One of John McCain’s closest advisers during the 2008 campaign reveals that Sarah Palin ended up on the short list of Vice-Presidential contenders without much vetting at all: Aides to John McCain initially added Sarah Palin to his “short list” of potential running mates because McCain wanted a woman on the list, according to his [...]

Via the Political Wire in regards to his 2008 bid for the GOP nomination: “I didn’t build a good enough campaign in any one state to win a primary. I had a great national campaign, a terrible primary campaign. And it should be reversed. You’ve got to win primaries in order to get nominated." This [...]

It doesn’t grab headlines very often, but the Federal Grand Jury investigating former Senator John Edwards is continuing its work: Two of former presidential hopeful John Edwards’ top aides testified Thursday to a federal grand jury looking into payments from the North Carolina Democrat’s campaign to his one-time mistress. Jonathan Prince, who was Edwards’ deputy [...]

An interesting, possibly apocryphal, story appears in today’s Financial Times: George W. Bush’s bombastic return to the world stage has reminded me of my favourite Bush anecdote, which for various reasons we couldn’t publish at the time. Some of the witnesses still dine out on it. The venue was the Oval Office. A group of [...]

An NBC analysis shows Tea Party candidates winning only 5 of 10 Senate races and 40 of 130 House races, a success rate of only 32 percent.

Is the public anger at Obama really just papered over racism?

While I don’t really think there’s very much that’s newsworthy about Meghan McCain’s new Book, her comments about Sarah Palin are generating some interest. Part of that reason is because of the fact, for two years, Palin was virtually the only aspect of her father’s 2008 Presidential campaign that the erstewhile blogger, Twitter user, and [...]

Biden got hammered by the FEC for violating campaign finance rules. A big fining deal?

One conservative argues that the “scandal” over the New Black Panther Party’s alleged voter intimidation is a tempest in a teapot.

Did felons voting illegally put Al Franken over the top in Minnesota? Probably not.

Two widely-hyped reports have Wall Street firms donating less money to Democrats as payback for financial reform efforts. But a closer look reveals no such thing.

Republicans are justly celebrating a win last night in what they’ve been calling Barack Obama’s “home district”: Republican Charles Djou emerged victorious tonight in the special election to fill Hawaii’s vacancy in Congress, giving Hawaii its first GOP member of Congress in 20 years. Djou won the special mail-in election with 39.7 percent of the [...]

For a really bright fellow who spends a lot of time talking to cabbies and world leaders, Tom Friedman has a remarkably naive view of how the world works.   His latest brainstorm is a “Tea Party of the radical center.” My definition of broken is simple. It is a system in which Republicans will be [...]

Former McCain campaign manager Scott Schmidt tells “60 Minutes” that Sarah Palin’s “Hey, can I call you Joe?” opener to the vice-presidential debate was not, as widely suspected, as attempt to throw the self-important senator off his game but rather a reaction to her having repeatedly calling him “O’Biden” in debate prep. This anecdote is [...]

Shockingly, John McCain is working to make life difficult for the man who beat him last November. Barack Obama began his presidency with an open hand toward the man he had just defeated in a race that was at times bitter. “There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort [...]

Daniel Larison is a bit too charitable here in assessing Mike Huckabee’s finish in last year’s presidential primaries: While Huckabee was officially the second-biggest vote-getter in the primaries last year, he achieved this mostly through perseverance and concentrated support from evangelical voters. Had Romney continued to compete and waste his money on what would still [...]

Sam Stein reports that “Democrats are bracing themselves for a new line of conservative attack against a provision in the health care legislation once considered so non-controversial that it was endorsed by several major Republican officials.”  What is it, you might ask, that these dastardly Republicans are opposing out of their racist hatred of Barack [...]

In a 5-0 decision, the state’s highest court ordered that Al Franken be declared the winner. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that Democrat Al Franken won the U.S. Senate election and said he was entitled to an election certificate that would lead to him being seated in the Senate. “Affirmed,” wrote the Supreme Court, [...]

Andrew Sullivan writes that “No Recognition Of Ahmadinejad” must be considered “the first and absolute requirement of all Western governments.” In my New Atlanticist post “Negotiating with Iran without Preconditions,” I recall this famous exchange from the July 24, 2007 CNN/YouTube debate: More commentary and analysis at the link.

