Hayworth, a loud and brassy opponent of illegal immigration, lost to Harry Mitchell, the comparatively low-key former mayor of Tempe. A former sportscaster and conservative talk show regular, Hayworth represented the rapidly growing and increasingly affluent district that encompasses Scottsdale and Tempe for 12 years. Mitchell ended that, in part by playing up Hayworth's links to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"There are people who are going to miss [Hayworth], because you never knew what he'd come up with," Ornstein said.
Environmental groups take a big share of credit for felling House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.), in part by spending about $1.5 million in his district. The advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife established a campaign office there in April, hired eight organizers, recruited 2,000 volunteers and knocked on 75,000 doors in the past three months.
Defenders of Wildlife political director Mark P. Longabaugh said his group hammered Pombo both on his environmental record and his "ethical transgressions" that stemmed from the congressman's close ties to special interests. "Pombo was just target-rich throughout this campaign," Longabaugh said. "It was the gift that just kept giving."
In Pennsylvania, senior House Armed Services Committee member and global conspiracy theorist Curt Weldon was thumped by retired Navy Vice Adm. Joe Sestak. Weldon, a committed internationalist fond of organizing freelance missions to the former Soviet Union, is under FBI investigation for allegedly channeling Russian business to his daughter's lobbying firm.
Pennsylvania's Republican rout -- which cost the GOP four House seats and saw the reelection of Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell -- also claimed Rick Santorum, the Senate's third-ranked leader, who was elected in the Republican landslide of 1994. His vocal support of the war, and anti-feminist, anti-gay views -- he once compared homosexuality to bestiality -- put him in the Democratic cross hairs. His was the first Republican Senate seat to fall -- to state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr. -- Tuesday night.
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