I don't know much about Don Siegelman, but there are a couple reasons that he might be a good selection as a VP candidate.

Siegelman would force the media to discuss the corruption of the Justice Department under Bush (and with Congressional Republicans playing an enabling, if not supporting role).

And Siegelman would insulate the ticket against Rovian attacks. Any time the GOP started a smear effort the media would be asking themselves, "Are we going to ruin this guy's life again?" before circulating the smear.

I was an active duty Navy officerfor 7 1/2 years from May, 1989 until November, 1996. From August, 1994 until I resigned my commission I was assigned to Navy Recruiting District Chicago. During this time I investigated misconduct by enlisted recruiters and interviewed applicants for Navy ROTC scholarships.

On July 3, 1996, I made a long complaint to the DOD Inspector General. The complaint included numerous allegations of misconduct. The most serious allegations are listed below the fold.

I became concerned (and later convinced) the checks and balances within the military (primarily the "inspector general" system) were ineffective when the chain of command was culpable in allowing the original misconduct. I documented my allegations through the Freedom of Information Act and contacted members of Congress. I contacted my own representatives, but also members of Congress who were in leadership positions on relevant committees. At that time Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was chair of the United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel.

While McCain was not did not completely ignore the issues I raised--he did sent me a letter acknowledging I contacted him--he did nothing useful and showed no interest in the problems in Navy Recruiting Command or more generally in military recruitment.

Last Thursday, U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL03, identified as a Bush Dog Democrat) held a forum that was advertised as being about Iraq. It started with giving the family of some guy killed in WWII the Distinguished Service Cross. See Proviso Probe.

I didn't think it noteworthy for anything but being sorta lame until Dave Kalbfleisch told me about U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL10) giving an ancient military award at one of his recent forum in the district.

Are other pro-Iraq occupation members of Congress engaging in the same distraction campaign in other parts of the country?

Today it broke that Paul Froehlich (R-Schaumburg) will switch to the Democratic Party. See Capitol Fax Blog (Rich Miller).

Miller also reports Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-DuPage County), former chair of the DuPage GOP, made a TV ad for Sen. Barack Obama.

It seems like the Illinois GOP can't even retain the elected officials they have. The recruitment efforts to run someone against Sen. Dick Durbin have been pathetic.

Ben Evans (AP):

Rep. Charles Norwood, Jr., a seven-term Republican congressman from Georgia, died Tuesday after battling cancer and lung disease. He was 65.

Norwood died at his home in Augusta, Ga., early Tuesday afternoon, his office said....

Norwood suffered from a chronic lung disease and later developed metastatic cancer that spread from his lung to his liver.

WARNING: this diary suggests a possible course of action that may be offensive. It includes a tactic which some may consider unethical.

If I were organizing a vote buying scheme in Connecticut this is how I would do it.

The candidate would never discuss it explicitly with the campaign manager. To the extent the candidate had to be in the loop the project would get a code name like, "Teaching Lamont Politics Old School".

The campaign manager would then recruit some old political hand that had close ties to the candidate--more importantly someone who was perceived as having the candidates ear. This old political hand would almost assuredly be a local who knew the players on the ground. He would be the one to solicit lieutenants in the vote buying scheme.

Dave Leip keeps a website called Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.

He has sections where users can predict the outcome of elections. It's not a betting website, so being right will just give you bragger's rights. There are separate sections for U.S. Senate races and governor races.

Proposal: the netroots should force members of Congress and congressional candidates to answer three questions about the possiblity of the United States using nuclear weapons against Iran.

Draft statements (agree or not):

1. Using nuclear weapons aginst Iran will hurt U.S. national security; it is unacceptable.

2. Before using nuclear weapons against a foreign country the president the Constitution requires specific authorization from Congress.

3. Before attacking Iran the president needs to either have specific authorization of the UN Security Council or needs to invoke the right of self defense as codified by the UN Charter.