Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan will be going to Washington!

Sablan, an Independent, squeaked out a 357-vote victory over Republican Pedro A. Tenorio in a recount election that was finally decided last week.  He intends to caucus with the Democrats.

The Northern Marianas Islands (previously best known for housing Jack Abramoff's slave-fueled sweatshops) is thrilled to be sending a delegate to Congress for the first time ever.  Now, Sablan will get to join the ranks of delegates from the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam in not being able to vote on legislation.  But at least they get to watch!

The only drawback will be Sablan's commute.  A Fox News reporter caught up to him on Saturday for an exclusive interview…

I asked Sablan how one gets to Washington from the Northern Mariana Islands. He took a four-hour flight from the capital of Saipan to Tokyo. Then boarded a Northwest flight to Detroit. Then hopped a direct flight to Washington.

"I've been traveling more than 24 hours," Sablan moaned.

Good luck with that one, Delegate!

Now the news has come that Barack Obama has tapped Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, dashing Kerry's dreams of having some sort of relevance…

Democrats say he made no secret of his Foggy Bottom aspirations. “He’s crushed,” said one Senate aide. Kerry would have been a fine pick, sources say, but Obama apparently had his eye on Hillary Clinton since the early fall. He does get an impressive consolation prize: the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee vacated by Joe Biden.

Well, at least Kerry will get to bang a gavel.  And this will give him time to devote to some of his favorite activities, like windsurfing, heli-skiing, and cheese-eating.

And sobbing.

Well, McInturff is back in the spotlight — this time for threatening the limbs of fellow Republican pollster and George W. Bush crony Frank Luntz in a speech yesterday…

Unrestrained by the formalities of the election, McInturff levied some sharps words at fellow GOPers who — generally speaking — never really were bullish on the idea of a McCain presidency. The most biting jabs were saved for communications guru Frank Luntz.

"I saw Frank Luntz," said McInturff, "who is a moron — I want to make sure this is clearly on the record — he was talking to Republican governors, making fun of John for not being able to use a BlackBerry. The man can't do it because he is much more disabled than people can imagine… I would like to take a hammer and start breaking bones in Frank's arms."

Strong words!

Luntz, of course, has been widely discredited as a partisan hack and has recently been reduced to pathetic name-dropping with foreign journalists. With the collapse of the Republican dominance of Washington, his prospects are dimmer than ever.

And now he has two broken arms to deal with.

Sanchez made the announcement yesterday, by granting an exclusive interview to the columnist Patt Morrison…

According to the column, Sanchez and her boyfriend of a year and half, Jim Sullivan, a public relations consultant, are "unofficially engaged." The baby is due May 21.

"I don't know how it'll be received," Sanchez told the L.A. Times columnist. "I hope people will recognize that to be able to plan that in your life — I don't think that marriage and childbirth are black and white. There are certain instances in which you have to do things in reverse order."

The 39-year-old Sanchez will be the first unwed mother ever in Congress. Needless to say, there have been plenty of congressmen who have fathered children out of wedlock. It's just easier for them to conceal their scandalous progeny (unless of course they get arrested for drunk driving while going to see them).

As for Sanchez's so-called "unofficial" fiancee, Jim Sullivan… He was last seen sneaking onto an outbound freight train with Levi Johnston.

As ballots continue to be counted two weeks after Election Day, the Republican is just barely in the lead in his race against Charlie Brown!

Wait, what's that?  It's not that Charlie Brown?

OK, so maybe it's someone else, but McClintock should be more than 592 votes ahead of a Democrat in the heavily conservative 5th District of California.  The vote difference is close enough that both candidates went to DC this week to participate in freshman orientation on Capitol Hill…

Neither candidate has been declared a winner, but both Charlie Brown and Tom McClintock will be in Washington this week to attend freshman orientation for newly elected members of Congress.

Maybe they'll both show up this morning on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, when the newcomers pose for their official class photograph.

"That may be a collector's item," McClintock spokesman Bill George said Thursday.

We'll see how this one turns out.  Absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted and a recount seems likely.

In related news in Minnesota, Al Franken is faring well in his recount fight against The Riddler.

However, Barack Obama apparently didn't get the memo about the exact date of the Vice President-Elect's special day, because he was celebrating yesterday. With cupcakes.