Arlen Specter is switching party labels to go along with having long switched sides ideologically.  There have been rumors on Twitter all morning and WaPo’s Chris Cillizza has confirmed. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according [...]

Ben Smith quotes lawyer A.B. Culvahouse explaining legal obstacles to Joe Lieberman’s having been John McCain’s running mate. “Five states have sore loser statutes … [making] it very difficult for someone who’s not a member of the Republican Party to become the vice presidential nominee if they only switch parties to become a Republican shortly [...]

Hillary Clinton still owes a lot of money from her ill-fated run for president.  She owes $2.3 million just to consultant Mark Penn.  So, naturally, Clinton’s pals are holding various fundraisers to pay down said debt. Ezra Klein asks an uncomfortable question: Between 2004 and 2006, tax documents show that Bill Clinton earned $51 million. [...]

Yesterday’s ruling by a three-judge panel that “The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the Nov. 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately” and that Al Franken “received the highest number of votes legally cast” and “is therefore entitled to receive the certificate of election” should, but likely won’t, put an end [...]

A new report in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology finds scientifical proof that Sarah Palin’s hotness was a drag on the Republican ticket.  The study by University of South Florida researchers Nathan Heflick and Jamie Goldenberg, cleverly titled, “Objectifying Sarah Palin: Evidence that Objectification Causes Women to be Perceived as Less Competent and Less [...]

Christopher Buckley, who announced to great fanfare last October that he was voting for Obama, took to the same forum yesterday to announce his misgivings about Obama’s spending. Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger. Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also [...]

In my New Atlanticist piece “Obama Advisors Stiffed on Administration Jobs,” I tackle the hurt feelings of the preponderance of the 300 Obama foreign policy advisors who didn’t get administration jobs for their efforts.  The conclusion: It’s worth noting, too, that most senior level political appointments, especially in technocratic fields like foreign- and national security-policymaking, [...]

As promised, the Senate has refused to seat Roland Burris. Roland Burris failed in his bid to take President-elect Barack Obama’s Illinois Senate seat on Tuesday in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress. “Mr. Burris is not in possession of the necessary credentials from the state [...]

While it may be galling for Rod Blagojevich to get to appoint someone to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat while he’s under federal indictment for trying to sell said seat, Jane Hamsher argues that he’s perfectly entitled to do so. Then fifty members of the Democratic Caucus signed a letter saying they would oppose any [...]

Norm Coleman is likely out of a job, despite his election contest not being settled. Coleman’s first term officially expires at noon on Saturday, and he is locked in one of the closest Senate races in history, with Democrat Al Franken clinging to a 49-vote lead out of nearly 3 million votes cast. Since he [...]

A ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court has all but officially made Al Franken the winner in the Senate recount. A state Supreme Court ruling Wednesday narrowed the options available for Sen. Norm Coleman to erase a slim lead held by DFLer Al Franken in the Minnesota election dispute, and Coleman’s campaign threatened a court [...]

Patrick Ruffini is tired of seeing Democrats win close elections that were apparently won by Republicans on Election Day.  He contends, “we are inviting a crisis of confidence in our election system if it looks like the winner is dependent on the time we count ballots: usually a Republican on the day of the election [...]

Both Al Franken and Norm Coleman got good news yesterday, as the courts continued to make up rules well after the election. The Hill: A state Supreme Court ruling, which may exclude hundreds of ballots that Al Franken (D) had sought to include in the recount, could help Sen. Norm Coleman (R) in Minnesota’s contested [...]

In its quadrennial no-brainer, TIME has named Barack Obama its Person of the Year. Oddly, it takes several paragraphs of throat clearing to get to anything like making a case for the choice: As Obama has moved with unprecedented speed to build an Administration that would bolster the confidence of a shaken world, his flash [...]

John McCain famously refused to make the Jeremiah Wright affair an issue in his campaign. ABC News has obtained a copy of an unaired ad, which they ran on yesterday’s Good Morning America: NARRATOR: Long before anyone knew who John McCain or Barack Obama were, one chose to honor his fellow soldiers by refusing to [...]

