Well, what do you know: We finally found a Republican who's willing to acknowledge that the myth that China is drilling for oil off American shores is, well, a myth.

We previously noted that Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican facing a tight re-election battle this year, made the false claim in June. His offices didn't return our calls.

But the Chicago Tribune asked Kirk's office for clarification, and has now gotten a retraction. "While the Cubans may have issued offshore drilling rights, Congressman Kirk has publicly agreed that the Chinese are not currently drilling for oil near Florida," Kirk's chief of staff told the paper. Score one for reality.

How's this for hopelessness in the House GOP ranks: A Republican Congressman is not only predicting losses in this election and futures ones -- he's also saying it would be a good thing!

"I'm of the position that we really need to clean house in this Republican Party," Nevada Republican Dean Heller told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "And I think the next couple of election cycles are going to do that."

Heller isn't all doom and gloom, though. He thinks the Republicans will get the majority back within a decade.

Two Republican Congressman from Florida, brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, could both be in serious fights to hold on to their districts, according to new polling.

The polling from Bendixen and Associates, a Florida-based firm that specializes in surveying areas with large percentages of Spanish-speakers, finds Lincoln ahead of Democratic candidate Raul Martinez by a 41%-37% margin, within the ±5% margin of error. Mario leads Dem candidate Joe Garcia by 44%-39%, also with a ±5% margin of error.

Both brothers have had pretty easy rides to re-election during their time in Congress, but this year might just be different.

In yet another sign of the disarray gripping GOP ranks, a top Republican in New York is now flatly stating that the party is such a mess that they are very likely to lose a key House seat in the state.

The race in question is that wacky contest we've been posting about here regularly -- the battle to take over the open seat of Vito Fossella, who announced his retirement after a personal scandal.

"The overall lay of the land is that the Republican Party in Staten Island is a great big mess," said former Rep. Guy Molinari, an elder statesman among Staten Island Republicans, when I called to check in on the state of the race. "It's shameful and embarrassing to people like myself, who've been active since -- actually decades."

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Obama Will Deliver Acceptance Speech At Football Stadium
The Obama campaign is expected to announce this week that the candidate will deliver his acceptance speech outside of the Democratic convention itself, a plan first floated late last week. The speech will be given at Denver's Invesco Field, which holds 76,000 people -- a stunning audience size for an American political gathering. (Late Update: The convention's organizing committee has just put out a press release officially announcing Invesco Field as the site of Obama's speech.)

Candidates To Discuss The Economy Today
The economy will dominate today's campaigning, with Barack Obama visiting North Carolina to propose a second economic stimulus package. John McCain will be in Denver to pitch his own jobs plan, hoping to hold on to a state that has historically voted Republican but is trending Democratic very quickly.

McCain Camp Hires New Political Director
John McCain's campaign reorganization has resulted in the hiring of a new political director -- a role that was previously absent entirely from the campaign. The campaign has hired Mike DuHaime, who previously worked as Rudy Giuliani's campaign manager.

McCain Could Have Convention Problems With Conservative Activists
John McCain could face some friction with hard-line conservative activists at the St. Paul convention, as the party sets about rewriting the largely-symbolic party platform in order to remove references to President Bush and reshape it as McCain's official agenda. "Our job is to make sure that the grass roots continue to have a say," said Eagle Forum executive director Jessica Echard.

CQ: Most Vulnerable House Seats Are All GOP
In a further sign of just how bad things are for the House Republicans, CQ says that the top five seats most likely to switch control are all open Republican-held seats. The seats are currently held by: Vito Fossella of New York, Jerry Weller of Illinois, Rick Renzi of Arizona, Tom Davis of Virginia, and Jim Walsh of New York.

Senate Dem Incumbents Flush With Cash
Roll Call reports that Senate Democrats have found themselves in an interesting quandary: Nearly all their incumbents up for election this year are considered safe, and collectively they have more than $50 million on hand. Much of that money can be transferred to the DSCC or to other candidates, thus adding to the party' overall infrastructure -- but for now, many of them are sitting on it.

This one slipped our attention at first, but it turns there was yet another Republican who continued to push the China-Cuba Oil Myth even after Dick Cheney retracted it: Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama.

By our count, this makes 12 Republicans who have continued to push the story.

In a guest op-ed for the Opelika-Auburn News published on June 16, Rogers wrote:

In December 2006 Congress passed, with my support, a bill that partially expanded drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. But there is still a large area that is off limits to U.S. companies.

Since then, you may have seen China has signed an agreement with Cuba to drill for this oil. That's right: China has set up shop off the coast of Florida and is using oil our country could readily use instead.

Rogers' Congressional office has not responded to our requests for comment.

Well how about that. We now have a seventh Republican continuing to spread the myth that China is drilling for oil off American shores: Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a Christian Right champion from Colorado, repeated the idea to the Fort Collins Coloradoan.

The Coloradoan immediately called Musgrave on it, causing her to then refer them to her staff. To his credit, her chief of staff told the paper that she misspoke -- which is more than we've personally seen from other Republicans we've encountered.

