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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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Preparing for the World Cup, three big banks issued data-heavy reports predicting which nation will bring home the trophy (Update: That trophy is no longer named for Jules Rimet, as this post originally stated): UBS, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. And none of them show much love to the United States -- no matter how much Washington has agreed to help them stay on top of global commerce in the wake of the economic collapse.

The recipient of $25 billion in TARP funds in 2008, Morgan is by far the worst offender. Its guide to the tournament, produced by the bank's "quants" (yes, that's the same term used for the math wizards whose models utterly failed to predict the collapse of the housing market), expects the U.S. to lose to England on Saturday, follow that up with a loss to unheralded Slovenia on June 18, then finally salvage some pride with a win over Algeria on June 23 -- which would be too little, too late to advance to the tournament's knockout stage. And just like that, the Yanks would head home, losers, along with the likes of New Zealand, Paraguay and North Korea.

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Romney sent Sharron Angle, Harry Reid's new opponent (and, possibly, political savior) a $5,000 check from his PAC, the maximum donation allowed by campaign finance law. He also endorsed Brian Sandoval, after he knocked off Gov. Jim Gibbons in a GOP primary. "Instead of focusing on turning our economy around and fostering job creation and economic growth, too many of our leaders are instead focused on growing the size of government," Romney said in a statement. "That is why Nevada is fortunate to have leaders like Brian Sandoval and Sharron Angle, who will work to get our economy back on track."

With the 2012 Republican presidential primary set to start on Nov. 3, the day after the midterm elections, Romney has been busy endorsing candidates all over the country, and especially in early primary states like Nevada. Last night was a good one for one of his picks, Nikki Haley, who fell just short of winning the GOP gubernatorial nod in South Carolina and seems sure to win a runoff. But Romney hadn't gotten involved in the Nevada race up to now -- which was probably wise, since the GOP establishment backed loser Sue Lowden, and endorsing Angle before she won the nomination might have made Romney look a bit too enthusiastic about the Tea Party set.

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Facing Harry Reid, a Senate majority leader even more vulnerable than Tom Daschle was six months before he lost his reelection race in 2004, the party opted Tuesday to nominate, as their champion, Sharron Angle -- a little-known, poorly funded Tea Party favorite who might make Rand Paul look experienced and polished. She wants to abolish Social Security, phase out Medicare, once said alcohol should be illegal and whined in April that she couldn't bring her guns to Washington.

Then again, the folks Angle beat to win the nomination weren't exactly world class politicians, either. Establishment pick Sue Lowden -- who Tea Party activists in Nevada hated because, as party chairwoman, she had dared to cross Ron Paul during the 2008 presidential primary campaign -- was leading for months. Until she collapsed suddenly, after babbling about people bartering chickens for healthcare and drawing legal challenges over a campaign bus. Businessman Danny Tarkanian never managed to get any buzz for his own race, which seemed to be grounded entirely in the fact that his father had coached the UNLV Runnin' Rebels.

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Lincoln narrowly escaped becoming became the fifth member of a not-so-illustrious club of incumbents who lost primary challenges Tuesday, beating Lieutenant Gov. Bill Halter in a runoff election for the Democratic nomination for the job she holds now. It was a defeat for progressives, who had longed to dump the moderate-to-conservative Lincoln; unions spent millions supporting Halter -- and attacking Lincoln for voting for NAFTA, opposing the Employee Free Choice Act and wavering on healthcare reform, among other perceived heresies. MoveOn.org kicked in another few million, and groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Daily Kos readers sent several hundred thousand dollars each. (The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile -- which almost always supports Republicans -- spent $300,000 on ads for Lincoln, though labor officials noted that the Chamber more or less let Lincoln go once the race went to a runoff.)

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With closely watched elections in California, Nevada, Arkansas and South Carolina (and less well-known contests in eight other states), here's a guide -- in chronological order -- of what to watch for as the returns come in.

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And so this week, more than a month into the horrific Gulf oil spill, Hayward managed to sink to a new low.

"There's no one who wants this over more than I do," the beleaguered oilman told the "Today Show" on Sunday. "You know, I'd like my life back."

Watch here:

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The first round of voting last month left Lincoln short of the 50 percent threshold needed to win the nod outright -- as a surprising 13 percent of votes went to D.C. Morrison, seen as a protest candidate -- and set up Tuesday's election. Turnout next week could be far lower than in the first round, though, which probably doesn't bode well for Lincoln. The most committed voters are likely to be the ones who want a change; that probably means they're backing Halter.

A new poll out Friday by Research 2000 for the Daily Kos showed Halter leading, 49-45 -- slightly up from last week's result. Among people who voted for Morrison who plan to turn out again, Halter led by 10 points.

Lincoln's campaign has been pushing harder and harder on the idea that Halter is the candidate of outside interests, not Arkansans, playing up his support from MoveOn.org and big labor unions (which, though they have members in Arkansas, aren't wildly popular there).

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Ignore Republicans, like Rep. Darrell Issa, who want you to think there's been some nefarious violation of the law here. After all, there's no indication any actual promises of jobs were made -- which means even former Bush administration officials are saying there doesn't seem to be any evidence of any crime. (And Romanoff had already applied online for jobs with the administration when deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina contacted him to discuss options.) What the disclosures about Sestak and Romanoff really show is that the White House political machine isn't doing its job very well.

