Holy cow, Richard Pombo must be weathering the recession harder than most. He's willing to move congressional districts just to find a job! As long as that job's in Congress, it would seem. 

Yep, that's right, ole Dick Pombo is running for Congress this year, albeit from a different (slightly more conservative) district than the one he represented for more than a decade. The NY Times has a write up here, and while it's all well and good to make jokes, this is a pretty sad state of affairs. 

First off, there's the whole carpet-bagging aspect -- and to be clear, I was FURIOUS when Hilary Clinton moved to my old state to run for the senate, so I'm not being partisan here -- which drives me mental. If we're not going to take the idea of representational democracy seriously, we really should just scrap it. 

Secondly, this guy is HORRIBLE. He's terrible for the environment, terrible for Congress, terrible for California. He's a bad idea. He ranked lowest on every environmental group's scorecard, and is an avid hater of environmental protections. 

The question is, will he be the right or wrong kind of far-right for the ever splintering Republican party? I wouldn't be surprised to hear him coming out as a tea-bagger in the not-too-distant future.