Ah, there's been an explosion of irony in aisle four. Muckrakers, your assistance is needed.

The National Review, as part of a profile of former Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) new gig at a right-wing think tank heading up their "America’s Enemies" program, reveals that "The former senator also plans to join a law firm in D.C.," as a lobbyist, we presume.

“I’m talking to a few firms right now," Santorum told the magazine.

Now, Pennsylvania voters tossed him out of office in part because of his role heading up the GOP effort to plug Republican lobbyists up with serious corporate cash, a chunk of which went to Republican campaign coffers. The "K Street Project," it was called. Named after the street on which it appears Santorum will soon be working.

Note: Thanks to TPM Reader BK.

The shadowy RNC-connected front group the "Progressive Policy Council" is still at it, trying to discourage liberal voters from going to the polls on Tuesday. And thanks to TPM reader JA, you can see their two recent mailings here and here.

The first PPC mailer, if you remember, went out this past weekend in Pennsylvania, attacking both Senate candidates for being too conservative on key progressive issues. We had an awful time finding any information about the group, but eventually discovered that they are represented by the former Deputy General Counsel to Bush-Cheney '04.

The group's lawyer has not returned our telephone calls, and our emails to the address provided on the group's Web site have garnered no response.

But mistake about it -- this fake group has real resources. It's impossible to tell how widely their mailers have been distributed, but we heard from a number of TPM readers who'd received the mailing.

The two new mailings are very similar to the initial one, which concentrated on gay marriage, comparing Dem Bob Casey's and Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) views on gun control and stem cell research, and stating "there's no difference." Like the other mailings, the PPC identifies itself as "a not-for-profit organization seeking to educate the public and to advocate for progressive public policy solutions for contemporary social issues."

We should note that the group has finally constructed an almost-completely-professional-looking, one-page Web site, although it provides no information about the group, such as an office address, staff list, leadership bios, board of directors, a telephone number, or any programming details. "Full site coming soon!" it says. We're not holding our breath.

The front-running GOP candidate for Tom DeLay's old House seat is accusing Democrats of dirty tricks -- but a look at a similar tactic in Pennsylvania, apparently by her own party, shows how a dirty trick is really done.

The candidate, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, is upset about a mailer the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently spent $50,000 to send to voters in her district, TX-22 -- but not because the mailer attacks her. The DCCC targets another Don Richardson, another GOP candidate who's trailing badly in polls. In its mailer, the DCCC attacks him for being "too conservative" for the district.

The DCCC won't discuss its strategy here, but it's pretty transparent: They're hoping to boost Richardson's name recognition and help him peel votes away from Sekula-Gibbs, who is the GOP-endorsed nominee. (DeLay's botched late resignation, you might remember, has left Republicans without a candidate on the ballot -- so Sekula-Gibbs, the GOP's endorsed write-in nominee, has been forced to compete with Richardson and Libertarian Bob Smithers for every conservative voter she can get.) Here's the mailer (click to enlarge):

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Well, I think we have our answer as to who is behind the Progressive Policy Council, the phony group behind a mailer that's gone out to an untold number of Pennsylvania voters in an apparent attempt to sour liberal voters on Democrat Bob Casey.

Records with the Virginia State Corporation Commission show that the group's charter was filed by a man named Jason Torchinsky of Holtzman Vogel. And who is he?

His bio at his law firm gives a good idea:

Jason Torchinsky recently joined Holtzman Vogel PLLC with a primary focus on campaign finance and election law. During the 2004 election cycle, Jason served as Deputy General Counsel to Bush-Cheney '04 and Deputy General Counsel to the 2005 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Immediately before joining the firm, Jason was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice. Jason has also served in other positions at the White House and at the United States Department of Justice. At the White House, he worked for now-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the Counsel's Office. At the Department of Justice, Jason served as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and in the Eastern District of Wisconsin as a Special Assistant United States Attorney....

Jason's prior political experience includes the Republican National Committee Counsel's Office, the Dole-Kemp campaign, the 1996 Republican National Convention, and Congressman Herb Bateman's re-election campaign.

Actually, it turns out that diminishing voter turnout is somewhat of a hobby for Torchinsky. Torchinsky is also affiliated with the American Center for Voting Rights, a conservative organization working to pass Voter ID laws in several states.

TPM readers might recall that this is not the first time that Republicans have mustered their resources to attack Bob Casey from the left. They even went so far as to fund Green candidate Carl Romanelli's Senate bid. That effort was derailed, however, when a judge ruled that Romanelli did not have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

My call to Torchinsky wasn't immediately returned.

