November 2009 Archives

11/30: Time To Stick A Fork In Huck?

The big story in the blogosphere is the revelation that the man suspected of killing four police officers in WA was granted clemency in AR nine years ago by ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). Conservative bloggers have never trusted Huckabee, and they're portraying this development as a huge blow to his WH '12 ambitions. Many bloggers are pointing out that "this isn't Huckabee's first [Willie] Horton moment," since Huckabee previously lobbied for parole for a convicted rapist who went on to rape and murder another woman after being released. Quin Hillyer declares: "Huckabee is no more fit to be president than Tiger Woods is fit to give driving lessons."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Bandes, Hinderaker, Morrissey, Horner, Reynolds, Steyn, Mirengoff, Vladimir) are still buzzing about the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which many right bloggers perceive as evidence that global warming is a hoax.
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Benen, Wheeler, Willis, Aravosis) are buzzing about a new Senate report which found that "Osama bin Laden was 'within the grasp' of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements." In related news, liberal bloggers (Siun, BooMan) continue to express skepticism about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
• Liberal bloggers (Marshall, Dayen, digby, Benen, Aravosis, Black) and several conservative bloggers (Reynolds, Geraghty) are buzzing about a "shocking" new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll which found that 40% of Dem voters are either "not likely [to] vote" or "definitely will not vote" in '10.

HUCKABEE: The Dream Is Over

Conservative bloggers are slamming Huckabee for commuting the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, the man suspected of killing four police officers in WA. They're also portraying his WH '12 prospects as doomed:

• Michelle Malkin: "The man being sought by police was granted clemency by former GOP Arkansas Mike Huckabee despite his violent history and vehement protestations from prosecutors and victims' family members. [...] This disaster is just one of Huckabee's ill-considered clemency legacies. Remember Wayne Dumond?"
• AmSpec Blog's Hillyer: "The fact that it was the asinine Mike Huckabee who commuted [Clemmons'] sentence merely confirms all the stories that I and others spent so much timne in 2007-2008 trying to alert people to -- namely, that Huckabee A) has massive ethical problems and B) that his history of commutations of criminals shows a reckless disregard for public safety and for victims' rights. [...] Huckabee is no more fit to be president than Tiger Woods is fit to give driving lessons. Huck now says he is leaning against running for president in 2012. It would be better if he changed 'in 2012' to 'ever.'"
• Legal Insurrection's William A. Jacobson: "[I]t is close to over for Huck. This is too Willie Horton-ish. Republicans hung Willie Horton around [ex-MA Gov. Michael] Dukakis' neck in 1988, and the same thing would happen to Huckabee regarding Clemmons, both in the primary and the general election. It would take some real political mastery for Huck to get out from under this. It is weird that just this morning Huck stated that a run was 'less than likely.' Yeah, I think so."

Conservative bloggers are also criticizing the statement released by Huckabee's PAC:

• Malkin: "Note the passive language and blame-shifting to prosecutors with no explicit mention of Huckabee's role in granting clemency over the objections of prosecutors."
• NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "Most commentary seems a bit premature, but, at the same time, this statement seems a bit passive for the former governor."
• Dan Riehl: "Huckabee is such a scheming coward, he didn't even put out his own statement on the clemency he granted Maurice Clemmons. It was released by his 'Press Team'. And no where is there an apology given, they don't even mention Clemmons by name. This is truly pathetic for a man who once fashioned himself as a leader. [...] Own it, you hypocrite. You said recently you weren't leaning toward running for office in 2012. It gives me great satisfaction to tell you, fahgit about it, Huck-abubba. You ain't got a Mormon's prayer in your personal Southern Baptist church of a chance. You've been exposed as the un-wholesome individual and quasi-liberal politician you always were. Thank God we don't have you to worry about in 2012. You didn't have the integrity to go away when you should have in 2008."

HUCKABEE II: Don't Blame Him For This Tragedy

Although liberal bloggers think Huckabee deserved the criticism he received for his role in helping to free Dumond, they don't think he was wrong to grant clemency to Clemmons:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "[B]ased on the few facts I have available, this looks like a reasonable use of clemency authority. [...] 60 years for burglary and theft for an eighteen year-old seems incredibly excessive. In this case, of course, you can't help but wish he were in fact still in prison. But it's hard to see what about a record of involvement in burglaries would make you think this was a guy at risk of doing something like this."
• Scott Lemieux: "Given Huckabee's gruesome history on related matters, it's tempting to say that he deserves any demagoguery he's on the receiving end of because of this. But it would be wrong. As Matt says, on its face there's nothing unreasonable about granting clemency to a someone given 6-0 years for burglaries committed when he was 17. Evidently, if you grant parole and clemency (or, for that matter, give out finite sentences) to significant numbers of people some percentage will commit more crimes, but individual cases can't in themselves justify more draconian policies, and also don't mean that Huckabee's judgment at the time was wrong."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "Blaming Mike Huckabee for this tradegy is, I think, excessive but I am sure that won't stop the conservative blogosphere."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: War And Peace

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum:

"On Tuesday Barack Obama will announce a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan. A week later he'll be in Oslo accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. Pretty good timing, no?"

LEST WE FORGET: Man Who Enjoys Popular Rock Songs Discovers Perfect Radio Station

From The Onion:

"ROCHESTER, NY -- Sean Ridgeway, a 36-year-old carpenter who is fond of popular rock 'n' roll music from the late 1960s to the present, told reporters Monday that he has somehow discovered a radio station with a format that matches his tastes exactly. 'I'm telling you, [93.2 FM] the Beast has it all,' said Ridgeway, who was also amazed that much of the station's advertising seemed custom-tailored to him due to its abundant information on local establishments serving both beer and chicken wings. 'The Stones, the Who, Pearl Jam, Green Day, you name it. And get this, every day at five o'clock the Z-Man plays three songs in a row by Led Zeppelin. It's called "Get the Led Out." I love Led Zeppelin.' Though Ridgeway said that he is satisfied with the Beast's programming, he is reportedly investigating enticing claims of more rock and less talk made by a competing radio station."

11/24: It's Reconciliation Time!

In case it's not already clear to readers of The Blogometer, liberal bloggers have drawn a line in the sand when it comes to the public option. Not only do they consider the public option to be a crucial part of health care reform, but they believe that it would actually be counter-productive from both a policy standpoint and a political standpoint to pass health care reform without a public option. As one blogger writes: "Without [a public option], health insurance reform will be just a very bad, very foolish, and very expensive experiment -- and clearly not the platform Democrats should want in 2010."

So, now that Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) appear determined to filibuster any bill that includes a public option, are the netroots urging Senate Dems to blow the whole thing up? Not yet. They believe that one solution remains: "break the bill up into two, pass the insurance reforms through regular procedure and the public option and other financial pieces through reconciliation." Liberal bloggers believe that passing health care reform in this way is far preferable to removing the opt-out public option provision in order to appease Lieberman and the three moderate Dems. Consequently, Firedoglake is circulating a petition urging Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid to "use the reconciliation process to allow a simple majority vote on a public option."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Klein, Lange, Black, Dayen) are pleased that senior House Dems are proposing a "war surtax" on high-income individuals and corporations to help pay for any troop escalation in Afghanistan.
• Liberal bloggers (Morrill, Benen, Lemos, Kleefeld) are mocking the RNC for considering a "purity" resolution that would compel the organization to withhold funds from GOP candidates who deviate from at least 3 of the party's 10 "conservative principles."
• Conservative bloggers (Hinderaker, Malkin, Loris, Murray, Goldberg, Repair_Man_Jack) are still buzzing about the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which they perceive as evidence that climate scientists manipulate data in order to fabricate evidence for global warming. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Drum) are pleased about reports that the Obama admin. "will announce a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions before next month's UN climate summit," although they wish that the target were less modest.
• In FL SEN news, RedState editor Erick Erickson is accusing Gov. Charlie Crist (R) of attacking supporters of his primary rival, ex-state House Speaker Marco Rubio (R), during an interview with the St. Petersburg Times. Meanwhile, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas tells Crist: "[A]ttacking your base won't bring you closer to victory. Stop pretending and switch parties already."
• In CA SEN news, Michelle Malkin is accusing ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina (R) of "wield[ing the] race/gender card against [her] conservative rival," Assemb. Chuck DeVore (R).

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Never Gonna Give You Up

Liberal bloggers continue to argue that a public option is an essential part of health care reform:

• Firedoglake's Scarecrow: "The public option is at the heart of insurance reform, the core piece in a transition that must take place. It's not a bargaining chip for rounding up four clueless Senators. It would be unconcionable for the Senate leadership to cut out the heart to accommodate the know-nothings of their party. [Ex-DNC Chair] Howard Dean is right; Arianna Huffington is right; Jane Hamsher is right. The public option is essential to reform. It must be retained, protected and strengthened. Without it, health insurance reform will be just a very bad, very foolish, and very expensive experiment -- and clearly not the platform Democrats should want in 2010."
• Jay Ackroyd: "Making taxpayers help pay for people forced to buy crappy health insurance because four senators want to preserve their [ex-SD Sen. Tom] Daschle retirement option is not good policy or good politics."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "Progressive observers of the healthcare reform effort aren't too heartened after the continuing recalcitrance of three ConservaDems and Joe Lieberman on healthcare reform, and the newfound willingness in leadership, as expressed by [IL Sen.] Dick Durbin to find a way to mollify them. The problem is, anything that works to make these guys happy isn't going to be real reform. [...Y]ou give up on [the public option] and what do Democrats have to exclaim about doing for healthcare reform in 2010? Individual mandates? Making people buy crappy insurance from the same old insurers that will continue to find ways to exclude their claims and jack up their premiums? Giveaways to the insurance industry of upwards of $600 billion in the form of the subsidies and credits given to the people who are forced to buy the crappy insurance?"

That said, liberal bloggers aren't suggesting that Dems should give up on health care reform; they're simply arguing that reconciliation is the best option at this point:

• mcjoan: "The most obvious solution is to break the bill up into two, pass the insurance reforms through regular procedure and the public option and other financial pieces through reconciliation. [NY Sen. Chuck] Schumer was all for it as recently as September. It's ridiculous to take it off the table now, both because of how critical it is to do this bill right, and because if the ConservaDems get their way on this, they will hold the leadership hostage on every damned bill down the line. That includes a potential second stimulus, a strong jobs package, any kind of meaningful financial reform. It would also mean a Democratic party that's no better than the Republicans when it comes to prioritizing Main Street over Wall Street, and grim prospects for 2010 and 2012."
• Firedoglake's Hamsher: "As the majority leader of the Senate, the power to pass a public option is squarely in Harry Reid's hands. Will he let three or four corrupt Senators owned by the insurance industry hold the public option hostage? Or will he use the reconciliation process to allow a simple, democratic majority rule?"

While most liberal bloggers have a "public option or bust" attitude, TPM's Josh Marshall feels differently: "[T]here are many people who look at this and say that the bill(s) under discussion are so anemic that they're maybe not worth fighting for at all. And that's certainly a legitimate opinion. But I think there's another question. Considering how down to the wire this is, is it really worth holding up everything else contained in the bill when the point of contention, the public option, is as measly as it is?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why The Filibuster Must Go

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

"'Are progressives really willing to take their chances with a future GOP-controlled Senate empowered to pass whatever they have 51 votes for?' asks Scott Winship. 'With the Supreme Court nominees who could be seated (to say nothing of other judgeships)? With the restrictions on abortion and LGBQT rights? With welfare reforms?'

Let me say this once, and slowly: Yeeeeeeesssssssss. [...]

In a system without the filibuster, the threat of repeal, as opposed to the impossibility of action, becomes the dominant player in legislative design, and it's much to be preferred. The clear accountability of passing laws and being judged on their success is far superior to the confusing campaigns that result from promising the passage of laws and then failing to surmount a filibuster. Strengthening that crucial relationship between cause (one party got elected) and effect (they passed bills) is not only better from the perspective of assuring action on problems. It's also a road to a better-informed citizenry that knows who to blame, and who to reward, for the condition of the country and the performance of the most recent Congress."

LEST WE FORGET: Bengals' Uniforms No Longer Look Stupid Now That Team Is Good

From The Onion:

"BRISTOL, CT -- By wearing their brightly colored orange-and-black tiger-print uniforms during a victory over the Steelers, the division-leading 7-2 Cincinnati Bengals made their team gear appear far less stupid Sunday. 'The Bengals uniforms during the '90s, and the ones from their 11-loss season in 2008, looked really stupid, like they were wearing carpet ripped straight out of a discount strip club,' analyst Chris Mortenson said during an ESPN radio broadcast Monday. 'But now that they're on top of the AFC North, you might even go so far as to say that their uniforms are classic. I'm even starting to think that the one dumb striped panel going down the leg isn't so godawful anymore.' When discussing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' current red-and-pewter jerseys versus their old orange-and-white uniforms, however, Mortenson concluded that, in either version, the team 'has always looked like shit.'"

11/23: Weekend Hangover

Even though Senate Dems succeeded in beginning full debate on the health care reform bill, conservative bloggers are in a better mood today than their liberal counterparts. The rightroots think it's a telling sign that it proved so difficult for Senate Dems to merely begin debate on the bill. Philip Klein explains: "[I]f it was this difficult to keep their caucus together on a vote to bring the bill to the floor, it may not bode well for the much tougher votes ahead." Liberal bloggers agree, and they're troubled that Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appear to be irreconcilably opposed to any form of public option. In their view, health care reform without a public option doesn't deserve to be called "reform" at all. Joan McCarter summarizes the views of many in the netroots when she writes:

"We're veering ever closer to the point where this bill is not going to do a whole lot more than force people to buy crappy insurance. The public option, as limited as it is, is the foot in the door to providing more and better options to more people. Without it, even as constricted as it has become, this bill isn't reform."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Bowers, Yglesias, Benen, Klein) are mocking Lincoln for announcing that she'd filibuster any bill with a public option at the same time that her website said that she supports a public option. Meanwhile, one blogger is wondering whether AR LG Bill Halter (D) will challenge Lincoln in next year's Senate primary.
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, Benen, Black) are blasting Lieberman for falsely suggesting that Pres. Obama never supported a public option during his WH campaign.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Erickson, Hinderaker, Morrissey) are stepping up their criticism of AG Eric Holder's decision to prosecute five 9/11 suspects in a federal court after the suspects' defense lawyer announced that they "will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy."
• Liberal bloggers haven't been impressed with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), but they're praising him (Singer, Benen) for saying that it would be worth losing his seat to pass health care reform.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: At Some Point You Have To Stop Compromising

Although some liberals argue that a public option isn't as important as people are making it out to be, most believe that health care reform without a public option isn't "reform" at all:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "We're veering ever closer to the point where this bill is not going to do a whole lot more than force people to buy crappy insurance. The public option, as limited as it is, is the foot in the door to providing more and better options to more people. Without it, even as constricted as it has become, this bill isn't reform. It's telling the insurance companies they really shouldn't cherry-pick customers and leave people without care, and erecting a few more barriers for them to get around while they continue to do just that. Triggered co-ops, the [DE Sen. Tom] Carper plan that [NY Sen. Chuck] Schumer is apparently pushing, isn't a compromise. It's no kind of public option and should not be supported by anyone calling themselves a progressive. It's a capitulation. So Senators [Sherrod] Brown, et al., it's your call. You said no more compromise. It's time to prove that you mean it."
• TPMCafe's Robert Reich: "Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to ... our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us. Upbeat policy wonks and political spinners who tend to see only portions of cups that are full will point out some good things: no pre-existing conditions, insurance exchanges, 30 million more Americans covered. But in reality, the cup is 90 percent empty. Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice -- dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don't take our calls."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "The Village Wonks and their allies have never cared about the public option (a perfectly reasonable position) and are willing, no, eager, to jettison the public option. That is their right. But for Democrats who believe that the public option is the only worthwhile reform in the proposal, this is an unacceptable capitulation. It is time to consider forgetting the 'reform' part of this and just focus on passing the 'assistance' part of the proposal."
• Firedoglake's Jon Walker: "Remove the public option, and the exchange goes from a bad place to buy health insurance to an awful, even more expensive place to get health insurance."

Firedoglake's David Dayen doesn't understand why Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid introduced a bill containing an opt-out public option in the first place: "The reason to add a state opt out to the public option, one would assume, would be to bring conservative Democrats on board with the bill. But it doesn't look like it's done that at all. Moreover, it doesn't give those conservatives much room to say that they extracted changes that would satisfy them. If Reid had just put in the HELP Committee's public option, he could have watered it down with an opt out, letting the Lincolns and Landrieus of the world say that they got something. Now, they'd have to essentially kill it, either with a trigger designed not to trigger, or the elimination of the measure altogether. This seems to be a persistent problem with the Democrats, trying to design the perfect solution, pre-compromised, and then being surprised when the conservative Dems demand more changes in their direction. The bill has of course been compromised eight ways to Sunday already, of course, and yet the axis of [NE Sen. Ben] Nelson and Lieberman and Lincoln and [LA Sen. Mary] Landrieu aren't satisfied. At this point, these conservaDems don't have the likely 60 votes to change the public option in the bill. So who knows what will happen in the future. But from a tactical standpoint, I have no idea why the opt out was introduced."

