Dean Andal was supposed to be a threat to our Jerry McNerney, but that has all changed. Why? Because Andal does business like most Republicans do, illegally:

CA-11: Very bad news for the GOP: even their very strongest recruits are struggling, according to the Cook Political Report.

State Assemblyman Dean Andal was considered one of the most dangerous GOP candidates this cycle, as he sought to take out freshman Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney. Cook had rated this race a tossup, but it seems that as Andal has become enmeshed in scandal over the past few months (surprise, surprise), his chances are no longer quite so good. Cook has moved the race to "Leans Democratic":

Although this race is still likely to be very competitive, evidence suggests freshman Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney's prospects of coming back to Washington have improved a bit over the past several months. Not only has former GOP Assemblyman Dean Andal turned in several sub-par fundraising quarters in a row, but he has also spent a lot of the last month on the defensive, answering questions about his role as a consultant for a community college development project.

In June, a San Joaquin civil grand jury report took the San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees to task for misappropriation of a $250 million public grant to build a new campus. The report said board members violated the law by leaking information from their deliberations on the location of the campus to a developer, PCCP Mountain House LLC. The report alleged that PCCP's consultant, quickly revealed to be Andal, improperly used his knowledge of the closed-session deliberations to lobby board members to pursue a more expensive location to develop.

Andal has denied ever having improper conversations, but the story has lent Democrats new ammunition for ads. The DCCC was already planning on defining Andal before Andal or his allies could take to the air, and they were planning to portray his legislative voting record as quixotically libertarian. Now, they will be hitting Andal from a few different angles, and environmental groups have expressed interest in piling on by making Andal the same kind of target they made former GOP Rep. Richard Pombo in 2006.

When things go bad for the GOP, they really go bad, case in point, Dean Andal, candidate for CA CD11 currently held by our very own Jerry McNerney (who beat out Pombo in 2006). Seems that Andal just can't get enough of his fellow Republicans to donate to this campaign, and he raised only $190,000 during the last reporting period.

Andal isn't going to be able to look to the national Republican organizations for money either, as they are not only being out raised by Democrats, they are resorting to lies about the amount of money they raise:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This afternoon the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced it raised $13.5 million dollars for tonight's "The 2008 President's Dinner." The $13.5 million is the largest amount raised by the NRSC in five years.

The joint fundraising event for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and President George W. Bush's final "The President's Dinner" raised $21.5 million dollars total.

Truth from the fundraising reports filed with the feds:

Total Raised in June: $6.04 million

Does it surprise anyone at all the the GOP can't figure out what is going on with their fundraising? Or that they have to resort to lies in order to make a bad situation look better? Sound familiar?

This is just standard operating procedure for the GOP: First they can't raise much money, then they lie about what they do raise. Tsk, tsk, once again caught.