Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) apparently made two mistakes in his primary campaign for governor of Alabama. Davis, who himself is black, disregarded the black establishment and he began moving immediately toward the center in preparation for the general election. As a result the black establishment backed his white opponent, who actually appears to have beaten Davis even in the state’s 12 majority-black counties.

Second GOP operative comes forward to say he had affair with Nikki Haley, leading candidate to become the Republican nominee for governor of South Carolina.

Again, Haley’s campaign vehemently denies the charge. And the accuser has offered no proof — though I’m not sure I’d want to know what would constitute proof. In fact, what the accuser, lobbyist Larry Marchant, alleges is what I think folks nowadays call ‘hooking up’ rather than an ‘affair’, though I guess maybe one really great hook up can count as an affair. And to make it more bizarre, Marchant made the allegations shortly after resigning from the campaign of another candidate for governor, Andre Bauer, the state’s current lieutenant governor.

Remember, yesterday, current governor and confessed adulterer Mark Sanford came forward to vouch for Haley’s character.

They’ve got their own way of doing things down there.

Late Update: I’m not sure which would make for a more colorful and entertaining story: Haley exposed as an inveterate … what I guess you’d call, man-izer or the idea that a series of different GOP operatives, each of whom is currently married, conspiring to publicly allege phony affairs with Haley. What say you?

Later Update: Here’s Larry Marchant’s page on his lobbying firm’s website, the Palmetto Policy Group.

I noted below the newest development in the Nikki Haley/man-izer saga. But one thing that jumped out at me was the new accuser’s details about the alleged encounter. According to Marchant, they hooked up (“had sexual relations”) in a hotel room at a school choice conference in Salt Lake City. When I read that, I thought, these Republicans know how to get down.

Robert Reich laments that “we” aren’t in charge of trying to plug the Gulf Oil spill leak. Bob is probably reacting in part to what he heard from this petroleum engineer.

To set the scene, there were two outs in the top of the ninth last night in Detroit. The Tigers needed one more out — not just to win the game against Cleveland, but to secure a perfect game for pitcher Armando Galarraga. It would have been the 21st perfect game in the history of major league baseball, the second perfect game in the last week, and an unprecedented third perfect game of this young baseball season (never before in the modern era going back more than 100 years had even two perfect games come in the same season).

What happened next goes down in sports lore as perhaps — probably — the worst blown call of all time: Read More

As Josh noted last night, most of the news articles about the latest Nikki Haley affair allegation contain some sort of disclaimer along the lines of, “No one has offered proof of the alleged affairs.” That sort of proof gets into icky territory very quickly. But it also raises a question our Justin Elliott posed to me just now: “Which candidate will address South Carolina’s deficit of proof of infidelity?”

The Daily Show‘s John Oliver interviews former Sen. Larry “Wide Stance” Craig (R-ID). On camera! And they sing! Click, click, click.

We’re going to have a longer feature piece on this later today. But there’s new polling out this morning that confirms how the Nevada Senate race has changed dramatically from the last winter when Harry Reid looked like he would be very hard pressed to hold on to his senate seat this fall.

Now the Chickengate fiasco and a handful of smaller and less noticed self-inflicted wounds appear to have basically killed establishment candidate Sue Lowden’s chances. The new leader is harder right candidate Sharron Angle, who’s had the aggressive support of the Club for Growth and looks poised to win the nomination in Tuesday’s primary. Read More

Longtime TPM reader checks in:

Granted the administration has been ham-handed in how it has handled some of this stuff, but isn’t it ironic that a DC press corps that could barely muster a collective yawn when Karl Rove was moving U.S. Attorneys around like political pawns, is hyperventilating about the White House making it known to potential candidates that there are other ways to serve beyond being a Senator?

If chivalry were still alive and well anywhere, I’d expect it to be in South Carolina. But clearly South Carolina politicos cannot keep their mouths shut about who they’ve slept with.

You’ll remember that in one of the text messages Nikki Haley’s first accuser, Will Folks, released, another politico texts Folks: “I just don’t know who has told more people, you or Nikki.”

The latest affair allegation against Nikki Haley comes from Republican lobbyist Larry Marchant, who was forced to resign from a rival campaign to Haley’s when a reporter came around asking questions about the alleged affair. (Haley’s camp maintains it’s all a dirty trick.) Reporters are usually the last to know, so someone was flapping their lips big time.

Marchant, being the swell guy he is, went on camera yesterday with a local TV station and detailed his alleged one-night stand with Haley. What is wrong with these people?