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen is also at a loss: "If you go with a 'trigger,' you lose the center-left and health care reform dies. If you keep the existing compromise, you lose the center-right and health care reform dies. The debate, at that point, becomes a fight over who gets the blame. There seems to be an assumption that policymakers will 'figure something out.' We've come this far, and most seem to agree that there will be some kind of deal that helps drag the bill across the finish line. I'm just not sure what that deal would, or could, look like."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: The Silver Lining

Although conservative bloggers were disappointed by the 11/21 vote, they weren't devastated. On the contrary, many righty bloggers were pleased that it proved so difficult for Senate Dems to simply begin debate on the health care bill:

• AmSpec Blog's Klein: "[O]n one hand, Democrats scored a big victory today, but on the other hand, if it was this difficult to keep their caucus together on a vote to bring the bill to the floor, it may not bode well for the much tougher votes ahead."
• The Washington Examiner's Byron York: "The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there was any drama at all. Lawmakers were simply voting to begin debate on the Democratic version of health care reform. Just begin debate -- not end it, and not move on to a final vote. If Democrats, with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, had not been able to begin debate on the top Democratic policy priority in a generation -- well, that would have been a devastating turn of events, both for the party and for President Obama. And yet just starting debate proved difficult, and only on the last day did the 60th Democratic vote fall in place in favor of beginning the process."

Townhall's Carol Platt Lieba: "Make no mistake that last night's vote was a serious threat. [...] But when considering the fact that, as noted below, 'bills that get cloture votes are passed 98% of the time' -- keep in mind that this was simply a vote to begin debate, not to end it. [...] Tonight, some senators who presumably oppose the bill in its final form nonetheless voted to begin debate. But at the end, it will be very hard for any senator to try to have it both ways, i.e., voting for final cloture (to let the bill go to a final vote) and then voting against the bill."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Will Palin Campaign For McCain?

Daniel Larison disputes William Kristol's prediction that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) "will come to Arizona next summer to campaign" for Sen. John McCain (R):

"Were [Palin] to side openly with McCain in a primary against [ex-AZ Rep. J. D.] Hayworth, whose views match up a lot more closely with her supporters' views, she would be seen as imitating McCain's worst habits. She would be considered a worse sell-out than McCain. She would be doing exactly the opposite of what she did in NY-23. Her intervention may have failed to elect [Doug] Hoffman, but rank-and-file conservatives generally loved her for it anyway. She would fritter all that away if she backed McCain. In exchange for the contempt and disaffection of the people who currently adore her, she would win the enduring affection of editors at The Weekly Standard. McCain seems to be satisfied with this, but I doubt it would be enough for Palin.

Perhaps Palin could come up with some tortured rationale that siding with the establishment-friendly incumbent would be the crazy 'maverick' thing to do, much as she claimed that staying in office would be the easy way out and quitting would be the courageous, bold move, but she would destroy the foundation of rank-and-file conservatives' love for her. Palin generated such excitement because she was perceived by conservatives to be very different from McCain. This was wrong in many ways, but this was the source of all those enthusiastic calls for Palin to head the ticket and it is the reason why most conservatives instinctively sided with her during the campaign and all the internal squabbles with McCain's staff. If she intervenes on McCain's behalf, especially if it seems likely that Hayworth would otherwise win the nomination, she will destroy the political persona she has been crafting for the last year and cut herself off from the base she has thus far managed to captivate."

LEST WE FORGET: Facing Criticism, Goldman Sachs Cancels Plan To Dance Around Bonfire Of Thousand Dollar Bills

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) -- Facing mounting criticism from the public and the media, Goldman Sachs announced today that they would cancel plans to dance around a bonfire of thousand-dollar bills.

The company had planned to perform a pagan dance around the inferno of blazing thousands while roasting a suckling pig as part of their year-end bonus celebration, but howls of protest forced them to reconsider, said Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein.

'There's a consensus out there that this dance -- a jig, really, to be precise -- was in poor taste,' said Mr. Blankfein, who said the company would instead pledge over $100 to help small businesses. The Goldman chief said that the company would now have a more modest holiday celebration, including such activities as doing a line of coke off a hooker's ass."

11/20: 'Cause Everyone Loves Some Senate Speculation...

Two pieces of news concerning the 2010 Senate races are currently making the rounds in the blogosphere. First, bloggers are discussing the New York Daily News report alleging that ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) "has decided against running for governor, but is strongly considering running for U.S. Senate." Liberal bloggers have a mixed reaction to this news. On the one hand, they think that Giuliani is wise to avoid a GOV race against the popular AG Andrew Cuomo (D) and instead challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), whom he currently leads in the polls. That said, they don't think Giuliani is a lock to defeat Gillibrand, since "he enjoys, at present, a vast name recognition advantage over Gillibrand which would certainly dissipate over time." One conservative blogger agrees that Giuliani might have trouble beating Gillibrand, since the conservative positions he adopted during last year's WH campaign "would be very difficult to overcome running for Senate in an overwhelmingly Democratic state."

Bloggers are also discussing the new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll showing ex-FL House Speaker Marco Rubio (R) gaining ground on Gov. Charlie Crist (R) in their Senate primary race. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas thinks Crist needs to become a Dem if he wants to win the seat, since he's "toast in the Republican primary." Conservative blogger Allahpundit is "inclined to agree" with Moulitsas.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Bowers, Benen) are growing increasingly frustrated with the centrist Dem senators who haven't committed to voting for cloture on the health care reform bill. Lately, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) appears to be getting the most attention from lefty bloggers (digby, Hamsher, Silver). Meanwhile, RedState is urging its readers to call their senators and tell them to vote against starting a debate on the bill.
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, Drum, Yglesias, Uygur, Bowers, Serwer, Dayen, Singer, digby, Kurtz, Benen, Klein) are buzzing about a new PPP poll which found that "52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately."
• Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) held a conference call with liberal bloggers (Ackerman, Fernholz, Llorens) to discuss his opposition to a potential troop increase in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, ex-Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) is receiving some criticism from the rightroots (McLaughlin, Hegseth, Allahpundit) for declaring that "the war [in Afghanistan] has been lost."
• Liberal bloggers (Dayen, Willis, Black) are excited about a new poll commissioned by FL Senate Min. Leader Al Lawson showing Lawson leading Blue Dog Rep. Allen Boyd in the FL-02 Dem primary.
• Conservative bloggers are disappointed that the Senate voted to confirm Judge David Hamilton, Obama's nominee for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, despite a rightroots lobbying campaign.

NY SEN: Rudy Eyes Kirsten

Although they acknowledge that Giuliani currently leads Gillibrand in the polls, liberal bloggers don't think that he's assured of a victory:

• Daily Kos' Steve Singiser: "This makes sense for Giuliani on several levels: recent polling has shown Giuliani trailing likely Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo, but leading Gillibrand in a Senate matchup. Also, Giuliani's ego is certainly up to another national bid from President, and a winning Senate campaign is certainly a better launching pad for such ambitions than a losing gubernatorial bid. Of course, should he run for the Senate, his victory is nowhere near assured. Despite being a nominal challenger, he enjoys, at present, a vast name recognition advantage over Gillibrand which would certainly dissipate over time."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "The polling on the [NY SEN] race suggests that [a Giuliani victory] could be a genuine possibility, with Rudy Giuliani leading Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gilibrand by a 51 percent to 40 percent margin in recent Marist polling and a 53 percent to 36 percent margin in recent Siena (.pdf) polling. What's more, considering that Giuliani isn't going to beat Andrew Cuomo, who many believe will end up being the Democrats' gubernatorial nominee, a decision to run for the Senate rather than for Governor makes sense on another level. Then again, New Yorkers are going to vote for a Senator they know is going to immediately turn around and run for President, a Senator who would almost undoubtedly be an absentee legislator spending more time on the hustings in Iowa than in the halls of Congress? Hard to imagine."

Conservative blogger Philip Klein thinks Giuliani will face "an uphill battle" if he challenges Gillibrand: "[L]et's keep in mind that over the course of his bid for the 2008 Republican nomination, Giuliani moved to the right in an attempt to appease conservatives. While he remained pro-choice, for instance, he still moved against federal funding for abortion (a very hot topic right now), pledged to appoint conservative judges, and said that overturning Roe v. Wade would be okay. Such positions -- as well as plenty of statements to conservatives over the course of the campaign -- would be very difficult to overcome running for Senate in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. While polls don't reflect it now, Giuliani may actually have a better shot running for governor, a position for which he can run on executive competence, then running for Senate -- on which he will get hammered on how he would vote on national issues."

Klein also thinks that Giuliani would have a tough time winning the GOP WH '12 nod: "As for running for president in 2012, that wouldn't make any sense to me. Even if he were to win the Senate seat, the battle for the Republican nomination would begin the morning after. After repositioning himself as a moderate once again to win in New York, Giuliani would then have to instantly turn around again to court the conservative base. And throughout 2011 -- theoretically his first year in office -- his potential rivals would be hunkering down in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. If he joins them, he'll recieve a heap of criticism back home, and yet if he doesn't, he'd have no realistic chance of competing. And without much of a voting record to reassure conservatives who rejected him in 2008, there's no reason to think he'd make the sale in 2012."

Hot Air's Allahpundit agrees: "A RINO like Rudy stands even less of a chance in the [WH] primaries now, after [AZ Sen. John] McCain's flameout and the tea-party backlash to less-than-true conservatives, than he did last year. But as a senator? Hmmmm."

FL SEN: Rubio Rising

Daily Kos' Moulitsas thinks Crist should become a Dem if he wants to maximize his odds of winning the race: "These trendlines are bleak for Crist, and there's little chance of him surviving. Remember, Rubio hasn't spent a dime on media yet. This is all grassroots driven, and the teabaggers are engaged, angry, and looking for the next [Dede] Scozzafava. Crist is in their crosshairs, and the governor has been flopping all over the place hoping to stem this growing tide against him, and failing. Note -- 50 percent of Republicans still don't know who Rubio is. The more he raises his name ID, the better he does. [...] If I'm Charlie Crist, I realize that I'm toast in the Republican primary. I note that a three-way race is a coin flip at best. But as a Democrat... switching parties and making an earnest transition on the issues would be the cleanest path to a Senate seat. Whether we'd want him as a Democrat is another story, and one that would depend heavily on how he managed his party switch. But it's clear that he's no longer welcome in his own party. And he has a choice to make -- remain as a hated interloper in his existing party, or try to find a more hospitable home elsewhere."

Conservative blogger Allahpundit agrees with Moulitsas: "Kos himself thinks Crist is all but finished. For once, I'm inclined to agree with him. [...] Not only hasn't Rubio spent on media yet, but he can count on boatloads of earned media from the right. The question, then: Will Crist pull a Specter and switch? As in Pennsylvania, Florida's primary is closed so the centrist can't count on independents to bail him out. As a Democrat, Crist leads Rubio in a general election match-up 45/34 -- but even there, 21 percent are undecided."

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen adds: "For the record, there hasn't been so much as a hint from Crist about a willingness to switch [parties]. On the contrary, he's spent the last several weeks trying in vain to convince Florida Republicans that he's really more conservative than he seems (which, incidentally, is what Arlen Specter did before he realized it was a lost cause and became a Dem). For that matter, it's not at all clear if Florida Democrats would accept Crist with open arms. But it's fun to ponder, I suppose."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: McCain And The Climate Change bill

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias thinks the new Rasmussen poll showing McCain in a virtual tie with conservative ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) is bad news for progressives:

"This seems like pretty much terrible news for the world. The most likely path between Point A and Senate passage of a reasonable climate bill is for McCain to rediscover his interest in the issue. But that's not the sort of thing a Senator worried about a right-wing primary challenge is likely to do. It would be different if, say, [DHS Sec./ex-AZ Gov.] Janet Napolitano were mounting a strong challenge for the seat, but instead Democrats have no major contender in the field."

LEST WE FORGET: Heroin Addicts Pressure President To Stay Course In Afghanistan

From The Onion:

"LOS ANGELES -- As the White House considers sweeping strategic shifts in the war in Afghanistan, heroin addicts across the nation called on President Obama Monday to stick with the current U.S. policy, which has flooded the world market with low-price narcotics. 'There's no need to change nothing, Joe Biden,' said addict Reginald 'Bones' Dillow, who, when conscious, is an outspoken proponent of the U.S. military strategy that has resulted in a nearly 40-fold increase in Afghan opium production since the end of Taliban rule in 2001. 'Everything is so cheap -- it's all totally fine like it is, right? Over there, I mean. Why would you want to...do the...[garbled].' Obama is reportedly looking into economic incentives that would both persuade poor Afghans to cease opium cultivation and benefit chemically dependent Americans, the most promising of which involves constructing facilities in the war-torn country for the manufacture of methadone."

11/19: Score One For Harry

Political bloggers are discussing the health care reform bill that Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid presented yesterday. Although some liberal bloggers are annoyed by how much emphasis Dems have placed on cost, they're nevertheless pleased about the CBO's prediction that the bill would reduce the federal deficit by $130B over the next decade. Joan McCarter points to three of the Dems who have expressed skepticism about the bill -- AR Sen. Blanche Lincoln, LA Sen. Mary Landrieu, and NE Sen. Ben Nelson -- and declares: "[T]he numbers from the CBO make complaints about how much the bill could cost coming from any of these three pretty hollow." Conservative bloggers, meanwhile, are calling the CBO estimate "a fabrication."

In other news, liberal bloggers are pleased that Reid reportedly raised the possibility of using reconciliation to pass health care reform during a meeting with centrist Dems. Lefty bloggers believe that the threat of reconciliation gives progressive Dems more leverage and makes centrists like Lincoln, Landrieu, and Nelson more likely to compromise.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Liebau, Mirengoff, Morrissey) continue to criticize AG Eric Holder's decision to prosecute 9/11 suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in a federal court. Righty bloggers (Hinderaker, Hengler, Althouse, Reynolds, Allahpundit) are also buzzing about an exchange between Holder and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) at yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
• Liberal bloggers (Beutler, Benen, Dayen) are promoting a study conducted by the GWU School Of Public Health which found that Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) abortion amendment will eliminate abortion coverage "over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange."
• RedState editor Erick Erickson thinks IN Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) is "an attractive choice to challenge Obama."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: It's A Numbers Game

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about the CBO's prediction that the Senate health care reform bill would cost $848B and would reduce the federal deficit by $130B over the next 10 years. They believe that the CBO's analysis undermines complaints from GOPers and centrist Dems about the bill's cost:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "[T]he numbers from the CBO make complaints about how much the bill could cost coming from [Sens. Lincoln, Landrieu, and Nelson] pretty hollow."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "[T]he Senate healthcare reform bill comes in below the President's threshold of $900 billion over 10 years -- at $849 billion, to be precise -- and will reduce the deficit by $127 billion. [...] The Senate legislation will also reduce the deficit by a whopping $650 billion over the second decade of the bill, in total bringing deficit reduction to $777 billion over 20 years -- a number that will make it significantly more difficult for the Republicans to credibly claim that healthcare reform is in some way imprudent."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "CBO projects that from 2020-2029 the bill would achieve around $650 billion in deficit reduction. My prediction is that the very same centrist Democrats most likely to whine about the deficit will also be most hesitant to vote for the bill. Just saying."

Conservative bloggers don't believe that the CBO projection accurately reflects the bill's cost:

• Townhall's Kevin Glass: "How much of the reported CBO score will be honest and how much will be a Harry Reid-helmed attempt to game the CBO scoring system? Only time will tell."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "The Senate bill does not have a price tag. The Democrats are touting a cost of $849 billion, but that number is a fabrication. From Roll Call we learn that 'one Senate Democratic leadership staffer acknowledged that the cost estimate did not even represent an official preliminary score from the CBO but was a representation of "preliminary feedback" that Reid has gotten from the nonpartisan Congressional agency.' In other words, we do not know how much it will actually cost."
• NRO's Yuval Levin: "CBO's 10-year projection scores its cost at $848 billion, since CBO is required to use a 10-year window that starts at enactment and the bill is designed to start collecting taxes well before it starts spending money. If you look at the first 10 years of actual implementation, when both the spending and the taxes are in effect, the 10-year cost is $2.5 trillion. The Democrats are proudly pointing to the fact that even with its high cost the CBO says the bill will not increase the deficit in the first ten years, but what that actually means is that in the midst of an economic downturn it raises taxes (and also cuts Medicare for the elderly) enough to cover the gargantuan cost."