Here's another thing to watch for this campaign season: front groups that attack Democrats from the left.

The Pennsylvania Senate race has provided a case in point. TPM Reader TC, who lives there, sent us a scan of a mailer he received Saturday. You can see it here. The mailing purports to be from a group called The Progressive Policy Council, which, according to the mailer, "is a not-for-profit organization seeking to educate the public and to advocate for progressive public policy solutions for contemporary social issues," and provides bullet points to show that Democrat Bob Casey and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) are both against gay marriage, stem cell research, and "common sense gun controls."

But as TC wrote us, there's something fishy about the group:

I live in PA and received this mailing Saturday. I can't quite make sense of who it is from. The organization listed has no info online about it. The website returns an access forbidden error and google and whois searches turn up nothing.

It smells to me like a Republican suppress the vote effort, as I cannot see a progressive organization mailing something like this out this close to the election. The underlying message seems to be: why bother voting for Casey.

Maybe you can make more sense of this or find out where it is from. Sorry for the quality of the scan - my wife ripped the mailing in half before I could get to it. I understand the impulse.

Indeed, the url on the mailer, www.progressivepolicycouncil.org, leads nowhere. And the group, despite its stated purpose to get the message out, definitely does not want to be contacted.

Whoever is behind the group, which was formed in mid-June, has taken care not to leave any public traces.

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The candidacy of Carl Romanelli, the Green who made a run for the Senate in Pennsylvania, may not have succeeded. The Pennsylvania courts ended his bid last month; a disappointment for the Santorum campaign, since that means he won't be siphoning any votes from the Democrat Bob Casey. But at least we've learned about the surprisingly progressive views among his Republican supporters.

When we pored over the contributor list for Romanelli's campaign before, we found a lobbyist for Halliburton and a hotel mogul among the unlikely group. Now Will Bunch has discovered Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater Security, which has the biggest mercenary security force in Iraq, is another closet lefty. Prince dropped $10,000 for Romanelli's campaign in July. Apparently, when Prince isn't using his connections to get a secret, no-bid contracts from the CIA, he's doing what he can for people power. Who knew?

Yet another deadly blow to the conservative backed bid to put Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli on the ballot in Pennsylvania. From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The prospect of a three-way U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania appeared all but over yesterday as the state Supreme Court rebuffed Green Party Senate candidate Carl Romanelli's bid to get on the November ballot.

The ruling, in a one-sentence order, was good news for the Bob Casey campaign, which had feared that Mr. Romanelli's presence on the ballot would siphon votes from the Democrat. For the same reason, it was a blow to Sen. Rick Santorum and to the Republican donors who had funded the petition drive that sought to establish the Green hopeful's access to the November ballot....

Virginia Davis, Mr. Santorum's press secretary, had no comment on Mr. Leaven's criticism, but she expressed disappointment at the court's action.

"It is a shame how difficult it is for someone who's demonstrated a sincere interest in being part of the democratic process to actually be on the ballot," she said. "Bob Casey and his cohorts should be ashamed at the efforts they went to knock someone off the ballot who's actually willing to say what he believes."

It's over. A judge has just ruled that Green Senate candidate Carl Romanelli is off the ballot in the Pennsylvania Senate race.

That strikes a deadly blow to Pennsylvania Republicans' gambit to draw votes away from Democrat Bob Casey by fielding a Green candidate. As we reported earlier, all of Romanelli's support was from conservative donors, and Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) volunteers worked hard gathering signatures to get Romanelli on the ballot. The Santorum campaign has admitted steering help toward the Romanelli campaign.

After Romanelli gathered almost 100,000 signatures to qualify, Democrats challenged the signatures' validity. A court fight followed, and now a judge has found that the Greens are short almost 9,000 valid signatures from the 67,000 required by law.

Update: The Greens have one last hope -- but it seems a long shot. The state supreme court has yet to rule on Romanelli's bid to change the threshold of signatures required by the law. If Romanelli won that motion, then he would only need about 16,000 signatures. But for now, Romanelli's off the ballot and would have to appeal to get back on.

Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) spokeswoman Virginia Davis offered a ringing endorsement of Green candidate Carl Romanelli in today's USA Today piece on third party candidates affecting certain races around the country. Yes, she admits that the campaign steered Republican dollars towards Romanelli, but they did it so that his voice was heard:

"We encouraged those who inquired to help with the Green Party effort.... We welcome Carl Romanelli's entry into the race because at least he's expressed a real interest in being up front and honest about where he is on the issues."

