3/8: TX 28, A Day Later ...

In our corner of the blogosphere, the TX 28 Dem primary was a big event. In early 2/06, moderate-to-conservative Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) picked up the unexpected endorsement of GOP-leaning group Club for Growth, and soon after was photographed real friendly-like with Pres. Bush. This spurred the liberal 'roots to pour money into the coffers of his challenger, ex-Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. With it came support from other members of Congress, including Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA), and stepped up support from traditional Dem groups such as the AFL-CIO. Like the blogger-backed OH 02 special election candidacy of Iraq vet Paul Hackett (D), they came very close -- but fell just short. It was a high stakes race for the liberal blogosphere, and there's plenty of reax this a.m. The right is on the smug side, but at least one GOP activist wonders if Dem bloggers' repeated electoral failures will reflect poorly on conservative blog activism as well. The left is trying to be philosophical. After all, this was just one race, and they're trying to build a long-term movement in the mold of the Goldwaterites.

Today we lead with that, lingering in TX briefly to pick up commentary on Rep. Tom DeLay's relatively painless primary win against 3 GOP challengers, then pick up the frustrated reax from lefty bloggers to the Senate Intel Cmte's compromise with the WH on NSA wiretap oversight, reax from all around on Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld's comments re: Iraq and increasingly-intertwined Iran. We also touch on a mysteriously disappeared post on an OH GOV campaign blog, a bit of Abramoff-related speculation, and evidence that speculation about the origins of CBS's TANG documents may never go away entirely.

TX 28: Ciro Hour?

TX districts held primaries across the state 3/7, but TX 28 was the main event.

Judging by known traffic levels and the number of comments piling up, Daily Kos was probably the go-to site for people following the election, where founder Markos Moulitsas kept tabs on the developments all night -- here, here, here, here and here.

More dedicated lefty activists headed over to MyDD, where Chris Bowers kept updating with meaty, bullet-pointed homebrew election analysis until 2:30 a.m. -- here, here, here and here.

And the die-hards checked in with the less-trafficked but well-connected Swing State Project, where site founder DavidNYC teamed up with Rodriguez staffer Tracy Joan Russo to blog live from HQ in the San Antonio area -- here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Gametime calls:

• Moulitsas, as the evening progressed: "Turnout has been low, but these things always have low turnout. The question is which candidate got a better turnout amongst his supporters. ... Still no results from Webb County, were voting box 'problems' suggest monkey business going on. ... Webb's early voting alone has blown out Ciro. This thing is over. ... This race may actually make the runoff. But even in Bexar, Cuellar gained ground and Ciro lost."
• Bowers, over the same period: "I just did some quick calculations, and I could be way off, but turnout might be as low as 35K. It was 49K in 2004. ... I would like to note that even though Cuellar is up relative to 2004 in all but one of the six counties that have reported early returns so far, he isn't up much. Because it is so close, Cuellar could lose even if he is up everywhere, depending on turnout. ... It's over. The early voting totals were terrible. ... Cuellar is up from his 2004 % in every county except Hayes. This includes several non-Cuellar controlled areas. ... This is so much like OH-02 it is scary. This has fraud attempt written all over it. Notice that I say 'attempt.' Trying to commit fraud and succeeding are different things. ... Man, we should have entered this race earlier. I reported a couple hours ago that we got beat pretty bad in early voting." More: "I'd like to point out that Texas apparently has an open primary system, where Republicans can actually vote in a Democratic primary, and vice versa. ... As someone who has always been an advocate of closed primaries, I submit this election as Exhibit A."
• DavidNYC kicked off early with a photo of a sign saying "Henry Cuellar is a Republican," adding: "Apparently, thanks to the Steelworkers, over a hundred of these signs have sprung up throughout the district overnight." Russo, later: "According to Commissioner's Court sources in Webb County they are unable to report Early Voting because their systems are down. Let's just hope Webb County doesn't wait to see the votes that they need to win before reporting. Locals claimed it has happened before. ... Note: they use touch screen voting." More David NYC: "Okay, this is getting a bit nutty. This SoS page (for TX-28 only) reports 128 precincts. However, this page (which lists all Dem races) says 143 precincts have come in. Which to believe?" Laredo Morning Times reported: "The machine built to read the personal electronic ballots was incorrectly programmed, and as a result the votes must be extracted from flash cards attached to each machine." DavidNYC: "I don't understand that second paragraph at all. The first half of the sentence refers to one machine, singular. The second half refers to multiple machines. What on earth is going on here?" Russo: "In 2004 Webb results didn't come in until the next day. I am headed out of the office now and will check in later."
• Most bloggers following the results turned in before it became clear that Cuellar had pulled above the necessary 50% to avoid a runoff, and Rodriguez's message to online supporters came before that point as well: "As far as I am concerned we are in a run-off. We will be picking up our signs from the polls and re-using them in thirty days. ... I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gotten the support of the online community. It's been overwhelming to see how people can make a difference, and make things happen by coming together, even if it an hour of blockwalking, a few phone calls or $20 and $40 dollars at a time. We must have the final word in who our leadership will be, not the special interests, and we must keep up this fight. ... Thank you from the bottom of my heart for each and every kind word, dollar bill and one cent."

