“What little edge Teague had, as a Democratic freshman in a Republican-leaning district, fled when his Republican predecessor — Steve Pearce, the state’s unsuccessful 2008 Senate nominee — announced he would run in 2010 to try to reclaim the House seat he’d held for three terms,” CQ Politics says in a story about changing the race from “Leans Democratic” to “Tossup.”

Meanwhile, a study shows that online town-hall style meetings can help a member of Congress with approval ratings and, consequently, re-election according to Tech President.

“Most intriguing, these kinds of meetings can sway constituent opinion in ways that face-to-face townhalls may not,” Tech President writes.

Meanwhile, a key Senator in the public option battle, Mary Landrieu, D-La., is now on the fence about the public health insurance option, our sister site the Washington Independent reports.

With Landrieu “On the Fence,” there are no Democrats remaining in the “Likely Opponents” column in the Senate Public Option Scoreboard. Just one Republican — Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine — is “On the Fence,” and none are “Likely Supporters.” Overall, there are 47 probable yes votes for a public option, 38 likely no’s and 15 senators on the fence.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will make a major announcement at 3:15 ET, that would be 1:15 New Mexico time, today about health care reform.

Right now it appears that there will be an opt out provision for the public option, which would allow individual states to reject the public health insurance option.

From his Facebook update:

At 4 p.m. today, he will be at Western New Mexico University in Silver City.Friday, he will be in Reserve, from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at Reserve High School.

And New Mexico First is hosting a town hall featuring Bingaman on Monday in Albuquerque. For more information on the Albuquerque town hall, please contact New Mexico First.

You can find New Mexico First at NMFirst.org.

Unfortunately, because I didn’t have much of a problem with much of Cole’s piece, the “love-in” part of the column made the headline (at least in the online version, I only read the Journal in print form on Sundays. Sorry, guys). So it automatically colors the piece as being critical of the liberal nature of the town hall.

And it was undoubtedly friendlier to Luján than health care town hall meetings have been to some of his colleagues during their August recess.

One of Cole’s colleague at the Albuquerque Journal reported there were 61 “left-leaning” questions to 17 “right-leaning” questions. Corey Pein of the Santa Fe Reporter wrote, “That sounds fairly representative of Santa Fe’s political demographics.”

In other words, the demographics of the town hall were pretty much right for the city where it was held.

Congressman Barney Frank, the very-liberal Congressman from the very-liberal Massachusetts, put it best when he confronted some of the town-hall screamers at a recent town hall in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

An attendee got smacked down by the openly gay, Jewish Congressman when she called the health care reform legislation a “Nazi policy” and asked why he supported such legislation.

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Frank asked rhetorically. And later, “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.”

And what he said is, in many respects, true. Not only for the screamers in the town hall meetings, but also for people like Sarah Palin and her “death panels” and Newt Gingrich and just about any of his statements on health care reform. These screamers, in both the town halls and on cable news, want to disrupt, not discuss.

If a reporter wanted to find this type of distraction, he could have went to Clovis for a town hall meeting with U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, were there were 400 people, many of which were against the public option. Which is not a surprise because the area is as conservative as Santa Fe is liberal.

What wasn’t reported, however, about the Clovis town hall, however, was that at least a quarter of the audience were members of AFL-CIO. And so were supportive of the public option.

But that isn’t the sort of thing that makes headlines. It’s the screamers who don’t want to debate, but instead disrupt, that make the headlines.

Oh, and as for those “death panels” that the conservative bigwigs Sarah Palin have been talking about made up? Leslie Linthicum in her Up Front column today, highlights that what they say is a load of… you know what.

Linthicum quotes Stacey Williams Abdalla, a registered nurse at Hospice of the Sandias, who said of end-of-life counseling, “It’s not offering euthanasia. It’s not encouraging decisions in either way. It’s showing options.”

This is the sort of rational debate that we need to have about this legislation. On its merits and facts, not on distorted or blatantly made up provisions.

Even if it doesn’t make the best headline.