Biden's birthday is Thursday, but Obama surprised his No. 2 after their weekly lunch Wednesday at the transition office in Chicago. According to staff, Obama presented Biden — a Delaware senator with decades of foreign policy experience — with a dozen cupcakes decorated with candles and teased, "You're 12 years old!"

Staff reported that Biden, ever astute in the art of politics, laughed at the his boss's joke. He responded: "Maybe in dog years!"

Obama led the rest of the staff in song, then handed over some Chicago-themed gifts: a White Sox cap, a Bears cap and a bucket of Garrett's popcorn, a hometown favorite.

So, really what Biden got was a reminder of what he has to look forward to for the next four years… a boss who forgets when his birthday is, makes lame jokes at his expense, gives him gifts that he's just going to take back anyway, and meets with him exactly once a week for an awkward lunch.

And no pinata.

(photo via CNN)

Roll Call reports that many incoming legislators more than easily qualify for Barack Obama's socialist tax hike, including…

* New Virginia Senator Mark Warner, who founded Nextel and is worth $91 million

* New Wyoming Representative Cynthia Lummis, who apparently owns $17 million worth of cattle

* New Idaho Senator Jim Risch, who is taking Larry Craig's seat and is worth $20 million (most of which will be spent on industrial-strength disinfectant for that seat)

In case you were wondering, none of these freshman lawmakers will even come close to topping the reigning king of Washington wealth.

What, you really don't know who that is? John Kerry, of course! He's worth at a minimum $231 million, and that doesn't include anything held solely in Theresa Heinz-Kerry's name.

It also doesn't include the millions he spent on advertising in the Chicago media market promoting himself as a candidate for Secretary of State.

Now, after not running for reelection, he has only two months left of his Senate career. And he apparently intends to use it bashing his own party…

Appearing at a forum at the Johns Hopkins School of Advances International Studies, the outgoing Nebraska Republican leveled harsh criticism at his own party, the lack of intellectual curiosity among some of his colleagues, the Bush administration's handling of nearly every aspect of governance and — perhaps most bitingly — the conservative radio voices that often dictate the GOP agenda.

"We are educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh," said Hagel, sarcastically referencing the talk radio host who once called him "Senator Betrayus." "You know, I wish Rush Limbaugh and others like that would run for office. They have so much to contribute and so much leadership and they have an answer for everything. And they would be elected overwhelmingly," he offered. "[The truth is] they try to rip everyone down and make fools of everybody but they don't have any answers."

Hagel is free to speak as he likes — he has nothing to gain or lose as he rides off into the sunset of retirement. I bet he can't wait to go back to Nebraska and live out the rest of his days in total obscurity.

Unless… What's that, Mr. Obama? Did you say that you're looking for some Republicans to serve in your Cabinet?

Well, I guess Chuck Hagel could maybe be persuaded to stay…

In Ohio's 15th Congressional District, Republican Steve Stivers currently leads Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by a razor-thin 149 votes.  That's fewer people than were in line in front of me on the morning of November 4th!  (When I was waiting to buy scratch tickets.)

A recount is looming, but in the meantime there is a dispute between the two sides over more than 1,000 uncounted provisional ballots.  Republicans contend that the voters who cast those blatantly broke the law and invalidated their ballots by failing to both sign and print their names at the polling place.  So they're suing to block those votes from being counted.  On the other side are the Democrats, who have this crazy notion that people's votes should count even if they didn't follow every single arcane rule on the books.

Even more infuriating is the fact that the only part of the 15th District where the sign-and-print requirement was in effect was Franklin County, which includes the city of Columbus and is strongly Democratic.

Oh yeah, and Stivers' people initially tried to file the lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court, which is entirely made up of Republicans.

Hooray for democracy!

At least she gets to go home with the lovely consolation prize of a $7 million book deal…

After she spent the last few weeks talking to just about any camera put in front of her, it should come as no surprise that former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is moving closer to inking a book deal.

Just how much could the Alaska governor make from putting pen to paper? About $7 million, according to some estimates.

Sound like a lot? Not necessarily, says one literary insider.