Postgame analysis:

• Jane Hamsher, a big blogosphere fundraiser for Rodriguez, thanks her readers and bloggers in general for "how brave, how inspirational" they had been during the race. She counsels that there is a long road ahead: "It took Rove, Reed, Norquist and the College Republicans 20 years to gain power." And she directs her readers toward her ActBlue fundraising page, "where you can give" to CT Dem challenger Ned Lamont.
• Liberal Tiberius and Gaius Speaking...: "I think we have to describe this as a disappointing result for the netroots. ... I think the post mortem, minus any kind of discussions of fraud in Webb county, will point to what we already know. It is all about the ground game. ... I am beginning to think that there is something fundamentally wrong with Democratic GOTV programs. In close election after close election, we lose when we should have won." More: "I think rather than get into big establishment vs. netroots battles, we should at least be talking about this phenomena as well."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins goes looking for the most outrageous quotes from posters at dKos: "Judging by what you're about to read from the commenters ... a lot of liberals seem to have come to the conclusion that the VRWC has gotten so good at rigging Presidential elections that they've actually decided to branch out and start stuffing the ballot boxes in Democratic primaries." One he cites: "Apathy and vote rigging. I guess it's time to give up on democracy. We've clearly got unchecked vote rigging (the 'errors' always favor GOP candidates, that's statistically very unlikely)."
• Header at Decision '08: "The (Feeble) Power of the Netroots." In the comments, Fargazmo's Fargus clarifies: "For it to be real impotence, I think, the 'netroots' would have to be a much more widespread, widely known thing. We out here on the interweb tend to forget that there's a huge segment of the population that still doesn't inhabit our world, and makes its decisions irrespective of what's bubbling in the blogosphere." And Pat from Brainster's Blog weighs in: "It doesn't matter yesterday, when there's only one race, but it will matter a great deal in November, when there are 469 +/- races around the country."
• RedState's anonymous GOP strategist Blanton: "Lefty netroots support continues to be the kiss of death and that support is, unfortunately, eroding the credibility of the netroots in general. It should be noted that the right side of the blogosphere has not been as aggressive in building and backing candidates (though [Sens.] Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, John Thune, and others have seen help), but the right has managed to show itself more in touch with reality. By the way, congrats to the Club for Growth that aggressively pushed Cuellar and saw him win. Well done." RedState's Leon H Wolf puts the dKos candidate win-loss record a "0-19."
• Longtime Kos critic from the Dem side, Tim Russo (no relation, we presume) worries, "this is the crowd coming to our state in the fall," and "like TX-28, most of the people who are going to come play in our sand box have never lived here, never set foot here, never voted here, but will use Ohio as their own ideological purity playground, then leave after they get their jollies, consequences be damned."
• The Club for Growth had made Cuellar the 1st Dem they'd backed, and this a.m. their blogger, Andrew Roth, posted a release from Club pres. Pat Toomey congratulating him: "A united coalition of the biggest mouths and money on the tax-hiking Far Left couldn't defeat Henry Cuellar and his commitment to pro-growth principles."

Rep. Tom DeLay's relatively easy victory in his primary didn't get anything like the same kind of attention, and those who mentioned it didn't add much in the way of commentary.

Conservative James Joyner: "DeLay is a master politician who has done well by his constituents for over two decades. It is not inconceivable that Nick Lampson, a conservative Democrat and former Congressman, could beat him in November as details from the Abramoff mess become public. But, despite their low approval ratings elsewhere, Tom DeLay, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney are still quite popular deep in the heart of Texas." He updated later: "DeLay can still be a jerk, however: 'Before he was driven away from the fundraiser, a reporter asked why he chose to be in Washington. He said: 'Do you know what the Patriot Act is? Have you heard of it? I just voted on it.''" The Sundries Shack: "I'm not a big fan of Tom DeLay, but I must admit that this election result gave me a nice big smile ... not because DeLay won his primary battle but because Ronnie Earle, the hackiest hack prosecutor outside of Elliot Spitzer, is probably having a foam-flecked hissy fit wherever he is right now."

