The questioning comes down to spending of per diems during overseas travel. The investigation of Wilson in particular seems very odd. Evidently, the thought is that he overspent on $2 tiny goblets in Afghanistan for families of American troops serving over there. He was receiving $13 a day. [lewisblackvoice] What-the-fuck is that about? [/lewisblackvoice] The House will spend more money in an hour or two just looking into this than the expenditures made on the trip. Below is a picture from the Wilson campaign of one of the goblets, placed next to a Coke can for perspective.

This is insanity.

Most of the presidential debates, and they began in the summer of 2007 for chrissakes, were just exercises in waiting for the freak candidate to say something weird or drinking games for people who find it hard to get obliterated without rules and points. In races with a lot of people, many candidates say very little and even less of actual import. They would be better served with covering themselves with bumper stickers and turning about for the cameras.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Vince Sheheen decided to a new twist on an exceptionally old trick — did the staff get high and approve this? — by challenging GOP nominee Nikki Haley to fucking Lincoln-Douglas debates. A whole mess of ‘em! And stories were written far and wide. This comprises the vast majority of all action regarding debates. Candidate A proposes something a little out of the ordinary. Candidate B says bah to that. Then so many news stories. It’s just a method to generate news coverage. As a result, most of the people who actually give a damn are those who are directly involved, and nobody else cares.

In that way, more than 90 percent of all political debates between candidates are little different than the presidential nominating conventions. No, they’re actually very much worse. Conventions have political memorabilia to buy, the occasional famous person sighting, entertainment by famous people (this applies mostly to Democrats, or to your definition of “famous”) and those wonderful hospitality parties thrown by big corporations and special interests that have the open bars and free food. Debates, even high-level debates, don’t come close. The best swag you’ll bring home is a press pass bought off some writer at the hotel bar. And about 90 minutes of sheer boredom.

Lower ballot race debates could be worthwhile, but if you’ve had to sit through multiple city council debates or watched State House candidates go at it in some back room in BFE with 11 people attending, you’d agree that the news value is negligible. Columbia would be better served by having the city candidates debate in front of the Metro desk reporters and save everyone else the trouble.

But here’s the connection between the debates and the conventions: as former DNC chairman Don Fowler taught us at Carolina, conventions never help a campaign and if they have effect, it’s bad. Fowler pointed to RNC ’92 in Houston and his own DNC ’88 in Atlanta as examples. The same goes for the debates. They’re only particularly newsworthy and have an effect on the campaign if somebody seriously fucks up, as in George H.W. Bush in ’92 in Richmond (looking at his watch) or Al Gore in 2000 (le sigh).

Discussions, like among the Pub Politics crew or the fabulous C-SPAN broadcast of William F. Buckley and George McGovern from several years ago are different matters altogether. People sitting down with different points of view and talking about them can elicit interesting commentary and analysis. And jokes that aren’t pre-scripted. Operatives, former pols, reporters who are allowed an opinion — Lee Bandy at the Dan Rather thing in ’08 was great — these are people close enough to the action to really know what’s going down, but removed enough to actually say something worth listening to.

But these candidate debates, they’re moribund, they’re out cold. It’s toe-tag time.

At least, that’s per commenter “Orange Mike.”

Somebody named Erin Febel, who apparently works for Mick in some capacity, created a Wikipedia article about him (there should have been one already, since he’s a state legislator). That in and of itself verges on a conflict of interest violation.

What has gotten her big loud warnings, is that even after being warned about our strict conflict of interest rules, she keeps editing the article!!!! She just removed all the warnings about ways in which the article needs to be cleaned up, and while she was at it removed Mulvaney’s wife’s maiden name (a “secret” discovered by looking at his official website).

And there’s this:

And that:

We wonder how the Mulvaney campaign does its hiring. It’s involved in arguably one of the top-five high-profile U.S. House races this year. So they hire a new media person straight out of college? Who apparently doesn’t know how not to get caught on Wikipedia? Did she ever read one of the dozens of stories about staffers or consultants who get caught cleaning up a Wikipedia page on the candidate? Maybe Spratt has less to worry about than originally thought.

1. Alexis Latifi

Age: 24
Hometown: Huntsville, Ala.
Political party: Republican
Relationship status: Single

Meet Alexis Latifi: raw foodist, bikram yogi, jewelry maker.

Latifi moved to Washington from her native Alabama last fall and has enjoyed taking her unique interests to a higher level.