Meanwhile, liberal blogger Ezra Klein is annoyed by the focus on cost: "Health-care reform is increasingly hostage to numbers that are disconnected from the reality of the bill and its purpose. It's a real victory to push your bill below $850 billion if the point is to get it below $900 billion. But what if that's not the point? Most experts think the bill needs about $1.2 trillion to be truly affordable. Compromising beneath $900 billion might be necessary, but it's nothing to celebrate. It's a concession, not an accomplishment. It is, in fact, quite far from the questions that will determine the bill's success. In 10 years, no one will remember whether the bill cost more or less than $850 billion, and I doubt that the public option, if it remains in the legislation, will be particularly relevant either. They'll remember whether the bill worked -- whether it covered people at a price they could afford, and began the overdue and urgent work of cost control."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Reconcile This

Liberal bloggers are pleased that Reid reportedly raised the possibility of using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform during a meeting with centrist Dems:

• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "This strikes me as quite good news. [...] Good on Reid."
• Firedoglake's Jon Walker: "[T]his does stress the importance of having a simple majority option like reconciliation on the table. If the Democrats were completely unwilling to pass health care reform using some method that only required a simple majority, members like Ben Nelson, [CT Sen.] Joe Lieberman, and Blanche Lincoln would have complete power. They could force the caucus to change the bill to exactly fit their desires, or threaten to bring it down. With Reconciliation, there is at least the possibility that if they reject the compromise offered by progressive Senators, they will end up with an even more progressive bill passed using reconciliation -- since Harry Reid does not really need their votes, and so does not really need to let them have any input at all."
• Yglesias: "I think the Senate leadership has good reason to not want to try to push health care reform through under the budget reconciliation process. But I also think it's much easier to imagine a pretty good bill passing under standard procedure if it's clear to Senators that the alternative to breaking a filibuster is reconciliation rather than no bill. That levels the bargaining position. Progressive members are being asked to support a bill that contains provisions they don't necessarily like on the grounds that the overall package is better than the alternative. That needs to be a two-way street in which moderate members are, likewise, prepared to vote for a bill even if they don't get there way on every single point. The prospect of reconciliation is the best way to motivate that choice."

Meanwhile, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher remains opposed to the opt-out public option provision, and she urges Reid to pass a stronger public option using reconciliation: "It is encouraging that Senator Reid respected the will of the American people and included a public option in the merged Senate bill. However, the addition of a state opt-out provision threatens to leave millions of Americans at the mercy of private insurance monopolies, with the federal government acting as enforcers for a product with no competition to keep prices down. [...] The Senate filibuster -- and the ability of any one Senator to hold the entire body hostage on behalf of lobbying interests -- must come to an end. If Harry Reid truly cares about fighting for the good of the country over the good of Wellpoint, he will immediately dispense with the opt-out and move to reconciliation and allow a majority in the Senate to deliver to Americans what they want and desperately need."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: How Palin Helps Romney

The Spectator's Alex Massie (h/t Michael Crowley):

"Until now [ex-MA Gov. Mitt] Romney has been tacking towards the nationalist base. But Mitt's not very good at phoney populism and it shows. Put [ex-AK Gov. Sarah] Palin in the race, however, and the equation changes: there's no point in Romney going after the type of voters most attracted to Palin (and, to a lesser extent, [ex-AR Gov.] Mike Huckabee) which, mercifully for him, might spare Romney the embarrassment of trying, once again, to be something he's not. That would give Romney the space, and the motivation, to focus on what he does best: present himself as the problem-solvig technocrat who knows how to get things done. [...]

This, then, presents Romney with the opportunity to run the campaign he should have run in 2004. He's never going to be an exciting candidate and he should probably cease trying to be such. Putting Palin in the race, however, allows Romney to be Romney without having to pander (too much!) or make a fool of himself by trying to persuade the Palinistas that, deep down, he's one of them."

LEST WE FORGET: It's About Generating Buzz

From Overheard in New York:

Young guy in deli to friend: So getting support from my parents is like dealing with a record label. You have to create a buzz, make it seem like you're doing something, or they don't want to be involved with you.

11/18: Is Bart Full Of Bluster?

Bloggers on both the left and right are discussing Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) appearance on Fox and Friends, in which he warned that "healthcare will not move forward" if his abortion amendment is removed from the bill. Several liberal bloggers are arguing that Stupak can't back up his threat. First, they believe that only 10 House Dems would actually switch their vote from "yay" to "nay" if Stupak's amendment were removed, and they think that "a 10-vote bloc represents a serious problem...but not an insurmountable hurdle." Second, they're arguing that there aren't enough votes in the Senate to add a version of Stupak's amendment to the bill. Conservative bloggers, meanwhile, are excited about Stupak's campaign, since it has "created a fault line for Democrats that they didn't need in 2009."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Cole, Lemos, Sudbay) are pleased that the Senate broke a GOP filibuster of Judge David Hamilton, Pres. Obama's nominee for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Lefty bloggers (Benen, Klein) are accusing GOP senators of hypocrisy, since many of them criticized the filibuster during the Bush admin.
• Liberal bloggers (McCarter, Walker, Sudbay) are buzzing about a new ABC News/Washington Post poll which found that a majority of Americans support a public option. Some lefty bloggers (McCarter, Llorens) are urging Dem senators to consider using the budget reconciliation process to pass a public option.
• Liberal bloggers (Marshall, Benen, Serwer, DougJ, Black) are criticizing Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) for responding to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's support of a criminal trial for alleged 9/11 conspirators by saying, "Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist?"
• Conservative bloggers (Duppler, Lane, Reynolds, Morrissey) are mocking the Obama admin. now that it's been revealed that the recovery.gov website contains numerous errors.
• RedState and NRO both conducted interviews with ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R).

STUPAK: Is His Mouth Writing Checks That His Body Can't Cash?

Liberal bloggers are blasting Stupak for threatening "to defeat healthcare reform legislation if his abortion amendment is taken out":

• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "[W]hat really irritates me about this is that Stupak isn't concerned about the actual health care bill -- he's concerned with advancing his religious agenda through a health care bill, and if he doesn't get what he wants in the OTHER branch of Congress, he will work to blow up the whole bill. That is infuriating and wrong. Hell, I'd even understand it if pro-choice advocates had tried to advance the ball in the pro-choice direction, and Stupak said 'If they do that, I am voting against it.' But he isn't doing that, and what he is doing is much more extreme. He is going well beyond the Hyde amendment, and then threatening to blow up the bill if people don't follow through with his religious beliefs. He'd let tens of millions of people go without health insurance just because he couldn't for private insurance companies to no longer cover abortion. That makes him pretty despicable in my book. And the fact that the more conservative Senate Democrats aren't even going to give him the time of day tells you everything you need to know, if the Fox news appearances didn't already."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk: "Yes, [Stupak appeared] on Fox and Friends, the nation's premiere show for stories of Sarah Palin riding a dinosaur (the Palinolithic Era) before field dressing it -- it's full of meat after all."

Several bloggers think Stupak's threat is unrealistic:

• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "First, Stupak had claimed that he representing a voting bloc of 40 votes, but as of this morning, he believes his faction is made up of 'at least 10 to 15 to 20' House Dems who oppose abortion rights. For Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and the House leadership, making up the loss of 40 votes is impossible to overcome. A 10-vote bloc represents a serious problem -- it would require some Dems who voted against the bill to change their minds -- but not an insurmountable hurdle. Second, Stupak's amendment appears to have no shot at all in the Senate. It would need 60 votes, and it probably doesn't even have 50. The one conservative Dem who seemed the most supportive of the measure has since reversed course."
• Firedoglake's David Dayen: "There's a huge difference between 10 and 20. In fact, only nine members who said they would vote down the bill without the Stupak amendment ended up voting for final passage. The rest of those members voted against the bill anyway. So 10 is probably the real number, as confirmed by [SC Rep.] James Clyburn last week. Chris Bowers has a target list for how to find those 8-10 votes if Stupak is stripped. And it's not at all clear that they could not be found. In fact, before the vote, Stupak HIMSELF said that health care would pass whether his amendment passed or not. And the votes don't look to be there in the Senate. Now that it did pass the House, Stupak thinks he can bully the Congress into keeping his language. I'm not convinced by his bluster."

Conservative bloggers are pleased about Stupak's campaign:

• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Stupak says he has somewhere between 10-20 votes that would flip if they strip his amendment. That's a far cry from his 40 votes when he insisted on getting an up-or-down vote in the first place. It wouldn't keep the conference bill from getting passed in the House, but his activism on the issue may make it stickier for Democrats to do anything in the Senate to water it down. [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson has already demanded Stupak's language in the Senate bill before he'll allow it to proceed, which will infuriate other Senate Democrats like [CA Sen.] Barbara Boxer. Bottom line: this has created a fault line for Democrats that they didn't need in 2009, and they risk a bad split with Catholics over it, as Politico reports."
• RedState's Moe Lane: "Stupak claims to have more than enough votes to shut down any final version that removes his amendment, which is both false and true. It's false because the closeness of the original vote reflected a lot of horse-trading on the individual Member of Congress level; theoretically, the Speaker of the House could simply pressure the Democrats who got to vote 'no' last time to vote 'yes' this time. It's true because one of the reasons that they were able to get a final vote was because while the Stupak amendment was scored by NRLC, the final bill was not. Strip out Stupak, and a vote for health care rationing becomes a vote for federal funding of abortions. The NRLC pretty much cannot not score that appropriately."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Supermajority Requirement

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

"'For the final vote,' says [IN Sen.] Evan Bayh, 'I see no distinction between substance and procedure.' That is to say, if he decides to vote against the bill, he'll also vote against breaking a filibuster.

On some level, that makes sense. If you don't think a bill should become law, then it is arguably your responsibility to do everything in your power to keep it from becoming law. But if that's how the Senate is going to work from here on out, we should actually change the Senate rules to require 60 votes for the passage of any bill.

Let's end the confusion of the filibuster and the attempts to use budget reconciliation and the illegitimacy of procedural holds and the primacy of cloture votes and all the rest of it. If the Senate is to be a 60-vote body, let's have that debate, spin out the implications, and decide to change the rules of the place to make it a 60-vote body. As it stands, the United States Senate is functioning off the implications of a procedural loophole rather than the majority vote that its designers intended. If the current occupants believe another approach wise, they should make that argument on the merits rather than perverting the intent of the rules."

LEST WE FORGET: December Named National Awareness Month

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- In an effort to combat what organizers are calling 'our current epidemic of complete and utter obliviousness,' the American Foundation for Paying Attention to Things has declared December 'National Awareness Month.'

'All across the country, millions of men and women are dangerously unaware,' AFPAT spokesperson Karen Teeling said during a press conference Monday. 'What's worse, the vast majority of those suffering from this debilitating state of mind don't even know it.' [...]

According to AFPAT, planned events for National Awareness Month include a 10K charity walk, during which participants will be forced to actually interact and engage with the outside world for a change, as well as several advertising campaigns, which will help get the word out about things other than what currently happens to be playing on television."

11/17: Castles Made Of Sand

Last week we noted that liberal bloggers were buzzing about a PPP survey that signaled potential re-election difficulties for Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Now a new poll has grabbed the attention of lefty bloggers: a Susquehanna survey showing AG Beau Biden (D) surging ahead of Rep. Mike Castle (R) in the DE Senate race. There are probably several reasons why the netroots are so excited about this poll. First, it provides liberals with some much-needed good news after last week's Gallup poll showing GOPers moving ahead of Dems on the 2010 generic cong. ballot. Second, liberal bloggers love the theory that Biden's surge "may be a result of negative publicity [Castle] received in the state after casting a 'no' vote for President Obama's health care reform bill." Jonathan Singer writes: "This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to us, even as it might be to some inside the Beltway -- that it's not good politics for blue state Republicans (particularly those running for statewide office) to vote like party hacks on key votes like healthcare reform."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Johnson, Goldfarb, Wehner) continue to criticize the Obama admin.'s decision to prosecute 9/11 suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in a federal court.
• Liberal bloggers (McCarter, Serwer, Benen) are buzzing about the news that three prominent conservative leaders have endorsed the Obama admin.'s plan to transfer several Guantanamo Bay detainees to an IL prison facility.

DE SEN: Mike Voted No; Now Here Comes Beau!

Most liberal bloggers are attributing Castle's sliding poll numbers to his vote against the House health care reform bill:

• MyDD's Singer: "This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to us, even as it might be to some inside the Beltway -- that it's not good politics for blue state Republicans (particularly those running for statewide office) to vote like party hacks on key votes like healthcare reform."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I don't want to make too much of this. It's only one poll, and it's possible additional data will point in a more ambiguous direction. But if the poll is right, it offers an important counterweight to the notion that support for health care reform is necessarily an electoral loser, and opposition is automatically a ticket to victory."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "Healthcare reform is popular -- the nation recognizes that something has to be done to fix this broken system, and it's abundantly clear that the Republicans aren't going to be a part of the solution. Despite the cowardice of Blue Dogs and ConservaDems, who don't ever want to take any kind of controversial vote, this issue isn't one that's going to drive voters away, particularly those independent voters."
• TAPPED's Tim Fernholz: "Castle was/is considered a very strong contender for the vice president's old Senate seat, but he's only popular in Delaware so long as he is a moderate Republican. Now that he's joined the rest of the House Republicans in opposing President Obama's agenda, his moderation has to be called into question. At some point, the Republican leadership is going to have to ask themselves what forcing their entire caucus to vote against each major Obama agenda item is getting them. Voters are already pretty clear that Republicans oppose the Democrats' vision, but when GOP leaders turn every vote into a litmus test for the moderate members of their caucus, it's going to have electoral results that end with fewer Republicans in office. Those votes don't really help Castle on the right, either -- the usual crowd is already lambasting Castle for his moderate reputation, and, of course, there is a conservative primary challenger."

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias sarcastically calls Dave Weigel as a "crazy person" for "push[ing a] lunatic theory that casting hard-right votes is sometimes politically problematic for Republicans": "As everyone knows, when the Democratic president and Democratic congressional majorities press for the progressive legislation they campaigned on, it's very politically risky. Meanwhile, nobody faces any risks for obstructing that agenda. After all, these Democrats all got elected by accident, not because any of them or anything they stand for is popular. That's why Dave Weigel's post about how Beau Biden is now leading Mike Castle by five points in polling instead of trailing hum by 20 is so nuts."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Nobody Wants A Piece Of Burr

FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver:

"Recruitment efforts are becoming seriously problematic for the Democrats. Take North Carolina, for instance, where former State Senator Cal Cunningham now says he won't run to challenge [GOP Sen.] Richard Burr, the latest in a long line of Democrats to do so. Democrats still have a reasonably decent candidate in Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, but this a big step down from [AG] Roy Cooper or possibly [Rep.] Heath Shuler, neither of whom were tempted to enter the running. Even if there's some late swing of 'momentum' back toward the Democrats next summer as a result of an improving economy or whatever else, they will probably have squandered a couple of opportunities based on fears about the 2010 environment that emerged earlier in the process."

LEST WE FORGET: Sexy Times At Band Camp

McSweeney's contributor E.M. Gala makes a list of "Phrases My Orchestra Conductor Has Said to Me That Could Get Him Fired if Said Out of Context":

• "Sub-divide."
• "Use your diaphragm."
• "Blow harder."
• "Finger your parts."
• "Pluck your G-string."
• "Don't get lazy on me. Use all the positions."
• "Just because we slow down the tempo doesn't mean you can slow down the pace."

11/13: A Question Of Justice

NOTE: Blogometer will not publish on Monday, Nov. 16th. It will return on Tuesday, Nov. 17th. We apologize for the inconvenience!

The big news in the blogosphere is AG Eric Holder's announcement that "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City." Conservative bloggers are, to put it mildly, outraged. Ed Morrissey complains: "Instead of giving these men the oblivion they deserve, we're incentivizing further attacks on the US by giving them the biggest possible PR platform." Erick Erickson warns that "bringing these high profile terrorist leaders to New York will just put a target on New York again." Michelle Malkin blasts "the reckless, security-undermining Obama 9/10 agenda."

Meanwhile, the reaction in the lefty blogosphere is somewhat mixed. Steve Benen praises the Obama admin. for "do[ing] the right thing" even when it knows "that intense far-right blowback is inevitable." However, Glenn Greenwald is disappointed that the Obama admin. is creating "a multi-tiered justice system" in which certain detainees will be tried in a criminal court while others will be tried in a military commission.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Lange, Benen, Orton, Black, Aravosis) are mocking the GOP following Politico's report that the RNC's health insurance plan has been covering elective abortions since '91. One conservative blogger calls the news "a needless political headache" and another declares: "Someone at the RNC must be fired over this."
• Most liberal bloggers (McCarter, Walker, Llorens) are pleased that Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "is considering a plan for higher payroll taxes on the upper-income earners to help finance health care legislation." Ezra Klein hopes that Reid's proposed surtax "[isn't] replacing revenues lost by weakening the excise tax."
• Liberal bloggers (Waldman, Black, Benen) are criticizing Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) for warning pro-choice Dems that "there will be hell to pay" if they try to remove his anti-abortion amendment from the health care reform bill.
• Conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Malkin, McLaughlin, Antle) are buzzing about the recent Quinnipiac Univ. poll showing Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) trailing ex-Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT) by 11 pts.

KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED: Worst Idea Ever!