Musgrave faces a tough race against Betsy Markey, a former top aide to Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar.

So, will Musgrave no longer repeat the myth, assuming her chief of staff has informed her of the facts, or will we be hearing it from her again?

As you may have heard today, Washington state Dem Congressional candidate Darcy Burner's home was destroyed in a fire. Everyone made it out safely.

Campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik told Election Central that the cause is believed to be faulty wiring in a lamp. "We'll just have to wait for a final determination, but the indications are that that was the cause," said Kaushik.

Kaushik also told us that Burner's dedication to her very competitive House race against incumbent Republican Dave Reichert has not been affected: "She'll take a couple days off, obviously, to deal with the issues surrounding the fire. But she'll be back on the campaign trail shortly."

Oh, man -- we knew the Repubs were in trouble in this fall's Congressional races, but this is just comical.

A leading GOPer in the House, whip Roy Blunt, sent out a release today touting a new fundraising effort on behalf of Republican candidates. The program has this rather optimistic title:

Regain Our Majority Program (ROMP) II

But in the same release, it also contains a list of all the GOP House candidates that will benefit from this program designed to regain the GOP's majority.

ROMP will benefit the following Members and candidates:

Shelley Moore Capito (WV-2)

Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21)

Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25)

Phil English (PA-3)

Tom Feeney (FL-24)

Chris Hackett (PA-10)

Pete Olson (TX-22)

Steve Stivers (OH-15)

Get this -- only two of the names on this list are challengers running to unseat House Dems -- Hackett and Olsen. The rest are incumbents, with the exception of Stivers, who's running for an open GOP-held seat.

But to regain their majority the GOP would need to knock off 19 House Dems. So this program to win back the majority is approximately 17 candidates short of what they need to accomplish its stated goal!

By contrast, the DCCC's Red to Blue program lists 20 Dem candidates challenging Republican House incumbents -- ten times the number of the GOP's vaunted "ROMP" program.

Here's a blooper if there ever was one. The Congressional office of Florida Democrat Tim Mahoney, a freshman who faces a potentially tough re-election fight this fall, was forced to put out a statement apologizing for a mailer they sent to the district two months ago in which the Congressman touted his support for veterans.

The problem: The mailer featured a stock picture of an elderly veteran who turned out to be a Soviet soldier! Click the picture to enlarge:

Right-wing blogs were the first to note the foul-up, raising questions about the veteran's lack of American medals.

"This was an honest staff error," Mahoney's chief of staff said in the statement, forwarded to us by his office. "We deeply apologize to those who were offended and we will take steps to ensure that this mistake doesn't happen in the future."

Translation: D'oh!

Oh boy. We've now spotted two more Republicans who have continued to push the idea that China is drilling for oil near Florida, even after Dick Cheney retracted the claim and GOP Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida called it an "urban legend."

One is an incumbent Congressman, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and the other is Kieran Michael Lalor, a candidate running against an incumbent Democratic Congressman from New York. They do have something in common: Both are in extremely tough fights, and this is the kind of nationalist talk that can really rile up the party's base, regardless of the facts.

First up is Kirk.

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The Dems really are serious about tying Congressional Republicans to President Bush -- so serious, in fact, that their newest radio ad, which will run against GOP incumbents across the country, features a Bush impersonator pretending to leave voicemails with incumbent House GOPers.

Click To Play

"I guess that's why they call us the Grand Oil Party. Heh, heh, heh," the impersonator says, mocking Bush's sarcastic giggle. "Seriously, _______, I know I can always count on you."

In a sign that the Democrats are determined to expand the playing field in a big way this year, the ad will air against Republican incumbents in some very tough districts for Democrats: Jean Schmidt of Ohio, Virgil Goode of Virginia, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, and many more.

This just keeps getting more and more absurd. Now the tall tale about China drilling for oil off American shores has found its way into a House GOP candidate's campaign flyer.

And to make matters even more ridiculous, the candidate's staffers are giving us conflicting information about whether he even sent it out!

The flyer is the work of John Gard, a Wisconsin Republican who narrowly lost a Congressional race in 2006 and is now seeking a rematch against freshman Democrat Steve Kagen. It was handed out at a county fair on June 15, a few days after Dick Cheney was forced to admit that his story about China drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico was false.

And this gets even sillier still.

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This is great. We now count three House Republicans who have continued to peddle the myth that China is working with Cuba to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though Dick Cheney had already admitted it was bunk.

The latest: Virgil Goode, the Virginia Republican best known for denouncing the election of Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, on the grounds that Ellison is a Muslim.

Goode faces a potentially tough challenge from Tom Periello, an international human rights worker who has been aggressively advertising on Christian radio and has also been able to raise a decent amount of money. So Goode's message to his base is clear: Vote for the Dems, and you're voting for China.

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The GOP's prospects for holding onto a key House seat in New York -- once practically assured in their Staten Island stronghold -- have rapidly gotten bleaker and bleaker, to the point where the seat could be on its way to the Democrats.

