Dennis Affinati, business manager of Electrical Workers Local 910 in Watertown, N.Y.,--located near the Canadian border--doesn't turn his back on his friends.  

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Though the right wing blogs have tried to write an apocryphal history of the special election in New York's 23rd congressional district, the fact is that Democrat Bill Owens ran on a platform that included support for healthcare reform and won. Now Owens, freshly sworn in as a United States Congressman, is reiterating his support for healthcare reform.

Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY) can be counted on as a "yes" in this weekend's expected vote on the House Democrats' health care bill, announcing his support in a press release.

"This legislation will reform the insurance industry and provide increased access to affordable healthcare without taxing healthcare benefits, cutting Medicare benefits or raising taxes on the middle class, and that is exactly the direction we need to go," said Owens. "There are still changes I would like to make, including raising the payroll exemption for small businesses, but like I said last week, there is a fundamental need for reform and we must act with a sense of urgency."

With Owens' support, as well as that of California's new Congressman John Garamendi (whose office confirmed to me this afternoon his intention to vote in favor of healthcare reform), Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now two votes closer to the 218 required to get H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, through the House and on to the Senate. Still waiting to hear, though, whether Michael Barone or anyone else is willing to take me up on my bet that Pelosi will get her 218...

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Huge bombshell from The Hill:

The Republican in a New York House race that has become a symbol of the divisions within the GOP endorsed her former Democratic rival Sunday, a sharp snub to the third-party conservative who forced her out of the race.

Dede Scozzafava, who'd been chosen by local Republican leaders to try to hold the seat for the GOP, instead threw her support behind Democrat Bill Owens -- only a day after she unexpectedly backed out of the tough, three-way special election. Ultimately, her decision not to back Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the contest to fill former Rep. John McHugh's open seat is likely to enrage party leaders...

"I am writing to let you know I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same," Scozzafava added. "It's not in the cards for me to be your representative, but I strongly believe Bill is the only candidate who can build upon John McHugh's lasting legacy in the U.S. Congress."

Scozzafava's late nod to Owens could spell trouble for Hoffman, who is statistically deadlocked with his Democratic opponent in recent polls. The New York assemblywoman is considerably more moderate than Hoffman -- and presumably, some of her supporters are too -- so the possibility that many of her prospective voters could gravitate toward Owens on Tuesday is not totally unfathomable.

Jonathan Martin, Marc Ambinder, and our own Jonathan Singer have all predicted that Scozzafava's drop-out would help Owens as much as it would Hoffman given that at least half of Scozzafava's remaining supporters were probably independents and moderate Democrats unlikely to back the right-wing Hoffman. This news bolsters that prediction. Perhaps one local Republican endorsement is all it will take to balance the countless carpetbag Republican endorsements (Palin, Pawlenty, Bachmann, etc.).

(BTW, my dad grew up in what is now NY-23 and most of his family still lives there - my late grandfather never moved in his 99 years and 11 months, save WWII - so I feel a little personally as well as politically invested in this race.)

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The right-wing has a very powerful and discrete set of channels set up to deliver money instantly around the country wherever it is needed.  That is key to its electoral dominance, and we have to figure out how to expose this financial skeleton and stop it.  Much of it is in the states, and one key sign that you're dealing with very powerful right-wing interests that are funneling money is accounting irregularities.  Two examples have come up recently.

If you don't know the name Howie Rich, you should.  He's a billionaire real estate mogul in New York City that runs a network of organizations pushing TABOR and anti-government initiatives all over the country, focusing on the West.  Though his name isn't well-known, Rich essentially controls California politics, and he does it with a maze of organizations that use shady accounting.  The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is asking very legitimate questions, such as how his organization Americans for Limited Government took in $800,000 one year and spent $11,000,000 the next.  Just look through the nest of shell organizations; it's really nasty, and a good example of how right-wing billionaire ideologues are creating national machines to push narrow destructive agenda items by corrupting state governments.

Of course, sometimes the money channels flow through well-established state channels.  If you're interested in political machines and you haven't read this article from Colorado Confidential, it's worth reading.  The article traces money flows into and out of a right-wing 527 called Trailhead, which looks like a political slush fund for the Republican Governor Bill Owens, right-wing mega-donor and former Senate candidate Pete Coors, and former gubernatorial candidate Bruce Benson.  At this point, the story is just about sloppy accounting, but it's amazing how often sloppy accounting correlates with illegal use of 'walking around money' to pay off influentials or corporate money laundering.  It's not clear what's going on in this case in Colorado, but it does look like Pete Coors, Bill Owens, and Bruce Benson have become so accustomed to power that they have a basic contempt for the law.  

I don't really have anywhere to take this, really.  Both of these networks intersect in Colorado, which is a place of resurgent progressive strength.  We need to figure out how to create a penalty for right-wing billionaires who corrupt our politics with these shell games.  

Update: There's more sloppiness from right-wing non-profits in Minnesota.

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