere.”

Orchulli added that time was running out on his offer: “If Schlesinger doesn’t step down within two weeks, it’ll be too late.”

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OK, so the transcript of White House press secretary Tony Snow's press briefing is in, and Snow clearly confirmed that President Bush won't be supporting GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger in the race. The White House is thus helping Joe Lieberman get reelected to his Senate seat by making it easier for him to get the GOP votes he needs to prevail over Dem nominee Ned Lamont.

Here's the transcript:

Q: Does the President support the Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut?

MR. SNOW: The President supports the democratic process in the state of Connecticut, and wishes them a successful election in November.

Exchange continues after the jump.

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Paul Kiel of TPM muckraker has just checked in with GOP-sponsored "Green" candidate Carl Romanelli, who tells Kiel that while his campaign is out of money, he's not overly worried about being able to raise more cash to compete.

Of course he isn't -- not with all those conservative donors who are willing to back him so he can take votes away from Dem Senate candidate Bob Casey, thus helping GOP incumbent Senator Rick Santorum.

New poll shows steep drop in Latino support for national Republican Party -- a development that could be criticial to the success of Dems in the midterms.

But Dems shouldn't celebrate yet -- read Democracy Corps's memo all about how Dems are still underperforming with Hispanics here.

A few days back the campaign of Rep. John Sweeney (R) blasted challenger Kirsten Gillibrand's (D) campaign, saying its "tracker" -- you know, the poor young person who's designated with the thankless gig of showing up at the opponent's events with a video camera -- had been "stalking" Sweeney. The Sweeney campaign claimed not to have trackers.

But now the Gillibrand campaign has struck back, sending photos of what certainly appear to be Sweeney trackers to the Capitol Confidential blog. Sweeney spokesperson Maureen O'Brien Donovan rather bizarrely responded by slamming Gillibrand for using a tracker from outside the state (he's from Florida):

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Donovan said. “At least our flock is local and does not migrate north in the summer.”

Not much news since the last Roundup, so here’s a recap of what went down on the Sunday shows, plus a couple other small items.

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Is President Bush refusing to endorse GOP Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger in the Connecticut Senate race, thus making it less likely that he'll take from Joe Lieberman the GOP votes he nees to prevail over Dem nominee Ned Lamont?

Political Wire says that White House press secretary Tony Snow just said as much at today's press briefing. More to come.

UPDATE: Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan responds: "It is not surprising that Joe remains Bush’s favorite Senator, he is looking to run the exact same campaign that Bush did in 2004. Fortunately, the voters of Connecticut were smart enough to reject it then and we are confident they will again. It is alarming to see how far Joe will go, undermining every candidate across the country from his former party, to cling to his spot in Washington."

Embattled Rep. Bob Ney (R) formally withdraws from race, triggers special primary.

GOP incumbent Senator Jim Talent is refusing to take a position on a state minimum-wage ballot initiative that has become a hot issue in his closely fought campaign against Dem challenger Clair McCatskill, who supports the effort. Talent's excuse? He claims he doesn't take positions on state issues.

Except, of course, when he does. He opposed a state measure that would have protected embryonic stem cell research in Missouri.

After years of ceding national security issues to the GOP, Dems appear to be serious about neutralizing the GOP's alleged advantage on security by staying on offense. As yesterday's Washington Post noted, Dems have been hammering the GOP on everything from failing to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission to trying to reap partisan gain from fears of terror.

Today, the Dems's offensive on national security continues, with the release of a new and blistering video expanding the indictment of the GOP on security questions in a big way.

Watch it here.

The GOP is struggling in all regions, but nowhere more than in the Northeast, where a batch of Republican incumbents are in trouble and President Bush's approval rating is an abysmal 28 percent.

In a just-posted interview with the Associated Press, Ned Lamont hammers Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney for their claim that his win would embolden terrorists:

''My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how can we turn this to partisan advantage. I find that offensive."...

''It surprised me," he said. ''It seemed almost orchestrated. It's sort of demeaning to the people of Connecticut. ... I thought the senator and the vice president were both wrong to use that attack (strategy) on the voters of Connecticut."

CT-SEN: Go Figure, We’ve Still Got a Race Here

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GOP candidates in the Carolinas try to win votes for themselves by invoking the terrifying specter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

This is interesting. Yesterday Ned Lamont's campaign sent out a press release demanding an apology from Joe Lieberman's campaign for charging that Lamont supporters hacked Lieberman's Web site, causing it to shut down.

Now, you may recall that when the Lieberman camp made the charge, it was covered extensively by the major news orgs and networks -- on election day, when it could have influenced the outcome -- even though the Lieberman campaign had exactly zero evidence for the charge. Yet I can't find a single word today from any of the big news orgs about the Lamont campaign's demand for an apology. Given the maximum exposure they gave Lieberman's charges, are the news orgs really going to take a pass on covering this?

So it finally looks as if the national media has realized that Joe Lieberman isn't the only "moderate" and "sensible" incumbent Senator who's under attack in a primary from "extremists" within his own party.

UPDATE: As Paul Krugman wrote on Friday, the fact that the national media has ignored the Lincoln Chafee race but has spent so much time shrieking in terror over the victory of Ned Lamont proves how empty and insincere the laments over the defeat of a "sensible" and "centrist" candidate in Connecticut really are. Krugman:

"Many of those lamenting Mr. Lieberman's defeat claim that they fear a takeover of our political parties by extremists. But if political polarization were really their main concern, they'd be as exercised about the primary challenge from the right facing Lincoln Chafee as they are about Mr. Lieberman's woes. In fact, however, the sound of national commentary on the Rhode Island race is that of crickets chirping."