Blanche L. Lincoln, D-Ark.

NFIB and Lincoln have teamed up to launch a campaign urging the EPA not to do anything about greenhouse gases, and she details her fight in an interview with Environment & Energy Publishing’s E&E TV. It’s not a very coherent interview, as Lincoln just repeats an endless flood of talking points (uninspired ones, too) and verbally treads water. She’s a politician, not an expert on policy, or anything else. The basic idea is that there are too many regulations, and regulations are bad.

Monica Trauzzi: EPA hasn’t yet sent its proposed rule of greenhouse gas emissions for utilities to OMB. The deadline is September 30. Do you take that as a sign that maybe there are some other regulations that they’re thinking of rolling back on?

Sen. Blanche Lincoln: I certainly hope so. I mean, that is definitely what we’ve been aiming for is to make sure — and you can go to our Website, www.sensiblereg.org, and that is where you can see these small businesses talking about what they face on a day-to-day basis, the cost of it, the time, how it is, you know, prohibitive towards them being able to reinvest their resources into their businesses to create new jobs. And it’s not just the new regs that come out, it is the uncertainty of what happens. You know, you’re exactly right, delaying that greenhouse gas emission rule is something that should be done if we don’t have all the facts, if we don’t have the appropriate cost-benefit analysis, if we don’t have the appropriate analysis of what, you know, is going to actually happen with that. OMB has got to have — I mean, sometimes it can take them two or three or four months, you know, to get that information out. And that is absolutely appropriate and it should not go forward until we have all that information. But when there are over 4200 new pending regulations out there, it just creates this unbelievable arena of uncertainty in businesses large and small, but particularly small, because they get hit harder. They’re not going to take their own money and spend $10,000 or $10 million, because they don’t know what those types of regs are going to cost them.

Uncertainty is bad, so the EPA must delay its new regulations as long as possible. 4,200 new regulations!

This is all fairly standard-issue Republican cant. Which isn’t surprising: The oil and gas industry were another of Lincoln’s major funders. (Lincoln also received more money than any other Democrat from ALEC, the organization that helps major industries write their own right-wing legislation in statehouses across the country.)

Blanche Lincoln’s loss proved that out-Republicaning the Republicans is an insane way to try to win an election, but Democrats never bother to learn that lesson.

And, for some reason, John Cornyn approvingly quoted a far-right secessionist novelist guy.

But while the Republicans hate Thurgood Marshall for extending those damn “special protections” (like regular protections, but for non-white people) to minorities, they want to make it clear that they expect any potential Supreme Court justice to always support the rights of their favorite put-upon minority groups: the United States military, incumbent senators, Republican presidential candidates, and corporations.

After Pat Leahy’s interminable opening questions about how much Kagan loved her parents and how nice and well-respected she is, Sessions began hammering her on the military recruiters thing. The issue was, the military was unable to sign Harvard’s nondiscrimination pledge, because it is, you know, a discriminatory employer. So it had to use the veterans’ organization instead of the Harvard Office of Career Services.

Sessions, in repeatedly asking why Kagan did not grant special treatment to the military, kept asking her why she discriminated against the military and treated our brave recruiters “in a second-class way.” Silly legal progressive — you’re only allowed to treat gay people in a second-class way.

(Kagan was asked if she thought Bush v. Gore was decided correctly. In 2003, she knew that it was not decided correctly. This morning she declined to answer.)

Orrin Hatch questioned Kagan on the Citizens United case. Kagan, obviously, argued that case, which would seem to make her position on the matter of the constitutionality of campaign finance laws known. But she told Hatch that as a judge, she would consider it “settled law.”

Hatch nearly got teary-eyed when discussing the poor corporations of Utah that were discriminated against by campaign finance laws. Why does Kagan hate Utah’s thousands of corporations that are made up of only one person? (Though theoretically this one-person corporation could conduct political speech as a one-person ,,, person.)

The conversation got weird when Hatch seemed to claim that restrictive campaign finance laws were somehow not bad for incumbents:

Kagan says campaign finance laws were “selfless” act of Congress, because all empirical evidence suggests union and corporate money protects incumbents.

“Tell that to Blanche Lincoln,” Hatch says. “Lincoln is one of the nicest people around here who had ten million spent against her by the unions, just because they disagreed with her.”

OK, but … Blanche won. And doesn’t Orrin think money is protected political speech? And if so, isn’t spending money to defeat her because you disagree with her policies … basically the entire point of politics? Unless Orrin wants Kagan to decide that unions aren’t allowed to be mean to his Senate friends, I guess.

Hatch was also outraged that the president criticized the Citizens ruling … while the Supreme Court was in the same room as him. The nerve! The court is very sensitive! Obama should’ve formed a one-man corporation in Utah and bought thousands of TV ads, if he wanted to exercise his right to express an opinion on the decision.

Kagan is expected to be easily confirmed because this whole thing is basically a fun way for the Senate to pass the time without having to pass legislation or anything.

That is why two former representatives of big business won big in California, of course. (Sorry, wait, that is because of Sarah Palin.) Also, apparently “anti-special interests” (unions) trumps anti-Congress (Blanche Lincoln).

TAKEAWAY: “GOP way more divided than Dems,” except that Blanche Lincoln barely beat Bill Halter and everyone more or less came around to Whitman, Fiorina and Haley.

Also, USA Today says it was a tough night for political insiders (except, again, Bill Clinton and Blanche Lincoln). (Sarah Palin is an honorary “outsider.”)

Chris Cillizza says “candidates and campaigns matter even with a strong anti-incumbent wind blowing nationally.” Some establishment Republican candidates won some races and others did not. (Three more NRCC Young Guns lost.)

According to Chuck Todd’s “First Thoughts,” the “Internet left” lost. And they turned Sen. Lincoln into “an outsider,” which made her win, because outsiders win (when Bill Clinton helps them).

But incumbents are still in trouble, because Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons lost. And Nikki Haley will push the 2012 GOP presidential candidates to the right (???).

The big winners were women! Women won all sorts of things. But none of them are front-runners in November, except one of them. And “the rise of CONSERVATIVE women in other states like Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona makes it harder for Democrats to paint the Tea Party/conservative movement as simply a bunch of angry white guys.” It also includes angry white women. (And Nikki Haley.)

So here is your Serious Political Analysis of the Mood of the Electorate, going forward:

Bill Clinton is the most powerful man in Washington, except when he is in New York (or Arkansas). We learned last night that he is worth slightly more than $10 million. His ability to control the behavior of precisely 10,000 voters at any given time could come in handy for candidates looking to barely beat opponents in November, as long as those candidates are Tea Party-aligned women who were endorsed by Sarah Palin.

Incumbents are in trouble, unless they are “outsider” incumbents. An incumbent can become an outsider by having an opponent who is friends with insiders, as long as those insiders aren’t the Club for Growth or, again, Bill Clinton.

Women are expected to do great in November, unless they are from Washington, or are considered part of the “establishment.” (As long as your definition of the establishment does not include eBay.) Again, if you are endorsed by Sarah Palin, none of this applies.

The Tea Parties won big, except that they might’ve helped the GOP lose big in November, which would be a victory for the Tea Parties. Mitt Romney is in serious trouble.

Voters are very, very angry, so only expect between 90 and 95 percent of Congress to be reelected.