Allen asked: "Jim, what's your position on the proper use of Craney Island?"

Webb replied, candidly: "I'm not sure where Craney Island is. Why don't you tell me?"

No doubt feeling very pleased, Allen replied: "Craney Island's in Virginia."

Just last week -- as Jim Hodges of the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., reported -- the Senate authorized a $671.3 million expansion of Craney Island, adding 580 acres and "offering a boost for a future port there."

Allen wanted no one to miss the significance. "This is huge," he told reporters. "It's a big, big deal."

I have no idea whether Allen will get a boost from his quiz-show moment of triumph and the implication that he delivered big-time for Virginia. What's interesting is the extent to which Allen and other Republican incumbents around the country are talking up how they brought big government's largess to their constituents.

It doesn't matter that they claim to be against that very same big government. Faced this year with a choice between running on their party's record and delivering pork, they'll take pork.

This is yet another example of why I believe the Republicans will lose at least 20 seats in the House this year, giving the Democrats control.  The Republican brand is tarished.  Their elected officials have abandoned their "principles" and are clinging to pandering as their only hope of reelection.

Things are much grimmer than the MSM wants to admit.

CBS just released a poll pegging Bush at 34%, tying a record low for him.  By my count that's four straight polls that have him back in the 30's, including Harris, AP, and Fox's polls.  In other words, the current default position of the American political environment has Bush in the thirties.  And he actually has higher ratings than Congress, who is heading into the elections.  Trust me the Republican majority is finished--at least for a few years.

I know everyone is scared of the Repugs' turnout machine, but I don't buy it this year.  Our enthusiasm level is sky high, and Republican partisans are dejected.  Corruption charges will be much more important than people realize, systematically depressing Republican turnout.

And as for gerrymandering, I don't buy that argument either.  The incumbancy system which developed since '94 has never been tested by a true tidal wave election, which this year has every earmark for being.  Gerrymandering only works under status quo election conditions.  But if those conditions change, than things become very unpredictable, and almost always create even greater problems for the party that is most favored by the gerrymandering.

Update: Sorry. Skip the CBS poll. I heard there were lower Bush numbers today and somehow, today's date was on the CBS website. Its actually Gallup with the new numbers, pegging Bush at 37%, down three points since the Lebennon crisis started. That makes four, anyway.