The "virtual" room was packed at this morning's telephone press conference announcing Public Campaign Action Fund's and Campaign for America's Future's ad launch criticizing Tom DeLay. More than 30 reporters were on the call, representing mainstream outlets such as CNN, NBC, Fox News, the Associated Press, Reuters, and the National Journal. Stay tuned for coverage.

Everyone has sent this to me today... so I thought I'd share it. I have excerpted a lot of it, instead of putting it all out there. (Don't want to run afoul of copyright laws. :-| ) The WSJ doesn't provide free access.

Smells Like Beltway
March 28, 2005; Page A16

Today's New York Times carries a story by Carl Hulse and Adam Nagourney about Tom DeLay's emerging public profile with all the scandals and the Terri Schiavo case. It's chock full of quotes on this narrow question: Is Tom DeLay's national name identification numbers, increasingly negative, a liability to the Republican's agenda and to individual GOP candidates?

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd calls out DeLay:

Gotta know that this was coming... the House GOP has had enough of this DeLay stuff. So they trump out their talking points and research report, and label any group standing up for ethics as "liberal" or getting money from Open Society Institute as somehow in George Soros' pocket. Including us, apparently. Oh boy.

My response: I'll debate the House GOP anyday on the role of money in politics, especially when they're awash in:

Today the American Progress Action Fund's Progress Report points out that Tom DeLay has taken every opportunity to vote to slash Medicaid funding—which has paid for Terri Schiavo’s care:

Tom DeLay will be front and center in the push to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, now that the Senate has voted 51-49 yesterday in favor of the proposal. And no wonder: the Congressman has gotten $557,900 from oil and gas interests for his campaign funds since 1989 -- the top industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

From Congress Daily:

Paul Krugman paints a clear picture of what the Senate will vote on today with this awful bankruptcy bill "written for and by the credit card companies":

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has readied an amendment to the bankruptcy bill (otherwise known as the "Your Senator is in debt to credit card companies" bill) to raise the minimum wage. In response, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is offering a watered down version with all sorts of regulatory relief for business. (What's the matter? Can't do anything just for workers?)