Last night, the Senate failed to approve the auto rescue package, voting 52-35 in favor of proceeding on the bill — just eight short of the 60 votes that were needed. Over on the Wonk Room, Dan Weiss takes a look at the 20 senators who voted for the Wall Street bailout but voted against the auto rescue last night (as well as the 10 others who skipped the vote last night, but voted for the financial bailout):

Biden was tending to transition duties, while Kerry was in Poznan, Poland, participating in U.N. climate change talks. Alexander was home recovering from surgery. Why did these other Senators feel auto workers weren’t as deserving as Wall Street? We’d like to know. If you see statements from them, please let us know by email or in the comments section.

On Wednesday, ThinkProgress reported on a holiday campaign by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a coal industry front group, featuring illustrated lumps of coal singing Christmas carols whose altered lyrics praised coal power. The campaign, which also featured a Facebook page, received widespread ridicule around the blogosphere and the press, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow devoted an entire segment to it Wednesday night.

Now ACCCE has scrubbed the “Coal Carolers” from its website; the link to the old carolers page redirects viewers to a blog post posting that “it’s time for them to go home for the holidays“:

The group’s Facebook page has also been taken down.

ACCCE did not find the mockery of its holiday campaign amusing. In fact, yesterday it published a touchy blog post defending its use of “Silent Night” — a song about the birth of Jesus Christ — to sell dirty energy. “I’ll put my years as a Sunday school teacher, church deacon and church musician up against just about anybody else when it comes to understanding hymnology and respect for religious traditions,” wrote ACCCE’s VP for Communications Joe Lucas. Nonetheless, it took down the “Silent Night” song.

If it’s true that ACCCE had intended this to be a short-lived campaign, it’s odd that they never previously mentioned that fact — and even odder that the entire campaign would have to be scrubbed from the website.

In his closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans on Wednesday, Vice President Dick Cheney urged them to get behind the auto rescue package. “If we don’t do this, we will be known as the party of Herbert Hoover forever,” Cheney said. Ignoring the White House’s plea, Senate Republicans have declared their interest in union-busting rather than aiding the auto industry workforce. CongressDaily reports that Sen. George Voinovich, who supported the auto loans, is among those urging Bush to move quickly with an auto rescue that would entail shifting funds from the $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who supported the loan, said: “I wouldn’t wait at all because the longer you wait, the worse it gets. One thing I’d sure not want to have on my record is I’m known as George Herbert Hoover Bush.“

Earlier this week, the Times-Picayune profiled the district’s new congressman Joseph Cao (R-LA), who beat out the indicted Democratic incumbent William Jefferson. As the first Vietnamese-American in Congress — and the only non-Hispanic minority in the GOP caucus — Cao is generating considerable excitement within his party for being able to capture a Democratic district.

Before his victory, almost no Republicans were paying attention to Cao. None of the Republicans in Louisiana’s congressional delegation donated to his race. “They just ignored me,” said Cao. “The message was, ‘Why waste our time?’”

Now, however, he is a conservative hero. On Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a memo titled, “The future is Cao.” Boehner wrote that the “Cao victory is a symbol of what can be achieved when we think big, present a positive alternative and win the trust of the American people.” Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has offered his services. According to a Times-Picayune report earlier this week, Gingrich has volunteered to be Cao’s liaison to the African-American community:

By midmorning Cao was interrupting an interview to take a call from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who offered good wishes and, Cao said, counseled him “to reach out to the African-American community.” Cao said Gingrich offered to act as a go-between.

ThinkProgress spoke with Cao’s spokesman Murray Nelson, who wouldn’t confirm or deny the Times-Picayune report or the extent of Gingrich’s involvement. Nelson stressed that he personally has “great respect” for the former Speaker but said that it wasn’t necessary for Gingrich to “show” them how to do minority outreach, since they had been doing it for some time:

Although it’s very nice and we appreciate and continue to work with the former Speaker in that regard, we already are reaching out to the African-American community. We’ve already attended an NAACP organizational meeting. We went to a Christmas party last night and had the best time. [...]

Within the district, we have plenty of people we partner with and work with to get into the community. … It’s not like the Speaker would be coming down here to show us how to do it. He’s done it.

ThinkProgress contacted Gingrich’s spokesman for a response, but we did not receive an answer.

Today, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan today filed an “unprecedented legal attack against a sitting Illinois governor,” taking initial steps to ask the state Supreme Court to declare Gov. Blagojevich unfit to serve:

Madigan filed paperwork with the state high court this morning, invoking what is known as Rule 382 that would ask justices to rule on “the ability of the governor to serve.” Madigan is seeking a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, urging the state high court to oust Gov. Blagojevich “due to disability.”

“Before this court reaches a final decision on the merits of this action or otherwise determines that such disability has been removed, Mr. Blagojevich should be temporarily and preliminarily enjoined from acting as governor because his continued occupation of that office could irreparably damage the state’s interests,” states the motion.

“We still think that it is imperative for the Legislature to make a decision and hopefully proceed with impeachment proceedings,” the attorney general said.