Not even Washington, Lincoln and the Constitution could save him. Tea Party candidate Rick Barber went down in flames to challenger Martha Roby 61-39%.

At what point does the media admit they're hyping beating a dead horse? The tea party's over. It's time for Republicans to admit they are the tea party and the tea party is them, and move on.

Every time I hear hype about how the Tea Party is gaining strength, I remember that it's July and last year they were amusing to pundits for a couple of months.

They're not a force in this election cycle. Just full of fight. And lies.

Man, this guy is in way over his head for something he probably thought was a quick payday. Turns out he received more votes than were cast in many South Carolina districts.

Not only that, it appears more South Carolina candidates may have been Republican plants.

Kerry Calls Bush to Concede Election

BOSTON (Reuters) - Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) telephoned President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday and conceded the White House election, campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said. Kerry is expected to make a statement at 1 p.m. EST and an administration official said Bush would have a statement at 3 p.m.

McCain's GOP primary challenger JD Hayworth says he supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage -- because to do otherwise could lead to a man marrying a horse. Photoshop by D-Cap, who also has the honeymoon photo, ick.

h/t Spork in the Drawer for the background story.

Open thread below.

The congressman's office responded by saying he is "not a rubber stamp for special interest politics":

In what seems intended as a shot across the bow of House Dems wavering on health reform, top officials with the labor powerhouse SEIU have bluntly told a Democratic member that they will pull their support for him — and will likely field a challenger against him — if he votes No on the Senate bill.

Dem Rep Mike McMahon of New York met yesterday with a top SEIU official and told him he’s likely to vote No, the official tells me. The official: Mike Fishman, president of SEIU 32bj, the largest property workers union in the country, with 120,000 members in eight states.

Fishman told McMahon that the union would not support him if he voted No — and suggested the hunt for a primary or third-party challenger would follow.

“He let us know he’s not supportive of the health care plan,” Fishman says. “We’ve let him know that we can’t support somebody who doesn’t support it.”

“We are going to begin talking to other unions about finding someone else for that seat,” Fishman continued.

McMahon enjoyed heavy labor backing when he was elected to his conservative Staten Island district in 2008. He voted No on the bill last time but was said to be undecided on the Senate bill, and labor had hoped to win his support for the crucial final vote.

Fishman said SEIU officials were intent on sending a message to other House Dems that they risk losing the union’s support if they don’t vote for the bill — and said the union’s rank and file membership strongly wanted reform to pass.

“We put an enormous amount of effort into electing Democrats,” Fishman said. “This is the most important issue on everyone’s plate. We’re sending a message to Democrats: If you can’t support this, we can’t support you.”

McMahon, who comes from a conservative district, has opposed health care reform in the past, saying it would “discourage entrepreneurial activity and job growth” because its burden would fall too heavily on small businesses.

Please donate here to send Bart Stupak a message!

Stupak has put his personal opinion on women's rights ahead of everything else in the fight to reform health care and it's sickening to me. I understand that we all have a certain belief system, but he was undermining HCR way before the Senate even released their bill and that told me that he cared more for a single religious issue over the health of real working class families in America. He relished the role of representing the party of the Catholic Bishops instead of being a Democratic politician.

Bart Stupak, a representative from Michigan, proudly states that Catholic bishops worked closely with him to help him and Joe Pitts, a Republican from Pennsylvania, draft an amendment proposing tight restrictions that prevent any insurance plan purchased with government subsidies from covering abortion. Lisa Miller of Newsweek reports in the March 15 issue that Stupak told her that the "bishops were very, very, very engaged" in framing the amendment. He went on to say that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops "was working with my staff" and that "we had to coordinate forces" with the bishops and that he told the bishops, "I'm not moving forward until you know what I'm doing.

I've had it and I'm glad Connie is running against Stupak as a primary challenger no matter what happens.

Howie Klein:

It's better not to let your emotions get in the way of real life political decisions. But yesterday when I read that former Charlevoix County commissioner Connie Saltonstall had jumped into the primary race against anti-Choice fanatic Bart Stupak, I was on the phone to her within minutes. Pro-choice and pro-healthcare reform, hardheaded and hardworking, we were happy to get her right up on the Blue America Sending Democrats A Message page. And I was also happy pulling out my credit card and making a donation to the very tough campaign she's taking on.