Seeing her flourish in her new city, her friends and family back home joke, “Hey, you’re not so weird anymore,” says Latifi, a staff assistant for Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

Led two years ago by the desire to eat healthier, Latifi joined the raw food movement, meaning her diet consists solely of raw plant foods. She now happily tours the city’s Whole Foods Markets, admiring the produce and shopping for recipes like raw spaghetti and raw carrot cake.

“Going to Whole Foods is like clothes shopping for me,” she said. “I’ll go to Whole Foods just to put myself in a good mood.”
The one thing she hasn’t quite figured out about being a raw foodist is how to be a good date.

“Poor boys,” she says, laughing. “I’ll get in the car, and they’re like, ‘Um, I looked for a vegetarian restaurant.’

“But I do like going places and trying the salads,” she adds earnestly.

When not dehydrating mangos, Latifi is likely striking one of 26 poses in a 105-degree room as part of her bikram yoga regimen. She attends class at a Dupont Circle studio at least three times a week.

“I’m addicted now,” she said. “I don’t go to things because I have to go to yoga.”

Latifi also brings her jewelry-making kit with her almost everywhere she goes. She made the necklace she’s wearing in her 50 Most Beautiful People photo, and she’ll throw together a piece of jewelry to match a specific outfit right before walking out the door. That’s how she likes to set herself apart.

“I have to have something that looks a little bit different than anybody else and that you haven’t seen in the store,” Latifi said.

5. Ben Dunham

Age: 31
Hometown: Huntsville, Ala.
Political party: Democratic
Relationship status: In a relationship

Ben Dunham is happy that his life is finally back to normal. Sort of.

In October 2009, the 31-year-old environmental adviser to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) met a certain young actress who was visiting Capitol Hill. And the rest, as they say, is national tabloid news.

The actress, “Mad Men” star January Jones, was in town lobbying for environmental causes when she and Dunham hit it off. Overnight, it seemed, they were spotted all over town, and Dunham’s name landed on every gossip site in the country. It didn’t hurt that his girlfriend’s T.V. show was the most talked-about drama on the small screen.

The pair dated for about four months, and true to his roots, the Huntsville, Ala., native is a Southern gentleman about the relationship, declining to discuss Jones with the media.

“I got a lot of weird e-mails, though,” he admits, “and the whole experience convinced me that I never want to be famous, whether as a politician or a celebrity or anything.”

With his soft, barely-there drawl and his honest expression, Dunham seems like an unlikely celeb. The eldest child of two teenage parents, Dunham was raised primarily by his mother, Susan Parlamento, and grandparents Vernon and Peggy Dunham.

Dunham walked onto the University of Mississippi’s football team and went on to earn a law degree at the University of North Carolina. His interest in environmental law is personal — his grandfather died in 2009 of lymphoma after a lifetime spent working on construction sites.

On a lighter note, asked about his dating history, Dunham says it goes pretty far back.

“My first girlfriend was in preschool, a German girl named Schotzy,” he says. “I’ve always loved women.”

Dunham flashes a perfect smile, lighting up his blue eyes. That sounds like good news for women, too.

6. Nichelle Williams

Age: 30
Hometown: Mobile, Ala.
Political party: Democratic
Relationship status: Boyfriend

Nichelle Williams was destined for beauty.

Her mother, a “Star Trek” fan, named her after Nichelle Nichols, the stunning actress who played Lt. Uhura aboard the Starship Enterprise.

Williams is as beautiful as her namesake but leads a more down-to-earth life as legislative counsel to Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.).

She has been in a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend for three years (he’s still in Alabama), and she considers herself a homebody.

“I don’t have too much of a social life,” she admits. “I do a lot of reading. If I’m not at work, I’m at home.”

She likes to chat on the phone with friends and her close-knit family. Growing up, she bonded with her mom in a house full of four brothers.

“I was very much a tomboy, trying to keep up with my brothers,” who were all involved in sports such as football, tennis and cross-country, she says.

Williams earned a master’s in public health at Emory University and a law degree at the University of Alabama.

Before taking a job with Davis a year and a half ago, she worked at Alabama Appleseed, a social justice advocacy group.

In that job, she says, she saw firsthand the barriers that make it tough for poor people and minorities to get decent healthcare. Williams says the healthcare bill passed by Congress this year is a good first step but far from perfect.

She hopes to switch to healthcare policy but wonders how much longer she can stick it out in Washington. Williams misses home sweet home.

“I think all the talent leaves Alabama.” she says. “It’s my home.”