It seems that Romanelli was right when he commended his Republican donors last month for their commitment to a "free and open debate."

We're one step closer to learning whether the GOP-sponsored effort to secure the Green Party a spot on the Pennyslvania ballot will succeed. Today, a judge denied a Green Party effort to have the matter quickly resolved in its favor and punted the mess to the state supreme court.

It's just the latest step in ongoing battle between the Dems and Romanelli.

Funded by conservatives, Romanelli mounted a large-scale signature drive that netted nearly 100,000 signatures. He needed at least 67,000 to qualify, based on a Pennsylvania state law that requires candidates to gather 2 percent of the ballots cast for the largest vote-getter in the last statewide election race.

The Democrats have challenged Romanelli's signatures, alleging that nearly 70,000 of them are invalid.

But Romanelli's lawyer has tried to undercut the Dem's challenge by arguing that the law had been improperly applied by the state. The requirement of 67,000 signatures was based on Democrat Bob Casey's run in 2004 for state treasurer; but Romanelli's lawyer Lawrence Otter argued that the last statewide election was actually a 2005 judicial race.

If Romanelli's motion were to prevail, he'd only need 15,949 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. Today, a state judge ruled against the motion, but indicated that the case should ultimately be decided by the state supreme court due to its unique nature. Otter told me that he planned to file the appeal Monday.

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The AP has a report on today's fracas down at the Pennsylvania Department of State. Apparently that earlier report of the arrest of a Green volunteer was incorrect.

The fight broke out early on the fifth day of counting, although witnesses disputed who started it and who broke it up.

Democratic volunteer Alex Hartzler said a Green Party volunteer elbowed a Democratic volunteer, and that another Green Party volunteer threw a punch at a court official, who had moved in to break it up.

Green Party volunteer Charles Sherrouse said the court official was the first to become physical, grabbing another Green Party volunteer to break up the argument. The dispute ended in the hallway outside when Sherrouse and others separated the official and the volunteer, Sherrouse said.

The Green Party is being aided by volunteers who signed in from Santorum's campaign, and the signature counters have been arguing all week, witnesses said. The fight on Friday was the first physical altercation, they said.

Ed Myslewicz, Press Secretary for the Department of General Services, which oversees the Capitol Police, told me that six officers responded to the incident, but that they were able to restore order. No charges have been filed and no one was injured, he said.

We'd heard that things got out of control this morning down at the Pennsylvania Department of State, where Democratic, Republican, and Green volunteers are poring over thousands of contested signatures.

Now we're hearing that a Green Party volunteer was arrested for allegedly taking a swing at a court employee overseeing the process.

It's a heartwarming image -- Greens and Republicans working side by side.

Short of hands to help review thousands of contested signatures as part of the ongoing court battle between Democrats and Green Senate candidate Carl Romanelli, the Pennsylvania Green Party is getting some help from volunteers from Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) campaign.

To resolve Democrats' charges that most of the Greens' 100,000 signatures are invalid, a judge ordered that volunteers from both parties work side by side to establish whether they could agree on the validity of the signatures. The Department of State set up 9 computer terminals for the effort; at each station, a Democratic volunteer was to be paired with a Green volunteer. The effort is expected to take weeks.

But earlier this week, the Greens found themselves short of volunteers. So Republicans have arrived to help fill the gap. It's only natural: since GOP supporters paid for the Green signature drive, and Santorum volunteers helped collect the signatures, they have a vested interest in seeing this through to the end.

And they're not shy about it. This morning's sign-in sheet at the court shows two names, Ben Irwin and Brian Hunt, who identify their organization as "GOP - Santorum '06." All the other volunteers identified themselves as either with the Green Party or the Democratic Party, the two parties in the suit.

Yesterday, at least two of the volunteers were sent by Greg Rothman, a Santorum supporter. Rothman, who runs a real estate firm, told me that he'd asked "a couple college interns" to go "help out if they could." Rothman, who's given $2,000 to Santorum this election cycle, wouldn't tell me who'd asked him for the help.

Lawrence Otter, the lawyer for Green candidate Carl Romanelli, said he didn't know the party affiliation of those who showed up to help with the recount effort. “I don’t ask," he told me. "Why should I?”

So it continues.

As part of their ongoing challenge of the signatures gathered for Green Senate candidate Carl Romanelli, the Pennsylvania Democrats are analyzing them for fraud. And William J. Ries, a forensic document examiner working for them, has found that a petition signed by John Michael Glick, a Santorum staffer (of duck costume fame), has four "questionable" signatures.