After wealthy GOP candidate Frank Powers -- who wasn't even the party's first choice to begin with -- tragically passed away over the weekend, the party has had to go hunting for a new one. But one potential candidate after another has bailed. They include a local TV newscaster, multiple state legislators, a local D.A., and at least half a dozen others -- to a person, they've all said, Thanks but no thanks.

"It's a crazy situation," said former Rep. Guy Molinari, the unofficial leader of the Staten Island GOP, in a phone interview with Election Central.

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They just can't seem to get enough of this one. It looks like another Republican is still pushing the idea that China is drilling for oil in deep ocean waters near Cuba -- Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri is continuing to push it even after big-name Republicans like GOP Sen. Mel Martinez and even Dick Cheney have disavowed it, and his staff is refusing to offer any retraction of his statement.

The Missouri Democrats are sending around this YouTube of Graves, who is facing a tough challenge from former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes, pushing the China-Cuba story at local campaign events:

Graves campaign spokesman Jason Klindt is sticking to the story for now.

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You might not have noticed this, but there is in fact a hotly-contested Congressional primary tonight in Utah. And here's why it matters: One of the most entertaining gaffe-machines in Congress, GOP Rep. Chris Cannon, could very well lose reelection after six terms.

Cannon has a history of making colorful comments, to say the least. For example, back in April he said that there are "lots of women who choose to be in polygamous relationships and who are very articulate about the benefits they get," and that it was a preferable arrangement to single parenthood.

And after the Foley scandal in 2006, he declared the teenage pages were "egging this guy on."

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The hotly-contested race for the New York 13th Congressional District, a major pickup opportunity for Dems, was seriously shaken up over the weekend with the sudden and tragic passing of GOP candidate Frank Powers, who was found dead in his sleep of apparently natural causes at age 67.

So what happens next? What does the GOP do now?

A national GOP source tells us that the party is already talking to local leaders about potential new candidates, but nothing will happen until after the funeral.

It's worth taking a quick look at the state of the race, because it has suddenly become one of the contests being most closely watched by national strategists in both parties.

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Okay, we've got some more news for you on the bizarre House race for the open Dem-held seat in Oregon, where GOP nominee Mike Erickson is facing allegations that he pressured a woman into getting an abortion back in 2000 and early 2001.

The latest: In a development that boosts Dem chances of holding the seat, The Oregonian has published a detailed story based on claims from the woman herself, whose damning accusations against Erickson are a must-read.

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Frank Powers, a businessman who had been the leading Republican candidate for the hotly-contested open New York House seat of retiring GOPer Vito Fossella, has passed away at age 67.

Our condolences go out to his family and friends.

Last time we checked in on Rep. "Mean Jean" Schmidt, the Ohio Republican facing a tough challenge from Dem Victoria Wulsin, she was busy demonizing her opponent as someone who conducts grisly scientific experiments on innocent human victims.

Now she's outdoing herself again, spreading a tall tale that even other Republicans know is bogus: The notion that China is supposedly drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

She's pushing this fiction in order to whip up fear about high gas prices and Democrats wanting to sell the country out to the Communists -- a clear effort to boost her base turnout against Wulsin, who nearly beat Schmidt two years ago and very well could unseat her this time around.

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Barack Obama has cut a radio spot for conservative Dem Rep. John Barrow of Georgia, who favors staying in Iraq and favors immunity for the telecom companies, and he's taking a beating from liberal bloggers over it.

Barrow is loathed by the Netroots, and not without cause: During his 2006 reelection campaign he ran an ad saying that "we can't cut and run" from Iraq. And he was one of the House Dems who sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi demanding that they be permitted to vote for the recent Senate bill giving amnesty to the telecoms.

We obtained a copy of the ad from the Barrow campaign. Give it a listen:

Click To Play

The problem here is that the Netroots are backing a primary challenger to Barrow, State Senator Regina Thomas, and Obama's ad is a blow to their efforts. It's drawn scalding denunciations from Glenn Greenwald and Matt Stoller, who described Barrow as "one of the most reactionary members of Congress."

Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor responded: "Sen. Obama believes that Congressman Barrow has worked hard to bring change that families in his district deserve."

There are multiple reasons why Obama would do this. For example, he might be trying to send a message to certain House Dems that he can help them even in conservative districts, which could keep them from refusing to endorse him -- something that would give the GOP ammo in the Presidential race.

Just when we thought we'd seen the last of Rep. John Doolittle, the TPMmuckraker All-Star whose associations with Jack Abramoff have forced him into retirement, it turns out he may be set to hit the campaign trail all over again -- and there's a Republican out there who will actually be seen with him!

As it turns out, he's in talks with GOP nominee Tom McClintock's camp to appear together -- a development that could increase the Dems' chances of picking up this red district thanks to Doolittle's high negatives.

McClintock spokesman Stan Devereux told Election Central that the ongoing investigations against Doolittle would not render him a political liability: "Doolittle is still the congressman for the area, has served the district well."

Of course, the source of the problem here is the extent to which Doolittle served Abramoff well.