Just like in the movie "Office Space," Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is having a case of the Mondays.

No, nobody moved his office to the basement of the Dirksen Building or hid his Swingline stapler, but his polls are pretty gloomy. How bad?

Well, when the Democratic president of the United States polls better than the three-term Republican junior senator from Utah in Utah, something's up.

Now, to be fair, this is only one part of a new Deseret News/KSL poll. Obama outranks Bennett in the "very favorable" category with 19% of Utahns having a very favorable impression of the president while 18% have that opinion of Bennett.

Bennett scores better than Obama in the "favorable" category with 50% of Utahns having that view of the senator while 32% sharing that opinion of Obama.

That 50%, though, is nothing to brag about though. "It's probably not a good omen for Bennett to go into the state Republican convention this weekend with more Utahns giving Obama a 'very favorable' rating than they do for Bennett," writes Deseret News political reporter Lee Davidson.

Davidson reports that Bennett has a plan to boost his poor ratings. He's lined up Mitt Romney to introduce him at the state convention. Pardon the expression, but Romney is a god in Utah (note the lowercase 'g').

The poll showed that 79% of Utahns have a favorable impression of Romney. And 93% of Republicans voted for him in the 2008 presidential primary. 

Is that enough to get him past his seven challengers at the convention?

"I don't know that it can. But, boy, Bob Bennett needs it," said Dan Jones, the conductor of the poll. "He's taken a lot of hits. It's the Republicans who are mad at him."

Another poll, however, points the finger at convention-goers rather than the rank-and-file Republicans.

The Salt Lake Tribune finds 39% of Republican voters want Bennett to serve a fourth term while 16% of delegates to the state convention want Bennett reelected.

Just how influential are the delegates? Very. Utah has a unique nominating system. The Associated Press explains:

Bennett will be eliminated if he fails to win at least 40 percent of the 3,500 delegate votes at the state GOP's convention. A statewide June 22 primary featuring the top two candidates would be needed if no single candidate ends up with 60 percent of the vote.

If Romney doesn't put him over the top, perhaps Bennett could ask Michael Bolton to assist.

-- Jimmy Orr

Image: Utah Sen. Bob Bennett. Credit: Associated Press

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Someone is trying to peddle a portrait of ex-Republican, newly-independent Charlie Crist on eBay. It's described as an "original portrait" and an "oil painting."

But the Florida Republican Party is disavowing any association with it or the sale. Although party officials said Friday they planned to auction off a used portrait of Crist recently removed from GOP headquarters, the one currently up for bid is not theirs -- despite the seller's advertised name: "florida_gop."

"I just found out about that a few minutes ago. That's not ours," said Katie Betta, spokeswoman for the state party.

The language alongside the portrait puts Crist in the same group as four former politicians who all exited their respected offices after being involved in gay sex scandals:

Have you ever taken over a non-profit organization only to be left with huge AMEX bills and ugly portraits of the folks that looted the place? Well, we've got some debt to pay down and unwanted "art".

Scott Rothstein commissioned this beautiful, GIMP crafted, artist signed, original portrait of Florida Governor and US Senate hopeful Charlie Crist. This classic work captures the essence of Crist and will complete your portrait collection of political heroes like Larry Craig, Jim McGreevey, Mark Foley, and Bob Allen!

Calling the language "inappropriate," Betta said party attorneys are "working to have the post removed" as the seller is using a name that could be mistaken for the official Republican party.

"We intend to post our oil painting on Monday," Betta said.

In the meantime, the current portrait is getting a lot of action. The top bid is $1,025.01 after 52 bids.

Related items:

Florida's Crist to run as independent? Hold on to your sun hats! (Updated)

Florida's Charlie Crist sinks even lower - now a giant fake crab runs against him

-- Jimmy Orr

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Photo: eBay item of Charlie Crist portrait.  Credit: eBay screengrab

Remarks by President Obama, as provided by the White House

Over the past few weeks, as we’ve debated reforms to hold Wall Street accountable and protect consumers and small businesses in our financial system, we’ve come face-to-face with the great power of special interests in the workings of our democracy. Of course, this isn’t a surprise. Every time a major issue arises, we’ve come to expect that an army of lobbyists will descend on Capitol Hill in the hopes of tilting the laws in their favor.  

That’s one of the reasons I ran for President: because I believe so strongly that the voices of ordinary Americans were being drowned out by the clamor of a privileged few in Washington. And that’s why, since the day I took office, my administration has been taking steps to reform the system. Recently ...