Conservative bloggers are furious about Holder's announcement that five detainees accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks will be prosecuted in a federal court:

• Dan Riehl: "Thanks, Democrats, you dirtbags. Every last one of you should be forced to be in the courtroom for however many years this azzhole gets to thumb his nose at America. And when not there, we can find room for you adjacent to his cell. We'll even give you hand holding time."
• RedState's Erickson: "This is insane. There have been reports in the past month about another potential terrorist attack disrupted in New York City. Bringing these high profile terrorist leaders to New York will just put a target on New York again. Even worse, the White House is going to subject these terrorists to criminal trials in civilian courts. They will get all the due process rights of citizens in court and potentially will be able to get access to material evidence in a civilian court that could reveal intelligence we'd prefer them not to have."
• Malkin: "If this White House thought Tea Party activists were an 'angry mob,' wait until they see the backlash from 9/11 family members and their supporters nationwide. We're not going to sit down and shut up about the reckless, security-undermining Obama 9/10 agenda and conflict-of-interest-ridden AG Eric Holder."
• Hot Air's Morrissey: "These terrorists belong at a military tribunal, not the justice system employed for Americans to judge other Americans for civil criminal conduct. Instead of giving these men the oblivion they deserve, we're incentivizing further attacks on the US by giving them the biggest possible PR platform. We may as well put them on TV and call it Dancing With the Terrorists, or So You Want To Be A Jihadist Martyr."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "The potential for these trials to turn into fiascoes is large; perhaps President Obama and his Attorney General have forgotten the 'political' trials of the 1960s and 70s. But they seem committed to returning to the pre-September 11 model of treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter, regardless of the consequences. Ask yourself this question: suppose that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial results in an acquittal or a hung jury. Would the Obama administration really let him go? If so, they are crazy. If not, why are they holding the trial?"
• RedState's Dan McLaughlin: "I'm not seriously concerned that KSM stands any chance of being acquitted, but a hung jury? It only takes one person with extreme political or religious views, one juror who just can't abide the death penalty (even assuming Obama's DOJ pursues it). Just imagine the controversy, if there are Muslims in the jury pool, over what questions prosecutors are permitted to ask them and whether they can be challenged. And of course, it sends the message to our enemies that there's nothing you can do to us that will get you sent through a process rougher than the one we used on Michael Vick or Martha Stewart."

KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED II: Trusting Our Judicial System

Liberal bloggers are mocking their conservative counterparts for reacting so angrily to Holder's announcement:

• John Cole: "ZOMG! Terrorists On American Soil! [...] The wingnut freakout over this will be predictable and amusing, because as we all know, real patriots have no faith in our judicial system and law enforcement officers."
• The Washington Monthly's Benen: "I've simply never understood the right's weak-kneed panic over the U.S. justice system. From what I gather, the case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed should be pretty easy to make in court, and securing a conviction is likely to be pretty easy. By giving this suspected monster a fair trial, we can prove to the world the strength of American values and the integrity of the American system. Shouldn't [ex-VP Dick] Cheney, [ex-NYC Mayor Rudy] Giuliani, and the rest of the motley crew who'll spend the day whining on Fox News want a trial for KSM?"

Meanwhile, Salon's Greenwald criticizes the Obama admin. for announcing that other detainees -- such as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a suspect in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole -- will be tried in a military commission instead of a criminal court: "So what we have here is not an announcement that all terrorism suspects are entitled to real trials in a real American court. Instead, what we have is a multi-tiered justice system, where only certain individuals are entitled to real trials: namely, those whom the Government is convinced ahead of time it can convict. Others for whom conviction is less certain will be accorded lesser due process: put in military commissions, to which most leading Democrats vehemently objected when created under [George W.] Bush. [...] A system of justice which accords you varying levels of due process based on the certainty that you'll get just enough to be convicted isn't a justice system at all. It's a rigged game of show trials."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Time For Dems To Panic?

FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver offers his thoughts on the recent Gallup poll giving GOPers a 4-pt. lead on the House generic ballot:

"My 30,000-foot view is that between the pressures of the jobs situation and the health care debate, the Democrats are in fairly bad shape. But, there's a long way to go before next year, and their situation does not seem to be quite as bad as it was in August. Certainly, if I were the Democrats, I'd be adopting a fairly defensive posture, putting money into defending seats -- especially those held by non-Blue Dog incumbents -- rather than getting cute and trying to pick off more than a handful of potentially vulnerable Republican seats. I'd also be thinking about policies -- like a jobs package and financial regulation -- that tap a little bit into the populist spirit and might result in somewhat awkward Republican positioning.

So, should the Democrats be panicking? Yeah, maybe a little. But the fundamentals -- particularly the poor labor situation and the Republican enthusiasm advantage -- should be the reasons for their concern, rather than the results of any one particular poll."

LEST WE FORGET: Let's Cross That Bridge When We Come To It

From Overheard in New York:

Little boy, about little brother: Daddy, he says that when the blood on his knee dries, he's gonna pick it off and throw it at me! Daddy, tell him not to do that!
Dad: That scrape is fresh. We have plenty of time before we need to worry about that.

11/12: Nobody Likes A Triggered Co-Op

Throughout the health care reform debate, the two public option alternatives that were most frequently derided by liberal bloggers were Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-ME) "trigger" proposal and Sen. Kent Conrad's (D-ND) "co-op" proposal. It's no surprise, then, that the netroots did not respond positively to CongressDaily's report that Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) is working on a new public option alternative that essentially combines Snowe's "trigger" idea with Conrad's "co-op" idea. Joan McCarter is aghast: "A triggered co-op! A trigger that's never going to trigger to create a co-op that will never work. Seriously, this is their Plan B?" Jon Walker is disgusted: "What Carper did was take the two worst aspects of the two most worthless ideas (a trigger and zero government oversight), and combine them into one super-awful proposal." Now that it's looking increasingly unlikely that 60 Dem senators will vote for cloture on a bill containing an opt-out public option, the netroots are talking about using the budget reconciliation process. Chris Bowers explains:

"Right up until the end of the process, the bill can still be split into two parts: one with the new regulations that requires 60 votes to reach cloture, and one with the public option and subsidies that can be included in the budgetary process and which cannot be filibustered. Since there are at least 51 votes for a public option in the Senate, and since reconciliation is still on the table, if we don't end up with a public option it won't be because we didn't have the votes."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Mirengoff, Carroll, Jacobson, Fly) are accusing Pres. Obama of "dithering" because he "does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team." Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Black, Bowers) remain skeptical about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Several lefty bloggers (Ackerman, Armstrong) are annoyed that none of the options that Obama is considering involves a reduction in troops.
• Liberal bloggers (Morrill, Sudbay, Lange) are blasting Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) for blocking a veterans care bill. Other lefty bloggers (Yglesias, Drum) are criticizing Sen. George LeMieux (R-FL) for placing a hold on Tom Shannon, Obama's nominee for amb. to Brazil. Meanwhile, RedState editor Erick Erickson is urging his readers to call their senators and tell them to filibuster Judge David Hamilton, Obama's nominee for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Conservative bloggers (Geraghty, Malkin) are speculating that Doug Hoffman (C) may have actually defeated Rep. Bill Owens (D) in the NY-23 race, since "recanvassing shows the special election has narrowed to a 3,000-vote difference."
• Conservative bloggers (Geraghty, Lane) are speculating that DE AG Beau Biden (D) is leaning against running for Senate.
• Liberal bloggers (Cole, Thers, Sudbay, Benen, Empsall, Drum) are celebrating the news that controversial CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is leaving the network, and many are predicting that he'll soon join Fox News.

CARPER: You Have Got To Be Kidding Me

Liberal bloggers are blasting Carper's public option alternative:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "A triggered co-op! A trigger that's never going to trigger to create a co-op that will never work. Seriously, this is their Plan B? Whatever happened to comprehensive healthcare reform? Whatever happened to providing affordable choices to all Americans? [...] I am really hoping that [Senate Maj. Leader Harry] Reid has tasked some more creative thinkers than Carper on a solution to the public option issue. They'd be far better off just scrapping this whole Rube Goldbergian contraption, pass the insurance reforms and pray that they'll work and then spend the $900 billion on expanding Medicaid and Medicare. Or, getting serious about passing real, substantive reform in form of a public option that provides serious competition to the insurance companies through reconciliation. But don't try to pass this weak shit tea off on us as reform."
• Firedoglake's Walker: "What Carper did was take the two worst aspects of the two most worthless ideas (a trigger and zero government oversight), and combine them into one super-awful proposal. The entity created is not national, would not be large enough to negotiate low rates, would not be available on day one, and would not answer to Congress. Carper has created a 'trigger for co-ops' proposal in an attempt to get 60 votes, but, not only would the idea do nothing to help control costs, but it needlessly weakens two worthless ideas Snowe already supports."
• Daily Kos' Hunter: "The 'Plan B' Carper has come up with is not a co-op, and not a trigger, but a co-op trigger. A co-op that wouldn't even happen unless it was triggered. Which it wouldn't be, because 'triggers' are the legislative equivalent of sternly worded letters; they don't happen. That's the brilliant plan being dreamed up because not only is the public option too controversial, not only is an option with opt-out controversial, not only are the ineffective and nonsensical 'co-ops' too controversial, and not only was a trigger itself much too scary, but the only thing Carper and some other Dems think would be milquetoast enough for the Senate to stomach would be a trigger that does nothing attached to a co-op that will do nothing."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "[This is] pretty much the most useless and counter-productive alternative."

Open Left's Bowers: "Yikes! A triggered co-op! If there is any bright side to this, it lets us all know what is at stake in the Senate fight over the next few weeks. Either we round-up the five problem Senators -- [IN Sen.] Evan Bayh, [LA Sen.] Mary Landrieu, [CT Sen.] Joe Lieberman, [AR Sen.] Blanche Lincoln and [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson -- to vote for cloture, or else the Senate will bring a triggered co-op to the conference committee. Those are pretty high stakes."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Reconciliation

Liberal bloggers are starting to view the budget reconciliation process as the only means of passing meaningful health care reform:

• Bowers: "In addition to applying pressure on the five problem Senators, one move we need to make is to push for reconciliation, not a triggered co-op, as the fallback plan. Right up until the end of the process, the bill can still be split into two parts: one with the new regulations that requires 60 votes to reach cloture, and one with the public option and subsidies that can be included in the budgetary process and which cannot be filibustered. Since there are at least 51 votes for a public option in the Senate, and since reconciliation is still on the table, if we don't end up with a public option it won't be because we didn't have the votes."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "It is becoming more and more apparent that reconciliation is the only way to pass 'health care reform,' even of the Rahmbo 'anything that can pass' variety. Ben Nelson says he will filibuster any bill that has a public option OR does not contain the [MI Rep. Bart] Stupak Amendment. So regular order in the Senate is over. If President Obama and Senate Leader Reid want health care reform, even of the Rahmbo variety, reconciliation is the only way."
• mcjoan: "What is really essential in the Senate bill? The insurance reforms. Hell, throw in the repeal of the anti-trust exemption to make that look more serious. But since the regulatory structure for enforcing those reforms is unlikely to be up to the task, the other necessary ingredient is a mechanism for making those reforms stick through market forces -- the public option, designed to provide competition to keep them honest. Pass the first bill through regular process, pass the second through reconciliation. Or kiss an effective bill, one that will make people actually want to vote for you, goodbye."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is Mitt Romney The GOP Version Of John Kerry?

The American Conservative's Daniel Larison:

"What the war was for Democrats in 2004, health care legislation and bailouts will be for the Republicans in 2012. [Mitt] Romney fits the [John] Kerry mold perfectly, and like Kerry he will be forced by the strength of the primary challenge from some [Howard] Dean-like representative of the 'Republican wing of the Republican Party' to run away from his record on health care and bailouts. In fact, Romney has already been trying to make people forget that he favored the bailouts when it mattered, and no doubt he will engage in some of his typical dishonesty when confronted with the question of his record of support for health care mandates. Like Kerry, he will have zero credibility in opposing most of the President's agenda, which means that Romney's already fairly strange focus on foreign policy and national security may have to become the centerpiece of his campaign to distract attention from his record of signing off on universal health care in Massachusetts and endorsing deeply unpopular bailouts of Wall Street. For all of the ridicule he received, Kerry nearly won, but I doubt that Romney would be able to do as well as Kerry did unless economic conditions worsen severely."

LEST WE FORGET: U.S. Deports Lou Dobbs

From The Onion:

"WANTAGE, NJ -- Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who has been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs for 48 years.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, federal agents stormed the undocumented immigrant's home in an evening raid just hours after the 64-year-old newscaster suddenly announced that he was resigning from CNN, and immediately placed him on an Aeromexico flight departing from Newark Liberty Airport."

11/11: Snowed In

On a relatively quiet Veterans Day in the blogosphere, the biggest topic is a Public Policy Polling (D) survey which found that 59% of likely GOP voters in ME would vote for "a more conservative challenger" over Sen. Olympia Snowe in the 2012 GOP primary. Liberal bloggers (and at least one conservative blogger) see this poll as evidence that Snowe's career as a GOPer will soon be over. Consequently, lefty bloggers are urging her to vote for health care reform and start caucusing with the Dems. Matthew Yglesias thinks the choice is an easy one:

"Based on this polling, a Snowe who votes for a comprehensive health care overhaul is basically not going to be viable as a GOP primary candidate. Conversely, a Snowe who votes for comprehensive health reform and switches parties would remain a very popular general election candidate with a safe seat."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Gardner, Fernholz, Fallows) are praising Pres. Obama's speech at the memorial service for the 13 Americans killed at Fort Hood. Conservative bloggers (McCarthy, Rubin) are criticizing Obama for not talking about Islam in his speech.
• Liberal bloggers (Benen, Klein, Black) are discussing Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) apparent objection to any type of public option, including Snowe's "trigger" compromise. One lefty blogger thinks Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made a strategic mistake by including an opt-out public option in the merged Senate bill.
• Conservative bloggers (Lane, Morrissey, Rubin) are buzzing about the new Gallup poll showing GOPers leading Dems 48% to 44% on the 2010 generic cong. ballot. Liberal bloggers (Sudbay, Armstrong) are concerned about these numbers.
• RedState editor Erick Erickson continues to hammer FL Gov. (and SEN candidate) Charlie Crist (R).

SNOWE: Will She Pull A Specter?

Liberal bloggers think the new PPP poll suggests that Snowe should join the Dems and vote for health care reform if she wants to have a future in politics:

• Think Progress' Yglesias: "I don't know whether these results are 'surprising' or not, but I think they ought to change our understanding of the prospects of bipartisanship in health reform. This means that when you're thinking about whether Snowe will support a bill or not, the issue ultimately comes down to not triggers versus non-triggers, or employer mandates versus free rider fees, but whether Snowe wants to remain a Republican or not. Based on this polling, a Snowe who votes for a comprehensive health care overhaul is basically not going to be viable as a GOP primary candidate. Conversely, a Snowe who votes for comprehensive health reform and switches parties would remain a very popular general election candidate with a safe seat."
• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "Snowe no longer fits in the modern 'teabagging' GOP and will lose a primary in 2012. Even if she opposed health care reform, she'll never live down her vote for the stimulus. Between this poll and Dede Scozzafava's experience [in] NY-23, Snowe should realize that her career as a Republican is over. [...] Snowe is not up for re-election until 2012. If she waits until her re-election, any switch will be viewed with suspicion, but if she decides to switch now, she can claim to have done so based on principle. Democrats will welcome her with open arms as long as she doesn't play the 'Lieberman obstructionist' role. She doesn't even need to vote for a public option -- she just needs to support cloture."

Open Left's Chris Bowers thinks it's inevitable that Snowe will eventually leave the GOP: "It is a rock-solid guarantee that conservatives will primary Snowe from the right in 2012. Not only is she pro-choice, but her lifetime Progressive Punch score on critical votes is identical to [PA Sen.] Arlen Specter's (27%). If they are not going to primary challenge Snowe, they are not going to primary challenge anyone. And we all know they will keep running primary challenges. [...] Without establishment support in her own party, trailing badly in the polls, and with an offer to join the Democratic caucus, Snowe will bolt the Republican Party and join the Democratic Senate caucus by June 12th, 2012, at the very latest. So, sometime in the next 945 days, Senate Democrats will pick up another seat."

Conservative blogger Allahpundit agrees with Bowers: "Her overall approval rating is fine -- 51/36 -- but among GOPers she's 40/46, which makes me think it won't be long before she has a Specter-esque 'awakening.'"

On the other hand, The Washington Post's Ezra Klein argues that people shouldn't read too much into this poll: "Snowe isn't up for reelection until 2012. This polling shows that in 2009, at a moment of maximal heterodoxy, Snowe isn't popular among her state's Republican voters. But if she shapes up in 2011 and really nails the Obama administration? Hard to say. I can think of a lot of senators who have lost reelection in recent years. I can't think of any who lost because of a vote they cast three years before the campaign."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Bargaining 101

Yglesias thinks liberals need to become better negotiators:

"A persistent liberal failure in terms of legislative tactics seems to me to be the repeated belief that if you try to make a compromise proposal, that the compromise will be adopted and then you'll get half a loaf. The reality of the way the legislative bargaining process works, it seems to me, is that you make a proposal and then a bloc of moderate legislators demands concessions. Whatever you propose, you then have to make concessions since the moderates wouldn't be moderate if they didn't make the liberals make concessions. So you might as well have had the [House health care reform] bill start with a sweeping expansion of abortion rights -- require that all Exchange plans offer a full suite of reproductive health services. Then you start bargaining.