Liberal Brilliant at Breakfast: "I live in New Jersey, and even I'm appalled." But Steve Clemons sees a silver lining: "Tom DeLay has beaten three primary challengers tonight in Texas elections -- and this is actually good news for Democrats who want to run against DC's structural corruption. Frankly, I think it's good news for Republican moderates who want to run against the DeLay faction as well. They need a punching bag and foil -- and Tom DeLay has just given them that."

More from the left -- Daily DeLay writes that DeLay wins, "but not by the margin expected from a sitting incumbent in a Republican leaning district. DeLay remains as vulnerable as people have been saying he is." Panhandle Truth Squad: "We were shocked, shocked!, that Republicans had insisted that they wanted change, wanted to turn the bums out, but had voted for ... Tom Delay." TPRS: "In a primary where something like 7% of registered voters turned out, this represents a victory for the undemanding True Believers, of which there are no shortage in District 22. ... Now it's up to Nick Lampson to put the focus on DeLay and his immoral, unethical and illegal behavior. Get ready for a very interesting race." Rhetoric & Rhythm: "I'm actually glad that he won because I think it will be easier for Nick Lampson to beat him in November than some fresh Republican without the baggage that DeLay has." Truth Serum was at Lampson's primary night party: "This is a great night for Democratic Party here in District 22 and this is going to be one hell of a campaign. Nick Lampson, an honest respectable candidate versus an indicted, corrupt politician. No politics of personal destruction here ... just the God's honest truth."

A number of conservative blogs, including the pro-DeLay Some DeLay-watchers, including Tom DeLay v. the World merely post DeLay's post-election statement, or like the conservative Lone Star Times, merely the actual results.

EAVESDROPPING: Fire And Brimstone Coming Down From The Skies! Rivers And Seas Boiling! Forty Years Of Darkness, Earthquakes, And Volcanos! The Dead Rising From The Grave! Human Sacrifices, Dogs And Cats Living Together! Mass Hysteria!

New York Times reports, Senate GOPers "reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days," a move that "dashes" Dem hopes of a full cmte investigation.

Liberal bloggers are not at all happy with the situation -- Steve Soto figures this decision was based on a "reading of the polls": "[F]rankly, the polls on the Dubai ports deal are lopsidedly against the White House, as compared to the roughly 50-50 polling on the NSA spying issue." AMERICAblog: "No matter how much Olympia Snowe tries to spin this, she caved to Bush, again. There really are no Republican Senators who actually stand up to Bush -- and there is NO SUCH thing as a moderate Republican Senator." The Next Hurrah's Emptywheel focuses on the oversight subcmte promised by chair Pat Roberts, tentatively to include "himself, Hatch, Bond, and DeWine" on the GOP side. More: "Hatch and Bond, of course, joined Roberts in his pathetic attack on Joe Wilson in the conclusion of the SSCI Report on Iraq intelligence. They have proven they will put partisanship ahead of truth." As for the Dems, Emptywheel writes: "I wonder whether it wouldn't be more effective to put Russ Feingold, rather than DiFi, on this subcommittee. We need some principle and spine. ... Russ would be just the guy for it." The Intel Cmte sens. had been the subject of a lobbying campaign by left-of-center bloggers, nicknamed the Roots Project (see Blogometer coverage); Vichy Dems promises: We're not done -- not by a long shot" -- and asks readers to return the next day. Atrios labels them a "Republican Criminal Enterprise." Atty Glenn Greenwald: "Could our government be any more broken?" Mark Coffey counts this and the PATRIOT Act renewal as 2 big wins for the Bush admin. "and a failure of leadership for the Democratic Party, which still lacks the backbone to stand for its convictions in an election year for fear of being labelled 'soft' on terror.

Of course, conservative bloggers have a different take. Greenwald having been a leader among bloggers challenging the NSA program, he's a target on the right for bloggers like Confederate Yankee, who quotes him and responds: "In Greenwald's world, 535 members of Congress and the Republican-dominated press are complicit in Chimpy McHitlerburton's grand conspiracy (with the consent of the majority of the ignorant AmeriKKKan sheeple) against Glamourous Glenn and the Forces of Truth. I'm sorry, Glenn, that this reality presents a different picture than the one that you would star in." Alexandra von Maltzan of All Things Beautiful, who has tangled with Greenwald before as well, also links to Greenwald and declares in the header: "The Democrats Declare A National Day Of Mourning." Poli sci prof Steven Taylor finds the deal just adequate: "This strikes me, at first read anyway, as reasonable. As long as there is both adequate oversight of all such activities by courts and the Congress, this is acceptable. I still would like to have seen a more thorough inquiry by the Congress as to what the White House is doing and why they think that they can."

