Criminal charges coming in the petition signature scandal that ended Thaddeus McCotter's congressional career.

"McCotter's campaign turned in more than 1,830 petition signatures by the May 15 filing deadline."

However, all but 244 of them were tossed after the Secretary of State's Office found widespread photocopying of petition signature pages, copying and pasting of past signatures with changes to the date, and alterations of petition ID numbers.

Did McCotter insiders do it?

Thaddeus McCotter — after "nightmarish month and a half" — resigns from Congress.

He says:

The recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must ‘strike another match, go start anew’ by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.”

The quote about the match is from Bob Dylan.

And what will he do now? He says he faces "diminishing prospects" and is "both unwilling and ill-suited to lobby," but I think it's pretty obvious he's got a cool personal style and a way with words. And he's made a TV pilot:

"Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown" starred McCotter hosting a crude variety show cast with characters bearing the nicknames of his congressional staffers, his brother and a drunk, perverted "Black Santa." They take pot shots about McCotter's ill-fated bid for the White House while spewing banter about drinking, sex, race, flatulence, puking and women's anatomy....

Whatever happened to Thaddeus McCotter?

Oh, no!

According to the Secretary of State's website, McCotter had turned in 2,000 signatures, the maximum allowable. Congressional candidates must turn in at least 1,000 and no more than 2,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The Secretary of State didn't say how many signatures McCotter could be short by, but spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau said Friday night that duplicate signatures were among the problems with McCotter's petitions. When duplicates are found, both signatures are bounced from the petitions.

He's trying to get on the ballot in the Republican primary for reelection in his congressional district. This is a screwy problem to have. We loved McCotter as a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, but he never had a high enough percentage of support to get into the debates, where — I imagine — he would have been fabulous.

"It gets a little lonely over here in Siberia from time to time" was the wry whine from the under-included Jon Huntsman at the debate last night.

But does he have serious cause for complaint? Personally, I would love to hear from Thaddeus McCotter. Remember him? He was kept out of the debates entirely because he didn't hit a point in the polls — 1% — that was within the margin of error. Huntsman, benefited by inclusion in multiple debates, still hasn't worked his percentage up above the 1% mark.

It makes sense for the moderators to apportion the time with some regard to the polls! One-percenters are lucky to be included in the debate at all, especially this late in the game, when they've proven, over the weeks, that they are not gaining ground. Huntsman's poll numbers are flatlining.

This was a prime-time network debate. It wasn't wrong, at this point, to use some approach other than egalitarianism. They had equality of opportunity at the start of what has been a long series of debates. At some point, meritocracy kicks in. The people have shown they're most interested in comparing a set of 4 or 5 of the candidates to each other, and those on the outs should be grateful that they're given a shot at all.

The question isn't why is Huntsman getting so many fewer questions than Romney/Cain/Perry/Gingrich. The question is why is he getting so many more questions than Thaddeus McCotter?

And here's a news report revealing that CBS consciously chose poll-based proportionality. The Bachmann campaign got its hands on some internal CBS email:

In the email string, CBS News’ political analyst John Dickerson said that Bachmann was “not going to get many questions during the debate and she’s nearly off the charts,” a reference to the Minnesota congresswoman’s low standing in the polls....

“There’s nothing that can be done now. The debate’s over,” [Bachmann spokeswoman Alice] Stewart said. “They assured us prior to debate that it was going to be a fair and level playing field and it certainly wasn’t. We didn’t want to have to get the word out but they made it clear to us that it was going to be fair and it wasn’t.”

It's a level playing field if you view the game as beginning months ago! You had equal opportunity at the outset, but you've been doing poorly, and it's a meritocracy. Playing the "fairness" card now makes you sound like a liberal arguing for affirmative action... in a situation where there was no deprivation of opportunity at the outset.

Paul’s spokesman Jesse Benton accused CBS of “disgraceful” actions that stemmed from an “arrogance” in thinking that “they can choose the next president.”

“Ron Paul consistently polls among the top three in the key early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire,” Benton said in a statement. “He is polling in double digits in most respected polls. 

Now, Paul does deserve attention, for the reason stated. But I think he got some great openings last night. He had the chance to distinguish himself as strongly opposed to all torture (defined unstingily) and to all undeclared wars. But he only had 90 seconds total, and so something beyond poll-based proportionality infused CBS's decisionmaking.

After the moderator Scott Pelley defended CBS's choices:

“I’ll tell you that the time for all of the candidates was limited. We had an hour and a half. We had eight candidates... I’ll also tell you we spent an enormous amount of time, several weeks, counting all of the questions of all the candidates, making sure everyone had a fair shot. Gov. Huntsman, who is polling around 1 percent at this point, made a point of coming up to me on stage and said, ‘I really appreciate how much you talked to the candidates who are not polling very high in numbers.’ So I think the candidates felt they were well treated.”

Oh, is Huntsman gunning for a network job? He's clever. Sucking up like that.

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene said:

A clever politician like Huntsman should know better than to joke about Siberia.

What if he had said "Nazi camp" instead?

Is Huntsman about to get McCottered?

He can't seem to hit the threshold — 2% in the polls — for inclusion in the next debate. That's what ended the candidacy of Thaddeus McCotter.

I'm so sad they let Gary Johnson into the GOP debate but not Thaddeus McCotter.

And now McCotter is withdrawing, saying, "It was sort of death by media."

James Taranto comments:

[Gary] Johnson, who served as governor of New Mexico from 1995 through 2003, is ideologically similar to Rep. Ron Paul, which is to say that he is a hard-core economic conservative whose foreign-policy views tend toward isolationism....

His speaking style is as bland as his ideological views are astringent....

That doesn't mean Fox is wrong to include him in its debate. True, his chance of being the Republican nominee is so low as to be indistinguishable from zero. But that's true of a majority of the other candidates who'll be on stage with him. His ideas deserve a hearing, and a presentation from someone who doesn't seem wild-eyed.

But if Gary Johnson is allowed in the debate, for goodness' sake, why wasn't Thaddeus McCotter? The representative from Michigan's 11th District is the most entertaining political speaker we've ever seen, with the possible exception of Sarah Palin. We don't agree with him on everything--he's one of the few Republicans to support forcible unionization by "card check"--but again, his ideas deserved a hearing. And he has the added advantage of being great fun to watch....

But it's not about fun, and it really isn't fair to the frontrunners for the characters to be playing a different, distracting game.

And hang out with me here when the debate starts this evening at 9 ET/8 CT. We're back to Fox News, so... presumably, more attention to what's wrong with Obama and fewer of those wedge issues that seem designed to stoke anti-GOP loathing.

"Pawlenty dropping out opens the door for McCotter to break the 1% threshold."

IMs Meade from across the room, linking here. Meade, you should know, loves Thaddeus McCotter and missed his formidable presence in last week's debate:

Mr. McCotter, a well-read, guitar-playing congressman who’s been known to quote rock-n-roll lyrics and obscure philosophers in the same breath, wasn’t included in the debate lineup because he doesn’t garner 1% in national polls, the threshold established by Fox News, a co-sponsor of the debate. Fox News and The Wall Street Journal are both owned by News Corp.