Would that have worked? I don't know. But the public option example strikes me as encouraging. It looks like if there's a public option in the final bill, it'll be a shadow of its original self. But had the proposal started with something like the 'level playing field' public option then there'd be nothing left."

LEST WE FORGET: Increasingly Horrified Man Listens To Self Explain What He Does For A Living

From The Onion:

"CHARLOTTE, NC -- Dawning horror tinged with self-loathing crept slowly over the face of claims adjuster Robert Pettlebaum, 42, as he described his job and by extension his life to others during a seemingly innocuous Tuesday lunch meeting. 'Mostly what I do is I seek out discrepancies in the property appraisal versus the claimant's estimate of worth and then I...then I defer outpays...with...oh, God...,' Pettlebaum said as shadows of unspeakable self-realization flickered across his increasingly desperate eyes. 'Wait, no, that can't be right. I don't...do I?' Pettlebaum's mounting terror was met with incomprehension and nervous laughter from his companions, who sources indicated have anywhere between three weeks and 27 years before realizing their own existences are as desolate and barren as his."

11/10: This Will Not Stand

The netroots remain very upset about the passage of Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) amendment to the House health care bill, which prohibited insurance plans purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions. Liberal bloggers are calling it "the most expansive restriction on access to abortion Congress has passed" and warning that it will drive women out of the Dem party. Another blogger complains: "Apparently, even though it is not listed on his official biography and he has no apparent medical training, Stupak thinks of himself as a doctor and feels comfortable inserting himself in between millions of women and their physicians." Meanwhile, lefty bloggers are working hard to ensure that the Senate doesn't attach its own version of Stupak's amendment to the Senate health care bill.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Pro-choice organizations are taking a lot of heat from the netroots following the passage of the Stupak amendment. digby thinks NARAL "needs to hold [Pres.] Nancy Keenan accountable for being completely ineffectual over and over again." DavidNYC argues that "if groups like NARAL and EMILY's List ever want to start being effective," they need to support primary challenges for Dems who voted for the Stupak amendment. Meanwhile, Jane Hamsher is urging Planned Parenthood and NARAL to score the House health care reform bill in order to "keep members of the Senate from coming out in favor of it."
• After liberal bloggers (McCarter, Cooper, digby) criticized Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) for saying that she could live with the Stupak amendment being in the final health care bill, McCaskill came out against the Stupak amendment on her Twitter feed. Meanwhile, one lefty blogger estimates that abortion opponents lack the 60 votes in the Senate that will be necessary to attach a version of the Stupak amendment to the Senate bill.
• Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is urging his readers to stop donating money to the DCCC, since "the bulk of the DCCC's money" is going to go to Dems who voted for the Stupak amendment and/or against the health care reform bill. On the other hand, liberal bloggers (Empsall, Willis) are praising the vulnerable House Dems who voted for the bill.
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Benen, Clawson) are arguing that it's in Sen. Blanche Lincoln's (D-AR) electoral interests to support health care reform.
• A group of prominent liberal bloggers is boycotting the DNC "until the President and the Democratic party keep their promises to the gay community, our families, and our friends."
• Conservative bloggers (Macomber, Lopez, Allahpundit) are criticizing RNC Chair Michael Steele for saying that white GOPers are "scared of me."
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hawkins, McCain, Bennett) are arguing that the U.S. Army's emphasis on "political correctness" and "diversity" played a role in enabling an Army psychiatrist to kill 13 people at Ft. Hood.

STUPAK: Going Well Beyond Hyde?

Liberal bloggers are furious about Stupak's amendment:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "This is the most expansive restriction on access to abortion Congress has passed. It goes well beyond Hyde, which has never been codified and which only governs federal, public plans. It's particularly galling that it comes under the umbrella of healthcare 'reform.'"
• Atrios: "Stupak doesn't care if women die. I suppose that's unfair, it's possible he's too stupid to understand the consequences of what he's doing, but I'm not sure that's any better."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Apparently, even though it is not listed on his official biography and he has no apparent medical training, Stupak thinks of himself as a doctor and feels comfortable inserting himself in between millions of women and their physicians. Not since Dr. [Bill] Frist's remote diagnosis of Terri Schiavo have we seen such arrogance. And while I am sick and tired of the debate about abortion, I'm even sicker of the C-Street panty-sniffers like Stupak. Why is it always helmet-haired old white guys who are such busybodies when it comes to a piece of anatomy they don't have?"
• Moulitsas: "The weird thing about the coathanger amendment is that I thought Republicans didn't want government between a doctor and patient. Hypocrisy?"

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein observes that the U.S. gov't already subsidizes abortion: "Rep. Bart Stupak's amendment did not make abortion illegal. And it did not block the federal government from subsidizing abortion. All it did was block it from subsidizing abortion for poorer women. Stupak's amendment stated that the public option cannot provide abortion coverage, and that no insurer participating on the exchange can provide abortion coverage to anyone receiving subsidies. But as Rep. Jim Cooper points out in the interview below, the biggest federal subsidy for private insurance coverage is untouched by Stupak's amendment. It's the $250 billion the government spends each year making employer-sponsored health-care insurance tax-free."

Daily Kos' Jed Lewison thinks Stupak's amendment is "electoral poison" for Dems: "From the Democratic Party's perspective, the Stupak amendment is electoral poison. As mcjoan wrote earlier, the amendment represents the most sweeping Federal restriction on abortion ever, and it would be crazy to think that won't impact support for the Democratic Party from pro-choice women. [...] Without this defining difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, some women will undoubtedly drift towards the GOP, and others will drift away from politics."

STUPAK II: Obama Tries To Split The Baby

mcjoan is pleased that Obama declared that the House bill shouldn't change "the status quo" regarding the ban on federal funding for abortions: "I hope [Obama] follows up those remarks with phone calls to [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson and [PA Sen.] Bob Casey, because they're working on their own version of Stupak as we speak. Stupak goes well beyond Hyde, as President Obama iterates in this interview -- this bill is not intended to change Hyde."

However, other liberal bloggers are upset that Obama expressed support for the status quo:

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "King Solomon strikes again. Whatever the issue, Obama won't defend the core Democratic constituency. He'll try to please the right just as much as the left. And regardless of how much he said he wanted to change politics in DC, he was elected as a Democrat, not a half-Republican."
• digby: "It's just great seeing the president defending his principles like that. I'm just not sure what the principle actually is. It certainly isn't that a woman has a fundamental right to make her own reproductive decisions. Evidently, they are signaling that the Hyde Amendment is their backstop once again. [...W]hy in the hell do [liberals] go into every discussion having already given away everything but their bottom line? Especially when the only people with whom they are negotiating are ostensibly on their own team, where presumably the leadership and the president have some extra sway? If there was ever a case for the liberals to go in with guns blazing, demanding repeal of the Hyde Amendment, demanding single payer, demanding huge tax increases on the wealthy, demanding open border access to the health care system (which some countries have.) Then they would have had something to work with."

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are pleased that 41 House Dems have pledged to vote against the final health care reform bill if it includes Stupak's amendment:

• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "This is excellent. Whether this is a real threat or merely a bargaining position, it is precisely how to fight on health care reform to the end. This is Madman Political Bargaining. Good to see progressives trying it."
• Aravosis: "[This] is good news, since today we also learned that the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs didn't have an opinion on the extreme anti-abortion provision that was added to the House health care reform bill at the least minute."

Conservative blogger Jim Geraghty thinks these 41 Dems are bluffing: "I don't know if [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi is actually laughing at the threat, but it might be justified. Forty-one liberal Democrats would vote to cripple the president on his signature issue? Nah. They'll fold."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Hooray For MoveOn!

NRO's Geraghty thinks the GOP will benefit from MoveOn's ad campaign against House Dems who voted against health care reform:

"I can think of no better way for MoveOn.org to spend its money than to run ads attacking conservative Blue Dogs like Mike Ross of Arkansas and Glenn Nye of Virginia on the health-care vote. Because if there's one thing a freshman like Nye needs as he seeks reelection next year, it's ads reminding the liberals in his district that he's not worth supporting! The combination of disenchanted, unenthusiastic liberals and fired-up conservatives worked wonders in Virginia this year; let's see more of it next year! MoveOn.org: Doing its part to help ensure a GOP House in 2010."

LEST WE FORGET: Poll: 100% Of Grandsons Talented

From The Onion:

"ATLANTA -- A Zogby poll of 1,542 American grandparents published Monday found that grandsons were described as 'very' to 'extremely' talented by 1,542 of the respondents. 'Participants in the poll were emphatic in their descriptions of the talents of grandsons in fields as diverse as advertising and sales, choral performance, baseball, talking, crawling, making their beds, video games, and instructing their elders on proper cell-phone use,' pollster Tom Waterton said. 'In addition, an overwhelming percentage of grandchildren were described as outgoing, sharp, and looking just like Uncle Andy, you remember Uncle Andy, he was always up to something, too bad he passed so young, he would have loved the grandchild in question.' Sources at Zogby admitted that the survey was incomplete, as several hundred pollsters are still unable to get their assigned grandparents off the phone."

11/9: Victory Comes At A Steep Price

Although a few liberal bloggers celebrated the passage of the House health care reform bill late Saturday night, most were in a sour mood, thanks to the passage of Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) amendment "barring any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions." One lefty blogger called it "the Stupak Wire Coat Hanger Amendment." Another complained: "There is no health care bill worth supporting that sells out women's civil rights." Bloggers are directing special criticism at the 23 Dems who voted in favor of the Stupak amendment and then proceeded to vote against the final bill.

Although conservative bloggers are angry at Rep. Anh Cao (R-LA) for being the only GOPer to vote in favor of the bill, they're still optimistic that health care reform will stall in the Senate. Allahpundit writes: "Take heart, righties: [Senate Maj. Leader Harry] Reid is incompetent, which makes the likelihood of 60 votes in the Senate, especially after a vote this narrow, very slim indeed."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Lange, Scarecrow, Benen, Lemos) are blasting Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for reiterating his pledge to filibuster a health care reform bill that includes a public option. One blogger thinks "[it's] time for reconciliation," but another isn't sure that reconciliation will work.
• RedState editor Erick Erickson is thrilled that the Club for Growth has endorsed FL SEN candidate Marco Rubio (R).

HOUSE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL: Hooray?

A few liberal bloggers are celebrating the passage of the House health care reform bill:

• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "There are no words that can adequately express this moment. From the bottom of my heart thank you. Today we take the first step towards a more egalitarian, fairer, more sustainable America."
• Balloon Juice's DougJ: "Now that it's through the House, I can't imagine that the Senate will drop the ball. We're going to have a bill. No doubt it will fail to 'bend the health care price curve' to Fred Hiatt's and Ruth Marcus's satisfaction. And no [doubt] it will be widely heralded as good news for conservatives. But getting access to health care for 30 million Americans matters a hell of a lot more than any of that."

However, most liberal bloggers have a sour taste in their mouths due to the passage of the Stupak amendment:

• Firedoglake's Knoxville: "[T]he Stupak Amendment rips a stunning defeat out of the jaws of what should have been a Democratic victory. How many of you saw this coming? I sure didn't. The Democratic Party leadership betrayed us all."
• Firedoglake's David Dayen: "I think the price of passage was extremely steep, and should not be tolerated. If Barack Obama indeed said he would work to take this language out in conference he should be held to that."
• The Huffington Post's Taylor Marsh: "There is no health care bill worth supporting that sells out women's civil rights. [...] Progressives in the House should have killed the bill. [...] It's up to the Senate now and the conference to strip Stupak out, with help from Pres. Obama, of course. He will help, right?"
• BooMan: "The bill passed the House with 220 votes (218 votes were required). That leaves us no room to improve the bill in Conference. We got a single Republican vote, from Joseph Cao of New Orleans. Cao was satisfied by the Stupak Amendment, but his vote will disappear if that language is stripped out in Conference. So, we have two votes to spare. Want a stronger public option? Forget it. Any small change to this deal will probably kill the effort to pass this under regular order. I give [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi credit for winning, once again, but she just barely made it. She did what she had to do, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. The combination of her dropping a robust public option pre-Conference and allowing an anti-choice amendment to pass created an extremely bitter brew. The narrowness of the vote undermines the gains we might expect from the jolt of momentum we gain from passing this crappy legislation."

HOUSE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL II: This Thing Ain't Over

Although conservative bloggers are disappointed that the bill passed the House, they're hopeful that health care reform will stall in the Senate:

• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Take heart, righties: Reid is incompetent, which makes the likelihood of 60 votes in the Senate, especially after a vote this narrow, very slim indeed."
• NRO's Rich Lowry: "Passage in the House definitely creates more pressure on Reid to get it done, but the slender margin -- despite the size of the Democratic majority in the House and all the arm-twisting and deal-making (what did Cao get?) -- has to make Senate moderates even more nervous. There's a long string yet to be played out here, and it's still likely to stretch into next year, by which time Pelosi's historic accomplishment of November 7 may look foolish."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "While pro-choice Democrats voted for the bill tonight to keep the process moving forward, they did so under the assumption that they could strip [the Stupak amendment] from the bill once the House goes into negotiations with the Senate. If the measure gets stripped, suddenly there's a risk of pro-life Democrats dropping their support of the final bill. And considering that the measure only passed by five votes, Nancy Pelosi cannot afford to shed more than a handful of members. [...] And of course, all of this assumes that some sort of bill passes the Senate. Yet if it was this heavy of a lift in the House -- where it's supposed to be easy for the majority party to ram things through -- it suddenly looks like a daunting task to get to 60 votes in the Senate."
• NRO's Yuval Levin: "Pelosi was able to let 39 of her members avoid voting for this monstrosity, and so to leave them able to tell their voters they were not part of it. Reid can't afford to give that privilege to even one of his Democratic senators (a number of whom face at least as conservative a constituency as those 39 House Democrats.) He needs every one of them to vote for it."

STUPAK: Thanks, Democratic Majority!

Liberal bloggers feel betrayed by the passage of the Stupak amendment:

• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "[T]he Stupak amendment is exactly the kind of thing a Democratic majority was supposed to stop from coming to the floor. The DCCC won't get a dime from me this cycle."
• BooMan: "So, it turns out that the price of passing health care reform in the House is selling women down the river. [...] I didn't realize that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was a political party with elected officials in Congress. Now I know."
• Atrios: "The Worst Person In The World: Bart Stupak. I do not know why some people think women shouldn't have access to appropriate medical care. Something is wrong with them."
• Feministing's Ann Friedman: "This [amendment] sets apart women's rights from the Democratic/progressive/whatever agenda. As something expendable. But fundamental rights for women are not peripheral. They are core. And not just because of so-called 'progressive' values. In a political sense, too: Seeing as how the Democratic party relies on women voters to win elections, you would think they would have come around to this no-brainer by now. It's pretty fucking cramped underneath this bus, what with 50% of Americans down here."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "The Catholic Bishops, who covered up all those horrible sex abuses cases, are now dictating legislative policy in Washington DC. Obama and House leaders let the Bishops rule the health care debate on Saturday through the Stupak amendment. Women of American should understand that the Bishops are now making decisions of their health."
• Firedoglake's Rayne: "It's a fundamental part of our belief system in the Democratic Party, that women have a right to privacy in their reproductive health care decisions. We've fought long and hard to protect this right. And now we've seen decades of work to protect this fundamental human right dashed by our own Democratic representatives."
• digby: "Since the Republicans have made themselves irrelevant with their obstructionism the Democrats have decided that in order to further the president's edict to change the tone and further bipartisanship they will just have to compromise with themselves. Democrats everywhere will now be able to brag about furthering the Godly cause of forced pregnancy, while having also voted to pass health care. If this passes it will have been an historic week for the denial of constitutional rights under our new 'liberal' majority. I'm sure conservatives are very impressed and will vote for Democrats forever and ever because of it."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "The final compromises before a bill comes to the floor are never very pretty. This one, however, is worse than I anticipated. [...] The idea that people are going to go out and purchase separate 'abortion plans' is both cruel and laughable. If this amendment passes, it will mean that virtually all women with insurance through the exchange who find themselves in the unwanted and unexpected position of needing to terminate a pregnancy will not have coverage for the procedure. Abortion coverage will not be outlawed in this country. It will simply be tiered, reserved for those rich enough to afford insurance themselves or lucky enough to receive from their employers."

Several liberal bloggers are criticizing the logic of the Stupak amendment:

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "Basically, the [Stupak] amendment stops any government money from funding insurance plans that cover abortions. The twisted logic being that any money connected to any insurance company covering abortions is 'abortion money,' i.e., profits earned from 'killing babies.' We can't have the government touching that. So I sure hope that no pro-life members of Congress are accepting political donations from any insurance companies that cover abortions. Because if they are accepting such donations, they're accepting profits that came from 'killing little babies.'"
• digby: "By their own logic, if the jackasses of both parties who voted for Stupak have ever taken one single penny from insurance companies that offer coverage for abortions --- and that's all of them --- they are complicit in baby killing. So, by the way, is anyone who invests in insurance companies or accepts money from them in advertising. Fungible means fungible."

STUPAK II: Who To Blame?

