Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons, running for the governor's seat in Nevada, can't be happy to learn that the police have reopened an investigation into his allegedly assaultive behavior.

[Chrissy] Mazzeo, a Las Vegas Strip casino waitress, accused Gibbons, 61, of pushing her up against a wall Oct. 13 and propositioning her. Mazzeo, 32, said she had been pressured and offered cash from people linked to the Gibbons campaign to drop the charges.

Gibbons claims a videotape will prove his innocence, and is trying to get it released for public viewing.

After four days in Omaha, I'm more than ready to get home and back to a desktop monitor and blogging.

On the plus side, I'm blogging from the airplane which is about to take off -- I got online in the jail even though there were those white cement blocks for walls -- and just about everywhere else in Omaha -- slow as molasses, but a lot better than not being online at all.

I think I could exist on a desert island with my laptop, online access, my ipod and a few movies from Netflix or Movieline.

Back to politics and crime tonight.

Greg Sargent continues reading the Rove tea leaves:

It looks like it may be time for pundits to drop the Karl Rove-is-supremely-confident-about-winning storyline -- because it's now pretty clear that Rove, for all his outward expressions of confidence, has also begun to lay the groundwork to spin his way out of blame and preserve his reputation should the GOP get shellacked next Tuesday.

Rove's emerging spin appears to be this: If the GOP loses, it's the candidates' fault, not mine.

Check out this passage at the end of today's Washington Post piece on Rove:

Associates say Rove is privately frustrated that individual candidates have not been more aggressive in drawing contrasts with Democrats on national security. In Buffalo, Rove dished out red meat with relish...

Below, I wrote my personal reaction to the Ellen Tauscher election eve stinkbomb in our Big Tent Democratic Party. But I really like what Chris Bowers had to say about it and our Big Tent, even though Chris and I have substantial ideological differences - particularly on tax and trade policy. While Chris and I differ on many issues, we agree completely on how our Big Tent Party must function. Let's look at what Chris wrote on the flip side.

One hundred deaths made October the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since January 2005.

Update: 101.

For what its worth, an annual ranking of the relative safety of 371 American cities lists St. Louis as the most dangerous (followed by Detroit and Flint) while designating Brick, NJ as the safest. The rankings are based on an assessment of FBI crime statistics.

Collectively, the group could tilt the balance of power within the party, which has been struggling to define itself in recent elections.

Sounds ominous. Except:

The candidates cover the spectrum on political issues; some are fiscally conservative and moderate or liberal on social issues, some are the reverse. They could influence negotiations with Republicans on a variety of issues, including Social Security and stem cell research.

Sounds like a Big Tent group to me. And a bunch of DLC type nonsense from the NYTimes.

This:

Rove is giving a virtuoso performance designed to prevent the Democrats from taking control of the House and Senate or, if that is no longer possible, to hold down the size of the Democratic victory to make it easier for the GOP to come back in 2008.

If Rove is spinning that he is still a genius even if the GOP loses both houses of Congress, then the Republicans must really be in trouble.

At mydd, David Sirota notes:

Sen. Joe Lieberman says the likelihood that he would take a leadership role if the Democrats take control of the Senate on Nov. 7 is helping him in his race against the endorsed Democrat in Connecticut.

David blasts the Dem leadership for this result. I don't agree. If the Dems need Joe for 51, then they have to take him of course, seniority and all. Actually I was struck much more by this:

"There's no question it's better to have seniority in a majority than seniority in a minority," Lieberman said.

What is Lieberman saying? I think it is clear. If the Senate is divided 50-50, or if the GOP retains a majority, he will caucus with the Republicans. What do Conecticut voters make of that? Is that a plus or minus? Do Dem voters in Connecticut relish the idea of Lieberman caucusing with the GOP?

Via digby, a former speechwriter for President Bush writes:

I have also grown to hate certain people of genuine accomplishment like Ted Turner, who, by his own contention, cannot make up his mind which side of the terror war he is on; I hate the executives at CNN, Turner's intellectual progeny, who recently carried water for our enemies by broadcasting their propaganda film portraying their attempts to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

I now hate Howard Dean, the elected leader of the Democrats, who, by repeatedly stating his conviction that we won't win in Iraq, bets his party's future on our nation's defeat.

I hate the Democrats who, in support of this strategy, spout lie after lie: that the president knew in advance there were no WMD in Iraq; that he lied to Congress to gain its support for military action; that he pushed for the democratization of Iraq only after the failure to find WMD; that he was a unilateralist and that the coalition was a fraud; that he shunned diplomacy in favor of war.

Stunning delusion fueling the paranoid tribalism classically described by Richard Hofstadter.

An op-ed in the New York Times today hearts Omaha as a very livable city.

According to the cost of living comparison calculator at CNNMoney.com, if you were earning $229,000 in Manhattan, or $153,000 in Queens, you’ll be able to maintain the same standard of living in Omaha with a salary of $100,000 (and not because rodeos are cheaper than Broadway shows). Your money will go farther, and you’ll find less competition for jobs: Omaha’s unemployment rate (3.3 percent) is lower than New York’s (4.5 percent). While you are job hunting and living off your real-estate profits, groceries, utilities and health care will all cost roughly one-third less than you are paying in New York.

Coincidentally, I happen to be in Omaha for the fourth time since July. It's a very nice city. There's a lot of money in Omaha. It's quiet and peaceful. It's also about as red a state as you'll find anywhere.

Andrew Sullivan:

We can fight over Medicare and hate crime laws another time. But habeas corpus, war, torture and basic fiscal responsibility are the issues now. I will join happily with any liberal, any leftist, any conservative, any Christian, any Muslim, any Jew - to fight for these basic principles. I don't care about these labels as much as I care about this country. And it needs saving right now from the thugs and incompetents who are running it.

Richard Viguerie:

The big-spending, high-deficit, morally-deficient Republican Party hasn't anything to offer conservatives except Halloween scare tactics about the Democrats.