A common complaint from people getting started with Twitter's short messaging service is that its 140-character limit is too constraining.

Apparently it's flexible enough for some politicians to use as a vehicle including some fibs and misleading statements. A worthy reminder to news consumers about swallowing everything.

FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan watchdog, has begun combing through the public tweets of accounts from verified politicians. After assessing their accuracy, some of the results aren't pretty.

The organization's analyses are much longer than 140 characters, but the conclusions are blunt. So what has FactCheck.org found?

Let's start with the Democratic National Committee's dubious blip from last week:

"While the President spoke today about Wall St reform, GOP senators took checks from Wall St lobbyists."

A quick dissection, courtesy of the analysts -- how many "GOP senators" took checks? One. Was the money connected to Wall Street? Maybe, but it's not clear.

Four days later, the Republican National Committee matched its opponents with an equally misleading tweet about economists agreeing that Obama's stimulus package is an "epic fail." (Yes, the RNC used the words "epic fail.")

In reality, some of the 68 members affiliated with the same organization, the National Assn. for Business Economics, who were polled said the stimulus wasn't affecting employment in their industries. And they didn't all agree.

"Spreading disinformation via Twitter is thoroughly bipartisan," writes co-authors Eugene Kiely and Lori Robertson about the phenomenon, which they call "mis-tweeting."

It's not just the two political party groups firing questionable claims back and forth. Individual politicians are getting in on the game as well, including House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (see photo). He wrote on his Twitter profile last week:

At the end of this year, Americans will face the "Obama tax increase," & it will be the largest in history

That supposed "Obama tax increase" is actually the Bush tax cut expiration. And as for being "the largest in history," that's if you neglect to account for inflation. With inflation, the tax changes wouldn't even make the top 10, notes FactCheck.org.

Shading political rhetoric is nothing new, of course. Online and on TV, like Comedy Central's "Daily Show," folks with access to Google have blasted politicians' off-the-cuff falsehoods. ABC's "This Week" has made an online feature out of checking its guests' on-air claims.

But on Twitter, politicians theoretically have quite a bit of time to verify what they send out before they hit the "Submit" button. Is that too much to ask?

-- Mark Milian

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Photo: Associated Press

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" tonight, the same show where he announced his sudden candidacy for governor years ago, shocking his own wife..

Schwarzenegger seems very comfortable and says several interesting things worth staying up for:

He would never authorize a solution to the illegal immigration problem like the one recently signed into law in Arizona by fellow Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. Illegal immigration is "a mess."

He blames the federal government, specifically Congress:

The last six years since I've been in office, they've been talking about it. And every single time, they say, "Well, this is election year.  We can't get it done."  Well, hello. I mean, every two years is election year.  So that is the history of the United States. (Applause) ...Get it done.  I mean, get it done. That's the important thing. Because it's irresponsible. We have all this stuff. We have the daily crossings. We have the crime. We have the guns that are being transported down to Mexico. 

We have cocaine and other drugs brought up here from Mexico, and we have human trafficking. I mean, it's a huge, huge mess, and the federal government does not....

 

It happened, naturally, at a "tea party" rally. California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, in Ramona on Saturday speaking to his conservative base, was asked if he would support the deportation of American children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. “I would have to,” he said. Then he explained:

It’s a complex issue and it’s … you can look and say, ‘You’re a mean guy, that’s a mean thing to do, that’s not a humanitarian thing to do.’ We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now. California’s going under.... Between $10 [billion] and $20 billion in this state that we spend on immigration -- that's health services, that's education, and jails. We just can't afford it anymore.... We’re not being mean. We’re just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It's what's in our souls.

Afterward the freshman congressman -- he took his father's seat after the senior Duncan Hunter, a 25-year veteran of Congress, lost his presidential bid in 2007 and left politics -- told the North County Times that he backs a House resolution, HR 1868, that would eliminate automatic citizenship for those children.

He also called Arizona's new immigration law allowing law enforcement officials to....

At the moment, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist holds a distinct fundraising advantage over either of his two main Senate campaign opponents -- Marco Rubio (R) and Kendrick Meek (D). Crist's number: $10.2 million, including $7.5 million in cash on hand.

But if, as widely expected, Crist announces Thursday afternoon that he's leaving the Republican Party to run for the Senate as an independent, a lot of donors are planning to ask for their money back.

(UPDATE: 2:32 p.m. Thursday: He did. And they are.)