Several liberal bloggers are accusing the leading pro-choice organizations of not doing enough to fight the Stupak amendment:

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "Thank you, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, from the bottom of my heart, for sitting on your hands and enabling this shit. Hope you have fun at all those Common Purpose meetings, those cocktail parties at the Pelosi's. You own this one. [...] Could they whip the pro-choice women to block the rule if they want to? Of course they could. Yank their endorsements and they could cause havoc in the Democratic party. But they won't, because [NARAL Pres.] Nancy Keenan and [Planned Parenthood Pres.] Cecile Richards value their own personal position in the veal pen pecking order WAY too much for that. [...] They knew this was coming since at least July 1 -- and they didn't even raise money for the fight."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "If [Stupak's amendment] makes it in, it won't be the end because we won't let it be. We will continue to fight to strip it in conference. But if it makes it in it will be a bitter, bitter pill to swallow with the bill, and massive, massive failure on the part of pro-choice organizations like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, who knew this was going to be coming for months and did nothing to stave it off."

digby directs her criticism at Obama: "Apparently Obama called congressional Reps personally and told them to 'work it out' on abortion but he never weighed in on his own preferences, thereby letting everyone know that he really didn't give shit.(Of course after his comments that the Hyde Amendment is an American 'tradition' we shouldn't be surprised.) If anyone is expecting him to go into the conference and side with those who want to strip the Stupak Amendment from the final bill, I think they are going to be disappointed. It's pretty clear by now that women's and gay issues are being sacrificed to keep the conservative status quo on life support until it can fully recover."

Several liberal bloggers want to punish the 23 Dems who voted for the Stupak amendment and then proceeded to vote against the final bill:

• Dayen: "64 members of the Democratic caucus voted in favor of the Stupak Amendment. [...] Of the 64, 41 ended up going ahead and voting for the bill. But 23 members voted for Stupak, to restrict choice, and then against the health care reform bill. These 23 are simply moles inside the caucus, opposing key planks of the Democratic platform. What's more, they will have giant targets on their back, both from Democratic activists seeking primaries and Republicans who know that their base will turn out in much stronger numbers for their candidates than these so-called Democrats who appear to stand for nothing."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "The list of Democrats who voted in favor of the Stupak amendment, but against the overall bill, should be available soon. Just as important as primary challenges, we need to create an alternate DCCC, so that progressives don't see their money spent on anti-choice, anti-health care Democrats. A Stupak amendment of our own, if you will, to make sure that our money doesn't end up funding shitty Democrats."

CAO: Traitor!

Many righty bloggers are criticizing Cao for being the only GOPer to vote for the bill:

• NRO's Andy McCarthy: "Evidently, the congressman's about as cheap a date as they come."
• Michelle Malkin: "I had reservations about him on election night because of his soft-on-immigration views. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt. If he could stand strong on limited government and fiscal conservatism, it would be worth it. Well, since he was elected, Cao has backed the S-CHIP expansion, the $108 billion IMF bailout, and the omni-waste spending bill. And he voted to rebuke GOP Rep. Joe Wilson for calling out President Obama on his health care lies. That is a steep price to pay for Rep. William Jefferson's removal. Can't the GOP do better?"
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "The fact that Cao represents a horrible district and will probably not be re-elected should have liberated him to do the right thing -- without regard for political considerations. The fact that he will probably not be re-elected should have reinforced his decision to vote 'no' -- instead, it persuaded him to vote 'aye'. Appeasement, of course, never works. Does Cao really think Democrats will reward him for this? Does he really think Democrats in Louisiana will prefer a squishy Republican over a real liberal Democrat? Cao's vote has serious implications, inasmuch as it provides Democrats with the rhetorical cover to argue this was a bipartisan bill. Make no mistake, this was a legacy vote. Cao had one term to make his legacy. ... And he has."

AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer defends Cao: "Conservatives need to take a deep breath, relax, and stop bashing Joseph Cao. The man never claimed to be a fully committed economic conservative. He represents a district that is about 75 percent Democrat and 62 percent black (or thereabouts). He SAID ALL ALONG, FOR MONTHS, that he would probably vote for health care reform if it included strong pro-life language such as the Stupak Amendment. He stuck to his guns, even though his district is not majority pro-life. He is a traditionalist Catholic, former Jesuit seminarian, and he stands up for the principles he holds dear, one of which is the sanctity of innocent life. He is willing to lose his office on behalf of that pro-life stance."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Senate's The Thing

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias:

"It's worth taking a moment to appreciate the fact that in a unicameral United States of America, we would now have passed both a comprehensive health care reform bill and also the most important piece of environmental legislation in the history of the world. Now that's not the world we live in. Instead we live in a world where neither of those things have passed and where their prospects aren't clear. But think back on this point the next time you hear someone say Obama is struggling with his agenda because he's not centrist enough, or else that Obama is struggling with his agenda because he's not left-wing enough. The reality is that he's struggling with his agenda because of the way our political institutions are structured."

LEST WE FORGET: Fox News Reports: Millions Of Grannies Flee U.S. As Death Panels Loom

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- With the establishment of government-mandated death panels just days away, grandmothers began fleeing the United States in record numbers today, reports Fox News.

'I am never one to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater,' said Fox News host Glenn Beck. 'But run for your lives!'

Across the country, slow-moving caravans of 1980s-era Cadillacs with turn signals blinking were making the torturous journey to the Canadian border, their back seats laden with cats, knitting projects, and pictures of grandchildren.

Fox News may have set off the mass exodus by warning grannies that if they did not flee quickly enough they would face government-mandated organ harvesting."

11/6: Rocking The House

Although the biggest story in the blogosphere is the deadly shooting at Ft. Hood, the second-biggest story is probably yesterday's Tea Party protest on Capitol Hill, in which conservative activists and GOP congressmen rallied against the Dem health care reform legislation. As they've done after every Tea Party protest, conservative bloggers are posting numerous photos of the protesters. They're also praising the protesters and emphasizing their message. "Hey, Nancy: Can you hear America now?" Michelle Malkin writes. "Kill the bill, tear it up and start over."

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are doing what they do after every Tea Party protest, which is posting photos of the more offensive signs being displayed by the protesters. Lefty bloggers are also contrasting yesterday's anti-health care reform rally with the endorsements that the House bill received from the AARP and the AMA. Steve Benen writes: "It created an interesting bookend -- on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, right-wing activists were having yet another rally based on paranoid fears and debunked nonsense; on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House was welcoming support from the nation's largest advocacy group for seniors and the nation's largest organization of medical doctors."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Lane, Reynolds, Erickson, Klein, Geraghty, Morrissey) are buzzing about the news that that U.S. unemployment rate has climbed to 10.2%, which is the highest it's been in 26 years. Liberal bloggers (Dayen, Aravosis, Scarecrow, Yglesias, Fernholz) are calling for more economic stimulus legislation.
• Liberal bloggers (Cohn, McCarter, Drum, Cole, BooMan) continue to ridicule the House GOP health care reform bill -- which, according to the CBO, "would leave about 52 million people uninsured." On the other hand, Andrew Sullivan thinks the GOP bill contains some good ideas, and Ed Morrissey praises the bill.
• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Morrissey, Geraghty) are ridiculing FL Gov. (and SEN candidate) Charlie Crist (R) for denying that he ever supported Pres. Obama's stimulus bill.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hanson, Hengler, Erickson, Johnson, Hawkins) are buzzing about the Muslim background of the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Ft. Hood yesterday.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: The AMA & AARP Get On Board

Liberal bloggers are delighted that the AARP and AMA both endorsed the House Dem health care bill yesterday:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "The AARP is behind the House Bill, and what's more, is going to lobby Members for it. [...] And the AMA. [...] Whoooo, pretty radical groups there. The Blue Dogs better be careful deciding whether or not they want to join forces with such questionable allies on an idea as unpopular as healthcare reform. Seriously, check out all the fringe groups supporting the bill. Seriously, those wacky pediatricians on on there, and the American Medical Colleges, hotbeds of radical politics that they are. And you know that the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons are communist cells. Don't even get me started on the Consumers Union or Easter Seals."
• Firedoglake's Jon Walker: "The endorsements should help ensure that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be able to whip the votes to pass the bill on Saturday. The strong endorsements should also help strengthen the House Democrats' hand when their bill is eventually merged with the Senate bill in conference."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "Two days out for the forthcoming House vote on healthcare reform, I'm feeling more [and] more confident that the Democratic leadership will be able to round up the 218 votes in favor of their legislation."
• The Washington Monthly's Benen: "It created an interesting bookend -- on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, right-wing activists were having yet another rally based on paranoid fears and debunked nonsense; on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House was welcoming support from the nation's largest advocacy group for seniors and the nation's largest organization of medical doctors."

In other health care reform news, liberal bloggers (Bowers, Protzman) are angry and disappointed that Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC) -- who raised a lot of money from netroots activists -- will vote against the House bill.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Meaninglessness Of Shootings

The Atlantic's James Fallows:

"One consequence of having been alive through a lot of modern American history is remembering a lot of mass shootings. I was working at a high school summer job when news came over the radio that Charles Whitman had gunned down more than 40 people, killing 14, from the main tower at the University of Texas at Austin. I was editing a news magazine during the schoolyard killings in Paducah, Kentucky in 1997 and sent reporters to try to figure out what it all meant. I can remember where I was when the live-news coverage switched to the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, and the shootings at the one-room schoolhouse in the Amish country of Pennsylvania, and the Virginia Tech shootings two years ago. And all the rest.

In the saturation coverage right after the events, the 'expert' talking heads are compelled to offer theories about the causes and consequences. In the following days and weeks, newspapers and magazine will have their theories too. Looking back, we can see that all such efforts are futile. The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre 'mean'? A decade later, do we 'know' anything about Columbine? There is chaos and evil in life. Some people go crazy. In America, they do so with guns; in many countries, with knives; in Japan, sometimes poison.

We know the emptiness of these events in retrospect, though we suppress that knowledge when the violence erupts as it is doing now. The cable-news platoons tonight are offering all their theories and thought-drops. They've got to fill time. I wish they could stop. As the Vietnam-era saying went, Don't mean nothing."

LEST WE FORGET: 1999 Collaboration Between Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas Somehow Standing Test Of Time

From The Onion:

"LOS ANGELES -- Sources reported Monday that 'Smooth,' the 1999 collaborative effort of guitarist Carlos Santana and singer-songwriter Rob Thomas, has somehow persevered against all odds and continued to receive regular radio airplay this week. 'While the projections of most experts suggested "Smooth" would fade from the national consciousness within its first year, the song has actually proved surprisingly resilient over time,' noted musicologist Sidney Brown said of the No. 1 single's inexplicable staying power. 'Though it seems not to have any musical or cultural relevance whatsoever, many people, myself included, find themselves humming the track's guitar lick at least once every other week.' At press time, the triple-platinum, Latin-tinged rock record was heard emanating from an estimated 780,022 open car windows and 2,300 department store sound systems."

11/5: Sorry, Charlie

Bloggers are buzzing about NRSC Chair John Cornyn's announcement that the NRSC won't be spending money in contested GOP primaries such as the one between FL Gov. Charlie Crist and ex-FL House Speaker Marco Rubio. RedState editor Erick Erickson was initially delighted by the news. He called Cornyn's announcement "just one of the very many reasons NY-23 was a victory for conservatives" and declared: "[T]he NRSC is throwing Charlie to [the] wolves." Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan decried the announcement as "a surrender to the base activists." On the other hand, liberal bloggers mostly praised the NRSC's move. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas wrote: "Democrats should be no different. The D.C. party shouldn't be propping up candidates from afar. Let the voters choose their nominee."

However, things are still tense between the NRSC and conservative bloggers. This morning, Erickson accused the NRSC of "send[ing] out a big memo to NRSC donors and others highlighting all of the up coming opportunities for them to give Charlie Crist money." Erickson mockingly describes the NRSC's position on the FL SEN primary as "we're staying out, so please send money."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Malkin, Hoft, Bandes, Geraghty, Hawkins) are heavily promoting today's rally against health care reform on Capitol Hill, which is begin led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
• Conservative bloggers (Hinderaker, Henke, Mirengoff) are still analyzing Doug Hoffman's (C) loss to Rep.-elect Bill Owens (D) in the NY-23 race. One righty blogger (Spruiell) thinks conservatives ought to support Hoffman if he runs as a GOPer in '10, but others (Hawkins, Ponnuru) disagree. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Moulitsas 1, Moulitsas 2, Benen) are urging Dem congressmen to work on motivating their base if they want to avoid heavy losses in '10.
• Liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Black, Marshall, Benen, Fernholz) are mocking IL SEN candidate Mark Kirk (R) for trying to secure an endorsement from ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R). A conservative blogger predicts that Kirk "[will] have to do a lot more groveling on the cap-and-trade issue" before he receives Palin's endorsement.
• Several liberal bloggers (Sudbay, Chart, Greenwald) are criticizing the anonymous WH official who suggested that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) "should have manned-up and run against [NYC Mayor] Michael Bloomberg" after Weiner criticized the WH's handling of the race.
• Liberal bloggers (Klein, Dayen, Benen, Singer, Willis) are mocking the House GOP health care reform bill after the CBO determined that the bill "would leave about 52 million people uninsured." In other health care reform news, lefty bloggers (McCarter, Benen, Hamsher) continue to criticize the public option "trigger" proposal.

FL SEN: Is The NRSC Throwing Crist To The Wolves?

After Cornyn announced that the NRSC would not be spending money to help Crist in the FL GOP SEN primary, RedState's Erickson was delighted: "Well, the one Republican in Washington, D.C. today who seems to have had a realistic assessment of what took place yesterday is John Cornyn, the Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. [...] Make no mistake about it, the only reason that endorsement happened was not to help Crist, but to stop donors from giving money to Rubio. Now that this is no longer a reality or possibility, the NRSC is throwing Charlie to [the] wolves. The message from John Cornyn to everyone seems very clear, 'We're not as screwed up as the NRCC and will not be playing in Florida.' See? Just one of the very many reasons NY-23 was a victory for conservatives."

However, Erickson subsequently accused the NRSC of trying to help Crist in other ways: "Funny. The NRSC's Chairman John Cornyn says the NRSC is sitting Florida out and won't spend a nickel there. That's fine. Of course they did just send out a big memo to NRSC donors and others highlighting all of the up coming opportunities for them to give Charlie Crist money."

The Atlantic's Sullivan was disappointed by Cornyn's announcement: "John Cornyn's statement that the NRSC will not fund its own candidates in disputed primaries seems to me to be a surrender to the base activists. What it means is that the same forces that purged Scozzafava will have free rein to purge others. They are already interpreting a Democratic victory in a super-safe red-state seat as a win for ... conservatives. And the threat of third party candidates against the GOP across the country has obviously spooked the national party leadership."

Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, generally support Cornyn's move:

• Moulitsas: "NRSC, spooked by NY-23, is backing away from directly engaging in Senate primaries. Actually, that's not a bad thing. Democrats should be no different. The D.C. party shouldn't be propping up candidates from afar. Let the voters choose their nominee. Of course, I'm confident that our primaries generate electable candidates (like [VA Sen.] Jim Webb and [MT Sen.] Jon Tester), while theirs generate candidates like Doug Hoffman. So for Dems, such a policy is a win-win!"
• Firedoglake's David Dayen: "If this were happening in the Democratic Party, I would praise it, so let me briefly do the same here. People on the ground should decide who they want to be their nominee, not Senators playing favorites from back in Washington. Committees like this should respect their base and allow them to pick the candidates, and primaries are generally healthy events for parties. I certainly wish [ex-DCCC Chair] Rahm Emanuel heeded this."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Governors Matter, Not Elections

TAPPED's Mark Schmitt:

"It's governance, not elections, that will matter. If Republican governors like Chris Christie in New Jersey, Robert McDonnell in Virginia, or others elected in 2008 or earlier are seen as successful governors, that's the path back to power for Republicans. The Republican surge in the 1990s owed far more to big-state Republican governors who were perceived as successful than to the congressional majority. Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, John Engler in Michigan, George Voinovich in Ohio, Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey, Tom Ridge in Pennsylvania and others implanted in those swing-state voters a sense that Republicans could be responsible stewards of government, cutting taxes without cutting services. ('Perceived' is the key word; there were often colossal gimmicks involved.) When voters looked at [Geoge W.] Bush in 2000, they quite reasonably saw him as cut from the same cloth, and very different from the deeply unpopular Republicans of Congress. Governors present a face of the party as solving problems, not stirring conflict around social issues or obstructing progress on health care.

I'm not too worried about Christie being perceived as a big success. New Jersey ran out of gimmicks a long time ago, and I think the Christie administration will dissolve quickly in scandal. [...] But McDonnell takes office on a foundation of eight years of responsible government by [Mark] Warner and Tim Kaine. The state has one of the most resilient economies in the country (thanks, big government!), and it won't take much for him to be seen as a good governor who can also cut some taxes. Such success could make McDonnell a presidential candidate someday, or more likely a challenger for one of the two Senate seats, and it will potentially restore Virginians' comfort with the Republican Party. Those are the only national consequences of yesterday's gubernatorial elections."