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Florida authorities say Greer took at least $125,000 in GOP funds for his own personal use, and they charged him with four counts of grand theft, one count of money laundering and one count of running an organized fraud scheme. Officials say Greer set up a company, Victory Strategies, and hired it for the Florida party to raise money -- and keep 10 percent of what it brought in. Greer had resigned his post in February, facing questions about the party's extravagant credit card spending.

But Crist had been a patron of Greer's, taking advantage of his post as governor to install him as chairman of the state party. Crist pushed hard for Greer in 2007, after Greer had raised money for Crist's gubernatorial campaign the year before.

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Griffith quit the Democratic Party in December, citing healthcare reform -- and a generalized dislike for, oh, pretty much everything the party stands for -- as his reason. The Republican establishment welcomed him with open arms, trumpeting the leap as another good omen for the GOP's November 2010. (Mostly open arms, that is, except when they accidentally attacked him in party-funded mailings.) At the time, Griffith seemed to be making the right move -- Democrats had stalled in their push for the healthcare bill, President Obama (never particularly popular in Griffith's district) was watching his approval ratings plunge and elections the month before had mostly gone well for the GOP. But on the ground back home, activists weren't so quick to get on board. In Madison County, Alabama, the local party endorsed anyone but Griffith in a three-way race. The Tea Party blasted Griffith, calling him a Republican in name only -- which was hard to refute, since he'd only been a Republican for a few months.

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What was this urgent dispatch? "Reid Waterboarding The Economy." And the dogged newspaper that ran it? The Angle Examiner.

Yes, Sharron Angle -- the surging Tea Party candidate in Nevada's Republican Senate primary -- has her own four-page "newspaper," which her campaign prints up and she hands out at events. Other headlines in the most recent issue -- which is labeled "Important Primary Voter Edition, 2010" -- include "The Right Angle: One of Us for U.S. Senate," "Angle Says Reid's Grasp on Reality Disappearing Faster than Jobs," and "Angle Attends 14 Nevada Tea Parties."

Obviously, the Angle Examiner is, in some ways, just a quirkier form of the campaign pamphlets and literature every candidate for office produces. But the breathless tone of its writing, and the very un-slick design, makes it seem like one more piece of evidence that Angle may not be quite ready for prime time.

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After a vote in the House, Sestak wandered out of the chamber and was immediately surrounded by nearly a dozen reporters. There was serious business to investigate, after all; someone somewhere had engaged in a political act, in a way that might have influenced politics! Many candidates would have walked away immediately. Sestak, though, is congenitally unable to ignore people waiting to talk to him (and constantly apologizes when, inevitably, the conversation does come to an end). So after waiting five minutes or so for a reporter from the Allentown, Pa., Morning Call to show up, he started taking questions about the "scandal" over the job offer.

As it turned out, he had very little to say. "All this will come all out tomorrow," he said, stumbling over his words as he tried to assure the media scrum that President Obama's promise that the White House would issue a statement on the matter "shortly" would, in fact, come true. "All this will come out, I think, as soon as the White House decides to speak, and then I'll have something to say."

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Ah, Drudge. Don't ever change!

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The way it works is, basically, anyone who wants to can post whatever they want, and Republicans will use their comments in town halls and campaign manifestoes this fall. So far, the site has mostly been notable for two things. The first is strange comments: "Congressmen and women should wear Saran Wrap to work" was featured on the site's "Transparency/Open Government" section on Thursday morning, and the featured idea under "Constitutional Limits" was, "We should apologize to King George III. He was mentally handicapped, and he couldn't help but horribly mismanage the government." The second, of course, is the fact that taxpayer dollars are funding the whole thing. The site is being paid for out of the GOP leadership budget, despite its dot-com (not dot-gov) name.

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"Families, seniors, and job-creators in the Evergreen State deserve an independent-minded leader who will represent their values and fight for their best interests -- not another rubberstamp for President Obama and the Democrat party leaders in D.C.," National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee spokeswoman Amber Marchand said in a statement welcoming Rossi. "That's why we are confident that voters will hold Patty Murray accountable for her out-of-step voting record and elect a Republican as their next U.S. Senator this November."

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But as Alex Pareene has already noted, this isn't exactly the first time someone in politics cut a deal for a job. When Sen. Judd Gregg was going to leave Congress to join the Obama administration -- which, in the end, he didn't do, because he realized he disagreed with everything President Obama stands for -- he wasn't going to take the appointment to become commerce secretary unless his replacement in New Hampshire's Senate seat would caucus with the GOP.

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"She voted to raise taxes, supported huge spending increases, and backed Harry Reid for years," the ad says. It also blasts Lowden for her own ads attacking Sharron Angle, the right-wing candidate the Club for Growth endorsed last week.

Lowden has been plunging in polls for weeks, helped along by her bizarre assertions that healthcare delivery was better back in the days when you could barter for medical services (trading things like, oh, chickens). Reid's campaign has tried to hasten Lowden's decline, figuring Angle poses less of a threat in the general election; lately, Reid and Nevada Democrats have been sending frequent updates to the press on a mini-scandal involving a motor home Lowden received, possibly in violation of campaign finance rules.

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But the end result of both get-togethers seemed to be about the same: Obama and the Republicans didn't find much they agreed on. (The main difference this time, of course, is that the president didn't get to humiliate his adversaries in public.) "It was a good exchange, a candid exchange on both sides," said GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., after lunch. Translated out of the diplomatic niceties of institutional Senate-speak, that means they didn't get along so well; Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts described Obama as "thin-skinned" afterwards.

"You can't tell when someone gets a little irritated?" Roberts asked reporters, sounding a little irritated, when pressed to elaborate. "Just little things that went on."

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