In the Washington-08, Democrat Darcy Burner trails Republican incumbent Dave Reichert by 3,518 votes, with as many as 20,000 absentee ballots still to count.

Rudy Giuliani creates exploratory committee for 2008 presidential run, CNN reports.

Late update: AP confirms it.

Here’s a topic I haven’t seen sufficiently discussed yet: How many years did the GOP put itself back with the rising population of hispanic voters in this country by running pretty much their whole campaign on immigrant bashing?

The answer, I think, is a lot. And exit poll data suggests a big drop off for Republicans among hispanic voters. According to the CNN exit polls, the 2004 spread as 40% for Republicans, 53% for Democrats. This year it was 26% for the GOP and 73% for Democrats.

From a distance, it might not seem like the Republicans ran this race on immgration. And on the national level, they didn’t. But if you watched how the campaign played out in competitive races across the country, it was huge. One of the big campaign gambits from Republican candidates was Democratic Candidate X is going to ruin Social Security by giving away money to illegal aliens (pan to pictures of Mexicans).

It’s a pretty sad but also really familiar story. GOP spends years ‘reaching out’ to [insert minority group of your choice] until they find themselves losing an election and go hog wild with race-bating or whatever other nastiness looks like it will yield short-term political benefits.

This is pretty funny. Remember how Texas Gov. Rick Perry hired lobbyists connected to then-Rep. Tom Delay to promote the state of Texas in Washington and how those lobbyists later made tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to various Republican committees?

The Austin newspaper has an editorial today pointing out that Texas is still paying $15,000 a month to those GOP lobbyists–even though Congress will be controlled by Democrats:

Using taxpayer money to pay private, partisan lobbyists was a dubious strategy to begin with. Now that the worm has turned in Washington, Perry’s decision could be disastrous for Texas. These lobby firms ignored Democrats all year — and worse, worked to defeat them — and the Democrats won’t forget it.

Even the mistakes are bigger in Texas.

Here’s the lead from a story out tonight from The Hill …

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will ensure that Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) wins his race for majority leader, a key Murtha ally said Monday night.

“She will ensure that they [the Murtha camp] win. This is hard-ball politics,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a longtime Murtha supporter. “We are entering an era where when the Speaker instructs you what to do, you do it.”

Pelosi recently endorsed Murtha’s bid for majority leader against House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), but it was unclear whether she would use her clout as the first Democratic Speaker in 12 years to help Murtha win or whether her letter simply expressed a personal preference as a favor to Murtha.

Pelosi’s move was deliberate, Moran said, and she was already leaning on her colleagues to affect the outcome.

“Yes, she’s making calls to people. She is contacting people and letting them know that it’s an unequivocal letter,” Moran said.

Moran isn’t known for being particularly diplomatic or careful with his words. So maybe there’s an overlay of bombast here. But I have a hard time believing he’s totally off the reservation. As Josephine Hearn, the author of the piece, goes on to write …

If Moran’s claims are true, Pelosi is taking an enormous gamble only a week after the election propelled her into the Speakership. If she prevails, she will likely banish her onetime rival Hoyer to the back benches and send a clear signal to her colleagues that she intends to rule with an iron hand. If Hoyer wins, she loses substantial political capital and alerts the caucus that they can successfully oppose her.

I have to confess that I haven’t myself done a lot of reporting on these emerging leadership battles. I’ve had a bunch of other stuff on my plate since the election. But I’m really stunned by this move. Not so much the move itself — I know she and Hoyer are rivals and that she and Murtha are close allies. So certainly she’d prefer Murtha in the role. But she’s doing a lot more than being quietly supportive of an ally. She’s very publicly making everyone takes sides. And in a very specific, unique way. She’s staked her authority and credibility on a Murtha victory. And since she represents the caucus, to a degree she’s putting the caucus’s authority and credibility on the line too, just after the Dems have taken power in the House for the first time in a dozen years. It’s a really bold power-play on a number of levels.

Now, one other thing. Are you reading this post up there on the Hill? Especially on the House side? I want to hear from you. You’re seeing what’s going on up there and hearing what members and staffers are saying. I want to know more about this. So if you’d like to share some of what you’re seeing and hearing, drop me a line.

TPM Reader PJ on Nancy’s gambit: “What I really like about Pelosi’s move is that it suggests that she intends to be an aggressive, kickass leader. My biggest fear is that we could have a “business-as-usual” Democratic Congress. Her out-front position on Murtha gives me reason to think that she means business and has big legislative ambitions.”

With a final dyspeptic, pox-on-all-your-houses column, John Tierney leaves the NYT op-ed page and retreats to the safety of the laboratory.

He’s baaack.

Trent Lott is making a bid for Senate minority whip, according to The Hill.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me nostalgic for those halcyon days of 1948.

Not to quibble, but this sentence from The Hill piece on Trent Lott’s bid for minority whip seems a bit off:

Lott was forced to step down as Senate majority leader in 2002 after comments he made at former Sen. Strom Thurmond’s (R-S.C.) birthday party touched off a racially charged controversy and the White House threw its backing to now-Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

That makes it sound like a bunch of folks were just whipping up trouble instead of Lott planting his foot squarely in the doo-doo. Wasn’t it the comments that were “racially charged,” as opposed to the controversy?

The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to begin hearings the week of December 4 on the nomination of Bob Gates for secretary of defense.

One reason the President may be trying to get the Gates nomination through the lame-duck Republican Senate before Democrats take control of the Senate in January is old animosity between Gates and Senator-elect Jim Webb (D-VA), according to Bob Novak:

During President Ronald Reagan’s second term, Gates and Webb clashed as colleagues. Webb as secretary of the Navy objected to plans by Gates, then deputy national security adviser, for U.S. warships to protect oil platforms in the Persian Gulf. The hot-tempered Webb made clear his irritation with the soft-spoken Gates.

Whatever. In Novak’s world, all politics is petty paybacks and trifling personal slights.

What I don’t completely understand, quite frankly, is why Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), incoming chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and other Senate Democrats are not demanding full hearings on the Gates nomination after the first of the year. No one is eager for Rumsfeld to hold the post for a minute longer than necessary, but what better way for Democrats to begin to exert control over Iraq policy.

You want to do oversight on Iraq? Start there.