And so it is in DC, in tony bars in Georgetown and Capitol Hill. It’s what gave birth to The Washingtonienne, for chrissakes. An environment ready for scandal, and where strange bedfellows can go from being a saying to reality. U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner is working to curb some of this activity, especially as it’s beginning to end up in gossip pages and trade publications.

The New York Post‘s “Page Six” reported last week that Minority Leader John Boehner is telling GOP congressmen to please stop getting drunk with lobbyists — especially young, pretty, female lobbyists — because, let’s face it, it just doesn’t look good. “Page Six” had spotted Rep. Lee Terry “in close conversation with a comely lobbyist at the Capitol Hill Club in DC.” “Why did you get me so drunk?” Terry is reported to have said (among other things) to the “giggling woman.”

Lobbyist Glenn LeMunyon, a former Tom DeLay appropriations staffer, holds well-attended fundraisers and “after-hours parties” at his Capitol Hill row house. Missouri Republican Sam Graves was photographed dining at D.C.’s finest beer bar, Brickskeller, with a blond woman who turned out to be a lobbyist for the Patriot Group, where she “represents health care systems, financial institutions, utilities, technologists, tort reform coalitions, oil and gas interests, and human rights causes at the state and federal level.”

Salon‘s tongue-in-cheek piece references a Monday article in Roll Call that mentions that Boehner has been trying for more than a year to hold down the fraternization between older male representatives that like to stick around the district to socialize and the younger women who are paid to lobby them. It’s an admirable task. After all, the best way to stop a scandal in your caucus is prevention, rather than crisis management. Whether Boehner’s Democratic counterpart, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, is doing the same thing isn’t mentioned. But he better.

The idea of Congressmen Gone Wild isn’t a new one. In the 19th century, scores of illegitimate children would be born across the District after the end of a session. Now, however, is a different time with immediacy of information and a camera — more often than not one that can capture moving pictures — in the pocket of everyone nearby. You would think that would curb the libidinous impulses of congressmen and the women who are facilitating them. Apparently not.

Regardless, good luck, John. After all, being in the minority in the House does tend to lend itself to lost causes and delaying actions.

Most out there probably don’t know who Dave Rader is. He’s not the flashiest of college football assistant coaches, and even though he’s been around the Southeastern Conference and the Tulsa Golden Hurricane forever. His only head coaching gig was a largely forgettable two years at the helm of the Hurricane in the late ’80s. But this year, he could have been a new congressman from Oklahoma.

The last time Rader walked the sidelines, former Alabama coach Mike Shula hired him out of retirement from football — Rader had been involved in selling insurance. But he was Shula’s quarterbacks coach under Ray Perkins in the mid-’80s, so Mike brought him back for a second go. With the exception of a breakout year in 2005 with Brodie Croyle, the experiment didn’t work so well. When Shula got the boot in 2006, Rader went back to Tulsa and the private sector.

Enter Houston Nutt. The Ole Miss coach found himself needing a quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator after Kent Austin left to take over at Cornell. Nutt looked around, saw a guy he used to know, and plucked him again out of Tulsa. And none too soon.

Especially for U.S. Rep. John Sullivan, who represents OK-01. Typical of what else has been going on across the country, some Republicans in the district started looking for a primary challenger.

First Congressional District Republicans dissatisfied with incumbent John Sullivan are trying to talk former University of Tulsa football coach Dave Rader into challenging Sullivan in this year’s GOP primary.

“Everybody involved has their own different reasons,” said Josh McFarland, a Jenks contractor who announced the group’s formation at Tuesday’s meeting of the Tulsa Republican Women’s Club. “I’m just looking for somebody who is more innovative.”

According to Politics1, Sullivan has five GOP challengers for Tuesday’s primary. One of them could have been Rader, but it was just a little more than two weeks after that story was published that he was introduced as the new assistant in Oxford. So close, Dave. So close.

The last best chance was likely Linda Ketner. When her former staffers and volunteers began canvassing he state for signatures to put her on the ballot, she seemed interested and intrigued. But when it finally came down to it, she told her erstwhile followers to lay down their clipboards. She wasn’t going to expend the time and capital needed to fight U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint and his gigantic warchest. But Thomas Nast didn’t depict Dems as donkeys for nothing. Stubbornness ruled the day for a few in the Lowcountry, and they reeled in their line and cast it back into the water.

