Todd Akin may feel safe enough to continue voting with Bush against the farm bill and the extension of unemployment insurance, but Republican congressmen who feel more vulnerable (say, for example, Sam Graves) are running to the left, hoping to put half a continent between themselves and their radioactive fuhrer.

Then there’s Kenny Hulshof, who does neither, does nothing. He’s MIA on those votes. So there, Sarah Steelman! Try pinning me down.

But she is trying, and it’s beautiful to see. She’s accusing him of being a D.C. insider. Her new ad nails him:

Narrator: A conservative group rates Congressman Hulshof’s big spending record in Washington “unfriendly to taxpayers.” He’s voted for 11,000 wasteful earmarks, including the “Bridge to Nowhere.” Conservative groups give him a failing grade on wasteful spending.

Now, Congressman Hulshof wants to take his wasteful spending record to the governor’s office.

The rest of Missouri’s Republican delegation came to Hulshof’s aid with this statement:

“It is disappointing that our fellow Republican, Sarah Steelman, would attack the good work of Missouri’s Republican representatives in Washington, D.C.  It is not helpful to take votes out of context, distort interest group ratings and cast aspersions on our motives at a time when we, along with Kenny Hulshof, are doing everything possible to thwart the extreme agendas of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

“Here are the facts.  Kenny Hulshof has a 95% rating from the Americans for TaxReform, a 95% lifetime rating from the US Chamber of Commerce, a 94% rating from Eagle Forum and an 89% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union.  Suggesting that Kenny Hulshof is anything but an effective and committed conservative leader is wrong, misleading and a disservice to voters.”

In other words: “Use some sense Sarah! You’re grabbing the party by the heel and pulling it under in a year when we’ve barely got our heads above the waves.”

You go, girl.

And she is. Unfazed by the censure of her party’s congressional delegation, she made the same accusation in a debate at the Lake of the Ozarks today and Hulshof shot back that she is ignorant of how bills are passed. He voted on the transportation bill, which included money for the Bridge to Nowhere. He didn’t have the choice of voting for the bill without that amendment (which, by the way, didn’t get funded in the end).

Often, the underdog is the first one to go negative, and Hulshof’s campaign is claiming that such is Steelman’s motive. He’s got Bluntco in his corner (Is that better or worse than being a buddy of Bush?) and lots of D.C. contributors. In fact, he has enough money for polls, and his poll shows him with a double digit lead: 39-26. I’m not much good at math, but that doesn’t add up to a hundred, does it? Apparently, 34 percent of the voters can’t decide between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. They’re both so far right. Or voters don’t know who either one of them is.

(Those of you who understand polling, enlighten me here. How does that question get phrased so that 65 percent of those polled pick one of these two winguts? Does it read something like: “If the Democrats decided not to run anyone in the governor’s race and somebody put a gun to your head and made you vote anyway, who would you go for: Hulshof or Steelman?”)

I’m almost giddy these days watching Republicans mill around like a herd of cattle trying to decide which direction the stampede should go: McCain is flip flopping like a Cirque du Soleil performer, the Missouri GOP is ripping itself to shreds over whether to support stem cell research, Republican state senators are balking at doing the latest bidding of Missouri Right to Life. And the contest between Hulshof and Steelman is going to get uglier–which in my book is beautiful.

And we don’t have to pinch ourselves. It’s no dream.