"Bill Clinton made more than $10 million when he signed his deal in 2001 and that was the most for a former president," says the source. "Sarah brings something different to the table — there is so much curiosity surrounding her and her life. If they move fast and get this thing on shelves, then a $7 million advance could be worth it."

Right. Bill Clinton was the incredibly influential two-term leader of the free world. And Palin was… a national disgrace. That's about 7/10 as good.

The inevitable speculation is now arising about who will ghostwrite the book for Palin. It will take a skilled writer to capture her unique voice but not simply devolve into incoherent baby babble.

In the meantime, Palin can put down a deposit on a helicopter and some high-powered rifles.

And if there's one thing that old men don't understand, it's the Internet.  Just ask soon-to-be-ex-Senator Ted Stevens.  He's counting on that "series of tubes" to lead to a tunnel out of the federal prison he's headed to!

Anyway, McCain's complete lack of understanding about the Internet led him to vastly deprioritize spending his campaign funds there.  In the end, it turns out that he spent less than 1/5 of what the Obama campaign did online…

As John McCain's interactive campaign is called disorganized and disconnected by some Monday morning quarterbacks, one thing's for sure. The Republican hopeful's Web team spent far less on online advertising than the Obama camp.

The McCain campaign spent just over $1.5 million on Web media, according to data representing campaign 2008 expenditures into September. Obama's campaign spent around $8 million in '08 as of October.

Well, I guess that might have some correlation with the fact that McCain won a miserable 32% of the youth vote in the election.

But really, this second-guessing is unfair.  In actuality, McCain spent his campaign funds on plenty of cutting-edge media besides the Internet, such as: AM radio, sandwich boards, and those planes that trail banners behind them.

Each is stridently conservative, each is widely regarded as a loser, and each is being talked up for president in 2012.  (You can read about Palin's delusional advocates here and Gingrich's delusional advocates here.)

Now, in the first shot across the bow, Gingrich is smacking down Palin's viability…

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is batting down the hype that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin heads into 2012 as the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.

Palin energized the Republican base after GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) tapped her as his running mate and she has tried to preserve her high public profile since Election Day.

But Gingrich, an architect of the Republican revolution of 1994, took Palin down a notch, asserting that she would not become the party’s leader, as some have predicted.

“I think that she is going to be a significant player,” said Gingrich during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation”. “But she’s going to be one of 20 or 30 significant players. She’s not going to be the de facto leader.”

Meanwhile, we can only presume that Gingrich is thinking of himself as that de facto leader.  At least if he reads Bob Novak's column.

Stay tuned for more updates on who will claim the prize of serving as 2012's Barry Goldwater.

Well OK, everyone assumes that it was about Obama's possible tap of Clinton as Secretary of State, but since the subject is very delicate, everyone's being really cagey.

President-elect Barack Obama met with his former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton to see if she would be interested in a role in his administration, two sources told CNN Friday.

Clinton went to the meeting because "she knew Obama wanted to talk about whether she would have a role in the administration," one of the sources knowledgeable about the meeting said.

The two sources said Clinton was surprised to hear the rumors about the secretary of state position. The sources could not confirm that the two discussed the nation's top diplomatic position or that it was offered.

I don't know about all this speculation.  Clearly, there are other things they could have talked about!  Such as…

* The exciting results of last night's Patriots-Jets game.

* Clinton's top-secret recipe for Democratic White House Pie.

* 3:00 AM phone calls, and how to best answer them.

* How they've both had a really emotional year, and it's all so overwhelming, and can we please just hold each other and have a good cry?

OK, now imagine that the two men in question are Dick Cheney and Joe Biden.  Can you blame me for being a little skeptical that the visit was officially deemed peachy-keen?

Days after President George W. Bush welcomed President-elect Barack Obama to the White House, the nation's top surrogate, Dick Cheney, tonight greeted his successor, Joe Biden, in a private meeting at the vice president's residence, Washington's Naval Observatory.

"It was a good visit," read a statement released by Cheney's office. "The Cheneys enjoyed giving the Bidens a tour of the residence and wished them well as they make it their home in January."

"The Bidens thank the Cheneys for welcoming them into their home and for their gracious hospitality," said Biden spokesperson Elizabeth Alexander.

Give me a break.  Man, even those official statements are teeming with passive-aggression!