LEST WE FORGET: Barack Obama Names Alan Moore Official White House Biographer

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- At a press conference Monday, President Obama announced that he had appointed legendary comic book writer Alan Moore as the official biographer of his time in the White House. 'As evidenced by his epic run on Swamp Thing #21–64, Moore's deft hand with both sociopolitical commentary and metaphysical violence makes him an ideal choice to chronicle my time in office,' Obama said of the author of Watchmen and From Hell, whom he reportedly chose over others on a short list of potential biographers that included Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, and Bob Woodward. 'I look forward to seeing the kinds of subplots he will surely weave throughout the main narrative of my presidency, and how he'll tie them all back together at the end in a way that just elevates the thing to a whole other level. God, that guy is the master.' Although Obama has not yet settled on a publisher for his White House biography, he is reportedly leaning toward DC's Vertigo imprint for its creator-friendly ethos, high production values, and willingness to publish content for mature readers."

11/4: The Day After

Conservative bloggers are trying to portray the GOP victories in the VA GOV and NJ GOV races as a rejection of Pres. Obama and his agenda, making pronunciations such as "The Obama magic has faded" and "The glow is gone". RedState editor Erick Erickson offers one of his typically succinct summaries of yesterday's election results: "In 2008, the American public voted for Barack Obama to prove they weren't racist and in [2009] the same public is voting for Republicans to prove they aren't socialist." Many righty bloggers are arguing that Obama's inability to save NJ Gov. Jon Corzine (D) or VA GOV candidate Creigh Deeds (D) indicates that "Obama cannot help other Democrats get elected." Conservative bloggers predict that centrist Dem lawmakers will take note of Obama's short coattails and consequently "consider unpopular bills for ObamaCare and cap-and-trade in an entirely new light."

Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, are arguing that yesterday's election results have little national significance, noting that Obama has positive approval ratings in both VA and NJ. Several lefty bloggers are pointing out that Dems actually increased their majority in the House last night by winning the NY-23 race. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas writes: "Reminder: Democrats GAINED in the House tonight. So much for the anti-Democratic Congress teabagger wave." Chris Bowers adds: "Whenever a party gains seats in congress, the voters simply are not rebuking that party."

Not surprisingly, the NY-23 race was the one that generated the most commentary in the blogosphere. While righty bloggers were disappointed that Dem Bill Owens narrowly defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, they're still portraying Hoffman's performance as a victory, since he forced GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava to withdraw from the race. Erickson calls the NY-23 result "a huge win for conservatives" and explains: "I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy." Michelle Malkin agrees: "Better a donkey in office that acts like a donkey than a donkey in elephant's clothing making a complete ass of the GOP." Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, are mocking the role that the conservative movement played in the NY-23 race. Moulitsas snarks: "Let's all give a hearty round of applause to the teabaggers, who took what would've been a very good night for Republicans and ruined it by helping Democrats pick up a seat they hadn't held since the Civil War."

ELECTION DAY RESULTS: Yes, This Was A Referendum On Obama

Conservative bloggers are portraying yesterday's election results as a rejection of Obama and his agenda:

• Glenn Reynolds: "The Obama magic has faded."
• Malkin: "Glenn Reynolds says the 'Obama magic has faded.' The glow is gone. The swagga has sagged. Indeed. [...] Yes, reality is finally settling in."
• Erickson: "[I]t looks like the love affair is over. In 2008, the American public voted for Barack Obama to prove they weren't racist and in [2009] the same public is voting for Republicans to prove they aren't socialist."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Obama will still be president for another three years, but the mystique is gone. New Jersey just taught Democrats in Congress a big lesson -- Obama can't get them re-elected. Being the President's 'partner' on his radical agenda is not a winning position; it wasn't for Corzine in what should have been a secure blue state, and it certainly won't be in moderate or conservative districts and states held by Democrats in the House and Senate. That is a huge blow to Obama and his agenda, as Democrats now have to consider unpopular bills for ObamaCare and cap-and-trade in an entirely new light. If they fall in behind Obama instead of listening to their constituents, they will find themselves in retirement after the 2010 midterms. That's the big lesson, and it will not be lost on moderate Democrats."

RedState's Dan McLaughlin: "The record turnout among racial-minority and youth voters generated by the 2008 Obama campaign was not replicable in 2009 without his personal presence on the ballot. And of course, the same will be true in 2010, when Obama himself is not personally on the ballot and will again make every effort to explain helpfully to other Democrats that they lost their jobs for reasons unrelated to his precious historic personal popularity. The revelation that Obama cannot help other Democrats get elected is, of course, bound to affect his ability to govern; he can't convince wavering 'Blue Dog' Democrats that supporting him in return for his campaign appearances in their districts will do any more for them than it did for Jon Corzine or Creigh Deeds."

ELECTION DAY RESULTS: No, This Was Not A Referendum On Obama

Liberal bloggers are arguing that yesterday's election results don't have much national significance:

• Moulitsas: "This is not a nationalized election. Democratic special election victories in early 2004 had no bearing on the beating we took that November, while a solid Republican showing in MA-05 in 2007 had no bearing on the trashing they took in November of 2008. These were not nationalized elections, and focused mostly on local issues. Republicans will spin any gains as a repudiation of Obama, but they risk the same level of delusion that I suffered when I thought winning special elections in South Dakota and Kentucky meant anything more than 'good Democratic candidates running on local issues beat shitty Republican ones.' In Virginia, [Bob] McDonnell (R) was by far a better candidate than the Democrats' Deeds. And while NJ Gov. Jon Corzine continues to suffer from approval ratings in the 30s, the race is only competitive because the Republican has turned out to be a horrendous candidate. Incumbents with approval ratings in the 30s have no business winning reelection."
• Balloon Juice's DougJ: "There's not much of a lesson to be learned from a bunch of low turn-out races in an odd year. But if you didn't already know that running to the center in a state your party lost last time (I'm referring to McDonnell in VA) is smart and running to the far right in a swing district (NY-23) is dumb, this is more evidence."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "My election post mortem -- um, it's the economy stupid? Don't run crazy people in New York? Old people in Maine are bigots? I dunno, I suppose you can force a narrative out of this but I do not see one here. 2010 will be decided by what happens between now and Election Day 2010. I think there is nothing to be garnered from last night's results."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "The temptation is to analyze the results in the larger national picture. That's almost certainly a mistake. In November 2001, George W. Bush's approval rating was in the 80s, and Democrats nevertheless won the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia. Was it a hint of shifting political winds? Hardly -- the 2002 midterms didn't go especially well for Dems."

Most liberal bloggers are attributing the anti-incumbent mood to the bad economy:

• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "The electorate was pretty tough on incumbents tonight. Democrats got kicked out in Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans got kicked out in NY-23, and [NYC Mayor] Michael Bloomberg, who was expected to win reelection in a rout, only barely squeaked by. [...] I guess that's not too big a surprise considering the lousy economy and the generally sour mood of the voters."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "I think you can see from the unexpected closeness in the NYC mayor's race that an economic catastrophe is not a good time to be an incumbent elected official."

Several liberal bloggers are pointing out that Dems actually increased their majority in the House yesterday:

• Moulitsas: "Reminder: Democrats GAINED in the House tonight. So much for the anti-Democratic Congress teabagger wave."
• Open Left's Bowers: "Democrats now have 258 seats in the House, up from 257. Whenever a party gains seats in congress, the voters simply are not rebuking that party. With the teabagger vanquished and an upgrade from [ex-Rep. Ellen] Tauscher, that is a pretty solid night in the House."

NY-23: "A Huge Win For Conservatives"

Although Hoffman lost, conservative bloggers are still proud of his campaign -- especially his success in forcing Scozzafava to withdraw from the race:

• Malkin: "Hoffman may have lost narrowly, but NY-23 is a much broader victory for conservatives who believe the Republican Party should stand for core limited government principles. [...] Better a donkey in office that acts like a donkey than a donkey in elephant's clothing making a complete ass of the GOP."
• Erickson: "The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens. This is a huge win for conservatives. [...] I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do -- crush the establishment backed GOP candidate. [...] So we have demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted. The GOP spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. Were we to combine Scozzafava and Hoffman's votes, Hoffman would have won. Secondly, and just as importantly, there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable. Third parties lack funding and ability for a host of reasons. Conservatives are going to have to work from within the GOP. The GOP had better pay attention. For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "[A]s I said over the weekend, the actual result of this race is unimportant. The point in torpedoing Scozzafava and swinging the GOP behind Hoffman was to send a message to the Republican leadership that only fiscal conservatives will be tolerated henceforth, and that message has been sent even with Owens winning a squeaker. The loss is disappointing but it's a detail on an otherwise great night."
• NRO's Yuval Levin: "Isn't it a little strange to argue that the NY-23 result should take the wind of N.J. and Va. out of Republican sails? It seems to me that that result makes exactly the same point as the two governor's races: A Republican running as a conservative alternative to the party in power at the moment, reasonably attuned to the tone and mood of his constituents, and reasonably unafraid to embrace his party and its conservative identity, can win. It seems pretty obvious that if the GOP had run such a candidate in NY-23 (for instance, if they had run Doug Hoffman rather than forcing him to run as an independent), that candidate would have won handily."

Most conservative bloggers are looking on the bright side:

• Morrissey: "It's never a best-case for the GOP when a Democrat wins, but by keeping Dede Scozzafava out of the seat, the GOP has the chance to win this seat back in a year with a better candidate -- perhaps Hoffman, perhaps another Republican who shares core principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism. Dislodging an incumbent Republican would have been considerably more difficult, and a unified GOP should win this district -- especially given the signals sent everywhere else to Democrats."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "Hoffman has no charisma and the 'Republican' in the race endorsed the Democrat, yet he only lost by 3 points. Combined, Hoffman and Scozzafava pulled in more votes than the Democrat as well. What that means is that in 2010, when there is another election, there will be a stronger Republican candidate in the race and that person will be highly likely to knock off Owens. So, given how it played out, were conservatives right to challenge Scozzafava? Absolutely. Setting aside the fact that it was far from clear that she'd have won, the worst possible outcome would have been for her to win the seat because in a district like that, even a mediocre Democrat with an R beside of her name like Scozzafava might have been able to stay up there for 20 years."
• Geraghty: "Winning 46 percent of the vote, and coming 4,000 or so votes short, is nothing to be ashamed of. But there are primaries for a reason. In less than a year, Doug Hoffman will have his chance to win a Conservative and/or Republican nomination the old-fashioned way."
• NRO's Stephen Spruiell: "If Hoffman decides to run in 2010, he will probably be running against a Bill Owens whose party has forced him to take tough votes on monstrous health-care, energy and card-check bills. This is still a Republican district. Plus, Hoffman won't have to worry about zombie Scozzafava taking 5 percent of the vote."

NY-23 II: Schadenfreude On The Left

Liberal bloggers don't like Owens, a centrist Dem who opposes a public health insurance option. However, liberal bloggers were still happy about Hoffman's loss because they believe that it reflects a growing split within the GOP:

• Moulitsas: "Let's all give a hearty round of applause to the teabaggers, who took what would've been a very good night for Republicans and ruined it by helping Democrats pick up a seat they hadn't held since the Civil War. Glenn Beck? Thanks! [Ex-AK Gov.] Sarah Palin? Thanks! [MN Gov.] Tim Pawlenty? Thanks! Club for Growth? Thanks! Ironically, the NRCC, the RNC, [ex-Speaker] Newt Gingrich and the smartest Republican in the world, Tom Davis (former NRCC chair) were right -- the Republican Party needs to be more of a big tent to successfully compete in the Northeast and other non-Southern parts of the country. So let's sit back and watch the teabaggers go to war against the GOP establishment, even though it was the national and local GOP that knew how to best hold the seat."
• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "On behalf of the President, I'd like to thank [ex-AK Gov.] Sarah Palin for ruining what could otherwise have been a very good night for the GOP."
• Oliver Willis: "TEABAG FAIL. [...] This is a +30% seat they should win easily, but they were so damned concerned about purity control they kicked themselves in the nuts."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Will Republicans do Obama a big favor by nominating a crop of Hoffmans for 2010?"
• Big Tent Democrat: "Now, if we can only get the Teabaggers to win all the GOP primaries, Dems might be sitting pretty in 2010. It is always easier to run against someone than be run against."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "Tea Party conservatives see themselves as the base of the GOP when really they are just a fringe, and a lunatic fringe at that. But what matters in this case is their own perception of the situation. They are, I think, only more embolden to take on the GOP establishment who is frankly spineless, cowering in fear and out of ideas anyway. I suspect that the battle of the GOP's soul will continue."
• Bowers: "While I would much rather have had Corzine...this win by Owens will cause even more damage in the ongoing Republican civil war. Owens won because he was endorsed by Scozzafava, who was herself torpedoed by most of the Republican establishment. Lots of finger pointing, and no clear result. This is going to get even bloodier."

NJ GOV: Take That, Obama!

Conservative bloggers were particularly happy about NJ Gov.-elect Chris Christie's victory:

• Allahpundit: "The One can spin Virginia but he can't spin this."
• Geraghty: "The Republicans had a good, but not great night, but only one result made me leap out of my chair in the NRA News studio and dance around the room: Chris Christie's win in New Jersey."
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "Given New Jersey's status as a heavily Democratic state, this may be the most surprising result tonight. The Democrats can spin the result away, but the Obama folks thought this race was winnable and that Obama's involvement would make a difference. Christie was heavily outspent by Corzine. Christie had Corzine's unpopularity going for him, but didn't run an impressive campaign and had to overcome the drag of a third-party candidate who siphoned off anti-Corzine votes. The result of this race has to sting Democrats."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "Even if we don't see the New Jersey election results as a rejection of Obama, at the very minimum what they show is that his campaign appearances can't carry a Democrat across the finish line, even a candidate with a huge money advantage in a solidly blue state. And if Obama -- with all of his star power and highly-touted political organization -- can't deliver in New Jersey, then why would a moderate Democrat running for re-election next year in a red district where Obama is unpopular to begin with tie himself to Obama? Why would a red state Democrat vote with the Democratic leadership on issues such as health care legislation and 'cap and trade'?"

On the left side of the blogosphere, Lemos suggests that Obama bring Corzine to DC: "Corzine is now available to [be] Secretary of the Treasury. Dump [Tim] Geithner and replace with Corzine, who is not only more experienced but an actual progressive. A Corzine appointment at Treasury would change the dynamics of the department after over eight years of lightweights in the post."

VA GOV: See? This Is What Happens When You Ignore Your Base

Liberal bloggers argue that the big lesson from Deeds' crushing defeat is that it's foolish for Dems to ignore their base:

• Bowers: "I guess Deeds just didn't swerve far enough to the right. After all, the under-30 vote was only cut in half. He could have done better than that. Another great victory for Blue Dogism."
• Firedoglake's David Dayen: "The Virginia race really looks like a case of a depressed base. Conservatives turned out at basically the same numbers as they did in 2008. The Democrats didn't turn out. And Deeds distancing himself from Democratic agenda items like health care reform and climate change is the reason."
• Willis: "Lesson for Dems: Put up candidates with guts. Deeds ran a squish campaign and got squish results. He opposed cap and trade and said he would opt out of the public option. Way to suppress the base vote, dude."

Moulitsas:

"[P]reliminary numbers (at least in Virginia) show that GOP turnout remained the same as last year, but Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:

(1.) If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary 'bipartisanship', you will lose votes.
(2.) If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.
(3.) If you forget why you were elected -- health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform -- you will lose votes.

Tonight proved conclusively that we're not going to turn out just because you have a (D) next to your name, or because Obama tells us to. We'll turn out if we feel it's worth our time and effort to vote, and we'll work hard to make sure others turn out if you inspire us with bold and decisive action."

MAINE: This One Hurts

Liberal bloggers were very upset that ME voters repealed the state's same sex marriage law:

• Open Left's Adam Bink: "I don't really have much else to say except this one hurts, in my gut, a lot."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "The Bishop of Maine, Richard Malone, must be quite pleased with himself. He ran a campaign of lies, hate and distortions -- and convinced enough Maine voters to vote with him. It's going to take me a couple days (or more) to get my head around this one. But, for now, suffice it so say: HATE was the winner in Maine. Hate and the Catholic Bishop. But, this isn't over. Time and justice really are on our side."
• Bowers: "[This is] enough to make your blood boil. The only bright side I can offer is that, once again, we are getting closer to winning these elections. Also, once again, we probably won them among voters under the age of 65."

Several lefty bloggers are discussing whether Obama should have gotten involved:

• Drum: "From a purely practical political perspective it's easy to understand why Obama didn't want to get involved in this, but it might have made a difference. I don't have any doubt that California and Maine will both flip within a few years anyway, but sooner sure would have been better than later."
• FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver: "There's going to be an effort by many on the left to blame Barack Obama for his lack of leadership on gay rights issues; I think the criticism is correct on its face, but I don't know how much it has to do with the defeat in Maine. A more popular Democratic governor, for instance, who had been a bit quicker on the trigger in his support of gay marriage, might have helped more."

