Here are some headlines from Senate races around the country.

Kentucky: With a record as long and self-contradictory as Mitch McConnell’s, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of his promises, his votes, and his priorities.  Thankfully, there’s a new website that will keep the truth about McConnell circulating, so that he can’t con the people of Kentucky into letting him return to Washington.

Maine: Democrat Tom Allen has released a great new campaign ad, focusing on his energy plan.  Watch the ad here.

Maine: Also check out this short video clip of Allen spelling out exactly why this election is so important.

Minnesota: Republican Norm Coleman delivered remarks at the Republican National Convention this week.  Unlike many of his colleagues [LINKS to convention posts], Coleman couldn’t avoid a convention in his home state, so the best he could hope for was that nobody would notice his speech.  Unfortunately for Coleman, Democrat Al Franken noticed.  Click here for Franken’s response to Coleman’s speech.

Minnesota: And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out BushColeman08.com.  Norm Coleman wants Minnesotans to forget that he’s one of the Senators that Bush relied on to make his far-right policy dreams into a reality, and this great site sets the record straight.

Nebraska: Stay tuned for the upcoming U.S. Senate debate in Nebraska.  It will take place this Sunday evening in Scottsbluff.  Democrat Scott Kleeb’s website has the details.  And while you’re getting ready for the debate, check out Kleeb’s latest videos. 

New Hampshire: Former Governor Jeanne Shaheen outlined her comprehensive energy policy this week.  Shaheen’s approach tackles both the short-term and long-term problems with energy prices and production.  In contrast, her Republican opponent, John Sununu, has a record of pursuing a one-track energy policy: bending over backwards to help Big Oil protect its profits at the expense of paying customers. 

North Carolina: A new poll confirms the news from previous surveys: the North Carolina Senate race remains tight, despite an early lead and cash advantage for Republican Liddy Dole.  Democrat Kay Hagan is running strong, and the new poll shows her beginning to surpass Dole.

Oklahoma: Democrat Andrew Rice has launched a new website, People Before Politics.  In his video introduction, Rice explains why he’s running for the U.S. Senate, and why it’s so important to have a government that focuses on helping people. Check it out here, and share your ideas about what a U.S. Senator can do to help out.

Oregon: Republican Gordon Smith has been caught double-dipping his campaign contributions.  Smith has been using a bank account from his 1996 campaign to collect donations from special interest groups and indicted Senator Ted Stevens.  At the same time, those same interest groups have been contributing to Smith’s current campaign account, essentially helping Smith create his own Gordon-sized loophole in campaign finance laws.

To our growing list of Republican senators who are skipping their convention, let’s add two more names:

• Pat Roberts of Kansas, notable for his staunch refusal to investigate the misuse of pre-war intelligence
• Serial job-hopper Mike Johanns of Nebraska

Both Roberts and Johanns are Republicans running in traditionally “red” states, and yet both are passing up the “opportunity” to be seen on television with the national leaders of their own party. But that party label isn’t exactly a bonus these days, as the LA Times reported this weekend:

But an aide to a Republican senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, offered another reason for the no-shows.

"The party brand is in tatters," said the aide. "The president is highly unpopular. There doesn't seem to be much excitement around the candidate. And there's a real fear of being tagged with the Republican label and being seen with George Bush."

Syndicated columnist and prominent Minnesotan Garrison Keillor has a great column out this week. Inspired by the presence of the Republican National Convention in his home state, Keillor takes up the Minnesota Senate race as an example of what he sees as the Republicans' challenge.

In particular, Keillor rightly points to Norm Coleman’s dismal track record as a Senator, a fact which Coleman is trying to obscure with a series of negative ads. But Coleman’s trumped-up attacks on Democrat Al Franken pale in comparison to Coleman’s own misdeeds. As Keillor notes:

From 2003 to 2006, Coleman was chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is responsible for investigating, among other things, "fraud, waste, and abuse in government contracting," and on his watch, the subcommittee held no hearings on the disappearance of billions of tax dollars into "reconstruction projects" in Iraq that didn't seem to reconstruct anything whatsoever. Bundles of newly minted $100 bills on pallets in Baghdad that simply vanished. No-bid contracts lavished on people with connections. What may be the biggest case of war profiteering in the history of buzzardry.

Like many other Republicans, Coleman held a position of power when his party was in the majority, and failed to live up to his responsibilities. Instead of doing his job and investigating "fraud, waste, and abuse in government contracting," Coleman turned a blind eye. He simply wasn’t interested in doing the job for which he was elected.

Read the whole column here.

For more on the Minnesota Senate race, see our race profile page, or visit Al Franken’s website.

You may have noticed that a lot of Republicans are skipping their convention this year. One Republican notable for her absence is endangered North Carolina Senator Liddy Dole: 

The darling of the 1996 Republican National Convention, Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) is AWOL from the Xcel Energy Center this week, forced to defend her once-safe seat in a come-from-nowhere race back home and dispatching her husband to the Twin Cities to mingle with Tar Heel State delegates.

But maybe skipping the convention is more than simply Dole’s response to a strong challenge from Democrat Kay Hagan. After all, Hagan had been campaigning hard in North Carolina for months before the Republican convention, and Liddy Dole had still managed to find plenty of time to stay at her home in Washington, D.C.. What makes this week any different than any previous week?

Maybe Dole is avoiding the Republican convention because North Carolinians know that she has sided with George Bush 92% of the time. Dole’s best bet right now is to hope that voters forget exactly what that 92% means. It means that she’s supported the war in Iraq, giveaways to oil companies, and economic policies that have led to home foreclosures and $4-a-gallon gas. In North Carolina and in the rest of the nation, those are policies that have a 0% approval rating, not 92%.

(Coincidentally, 92 is also the number of times the Senate Republicans have filibustered in the last two years.)

So while Liddy Dole tries to hide from the legacy of George Bush’s Republican Party, remember North Carolinians will be remembering that magic number: 92.

For more on the North Carolina Senate race, see our race profile page, or visit Kay Hagan’s website.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think that Gordon Smith doesn’t want to be identified as a Republican this year. It makes good political sense, because the polices that have made the Republican brand so unpopular are the exact same policies Gordon Smith has supported during his time in the Senate. And no politician wants to be unpopular in an election year. 

Of course, Smith backed John McCain in the Republican primary, and voted in lockstep with the Bush administration until the election came into view. Between 2000 and 2006, Smith voted with Bush 90% of the time, and was the Oregon chairman of Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004. Given his record, it’s just not possible for Gordon Smith to run from the disastrous Republican governing philosophy of the last six years. So he’s doing the next best thing: hiding.

Luckily, Jeff Merkley’s campaign has put together some remarks that Smith could deliver at the Republican National Convention, should he change his mind about attending. They’ve compiled statements Smith has made in the past, and the result is the kind of speech an RNC crowd would really enjoy. Check out the remarks here.

For more on the Oregon Senate race, see our race profile page, or visit Jeff Merkley’s website.