No press were allowed at the visit, which is never a good sign.  The whole event lasted just 50 minutes – not even enough time for Lynne Cheney to recite from her bodice-ripping lesbian novel.  Presumably, the Bidens didn't want to stay too long, because they had heard from a reliable source that Cheney was "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history."

But hey, maybe it was a great visit after all, and everybody's friends now.  We'll see whether Biden will take up Cheney's generous offer to join him on his next hunting trip.

Blagojevich has a tricky path to walk.  On the one hand, he has basically unchecked power to name a United States Senator — he could name a political ally, a personal friend, or even one of his own children! (Although something like that would never occur, right?)

On the other hand, Blagojevich is almost universally hated by the people of Illinois.  As in, his approval rating is 13%.  By comparison, George W. Bush looks like the king of the Prom.

In the hopes of getting at least some voters to like him, Blagojevich needs to pander, and he needs to pander hard.  Here are some of his top options for Obama replacements, and their pros and cons:

* Jesse Jackson, Jr., U.S. Congressman.  Panders to: African-Americans.  Unlikely to get tapped due to affiliation with the controversial reverend of a black church.

* Tammy Duckworth, Illinois Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Panders to: Asian-Americans.  She's a wounded Iraq War vet and a loyal Democrat.  Odds are good.

* Jan Schakowsky, U.S. Congresswoman.  Panders to: Jews.  Too bad Illinois doesn't have any Jews.

* Oprah Winfrey, talk show host. Panders to: obese housewives.  She's a billionaire — you can't count her out.

* John Wayne Gacy, serial killer.  Panders to: serial killers.  An unconventional choice to be sure, but he has already been thoroughly vetted by the Illinois media.

Happy appointing, Governor!

The Florida Republican is best known for his naughty instant-messaging conversations with Congressional Pages (sample quote: "well I have aa totally stiff wood now"), which prompted accusations of pedophilia. But in his interview with the Associated Press, he insists that's unfounded…

[W]hile he concedes his behavior was "extraordinarily stupid," he remains somewhat unwilling to accept full public scorn.

These were 17-year-olds, just months from being men, he insists.

"There was never anywhere in those conversations where someone said, 'Stop,' or 'I'm not enjoying this,' or 'This is inappropriate' …

"You know, you hear the term 'pedophile.' That is prepubescent," Foley said, noting a "huge difference" from lurid chats with teens on the brink of adulthood.

In a separate interview with a Florida TV station, Foley expounded on this critical distinction…

"It hits me right in the gut because it's absolutely false and incorrect," Foley said in an interview with WPTV NewsChannel 5 in West Palm Beach. "A pedophile is somebody who is having sex with a prepubescent person. I mean, that is an outrage to be called that."

"Now I understand why my critics would (call me a pedophile) and I accept the fact that that is going to be so, but I don't have to accept the title, and I won't accept the title because it's not true," Foley added.

Foley is really on to something here. Clearly, there's clearly nothing deviant about his sexual predilections here. None of this would be an issue if the same-sex issue weren't on the table — after all, what would be wrong with a 52-year-old man lusting after a 17-year-old employee, telling her that he wanted to undress her and fondle her?

Oh wait, that would be unfathomably fucked up. But I guess in Foley's view, as long as the kid has hit puberty, it ain't so bad.

Mr. Begich led Mr. Stevens by just 814 votes after about 57,000 additional ballots were counted on Wednesday. So far, about 279,000 votes have been counted in the Senate race, and about 35,000 more remain to be counted. It could be next week before the count is complete.

His fellow Republican Senators are a taking a two-pronged approach to this turn of events: Vow to expel him from the Senate, but secretly hope that he loses the election so they won't actually have to do it.

“First of all, I hope Senator Stevens is successful in being re-elected. And assuming that he is, I intend to support any motion to remove him,” [Sen. Saxby] Chambliss said during a press conference with John Ensign of Nevada, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina has served notice that he’ll seek to expel Stevens from the Senate Republican Conference at a meeting next Tuesday.

While Ensign said that he, too, would vote to expel Stevens from the GOP circle — a move that would foreshadow expulsion by the entire Senate — the Nevada senator counseled waiting to see whether Stevens wins his race.