Already, Republican senators have signaled their commitment to winning the Florida Senate seat for a fellow Republican, not for an independent -- especially one as truly unreliable as Crist, who infuriated conservatives recently by refusing to sign a bill that tied teacher salaries to student grades.

Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson. whose political action committee contributed $1,000 to Crist's campaign in June, has already written to the governor's campaign asking for a refund if Crist leaves the party. "I do my PAC to help support Republicans." And Texas Republican John Cornyn, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is charged with boosting GOP numbers in the Senate, plans to ask ask for a refund of the $10,000 from the committee's PAC. "I suspect you'll see a number of Republican senators ask for their money back," he said.

Even more damning, the conservative Club for Growth said it planned a campaign to get all kinds of donors -- not just the big guys -- to ask for a refund. The group spearheaded a similar effort last year after Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter switched from Republican to Democrat. Spokesman Michael Connolly told the Washington Times that that effort accounted for from $800,000 to $1.1 million in exiting funds from Specter's war chest. 

Some senators who have personal ties to Crist will have a harder time than others in the money game. Arizona's John McCain, in one of the toughest races of his political life, against tea-party favorite J.D. Hayworth, owes Crist big. As Ticket reported Wednesday, Crist was courted heavily by Rudy Giuliani and made all the right noises about supporting him before endorsing McCain.

Asked Wednesday about whether he will seek a refund, McCain said he "hasn't switched." 

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Associated Press

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Stand by for the next Scott Brown.

Between now and May 18 you are likely to hear much more about someone named Tim Burns.

Quietly in recent days influential Republicans led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have been laying out a strategic campaign to nationalize the as-yet little-known special election for a House seat in Pennsylvania's 12th district.

Hmm, special election. Sound familiar? Massachusetts. January. Barack Obama desperately campaigning for Democrat Martha Coakley to fill the Senate seat of the late Democrat Ted Kennedy.

But, oops, in charges a little-known Republican state senator, a Washington outsider named Scott Brown riding a pickup truck and a surging national wave of anti-Obama, anti-healthcare bill support to snatch a Bay state Senate seat for the GOP for the first time in four decades.

An election that became a symbol both of hope for Republicans and trouble for....

Many people around the country and on The Ticket's comment board have been bothered in recent days by Arizona's tough new law authorizing police to nab illegal immigrants. But new polls now indicate Arizonans are pretty good with it.

Not only that, but they like Gov. Jan Brewer more since she signed the measure last week. (For past items explaining her decision and the law, see related links below.)

President Obama and others, most of whom don't live in Arizona, have criticized the carefully crafted measure as "misguided" and worse.

But new Rasmussen Reports surveys today reveal the law's popularity among voters at....

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is headed to his hometown of St. Petersburg, Fla., for Thursday's big announcement about his political future, his parents and his wife at his side for the 5 p.m. event.

"It's home. It's where my family is, so I think it's appropriate," Crist told reporters Wednesday morning.

(UPDATE: 12:38 p.m.: Our sister publication the Orlando Sentinel reports now that Crist has decided to launch an independent bid for the Senate seat, claiming he wants to serve "the people" more than the party.)

Crist -- down 20 points against "tea party" favorite Marco Rubio in the latest polling on the Republican primary for U.S. Senate -- has been hurt by his support for President Obama's $787-billion bailout of Wall Street. Reading the political tea leaves, pundits are saying he will run as an independent. More popular in the state than he is with the GOP base, this could make for a very interesting election.

If he does leave the Republican Party and run as an independent, Crist would set up a....

Palin Inc. has lots of cool slogans (remember "Re-load!") and tons of money. In fact, the brand has everything except a logo and a listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Ever since she resigned as governor of Alaska -- to defy a state ethics czar who was giving her a hard time about going out on a book tour, according to New York magazine -- Sarah Palin has become a media celebrity with a huge commercial footprint.

According to a new profile in New York, Palin over the past year has piled up a $12 million fortune. Her memoir has sold more than 2.2 million copies. She is planning a second book.

She has a three-year deal as a contributor to Fox News worth $1 million a year.

She sold a cable show to TLC for a reported $1 million per episode, though her take-home is "only" $250,000 for each of the eight installments. And she gets $100,000 per speech, putting her in the....

Like dogs and cats, each of the two current major political parties argued over Monday's vote not to vote on the Democrats' program of broad financial reforms.

Classic Washington. traditional election year. Everybody wants it, but nobody wants to do it the way anyone else wants to do it.

