Here's today's run-down on the Congressional races: The Dems are hammering away at Republicans over the financial crisis, raising questions on everything from regulation to the potential impact on Social Security -- and it may be working.

Dems Blast Sununu For Anti-Regulation History
New Hampshire Democrats are hitting Sen. John Sununu (R) on the market crisis, circulating to local media tapes of Sununu in 2006 and 2007, praising hedge funds and badmouthing regulation of the financial markets:

Dems Keep Up Spending On House Race Attack Ads
The DCCC spent $1.8 million on a round of attacks against GOP candidates in last night's FEC filings, covering 20 races in 14 states. Most signifiant is the spending of over $450,000 in three Ohio races. Here's one of those ads:

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The DCCC is firing back at Freedom's Watch, the right-wing group that's been targeting key Democratic House incumbents and challengers with radio ads on energy policy, with their own $175,000 ad campaign in ten districts across the country.

The ads tie the Republican candidates to Big Oil interests that want favors done for them in Congress, and say that this is why listeners have heard nasty attack ads on the radio lately. One of them in particular, in the Louisiana district picked up this past Spring by Democrat Don Cazayoux, even starts with the audio of the Freedom's Watch ad before cutting away to debunk it:

"We interrupt this negative attack to bring you ... the truth," the announcer says.

In many ways Freedom's Watch has become the true rival of the DCCC. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the official campaign arm of the House GOP, has been chronically unable to raise money in sufficient amounts to compete. But this new ad campaign shows that the DCCC understands who the real enemy is.

Report: Hillary's Biggest VP Impediment Is Bill
Jill Iscol, a donor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, told the Los Angeles Times that Barack Obama personally told her that Hillary Clinton was under consideration for vice president, but Bill Clinton's presence makes things "complicated." He said once you're a president, even if you're a former president, you're always a president," Iscol said.

Report: Hagel, Reed To Join Obama For Iraq Trip
Multiple news outlets have now reported that Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska conservative who has turned vocally against the Iraq War, will be accompanying Barack Obama on his upcoming trip to Iraq. Also along for the trip will be Sen. Jack Reed, a Dem point man on foreign policy, but Hagel's presence is far more interesting -- might he become a mirror image of Joe Liebemran, crossing party lines to support the Dem for president?

Both Nominees Taking The Day Off
Both presidential candidates are taking the day off today. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain have any public events scheduled.

Sebelius Not Denying VP Talk
In an interview with CQ, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius said that was not ever vetted for the vice presidency by John Kerry's team in 2004 -- but did not make the same statement about the Obama campaign this year. "Any discussion about this process is being done by the campaign itself," Sebelius said.

German Pol: Obama Shouldn't Speak At Brandenburg Gate
The leader of Bavaria's conservative party says Barack Obama shouldn't speak at the Brandenburg Gate, and accused the leftist foreign minister of pandering to the candidate. "Obama didn't do anything for German unification," Erwin Huber told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. "That's not a criticism, but as a result there is no reason to grant him such a privilege."

Poll: Obama Leads In Missouri
A new Research 2000 poll in Missouri gives Barack Obama a 48%-43% lead in this swing state, with a ±3.5% margin of error. Most recent polls have given McCain the lead here, but the pollster's analysis in this case indicates that economic insecurity is increasingly driving voters into the Democratic column.

Possible Spoiler Candidate Files In Louisiana District
Some bad news for House Dems: Louisiana state Sen. Michael Jackson, who lost the special election Democratic primary to Rep. Don Cazayoux in a conservative district this spring, has filed to run in November as an independent. Jackson could potentially pick up African-American voters who might otherwise go for Cazayoux, thus splitting the vote in favor of the Republican in a district that Democrats just picked up.

The GOP effort to win House seats is so strapped for cash that its leader has now taken to scolding members to get them to cough up donations. In the wake of their defeat this past weekend in Louisiana, NRCC chair Tom Cole reportedly told a conference meeting today that anybody not donating for next week's Mississippi election "ought to be ashamed of themselves."

Very few of them have given to Mississippi GOP candidate Greg Davis, nor did many of them give to Woody Jenkins in Louisiana. By contrast, new Louisiana Congressman Don Cazayoux (D-LA) was able to raise over $160,000 in direct donations from the House Dems, and he and Mississippi candidate Travis Childers have both been helped immensely by the DCCC's financial advantages.

In a further indication that the Democrats are well-positioned to expand their House majority this November, Democrat Don Cazayoux has won a special election tonight for a Louisiana seat that has been in Republican hands for over 30 years.

With 99% of precincts reporting, Cazayoux leads with 49,371 votes, or 49% of the vote, followed by Republican Woody Jenkins at 46,554 votes, or 46%. In a district that voted 59% for President Bush in 2004, that is simply a stunning result.

This is on top of another big Democratic pick-up two months ago, when Bill Foster (D-IL) won the suburban Illinois seat of former GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert.

In short, this year isn't going very well so far for the NRCC.

Democrats have a big opportunity to expand their House majority today, and in a very unlikely place. The special election in Louisiana's Sixth District -- which gave 59% of its vote to President Bush in 2004 -- is being held today with Democrat Don Cazayoux favored to beat controversial Republican Woody Jenkins.