IRAN/IRAQ: Don't Trust The Media ... Trust The Government Instead?

Last p.m. Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld and JCS Peter Pace held a presser where they added to previous assertions that Iran is interfering with Iraq, and criticized the media's coverage of the war.

At The Belmont Club, Richard "Wretchard Fernandez notes that "enemy military action ... has always been keyed to support themes being promoted in the press," and predicts: "The 'Iraq is in a state of civil war' lead will continue to be emphasized but attacks may suddenly shift to American troops after a long period of being concentrated upon sectarian targets to create another theme: a Shi'ite insurgency. This plus a clamor to 'bring the boys home' may create a triple wave designed to entirely collapse public support for Operation Iraqi Freedom." Bill Millan warns: "The Media selectively quotes Rumsfeld's Press Conference." And provides a link to the DoD transcript; a number of conservative bloggers do. On a related note, Elephants in Academia contrasts the recent Tom Toles cartoon of "Dr. Rumsfeld" acting callously toward a limbless soldier (see 2/2 and 2/3 Blogometers) with an actual photo of Rumsfeld talking with a soldier who has lost his legs: "I find the straight compositional comparison fascinating. Looking back and forth between them, notice how the relative heights of the two principles have been transposed. And now the soldier is no longer the helpless victim; he's the active figure who engages Rumsfeld. The Secretary's fake doctor's tag has been exchanged for a lift ticket. Setting aside medium for a moment, what a differences these changes make."

Left I on the News is highly dubious of the claims of Iranian bombs being sent into Iraq: "What is wrong with this picture? These bombs were allegedly caught "at the Iran-Iraq border." If that were true, why on earth would you need to resort to obscure 'manufacturing signatures" of "machine-shop welds" to link them to Iran? They were captured at the Iran border! Or so 'they' say." Oliver Willis: "Yes, instead of Rumsfeld showing a little humility for the decisions he's made that have contributed to the loss of 2,500 lives, he's upset with the media for not being more upbeat about the fresh corpses coming in every day draped in U.S. flags." Daily Kos' McJoan: "Here we go again. We're not losing Iraq because of incompetent leadership, because our troops are understaffed and inadequately equipped, or because we went into the damn thing without any plan for finishing it. We're losing it because the media just isn't believing hard enough that we're winning."

Arianna Huffington: "Rumsfeld truly qualified for the absurdist pantheon when he put his media-trashing aside long enough to put the blame for the White House's Iraq troubles squarely where it really belongs: 'I think the biggest problem we've got in the country is people don't study history any more. ... There are just too darn few people in our country who study history enough.' There you have it, America's biggest problem when it comes to Iraq: lousy high school history teachers. Damn them!" Think Progress's Nico Pitney quotes Rumsfeld saying: "I will say this about Iran. They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq. And we know it." And then Pace, asked whether it's "backed by the government": "I do not know." Pitney: "Confused?" No confusion -- Pitney pulls up Rumsfeld's famous meditation on "known knowns," "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns," as placed into free verse by Slate in 2/02.

Captain's Quarters notices a Washington Post story about how Iranians are concerned about their govt's push for nuclear power, and comments: Most are now wondering why Iran has been so clumsy in its approach to nuclear research. While most support the sovereignty argument, a growing portion have begun asking why Iran provoked the international community by keeping a nuclear energy program secret and hidden from the IAEA. ... If Iran cannot get more uranium abroad because of its intransigence, then why start the program at all?" But the answer is "rather obvious -- once one stops thinking that Iran wants a peaceful nuclear-energy program. The mullahs have no concerns about the fuel supply because it wants to develop weapons, not generate power. Iran has all the power it needs in its vast oil reserves. That's why the program had to be hidden away from IAEA inspectors."

IN THE STATES: Rumored Attendees Include Sideshow Bob, Dr. Hibbert And Rainier Wolfcastle

The OH UAPA Ohio Politics blog noticed a post on the official blog for GOV candidate Ken Blackwell (R), a photo of him standing in front of a podium labeled "Council on National Policy," found via their RSS feed: "Sounds innocent enough, but I was curious why there was not more promotion of the speech and the group Blackwell was speaking to accompanying the blog post. When I went to Ken Blackwell's Blog, the post had been removed." Noting that the secretive conservative CNP's rules include this line: "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting," they add: "Is this the reason the blog post was scrubbed? What is this group, and why is it so determined to avoid the public spotlight?" The CNP entry at Wikipedia explains a bit.