On the other side of the blogosphere, conservative bloggers celebrated the ME results:

• NRO's Maggie Gallagher: "The People have exercized their veto. This is huge. I am so happy."
• NRO's Thomas Peters: "Proponents of same-sex marriage, unlike in California's Prop 8, can't blame Maine on Mormons, on African Americans who turned out for Barack Obama, or on confusing ballot wording. Their issue loses when the people decide. And it loses every time."
• Malkin: "Socially liberal Maine rejects a gay marriage initiative -- making it the 31st time (out of 31 tries) that voters have torpedoed such proposals. How long until gay marriage proponents start decrying America's 'climate of hate?' 3, 2, 1...."
• The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb: "The vote preserving marriage in Maine sends a clear message: Democrats will repeal DADT at their own peril."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: So What If He's Personally Popular?

NRO's Jonah Goldberg:

"After the election, we were told this is the dawn of a new progressive era. Now liberals (but the MSM even more) say everything's okay because Obama is still personally popular, even as the country is rejecting the progressive era he's supposed to be ushering in. Wah-frick'n-hoo. I for one will gladly make that trade. I am perfectly happy to have a popular Democratic president unable to push a liberal agenda, than an unpopular Democratic president with a country hungry for a liberal agenda.

Yesterday was a severe blow to healthcare reform and cap and trade. But yes, Barack Obama is still popular. But if all Barack Obama's personal popularity is good for is getting gushing profiles of his wife in supermarket magazines, 'buck up camper' essays in Newsweek and the Nobel Prize for bring hope to Norway and Sweden, that's okay with me."

LEST WE FORGET: Obama Says He Has Fulfilled Campaign's Vague Catchphrases

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- Marking the one-year anniversary of his historic election to the presidency, Barack Obama delivered a major speech today in which he said he had 'fulfilled the vague and diffuse catchphrases laid out in my campaign.'

Underscoring his point, Mr. Obama said, 'When I was running for President, no one knew exactly what "Change You Can Believe In" meant. One year later, I am proud to say that that is still the case.'

The President said he was particularly proud of the way in which he had delivered on his 'Yes, we can' slogan.

'One year later, can we say that we have change we can believe in?' he said. 'Yes we can.'"

11/3: Time To Break Out The Brooms?

Conservative bloggers are feeling very confident about the GOP's chances in today's elections, and some are speculating about the possibility of a "big sweep" in the VA GOV, NJ GOV, and NY-23 races. Many righty bloggers are complaining about yesterday's AP article, "GOP Victory Tuesday Won't Erase Party's Problems," which they perceive as an attempt to downplay the significance of today's election results. Meanwhile, lefty bloggers are pessimistic about the Dems' prospects in today's elections. Most expect the Dem candidates to lose handily in the VA GOV and NY-23 races, and they're hoping that NJ Gov. Jon Corzine (D) can eke out a win "to avoid the sweep."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Lane, Knight) are accusing NJ Dems of trying to "steal the election" for Corzine, and they're buzzing (Morrissey, Gardner, Geraghty) about allegations that NJ Dems are "using gangbangers for GOTV." Liberal bloggers (Roth, Black, Schulman) are accusing their conservative counterparts of making phony voter fraud allegations.
• Liberal bloggers (Hamsher, Benen) are criticizing Blue Dog Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) for claiming that centrist Dems would benefit from GOP victories in today's elections. Lefty bloggers (Benen, Sudbay) are also blasting Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) for declaring that health care reform poses a bigger threat than "any terrorist right now in any country." Finally, several liberal bloggers (Klein, digby, Rosenberg) spent yesterday raising money for Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL).
• Liberal bloggers (Black, McCarter, Lemos, Benen, Drum) are mocking Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for claiming that passage of the Dem health care reform bill will keep Dems in power for years.

ELECTION DAY: Preemptive Spin From The AP?

Conservative bloggers are criticizing Liz Sidoti's AP article, "GOP Victory Tuesday Won't Erase Party's Problems":

• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "AP pre-spin: These elections mean nothing and the GOP is doomed."
• Ace of Spades: "It's hard to read the AP as anything other than a DNC spokesman."
• AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "This whole article is wishful thinking and editorializing disguised as news. With almost no attribution to other sources, either. For shame."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "The Obama administration and the media are together going to downplay today's electoral victories for the GOP. They will, to the mainstream media, not be relevant to or any sign of a rebuke against Barack Obama and his far left agenda. In fact, the media is already beginning the narrative that we cannot see today as a referendum on Barack Obama. [...] Don't believe it. The facts speak for themselves."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "To be sure, there are various factors at play here; there always are. Still, how can anyone say that Tuesday's elections don't reflect -- at least, to some degree -- Obama's unpopularity? He may not be to blame for the bad candidates, but it's also fair to say that his coattails don't seem to be long enough to lift them ..."
• Michelle Malkin: "Democrats and their media water-carriers got a head-start with this preemptive AP piece downplaying anticipated GOP wins. So: Tea Party movement? Doesn't mean anything. Nationwide government health care takeover revolt? Doesn't mean anything. Gallup poll showing 'Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group?' Doesn't mean anything. [...] If they plug their ears, stamp their feet, and say it often enough, maybe they can wish tomorrow and the conservative surge all away."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Remember, whatever happens on Election Day, no result could possibly ever suggest that Barack Obama and his administration is not as popular, as persuasive, as well-liked or as influential as he was a year ago. Never, ever, ever."

Several liberal bloggers are concerned about the impact of today's elections:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "On Wednesday, Democrats will be tempted to brush off these results as lacking in national meaning. There are undoubtedly local factors at play in all of these elections, and candidate / campaign quality always makes a real difference in the outcome of any election. However, as a group we should not delude ourselves. Compared to one year ago, Republicans have made measurable gains."
• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "[W]ho thought it was a good idea to wait till after the election to try and close the deal on healthcare reform? Without a doubt, this will give the [Joe] Lieberman's all the talking points they need. We could be strong-enough along the public option path to make it happen still, but a election-night sweep like the above would nuke our chances at big progressive climate bill changes, pro-immigration reform, and a pro-labor bill."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Republicans' Branding Problem

Nate Silver echoes Patrick Ruffini's argument that Doug Hoffman's success in the NY-23 race suggests that more GOP candidates should abandon their party label:

"The Democratic brand is marginal in about half the country, but the Republican brand is radioactive in about two-thirds of it. The biggest story of the cycle is that a non-Republican conservative, Doug Hoffman, might win. Counterfactual: if Hoffman had in fact been the Republican nominee in NY-23 all along, would he be in the same strong position that he finds himself in today? Methinks not: it would have been easier for [Dem candidate Bill] Owens -- who isn't much of a Democrat -- to identify himself as the moderate in the race.

You can actually make the argument -- although maybe it's not a good one -- that Republicans should in fact find a way to pull a Blackwater and switch their party ID when nobody is looking, from Republican to capital-C Conservative. This would probably involve at least some degree of bona fide structural change, and undoubtedly some near-term trauma: an orchestrated chaos. But the 'conservative' brand is just as powerful as it ever was in America, whereas the Republican brand is as weak as it has been."

LEST WE FORGET: ...I Just Can't Read Yet

From Overheard in New York:

Mother: What do you have there?
Five-year-old daughter: My schedule.
Mother: Do you know what class you have first?
Five-year-old daughter: Mom, I'm not retarded.

11/2: And Then There Were Two...

Conservative bloggers were delighted when NY-23 candidate Dede Scozzafava (R) dropped out of the race on 10/31. "We PWND The NRCC," Erick Erickson boasted. "Hey, GOP elites: Can you hear conservatives NOW?!" Michelle Malkin declared. Righty bloggers were subsequently disgusted -- albeit not surprised -- when Scozzafava endorsed Dem candidate Bill Owens over Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Conservative bloggers are portraying Scozzafava's endorsement of Owens as confirmation that she's a "radical leftist" who never should have been the GOP nominee. Righty bloggers are also rubbing Scozzafava's endorsement in the NRCC's and RNC's face. Erickson complains that NRCC Chair Pete Sessions and NRCC Exec. Dir. Guy Harrison "are failing to take responsibility for this disaster" and declares that they "must be fired if they will not resign."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Erickson continues to target FL Gov. Charlie Crist's (R) SEN campaign. Meanwhile, Erickson and his fellow RedState blogger Leon H. Wolf are accusing the NRSC of generating spam Twitter followers for CA SEN candidate Carly Fiorina (R) (the NRSC denies the allegation).
• Liberal bloggers (Aravosis, Benen, Waldman, BooMan) are criticizing Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for declaring that he would prefer "nothing" to health care reform that includes a public option.

NY-23: Bloggers 1, Establishment 0

Conservative bloggers were thrilled when Scozzafava quit the race:

• Malkin: "Finally: The spoiler exits the race. [...] Hey, GOP elites: Can you hear conservatives NOW?!"
• RedState's Erickson: "We PWND The NRCC. Dede Scozzafava Drops Out. GOP Establishment Dies on Our Hill."
• Townhall's Jillian Bandes: "This is a huge victory for conservatism."

Righty bloggers were subsequently disgusted (but not surprised) when Scozzafava endorsed Owens, and they're rubbing the endorsement in the NRCC's face:

• Erickson: "The Republican Party spent $900,000.00 to help her and this is how she repays them. And Pete Sessions, Chairman of the NRCC, and Guy Harrison, Executive Director of the NRCC, still have their jobs and are failing to take responsibility for this disaster, instead blaming conservatives."
• Malkin: "Hey, how did that six-figure RNC donation to the NRCC plus $85,000 to the New York GOP plus nearly half-million-dollar investment in advertising and other independent expenditures on behalf of radical leftist Dede Scozzafava work out? She repaid the GOP by endorsing Democrat candidate Bill Owens. Some gratitude, eh? [...] I repeat: One thing is guaranteed at the conclusion of the NY-23 special congressional election: The Beltway Republicans who endorsed radical leftist Dede Scozzafava are going to have indelible egg stains on their faces. And GOP establishment fund-raising organizations will be the poorer for it. Suckers."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "There are two ways of looking at this. Either Scozzafava doesn't mind throwing Republicans under the bus for a little dog-in-the-manger revenge, or she's a lot closer in policy to the Democrat than the conservative candidate. Neither of those commends Scozzafava, nor the county party leaders who handpicked her to replace [ex-Rep.] John McHugh. In fact, it makes it clear that conservatives were right all along to point out Scozzafava's unsuitability for the endorsement -- and should result in replacing the GOP bosses in NY-23 who bungled it."

NY-23 II: What Does It All Mean?

Righty bloggers are talking up the significance of a Hoffman victory:

• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "[I]f Hoffman can win on Tuesday, it will be viewed as a watershed movement in the resurgence of conservatism."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "[A] Conservative party candidate eking out a plurality in a three-way race is one thing. A Conservative candidate winning head-to-head against a Democrat, with the endorsement of the Republican... well, the potential reverberations from this potential earthquake just got even bigger."

Hot Air's Allahpundit argues that conservatives have already won, regardless of whether or not Hoffman wins: "As gratifying as it would be to see Hoffman win, the guy didn't become a conservative grassroots cause celebre because people are dying to see Doug Hoffman in Congress. He's a cause celebre because conservatives wanted to send a message to the GOP about the future of the party, and that message has now been sent -- and received, to the tune of $900,000 down the toilet -- regardless of what happens on Tuesday. The party can still get away with putting up socially liberal Republicans in select purple districts next year, but fiscally liberal nominees are going to earn them either a primary challenge, a third-party challenge, or a disaffected base spending election day at home. And a Hoffman defeat will do nothing to change that."

Meanwhile, liberal blogger DougJ accuses his conservative counterparts of preemptive spinning: "It goes without saying that whatever happens in NY-23 on Tuesday, it will be good news for conservatives. If teabagger Hoffman wins, it will signal a profound political realignment, the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Ronaldus Magnus. If the Democrat Owens wins, it will still be amazing that Hoffman came out of nowhere to make the race so close; this will probably be true no matter what the vote totals are, though there is also the possibility that Hoffman will lose by so much that it will turn out that he wasn't a true conservative."

NY-23 III: So Much For Being A Big Tent Party...

The #1 talking point in the liberal blogosphere is that the conservative movement is hurting the GOP brand by rejecting moderates like Scozzafava:

• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "There is no room for different ideas in the modern day GOP. The teabaggers rule their world."
• Daily Kos' Jake McIntyre: "The Republican establishment that at least pretended to speak to all Americans is deeply, deeply wounded, and a wild-eyed, exclusionist, birther religio-beast is taking its place."
• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "Obviously, I hope [Scozzafava's] endorsement helps pull the Democrat in the race over the finish line. But even if the Conservative wins -- now with the full support of the RNCC -- the message to centrist Republicans is clear: you're not wanted. Whether by skill or by luck, Obama's bipartisan gesture in appointing a Republican to a senior post has helped his opponents self-destruct."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "In today's Republican Party, it is the Jacobin wing that is seemingly ascendant. The Tea Party set are today's sans-coulottes and like those of yore, they are set on purging their party of any and all who do not subscribe to their rabid orthodoxy. Even former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is deemed too moderate."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "When Newt Gingrich is too moderate, and trying to pull the Republican Party closer to the American mainstream, it's safe to say there's something deeply wrong. It's also safe to say the national Republican Party, which has suffered consecutive electoral failures and has seen its brand deteriorate further this year, has a problem for which there is no obvious solution."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "You know the thing that I find most amusing about the NY race is that what they are basically telling every moderate Republican across the country is that it doesn't matter if you've been a loyal Republican for decades, it doesn't matter if you know the district and the people, it doesn't matter if you fit the district, and it doesn't matter that you have given decades to the party. It just doesn't matter. If the teabagging wingnuts and the shrieking lunatics like [Michelle] Malkin don't like you, high profile crackpots like [ex-AK Gov. Sarah] Palin and [ex-Maj. Leader] Dick Armey and others are going to swoop in and back some clown who doesn't even live in the district and then shit all over the area's voters, telling them their interests are 'parochial.' Now that is how you build a sustainable party!"
• BooMan: "As far as I am concerned, the Democrats have already won. Either their candidate will win a seat that has been held by Republicans for something like a century or they will lose it to a teabagger. [...E]lecting teabaggers isn't a good sign for the health of the Republican Party in the northeast or any place else. Being crazy and out of touch is what got the party in all the trouble they're in. Seeing all the heavyweights of the national party swoop in and gang up on a reasonably moderate candidate for the House is going to scare off a bunch of prospective Yankee Republicans who might have thought of running for office."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan agrees: "Within the GOP whatever nerve anyone had to resist the imprimatur of Erickson, Malkin, RS McCain et al is surely gone now. If a moderate cannot survive even in up-state New York, it's over."

Not every liberal blogger is rejoicing over Hoffman's surge, however:

• digby: "[I]t appears that the teabaggers are gaining steam. And lest we think they are just a funny joke, it would probably pay to recall instances in history when radical, paranoid right wingers got legitimate political power. The joke can easily turn into a nightmare."
• FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver: "[D]o Democrats really want to be celebrating if an extreme conservative like Hoffman -- who, by the way, is not an especially good candidate -- is able to win a very middle-of-the-road district like NY-23? Sure, Hoffman would be very vulnerable as an incumbent (which might be a moot point anyway since NY-23 is liable to be redistricted out of existence.) But if a Glenn Beck-ian conservative is able to win a district that shares a frontier with Vermont and Canada, ought that not be at least a little bit worrying for Democrats in terms of the mood of the country?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Real Story

NRO's Jonah Goldberg:

"I'm writing about this for my USA Today column, but the Frank Rich hissy fit is a perfect example of the real story of the election. The story is not that the GOP is self-destructing, it is that the conventional wisdom is being shown to be ludicrous. For some time now Frank Rich, Sam Tanenhaus and countless others (including David Frum) have been arguing that the GOP is a rump party and the only way for it to survive is for it to embrace me-too Republicanism of one flavor or another. The story of all three major races (VA, NJ, and NY-23) is that this conventional wisdom was incandescently wrong and ill-advised. Hoffman and [ex-VA AG Bob] McDonnell owe their success to the support of independents (the independents all of these people said wanted moderate, Democrat-lite policies) and to Republicans determined to stay true to conservative principles. Not only was the conventional wisdom wrong, the idea that there's a 'civil war' within the GOP revolving around this argument is nonsense. The GOP is an unapologetically conservative party, providing a choice not an echo, and -- horror of horrors -- it's working."

LEST WE FORGET: Retiree Gearing Up For Errands With Lady Friend

From The Onion:

"POMPANO BEACH, FL -- Following a breakfast of shredded wheat and grapefruit juice, 76-year-old Martin Schoenfeld shaved, tied his shoes, and put on a fresh shirt in preparation for an afternoon of errands at the Pompano Citi Centre with his new lady friend, Marcy Larroway, 73. 'I've got the car warming up outside,' Schoenfeld said while working a dab of Brylcreem through his hair and deciding whether the two would purchase stamps at the post office first or go straight to the Hallmark store. 'Maybe we'll have time for a matinee after the pharmacy. It's right nearby.' At press time, Schoenfeld was calling to confirm his 5 p.m. dinner reservation for two at the HomeTown Buffet."