They were looking for an academic at the Charleston School of Law. Alex Sanders? He did mount a decent campaign against Lindsey Graham in a bad Democratic year. No. They went to — who? — professor Constance Anastopoulo. She is originally from Virginia, has a firm in Charleston, went to school at Virginia and North Carolina, appears to be an excellent trial lawyer and according to ratemyprofessors.com, her students like her. We haven’t heard of her, and she has the online profile of a General Assembly candidate, so an independent run for U.S. Senate with any legitimate chance is probably a bit too much at this time.

She seemed to agree, and said in a statement, “While I am flattered by all of the phone calls and e-mails, I am fully committed to my work and my students at the Charleston School of Law.” Alright, guys. Y’all couldn’t find serious candidates for U.S. Senate, the First District and the Third District, Fourth District, secretary of state and got lucky when two decent candidates — Matthew Richardson and Robert Barber — got into the attorney general and comptroller general races. Yet, you keep beating the bushes like madmen looking for a replacement candidate.

It’s too late, kids. Should have been working on 2010 right after the 2008 races were over.

Everybody’s in a lather about Scott being only a few months away from being the only black Republican in Congress, and while that is noteworthy, there’s not much there beyond pointing out the obvious. The story that is rattling around for us is what happened in the Fourth District. Inglis spent three terms in the House in the ’90s, and another three after U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint decided to run for Fritz Hollings‘ open seat. What happened?

For one thing, Gowdy laid down a whuppin’, 71-29. That’s not just a big win, it’s a joke. A laugher. How did Inglis so completely alienate the people who sent him to Washington six times? When he left his seat to run against Hollings in 1998, Inglis was every bit the rock-ribbed, hard-right conservative. He was going around saying things like “only Christians should marry Christians.” Even in South Carolina, we’re pretty sure religion isn’t a relationship dealbreaker for most, but it’s the Upstate — you go where the voters are.

In the past few years, though, he’s turned into a different character. Inglis developed some relatively moderate positions. And that straight killed him. Inglis said that he was trying to represent all of the people. While laudable, you have to get elected, first, before you can represent anyone. And everybody isn’t voting in the Republican primary in the Fourth District, much less the runoff. Just like that, it was all over.

Then things took a turn. The Republican primary for the First District began drawing people who wanted to challenge Brown for the nomination. And he probably looked back to 2008 when Democrat Linda Ketner gave him a run for his money, when in any other circumstance that shouldn’t have happened. Brown was in trouble. So he bailed.

For the county board of supervisors.

Shades of Richard Nixon running for governor of California. Or Jerry Brown running for, well, everything. Brown had name recognition and the “Republican workhorse” appeared ready to take down incumbent Berkeley County Supervisor Dan Davis. Could it be that easy? In his pre-election report before the primary, Brown showed that he raised $79,550, spent $32,105.54 and had $47,444.46 on hand. Davis had to take out a $35,000 loan, raising $10,620, spending $39,093.75 and had $7,883.10 on hand. But Davis had one advantage Brown didn’t — he was a local incumbent.

While other incumbents found themselves in trouble this year, local government is a different animal. You’re right there with the voters, daily. You don’t have to go to Columbia or Washington for an extended period of time. If you do a halfway decent job, people are more likely to trust you than an incumbent further up the ballot. And so it was on Tuesday.

Davis took out Brown with about 56 percent of the vote. Considering that Brown’s in his 70s, this was most likely his last campaign. From Congress to not being able to be elected to the county board in two easy years.

“We Got a Primary”
Jim Clyburn robo-callin’ me all day like a stalker ex
Vinny Sheheen sayin’ ain’t no runoff with Jim Rex
Kelly Payne damn changin’ the game for ed
Joe Wilson all “You lie” — oh, no, that’s what Haley said
What, what — it’s the primary down here in S.C.
What, what, got CNN, Chuck Todd, MSNBC
What, what, got Jakie Knotts, two more shots, burning crosses in Santee
What, what, know Wes Wolfe can only vote absentee

Callin’ all you Tea Party yellow coiled snake flag wavers
McMaster clowns got Will Folks doin’ Andre Bauer favors
Got emails, videos, private eyes out takin’ pictures
Bill Connor goin’ all “Too much of this” on Larry Richter
Everybody tweetin’ “Where the party at tomorrow evenin’?”
Bauer got a bus full of young chicks, cross the state line he leavin’
What, what it’s the primary down in Succa-lina
What, what, got national politicos sayin’ “Mmmmmm, nothin’ fine-uh”
What, what, got Gina Smith and her homeboy John O’Connah
What, what, got a primary down in Succa-lina
What, what, got a primary down in Succa-line