Stupak has successfully painted himself as a Democratic populist and justifies his anti-Choice mania with a veneer of sanctimonious moralism. His overall voting record isn't nearly as populist or progressive as he attempts to portray it. According to Progressive Punch he's been with the Democrats only 66.15% of the time on the tough closely contested votes where he's been most needed. Since Obama was elected he's been the 159th most progressive Democrat, a pretty mediocre record but one that the district has been satisfied with. Connie has a great deal of sympathy in the district when she says that although Stupak "has a right to his personal, religious views... to deprive his constituents of needed health care reform because of those views is reprehensible."

"As a realist I know that defeating an incumbent is difficult," Saltonstall told CNN. "But I also know that there are many past supporters who have told me they have voted for Bart in every single election and they'll never vote for him again. It will be a lot of hard work, it will be a serious challenge, but we're going to try because the voters of this district deserve a choice."

Please, help us send the Democrats-- and conservatives-- a message, in this case, that their religious beliefs should not be imposed on the general public.

Do it here at ActBlue.

Listening to the TV talking heads discuss Stupak and Ben Nelson's opinion on a women's right to choose is very upsetting. They talk as if a women's right to choose is some icky-worthless issue and there comes a point when enough is enough.

O'Reilly says he does not endorse candidates; then condemns two democrats!

Video

Betty Castor holds a slim lead ahead of Republican Mel Martinez, a new Florida Zogby Poll shows.

The polls show Tom Daschle and challenger John Thune,each with a lead of a few points, meaning the race is statistically tied. A recent Zogby poll has Mr. Thune up by three percentage points, 49 percent to 46 percent. A Mason-Dixon , but O'Reilly already predicted Daschle the loser anyway! His non-endorsement reminds me of a backdoor draft!

TPMDC: Bunning Blockade leads to 21 percent fee cut for doctors seeing Medicare patients.

Tina Dupuy: 'Freedom' and faux populism

AfterDowningStreet: Pennsylvania likely to get Healthcare before the rest of the country

AMERICAblog News: In just the past three years, the Republicans have been responsible for nearly one fifth of all filibusters recorded in the past 90 years.

Alas, a blog: A Challenger Appears!

Pensito Review: Must have fridge magnet

f-brilliant:

KKOB Radio afternoon drive time news anchor Laura MacCallum quit her job last Thursday after the station’s news director pulled her stories about alleged vote-buying efforts at the recent Bernalillo County Republican Party delegate nominating conventions.

MacCallum, a 32-year radio and TV news veteran who has worked in Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, said the station caved to complaints from Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Senate campaign about the stories. Wilson campaign spokeswoman Whitney Cheshire called the station to argue the unfairness of stories alleging that many delegates to the ward conventions were paid by Wilson’s and other campaigns to show up and cast their votes for certain delegates.

Critics of the alleged vote-buying effort say it was an unfair scheme to lock out any challengers to Wilson’s senate and Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White’s congressional campaigns

KKOB News Director Pat Allen said the stories were pulled, not because of the campaign’s complaints, but because he felt they lacked corroboration and that a source in some of MacCallum’s stories, former New Mexico Governor Dave Cargo, was bitter because he wasn’t elected as a delegate to the upcoming state Republican Party nominating convention.

But here's the best part: one of the reasons cited by the station manager for not running the story is because it "would have been picked up by bloggers" and other news agencies if it was valid.

We know that Heather Wilson has been guilty of placing pressure on the US Attorney's office in the past, it's certainly within her character to try to squelch a story like this, which could cost her her seat.

I worked on statewide races in Kentucky in 2002 and 2003. So I know the politics reasonably well.

Republican Anne Northup in KY-03, has always found a way to win by pretending she is more moderate than she is and using pork to buy off certain African-American elites in the church community. She now trails her Democrat challenger by 50% to 48% with 81% of the vote counted.

In KY-02, where coincidentally we lost our first of many seats in 1994 in a special election, we should not be in the game. But we are up 2% right now! If we win these two races, which could be called 2nd and 3rd tier pickup opportunities, respectively, get ready for a huge night.

One more thing. Congressman Ted Strickland has already won his race for the governorship of Ohio, ending 16 years of Republican control of the Ohio statehouse. He is a star in an important state. Look for him to make VP short-list conversation in the coming months.