The GOP undertook an effort in the home stretch to tie Cazayoux, a social conservative, to the national party in general and Barack Obama in particular as an early experiment in using the Democratic frontrunner as a cudgel against down-ticket Democrats.

However, a Republican source tells TPM Election Central that while the ad has actually had some success, there isn't much optimism that it will be enough to pull Jenkins through: "Cazayoux's negatives have certainly gone up, but the question is whether or not it's been enough to make Woody Jenkins a viable alternative."

Polls close at 9 p.m. ET tonight.

The big-money conservative third-party group Freedom's Watch is apparently desperate to hang on to a GOP House seat that is in danger despite being in a deep-red district.

In their latest gambit, Freedom's Watch didn't even try in their new attack ad to back up a key accusation against Don Cazayoux, the Dem candidate in tomorrow's closely-watched Louisiana special election for Congress. And in response, one local station pulled the ad from the air.

Here's the ad, which got taken off the air by Baton Rouge's CBS affiliate:

The Cazayoux campaign complained that there was no evidence at all that he supports benefits for illegal immigrants, and his true position is just the opposite -- indeed, they noted, the ad doesn't actually offer any sort of citation or other piece of evidence.

A new SurveyUSA poll in Louisiana shows Democrats on track to win this Saturday's special election to fill the vacancy of former Rep. Richard Baker (R), who resigned in February to become a lobbyist.

The poll shows conservative Democrat Don Cazayoux with 50% support, with 41% for GOP candidate Woody Jenkins, a longtime controversial fixture in Louisiana politics.

This seat has not been held by a Democrat since the 1970s, and the district voted 59% for President Bush in 2004, so a Dem win here would be big news indeed.

Here's the new ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee for Mississippi special election, part of the new Republican media offensive against Barack Obama. The ad ties Democratic nominee Travis Childers, a social conservative, to such big-name liberals as John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and Obama, too:

The latest FEC filings show an ad buy of over $260,000 -- meaning that the cash-strapped NRCC sees both a real need to spend money in this deep-red district, and also some real potential for using Barack Obama's name to poison down-ticket Dem chances.

Late Update: Here's the newest ad over in the contested Louisiana special election, tying Dem nominee Don Cazayoux to "the Obama-Pelosi team":

The Republicans have been sharpening their message against Barack Obama with $500,000 in new ads in the ongoing special House elections in Mississippi and Louisiana -- a stark contrast to the old days when Hillary Clinton was the boogeyman of Republican advertising.

Here's the NRCC's ad in the contested Louisiana special election:

"I think he's the weaker candidate, and I've thought that for over a year now," said NRCC Chairman Tom Cole. "He's very inexperienced. He is by any definition liberal and to the left of Hillary Clinton, and he will give us plenty of ideological divisions to work with."

An intriguing pattern has emerged in two special elections for the House in Louisiana and Mississippi: Both of the candidates backed by the National Republican Congressional Committee have had a bit of a, shall we say, white supremacy issue.

This is not to say that the two are white supremacists -- rather, they have both flirted with organizations and/or people who are known for, at a minimum, dabbling rather heavily in such sentiments.

The Mississippi case is fairly straightforward -- the GOP candidate is a mayor who had once agreed to accept a gift to his city from a white supremacist group, then backed off. The Louisiana example is a lot more complicated, involving attempts to cover up payments connected to the infamous Klansman/Neo-Nazi David Duke.

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The new NRCC ad in a Louisiana special election for the House has an interesting motif against Democratic nominee Don Cazayoux (prounced CAZH-you) — some forced schoolyard-style word-play around his name:

"Cazayoux, 'Tax You,'" the announcer says, not quite getting the pronunciation just right. "Hard to spell, harder to pay for."

Of course, there's a pretty thin record of scoring political points by making a joke of someone's French surname in Louisiana. But we'll see how it plays this time on May 3rd.

The GOP may be on the verge of losing what should have been a safe seat in Louisana. An internal Republican poll in advance of one of the upcoming special elections in the state reportedly shows that former state Rep. Woody Jenkins, who is expected to win the Republican primary runoff this Saturday, is losing by three points to expected Democratic nominee Don Cazayoux.

The district went to President Bush by a 19-point margin in 2004, so this would be a particularly juicy pickup for national Dems.

Yet another House Republican is apparently heading for the exit. Eleven-term Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA) will reportedly announce soon that he is resigning from Congress to head up the Managed Funds Association, the top lobbying group for the hedge fund industry. "It's expected to be official and announced this week," a source told Roll Call.

The district is strongly Republican, giving 59% of its vote to President Bush in 2004, but Democrats think they may have a shot at it with the right candidate. The Dems have already united behind state Rep. Don Cazayoux.

In another sign that national Dems are working overtime to expand the map of districts in play in 2008, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is pumping a robocall into the district of longtime Louisiana Rep. Richard Baker — even though his seat can arguably be seen as safe.

The call features the voice of Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), talking about the Dem Congress' efforts to expand the SCHIP program that provides healthcare for children.

"But with over 91,000 Louisiana children without health insurance, I was shocked that Congressman Richard Baker voted against providing children access to health care they desperately deserve," Kilpatrick says. "Please call Richard Baker at 225-929-7711 and tell him it's time he put our children first."

Baker was first elected to the House in 1986, and has not faced a close re-election since 1998, when he won a 51%-49% race.