The signatures belong to family members of another fellow staffer, Julianne George, Santorum’s Deputy Director of Coalitions. You can see a side by side comparison of the signatures here.

“The writing expert’s findings raise serious questions, not only about the illegal financing of the petition drive paid for by Santorum backers but how he authorizes the use of campaign staff for apparent fraud," Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman T.J. Rooney said.

Democrats say that more than 69,000 of the approximately 100,000 signatures gathered by Santorum staffers and JSM, Inc., a private company hired by the Greens with Republican money, are fraudulent.

It looks like the Republicans' gambit to get a Green candidate on the ballot in Pennsylvania is succeeding, by pulling votes from the Democratic candidate -- though not enough (yet) to throw the race to the GOP.

According to a new Quinnipiac University poll, with the Green, Democrat Bob Casey leads Rick Santorum 45 percent to 39 percent; Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli picks up 5 percent. In a two-way race, Casey leads 47 percent to 40 percent.

A letter to the editor in yesterday's Philadelphia Daily News reads:

I was one of the 100,000 Pennsylvanians who signed the "Romanelli petition" in an attempt to get him on the ballot for the November election, and I am revolted by Bob Casey's efforts to block his candidacy.

I think it is appalling when the first real action of a Senate candidate is trying to remove another candidate from the ballot, as has been the case with Bob Casey Jr. Not only has Casey remained silent on the issues, but now attempts to silence another voice seeking to join in the democratic process.

One hundred thousand Pennsylvanians have signed petitions to get Mr. Romanelli on the ballot, and Casey would just as soon see that they are cheated out of their efforts. This is the move of a career politician and someone who does not have the best interests of Pennsylvanians in mind.

The letter is signed by an Edward Smith of Flourtown, Pennsylvania.

It will surprise no one who's followed this story that an Edward Smith of Flourtown gave $500 to George W. Bush in 2003, according to FEC reports.

But maybe it's another Edward Smith? Maybe. But Flourtown has a population of approximately 5,000 and a search of 411 only turns up one Edward Smith there. And the letter does remarkably avoid any mention of the writer's political philosophy.

So it appears that not only did Republicans fund the Green candidate's signature drive and help staff that drive, but now they've taken to writing outraged letters to newspapers on his behalf.

Thanks to TPM Reader DB for catching this.

Late Update: TPM Reader JS points out that an Edward Smith is on the Montgomery County Republican Committee -- Flourtown is in the east part of Montgomery County.

On Friday, Green Senate candidate Carl Romanelli was left alone as the sole statewide Green Party candidate after the other two, running for Governor and Lt. Governor, dropped out. They say they don't have the money to fight a lawsuit by Democrats alleging that more than 69,000 of the signatures gathered to get them on the ballot were fraudulent.

But although he admits his campaign is "out of money," Romanelli says he'll find the money one way or the other. He won't be dropping out. "This is America," he told me, "money is like air. It's out there. You just have to be tenacious enough to go get it."

Romanelli raised $66,000 from conservative donors to fund the original signature drive. Rick Santorum's staffers also hit the pavement to gather signatures for him. In return, conservatives expect that Romanelli will be able to draw some votes away from Santorum's Democratic challenger, Bob Casey.

When I asked whether he'd be tapping the same well of deep pockets as before, he only said that he'd be writing letters and making phone calls, "just like any other campaign."

The farce continues. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Six staffers on Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign - including an intern who tailed Democratic candidate Bob Casey Jr. in a duck costume - collected voter signatures to help place the Green Party on the fall ballot.

The intern, petitions show, collected signatures from voters in five counties in one day.

T.J. Rooney, the state Democratic Party chairman, and other Democrats disclosed details of the petition drive that they said offered further evidence of involvement from Santorum supporters to get Carl Romanelli, the Green Party's Senate candidate, on the ballot. Not only did Santorum aides help collect signatures for Romanelli, but Republicans and Santorum supporters put more than $60,000 into the petition drive.

It's examples such as the apparent one-person, five-county petition tour - plus unregistered voters, multiple signatures by the same person, and fake names - that could form the basis of a challenge, Rooney said. John Michael Glick - the Santorum intern who has worn a duck costume to hound Casey for "ducking" issues - appeared to have collected signatures in Beaver, Washington, Fayette, Juniata, and Schuylkill Counties, Rooney said.