“If he actually wins the election, then you have to expel him twice. And so it’s probably better to let Alaska — it’s probably going to take a while to count all the votes up there — let that take place, then after the first of the year deal with it,” Ensign said.

Stevens' losing the election would be a blessing for his colleagues — if he were to win, not only would they need to wade through the mire of expelling him, they'd need to serve with whoever Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appointed to replace him. Which would most likely be Sarah Palin.

Of course, what would really be fortuitous for Senate Republicans is if Stevens were to quietly die of old age. But no one's going to come out and say that.

They also like their guns.  And since it's obvious that in President Obama's coming Nazi-Marxist-Fascist police state all individual liberties will be destroyed, they're stockpiling those guns as fast as they can.

Over the past week, ammunition has been selling by the pallet-load at the shop [Alaska Shooters Supply]. Guns, particularly military-style weapons, are a hot ticket.

And high-capacity magazines were selling so well, the Boniface Parkway shop ran out the week of the Nov. 4 election.

That's no coincidence. Fear of stiffer gun laws after Barack Obama's successful presidential bid and a Congress with a larger Democratic edge is prompting gun enthusiasts across the country to stock up in record numbers.

"Obama is the best gun salesman we've had in the last 50 years," said Jack Murray, Alaska Shooters Supply owner. "We sold more guns (the day after the election) than I have on any one particular day in 21 years. I was crying all the way to the bank."

There's no question that Obama's first act as president will be to unilaterally repeal the Second Amendment, since that's well within the power of the president to do.

And Alaskans can't be blamed for worrying about their precious guns.  After all, they're going to need them when their state secedes from the Union and declares Todd Palin to be its leader!

But now Minnick wants to add one more plank to that platform: copying everything that Utah Congressman Jim Matheson does…

Congressman-elect Walt Minnick says western and northern Idaho voters who chose him over one-term incumbent Republican Bill Sali need only look one state southward to see how a Democratic lawmaker can be effective in a largely GOP state.

U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has won five times by focusing on constituent services — and by appearing to break ranks with leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on votes including October’s $700 billion bailout.

Like Matheson, Minnick is a Harvard University graduate. And like Matheson, Minnick has vowed to reach across the aisle to his Republican counterparts.

He and Matheson ran similar campaigns, each reluctant to emphasize Democratic ties. And Matheson invited Minnick to join the “Blue Dog Coalition,” about 50 fiscally conservative House Democrats, according to the group’s Web site.

Minnick has promised that his first act once sworn into office will be covering his copy of the Congressional Record with Matheson's name, and occasionally with the name "Walter Matheson."

Anyway, it's appropriate that these two will be working closely together, since Idaho and Utah are more alike than ever.  For instance, Idaho residents donated $400,000 to the Mormon Church's efforts to outlaw same-sex marriage in California.  And scientists working jointly at the University of Idaho and Utah State University recently cloned a mule.

Their follow-up project, apparently, was cloning a Congressman.

He embarked on a "50-State Strategy" of spreading party resources across the country, not just in swing states, which many observers credit for the Democrats' gains in places like Indiana and North Carolina.  And he publicly challenged RNC chair Mike Duncan to a duel.

But now he has announced that his time as DNC chair is done…

Mr. Dean’s decision not to seek a second term had been expected after Senator Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential election last week. New presidents typically install their own party leaders.

Advisers said Mr. Dean had little interest in being party chairman with a Democrat in the White House; historically, the power and visibility of the post is substantially diminished when a party member holds the presidency. Mr. Dean also had long said he would not stay in the position even if Mr. Obama had lost.

Mr. Dean is being mentioned in Washington circles as a potential member of Mr. Obama’s cabinet, perhaps as secretary of health and human services. He is a physician, and as governor of Vermont he undertook a huge effort to expand the state’s health care coverage.

Dean may be gunning for a cabinet post, but my guess is that he's eager to head back to Vermont, roll up his sleeves, and do some good old-fashioned shrieking.

Meanwhile, the DNC will be looking for a new chairperson.  Possible choices to fill Dean's shoes include…

* Congressman Jim McDermott (also a medical doctor)

* Senator John Kerry (also a failed presidential candidate desperate for a new purpose in life)

* CNBC's Jim Cramer (also famous for enraged screaming fits)

Any more suggestions out there?