Somebody’s been spending some time researching Google images and the bleak 1930s iconography of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.

Carly Fiorina’s new attack on Barbara Boxer goes for the depression jugular, with a stark series of graphic, high-contrast black-and-white shots that paint a eschatological picture of California. One photograph, depicting the liquidation of a retail store, could have been lifted from a Walker Evans retrospective at the San Francisco MOMA

Check out that opening scene. Grim-faced farmers standing on a barren field, a Grapes of Wrathian image if ever there was one. During this, the equally ominous announcer intones:

“After 28 long years of Washington partisanship, this is Barbara Boxer’s California. Trillions in reckless wasteful spending. Destroying small business. Killing jobs. Crushing hopes.”

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This year's real conditions for Democrats are certainly threatening, but there are indications that the impending repudiation will not be as devastating as suggested by the current narrative. Whatever ultimately happens in the House, where a Republican takeover appears likely if not inevitable, the Senate will probably remain under Democratic control -- despite enormous spending by "independent" groups such as the Club for Growth, the voice of Wall Street conservatives; American Crossroads, the Karl Rove outfit; and the Chamber of Commerce.

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"He brings our style of civility and independence to Washington and works to develop solutions," is the soothing, even quaint message on the 71-year-old lawmaker's campaign website, which shows him in a suit and tie, working alone at his desk. Experience "is hugely important," he said in an interview.

After two terms as governor and nine as the state's lone congressman, Castle appears better positioned than other veterans who faced a tea party-backed challenge this year. If he prevails over Christine O'Donnell on Sept. 14 -- he and GOP officials have launched a fierce counterattack -- he would join more than a half-dozen other veteran Republican officeholders on the ballot in Senate races.

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Lawyers for Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown, two gay couples and the city of San Francisco all filed legal motions Friday asking Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker to implement his ruling striking California's voter-approved same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional.

"The Administration believes the public interest is best served by permitting the court's judgment to go into effect, thereby restoring the right of same-sex couples to marry in California," the Republican governor's lawyers said on his behalf. "Doing so is consistent with California's long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect."

In his 136-page decision overturning Proposition 8 Wednesday, Walker said he was ordering the state to cease enforcing the 22-month-old ban. But he agreed to suspend the order until he could review the briefs submitted Friday.

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Also, if you're called on it, because your campaign's Twitter account posts pictures of people with identical signs on the same day on opposite ends of the state, as Carly Fiorina's campaign did, you should come up with a better excuse than "Office Max and Staples carry the same paper and markers."

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But I have to say, it's disappointing the focus has been on Fiorina's diss of Boxer's hair. The real political story was insulting her female GOP "colleague" Meg Whitman for going on right-winger Sean Hannity's show the day after Whitman's primary win in the governor's race. It highlighted the Whitman/Fiorina feud -- we can't have TWO female Republican Silicon Valley CEOs running for top state offices in California; they must scratch one another's eyes out! And if it's up to Fiorina, she might.

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Fiorina was caught on an open mic and camera feed Wednesday, mocking Boxer's hair. A friend of Fiorina's, it seems, had seen Boxer on TV earlier in the morning. And she "said what everyone says," Fiorina blurted. "God, what is that hair? So yesterday!"

That's about four minutes into the video. Boxer shouldn't feel too bad, though, because Fiorina spent the vast majority of the time the camera was rolling bashing her fellow Republican, Meg Whitman, for going on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel show on the first day of the general election campaign for governor.

Watch here:

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In her race for the GOP nomination for California secretary of state, Birther Queen Taitz, a dentist/attorney whose pet cause is filing frivolous lawsuits challenging the president's natural-born status, received 372,490 votes.

In his race to unseat Democratic US Senator Barbara Boxer, Kaus, a longtime blogger whose pet cause is hating unions and immigrants, received 94,298 votes.

Both, sadly, lost by wide margins. (Though Taitz received more votes than Republican Senate candidates Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore.)

(Credit Dave Weigel for first deciding to compare the vote totals of our favorite insurgent politicians.)

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Now, there's no way that Republicans aren't going to have a good November in absolute terms. But a sign here and a sign there are starting to suggest that it might not be the stellar midterm that the minority party has been dreaming of and getting ready for. The president can point to some successes, with healthcare, financial reform and signs of economic recovery, for one thing. For another, it looks like we can count on Republicans to figure out a way to screw it up for themselves.

The latest example of Republicans finding an opportunity to miss an opportunity comes in Illinois. The Senate seat once held by Barack Obama is a major prize, and Republicans badly want to win. Everything seemed to line up just right. Democrats nominated a damaged candidate in state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, and scandal was hanging over the incumbent party anyway thanks to the collapse of the Rod Blagojevich administration. Republicans, meanwhile, got their dream nominee: Rep. Mark Kirk, from the Chicago suburbs, is the rare true suburban centrist Republican to survive the collapse of his wing of the party. He's staved off a couple of tough Democratic challenges, managing to become one of only seven Republicans to represent a district carried by John Kerry in 2004. In a state where moderate Republicans have thrived, but conservatives have been trounced repeatedly by mediocre Democratic hacks like Blagojevich, Kirk seemed to be just the ticket.

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Blogger-who-always-thinks-the-opposite-of-whatever-he-thinks-you-expect-him-to-think and pretend Democrat Mickey Kaus is mounting a primary challenge to Senator Barbara Boxer. No one is entirely sure why. But Salon War Room has obtained his financial disclosure form, and it reveals a man with no concern for telling people the truth about how much he was paid to blog.

Kaus is not blogging professionally while he campaigns. According to a December 2008 Kausfiles post, Kaus accepted a 10% paycut from Slate at the very end of 2008.