AIR AMERICA: Silent By Spring?

On 3/3, Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney noted that it appeared liberal talker network Air America was losing WLIB, its flagship NYC station. He wrote: "While the network's last day on WLIB isn't known for certain, an internal source providing backing documentation points to the end of March. At this time, Air America parent Piquant LLC has no firm back-up plan for where in the nation's largest radio market its programming will now air. Some inside the firm are already referring to WLIB in the past tense."Michelle Malkin quotes from news accounts of Air America's denials by the Post and Sun of NYC, but notices who's "not commenting: Air America's cheerleading team at the New York Times."

ABRAMOFF: Spook-y

Despite the lack of general blogosphere interest, Josh Marshall has kept pushing ahead with the various scandals related to disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Today he asks: "Let me try an idea out on you. What if" defense contractor Brent Wilkes is "too big to go down? Now, whatever else Wilkes was, he was deep into all sorts of highly classified CIA and other intel agency programs -- and don't be surprised if not just as a 'contractor'. There are even telling signs he may have been involved in some of the administration's more creative domestic intelligence activities. If he's indicted, what might he threaten to reveal? More prosaically, what might his lawyer say he needs to bring into open court in order to be able to defend himself?"

MEMOGATE: Prove This Negative

At GWU's IPDI Politics Online conf. on 3/7, one blog panel included BlogAds' Henry Copeland, Daou Report's Peter Daou, AMERICAblog's John Aravosis and RedState's Mike Krempasky. At Human Events' Right Angle, Robert Bluey recounted, "perhaps the most interesting exchange took place on the topic of Rathergate. Krempasky, who created the website Rathergate.com days after Dan Rather's erroneous report on '60 Minutes,' recounted how bloggers changed the course of history. Judging from the reaction from the crowd, Krempasky was definitely speaking to a liberal audience. In fact, he had to answer his liberal counterparts on the question of whether he was the person who planted the documents. For the record, Krempasky said he had nothing to do with it. ... That didn't stop the conspiracy theories. Aravosis said it's still not out of the realm of possibility that the White House had something to do with it."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Long Arm Of The Law Overreaches

NJ Assemb. Peter Biondi (R) has introduced a bill targeted at anonymous online bloggers and commenters that would force ISPs to "require any information content provider who posts written messages on a public forum website either to be identified by a legal name and address" and "enable any person to request and obtain disclosure of the legal name and address of an information content provider." Anonymity is a common state of being in the blogosphere, and concerned as many bloggers are, few are genuinely concerned.

Juan Melli at Blue Jersey: "There's one small problem: The NJ Supreme Court ruled that banning anonymous online speech is unconstitutional." More: "This is as ridiculous as it gets, but it displays the total disconnect that many elected officials have with the internet as a medium for speech." Sisyphus Shrugged urges readers to contact his office, in "businesslike" fashion: "I don't expect that the country's major internet providers are going to let this kind of massive increase in their administrative and legal costs go on the books, or that the courts would let it fly if it slipped by them, but get your two cents in anyway."

In fact, most are having fun with it: The Agonist: "What next, will he seek to have Joe Klein give his royalties back for Primary Colors? And will the Economist be forced to have by-lined articles?" PLAN's Daily Plan: "I wonder what's next? The banning of unsigned editorials? Perhaps we should posthumously arrest Publius for writing the Federalist Papers." Kevin Drum: "Of course, if anonymous posters are criminals, then only criminals will be, um, anonymous posters. Or something."

The bill may well go nowhere -- but as political blogs develop, will we see more like this?

LEST WE FORGET: You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated At Birth

Coming soon to a bookstore near you is "Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics," by lefty blogosphere leaders Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong. But at Armstrong's MyDD, diarist Malacandra imagines what would happen if "Crashing the Gate" was coming soon to a theater near you.

Moulitsas is pegged as Wilson Cruz from "My So-Called Life," although others insist on Olympic speed skater Apollo Anton Ohno, Matt Damon for Armstrong, Wallace Shawn for Bob Shrum, Fred Willard for Rep. Tom DeLay, Ned Beatty for Karl Rove, and a number of others, including Claire Danes for Rep. Stephanie Herseth and Tom Arnold for MT SEN candidate Jon Tester. Malacandra puts the photos side-by-side, and while in some cases it may be the particular photos chosen -- Hotline's own Last Call! [sub. req.] knows something about arranging proper Separated at Birth sets -- they're all pretty impressive.