This morning I spoke with the Halliburton lobbyist who gave $1,000 to the Luzerne County (PA) Green Party.

"It was my wife" who made the contribution, Bill Wichterman told me. Wichterman, a well-connected GOP lobbyist, presumably backs Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), his onetime employer.

So, do the Wichtermans have a wacky Dharma-and-Greg thing going on? I asked Bill if his wife was a Green Party member.

"I'm not going to answer any questions about it," he replied.

Well, would your wife be willing to discuss the contribution?

"No, she wouldn't."

The Green Party's Senate candidate in Pennsylvania doesn't mind that his candidacy is completely paid for by Republicans. In fact, he says he was the one who approached them for donations.

In an interview yesterday, the Green candidate Carl Romenelli didn't flinch when I noted his campaign was funded entirely by GOP money. "It's quite possible," he said. "We received a lot of money from Republicans." Romanelli made the ballot, you'll remember, due to a voter signature drive funded by $66,000 from 20 conservative donors. The private company he hired was able to roust up over 90,000 signatures despite there being fewer than 20,000 registered Greens in Pennsylvania.

But Romanelli disputed the notion that he was being used by supporters of incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) in order to draw votes away from their Democratic challenger, Bob Casey. He said it showed that there was "enough mutual respect" between himself and his donors to have "a free and open debate."

"I respect the fact that people on the complete opposite side of an issue could respect my point of view," he told me. As Justin wrote yesterday, that respect came from an unlikely pool of GOP lobbyists and extremely wealthy donors.

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A Halliburton lobbyist giving money to the Green Party?

That's right, folks, you have now officially heard everything: A $1,000 donation to a local Pennsyslvania Green Party chapter came from Bill Wichterman, a senior lobbyist at Washington, D.C.'s Covington & Burling. Wichterman, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), now lobbies for such corporate behemoths as Halliburton, Chevron and Unisys.

A Green Party candidate in the Pennsylvania Senate race can't win -- even if he's well-funded. In fact, it might even throw the race to the Republican incumbent, Sen. Rick Santorum. But that hasn't deterred Wichterman and other GOP power players from quietly supporting their secret dream: to see a Green Party senator emerge from the Pennyslvania hills.

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OK, we've done it. We've nailed it down: Every single contributor to the Pennsylvania Green Party Senate candidate is actually a conservative -- except for the candidate himself.

The Luzerne County Green Party raised $66,000 in the month of June in order to fund a voter signature drive. The Philly Inquirer reported yesterday that $40,000 came from supporters of Rick Santorum's campaign (or their housemates). Also yesterday, we confirmed that another $15,000 came from GOP donors and conservatives. Only three contributions, totaling $11,000, remained as possible legit donations.

Today, I confirmed that those came from GOP sources.

- The Green Party listed a $1,000 check from a Bill Wickerman of Covington & Burling. There is no such person. However, a Bill Wichterman works there. He's a Republican lobbyist who has also given to Santorum this campaign.

- James Holman, who in the past has supported GOP House candidate Howard Kaloogian, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), was incorrectly listed by the Greens as "James Howmen." He disclosed that he was an editor at the San Diego Reader; a James Holman is the publisher there.

- The Green Party disclosed that a "Franklin Schoneman" of Pottsville, Pa. gave $5,000. A "Franklin Schoeneman" of Pottsville has given $8,000 to Santorum so far this election.

That leaves only one contribution, for $30, as a legitimate donation from a Green Party supporter. That came from the candidate himself, Carl Romanelli. He made it to his own campaign fund, not the local Green Party.

Romanelli's latest FEC report shows his campaign currently has $17.20 on hand.

We reported yesterday that the Green Party candidate in the race for Rick Santorum's seat is almost completely funded by Republicans. The Greens used the Republican money to hire a private company to collect enough signatures.

Today there's news that the Pennsylvania Dems will be challenging the signatures. From the Hotline:

The chairman of the PA Dem party, T.J. Rooney, said today he'll challenge the signatures that Green Party candidate Carl J. Romanelli submitted to join the Senate ballot. A number of those signatures were collected by JSM, Inc.

Rooney: “This is a questionable and controversial firm that has a history of fraudulent activity where many signatures, and candidates in some instances, have been thrown off the ballot in various states. We will ensure that this doesn’t take place in Pennsylvania and that the integrity of the electoral process is safeguarded.”

As the Hotline points out, "the Green Party counts fewer than 20K members in PA; it took 67K signatures to earn a spot, and Romanelli turned in more than 90K."