Asked, in early 2010 what Slate paid him, Kaus said:

I had been making in the mid-90s, and then I had to take a pay cut along with everyone else, and I was making in the 80s.

Seems simple enough, right? But!

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The reason is simple: The Tea Party movement -- also known as the GOP base -- isn't that interested in working with the Republican Party establishment. In one key race after another, this could result in the GOP fielding candidates in the fall who are ideologically pure but electorally deficient.

The prime example of this is in Kentucky, a conservative state that never much cared for Barack Obama in 2008 and that has turned even more sharply against him, and against the national Democratic Party, since his presidency began. This, coupled with the feeble economy and the basic buyer's remorse nature of midterm elections, should make the contest to replace retiring Sen. Jim Bunning a cakewalk for the GOP.

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It is true that DeVore has been in the Army Reserve and the California Army National Guard (and now the Army Reserve again) for 24 years. He's also basically a career politician.

Chuck DeVore worked in the Reagan administration, then for Chris Cox's campaign, and in Cox's congressional office. He ran for office multiple times. While in the private sector, working for an aerospace consulting firm, he was also an Irvine city commissioner and on the Irvine Community Services Commission.

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But this week's Richard Blumenthal drama in Connecticut is bringing some apprehension back to the surface.

It remains to be seen whether Blumenthal, who entered his state's Senate race as a white knight poised to save his party from Chris Dodd's collapse, will sustain much permanent damage from a New York Times story that suggested he's embellished his military record. Blumenthal has mounted a vigorous defense and video has now emerged that shows him properly characterizing his service. The story may fizzle out and Blumenthal could return to his dominant position in the polls relatively unscathed.

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But despite these tepid poll numbers, Boxer actually remains a fairly safe bet for another term. The reason, ironically enough, has to do with the anti-Democratic national political climate. Let me explain. 

With Democrats potentially facing deep losses in the House and Senate in November, Republicans are staring at an appetizing menu of races in which to invest their resources. It is this abundance of electoral opportunity that could save Boxer. Funding a campaign in California against a deep-pocketed incumbent probably won’t be as attractive an option as the many other winnable races in less expensive media markets.

Just consider the Senate targets Republicans will be choosing from. Currently, they have a good chance to pick up Democratic-held open seats in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana and North Dakota. Similarly, in Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania the GOP has reasonable odds of ousting sitting Democrats. And don’t forget that the party must also defend open seats in Florida, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio.

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In recent months, the bottom seems to have fallen out of the electoral prospects of the Democratic caucus in the Senate. Polls from across the country show Democratic challengers falling behind lackluster opponents, once-safe senators struggling and open seats that the party may not even be able to contest. The new vacancy in Indiana is just one more major headache for the already beleaguered majority.

It’s been clear for some time that Democrats would lose seats in the Senate this November. But --for all the good it's done them -- they do have a rather overwhelming majority, and it’s been widely assumed that come next year, they'd still be in control. Does the conventional wisdom need some rethinking? Pundits, at least, demand to know.

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"Are there some costs? Yes sir, there are some costs," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.. But of the array of studies that show restricting greenhouse gases will lead to higher energy prices, he said, "none of them factor in the cost of doing nothing."

Kerry was the leadoff witness as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began a series of marathon hearings this week on a bill that would cap greenhouse gas pollution from power plants and large industrial facilities. The bill aims to reduce emissions 80 percent by mid-century. Kerry is an author of the legislation.

Republican members of the panel were in lock step in their criticism of the so-called "cap-and-trade" legislation, characterizing it as a huge energy tax on average Americans.

"Cap and trade is very expensive. This is something the American people can't tolerate and I don' think they will," said Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the panel's ranking Republican and a vocal skeptic of climate chance science.

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At an event on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., announced their version of the cap-and-trade legislation.

"We know clean energy is the ticket to strong, sustainable economic growth," Boxer said. Kerry echoed Boxer's optimism about the measure. "Ultimately, this bill is about keeping Americans safe," he said. President Obama lauded the tandem, saying in a prepared statement, "With the draft legislation they are announcing today, we are one step closer to putting America in control of our energy future and making America more energy independent."

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So we're talking about Sonia Sotomayor here, right? Or at least, Sen. Lindsey Graham’s version of her, delivered in a lecture on how she could improve her personality so she'd stop being a "terror" and "difficult"?

Nope. The criticisms I quoted above are actually all anonymous attacks on Sen. Barbara Boxer in an article running today in Politico. Funny how all these prominent Democratic women seem to need anger management.

The Politico piece claims that Democrats -- all anonymous -- don’t trust Boxer to shepherd climate change legislation through the Senate. Says one Democratic aide, “People don’t look at her as the person who’s going to make a deal and bring both sides to the table. Her way is the only way.” Says another, “You can’t just do this by guilting folks. It has to be an orderly process where every member has their say.”

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Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a press conference on Tuesday stressing the need for bi-partisan support for global-warming legislation.

“We are working with the minority side, painstakingly, one Senator at a time,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the committee.

Boxer and her colleagues outlined their “principles” for legislation to fight global warming. Boxer gave few specifics about the content of the legislation, but did say that it would adhere to cap-and-trade principles to combat carbon emissions. The California Democrat said that she believed bipartisan support was possible for this new version of a cap-and-trade bill that failed to pass the Senate last year.

Not a single GOP member of the committee attended. Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s (D-N.J.) remarks may have shown why. “It is in this very room where skepticism prevailed, where it was said that global warming was the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people,” Lautenberg said, referring to Republicans on the committee. “What an outrage.”

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