My friend Winfield Peterson noted that for the first couple of Cabinet meetings, Obama might have to fight hard to not mention this exchange from the campaign: Somehow, though, I think he’ll manage not to mention it. He’ll probably chuckle to himself every now and again, though.

William “The Freezer” Jefferson, who has been under federal indictment for three years, narrowly lost a hurricane-delayed election yesterday to Republican Anh “Joseph” Cao. Nine-term Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, who has been battling scandals and a federal indictment for the past three years, lost his bid for re-election on Saturday. Republican challenger Anh “Joseph” Cao, [...]

The recount of the Minnesota Senate race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic comedian Al Franken has concluded, with Coleman still slightly ahead.   Still up in the air, though, is the fate of 133 “missing” ballots (which are almost certainly an accounting error) and a passel of “challenged” ballots that will have to be [...]

A group challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship will finally get its day in court.  Or, more likely, be among the thousands of cases rejected each year by the Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Friday whether to take up a lawsuit challenging President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship, a continuation of a New Jersey case [...]

CQ is calling Barack Obama to task for seemingly reneging on his campaign pledge to have a bipartisan cabinet. Now that President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet is, by his count, half picked, the odds are fading that he’ll have more than one Republican on his team — suggesting that his campaign promise to include Republicans may [...]

The bizarre saga of the Minnesota recount took another bizarre twist yesterday, this time costing Al Franken 36 votes. What Maplewood giveth, Minneapolis taketh away. Elections officials in Minnesota’s largest city today discovered that one precinct came up 133 ballots short of election day totals, resulting in a net loss for Democratic challenger Al Franken [...]

Since the initial counting of ballots on Election Day, caches of new Al Franken ballots have been mysteriously discovered on a regular basis.  Yesterday, a few more turned up. The U.S. Senate recount took two abrupt turns Tuesday, both boosting the prospects of DFLer Al Franken. Franken unexpectedly picked up 37 votes due to a [...]

Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss easily won his runoff against Democrat Jim Martin, 57.4 to 42.6 according to the current uncertified totals. NYT notes, The margin was far greater than the three percentage points that separated the two men in the Nov. 4 election, when neither won the required 50 percent. Many of the Democrats who [...]

Unless something drastic happens, Al Franken will lose his bid to overtake Norm Coleman’s narrow first-count win of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election through the recount.  He’s considering other options, including asking the Democratically-dominated Senate to step in. The math’s not in his favor: To win his case before the state Canvassing Board, Franken must prevail [...]

Most of John McCain’s television spots, going back to the primaries, were simply dreadful. Now, Fred Davis III, the “advertising whiz” behind these atrocious ads, is whining to TIME’s Michael Scherer that McCain wouldn’t let him run some particularly clever ones. What if the McCain campaign had run ads using footage of Barack Obama dancing [...]

Barack Obama outspent John McCain by an enormous amount. President-elect Barack Obama placed 155% more spot TV ads than John McCain during the general election season (6/08 to 11/08), and almost twice as many ads dating back to the beginning of January when the primaries were just heating up. [...] The local numbers show a [...]

Nate Silver uses a combination of regression analysis and wild ass guesses drawn from limited information on challenged ballots to project that Al Franken will come out ahead by a mere 27 votes.  Kevin Drum, for one, is convinced. While I’m less enthralled by Silver’s savant status than most (many came closer to the results [...]

If you were under the illusion that people in Palm Beach, Florida were unusually stupid or supporters of the Bush and Gore camps in 2000 were exceptionally mendacious, take a look at this Minnesota Public Radio collection of challenged ballots in the Coleman-Franken contest. In almost all cases, I’d say the intent of the voter [...]

John McCain has won Missouri’s 11 electoral votes, CNN declares.  Missouri hasn’t actually made that official yet, mind you.  But the election was a mere sixteen days ago. According to the unofficial results, McCain won the state by 3,632 votes . The unofficial count shows McCain with 1,445,812 votes, or 49.4 percent, and Obama with [...]

In a NYT op-ed entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” Mitt Romney argues that Congress should let creative destruction do its job. IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually [...]

Senator Ted Stevens, who looked to have narrowly won re-election to the Senate weeks after being convicted on felony corruption charges, has now apparently lost as absentee ballots are slowly counted. Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power [...]