Here in their own words is how a few of the feuding parties sought to make their case.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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President Obama's statement, as provided by the White House

I am deeply disappointed that Senate Republicans voted in a block against allowing a public debate on Wall Street reform to begin.  Some of these Senators may believe that this obstruction is a good political strategy, and others may see delay as an....

...opportunity to take this debate behind closed doors, where financial industry lobbyists can water down reform or kill it altogether. But the American people can’t afford that. 

A lack of consumer protections and a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly brought our economy to its knees, and helped cause the pain that has left millions of Americans without jobs and without homes. The reform that both parties have been working on for a year would prevent a crisis like this from happening again, and I urge the Senate to get back to work and put the interests of the country ahead of party.

Statement by Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee

Today, Senate Democrats stood with Wall Street by attempting to move forward with a bill that creates a permanent bailout for irresponsible financial firms, institutionalizes ‘too-big-to-fail,’ and does nothing to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, organizations that were at the heart of the financial crisis.

But Republicans unanimously stood up to Harry Reid because today’s cloture vote wasn’t a vote against financial reform, it was a vote for a bipartisan bill, something President Obama has no interest in pursuing. Reid took the lead of President Obama who instructed Senate Democrats to cut off all bipartisan negotiations on financial regulation reform.

So instead of working with Republicans to responsibly reform financial regulations, Harry Reid decided that it’s better to have no bill at all, creating a partisan side show instead of holding Wall Street accountable.

Statement by Chairman Tim Kaine of the Democratic National Committee

Today, Senate Republicans blocked Wall Street reform.  In the process, they sent an unmistakable signal that they are beholden to Wall Street money, special interests and their lobbyists.  They also showed they are willing to oppose Wall Street reform even if the result is to leave in place unfair risks and results for taxpayers, Main Street businesses, and American families.
 
Not one Republican stepped forward to do the right thing for the  American people.  Instead, Senate Republicans voted to preserve a status quo that nearly destroyed our economy and caused undue hardship for millions of families, all so Wall Street can continue the very type of risky behavior that resulted in the crisis in the first place.
 
It is unfortunate that Americans must continue to worry that big banks are gambling with their retirement savings.  They must now continue to worry that the fine print on their credit card or mortgage loan could lead to financial ruin.  And they must now continue to worry that once again the economy could come crashing down around them while we must wait for meaningful Wall Street reform.
 
Senate Republicans could have relieved these concerns and moved Wall Street reform forward, but they instead  chose obstruction and delay.
 
Fortunately, Democrats in Congress will continue to fight for Wall Street reforms that will hold big banks accountable, create strong new consumer financial protections, and end the risky financial practices that continue to put the American economy at risk.  I hope that in the coming days, Republicans will overcome their loyalty to special interests and vote with Democrats for a final bill that will protect the well-being of all Americans.

Statement by Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts

  I was hopeful that both sides would have reached a bi-partisan agreement by today that protects the safety of our financial system, as well as the interests of taxpayers and consumers. My vote is not a vote against financial reform; instead it’s a vote to insist that the parties continue bi-partisan negotiations to come up with a commonsense bill we can all be proud of.

As currently written, the legislation contains loopholes that could leave the taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts of Wall Street. This bill would also hurt jobs in Massachusetts, including small start-up businesses that did not contribute to the economic crisis and are the job-creating engines that will get our economy moving again.

With millions of Americans affected by the financial crisis, this issue is too important to play political games with or rush through Congress along party lines. There are serious problems with this legislation that must be fixed and I remain hopeful that a bi-partisan agreement can be reached soon.

Statement by Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference

  The vote this afternoon is one more of a record number of ‘no motions’ offered by the Majority Leader saying no to more amendments, no to more debate, and no to checks and balances on a runaway government in Washington.

He’s got the record in saying no to more amendments, no to more debates, and no to more checks and balances on what the Congress is doing: 141 times the Majority Leader has filed cloture on the same day a measure came up—that’s simply another ‘no motion.’  It says no to more amendments, no to more debates, no to more checks and balances on the legislation that Congress is considering.

This should be a different situation; it’s a very important bill. It’s the financial regulation of this country—this country that produces 25 percent of all the money in the world every year. Twenty-five percent of the wealth is created by this country for those who are privileged to live here. 

One would think that we would be as careful as we could in getting this done. For a long time on this bill, many members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle have been working on it carefully and in a bipartisan way. So why would we bring another one of these record-setting ‘no motions’ up today to vote on?    ####

Photo: Associated Press; Head shots of Steele, Kaine, Brown, Alexander provided by their offices.