Mitt Romney

CPAC Straw Poll: It's A Wide-Open Race

Eric Kleefeld | February 28, 2009, 6:15PM

The CPAC straw poll results are in showing that there is no clear favorite among the assembled conservative activists for the 2012 Republican nomination:

Mitt Romney 20%
Bobby Jindal 14%
Ron Paul 13%
Sarah Palin 13%
Newt Gingrich 10%
Mike Huckabee 7%
Mark Sanford 4%
Rudy Giuliani 3%
Tim Pawlenty 2%
Charlie Crist 1%
Undecided 9%

A lot of news outlets are reporting this as a Romney win, but that doesn't seem all that accurate for a 20% plurality in a field this large. The bottom line is that there are a whole bunch of possible candidates who could pick up support, and the field still has a lot of time to really form.

It's a wide-open field with no clear favorite -- and it doesn't really have to be anything other than that, at this very early point in the game.

Barack Obama

TPMDC Saturday Roundup

Eric Kleefeld | February 28, 2009, 12:53PM

Obama's Weekly Address: Budget Keeps Promise Of "Sweeping Change"
In this weekend's YouTube address, President Obama declares that with his new budget he is keeping the promises he made during the campaign on issues such as the tax code, education, energy policy and other issues -- and that he expects a fight in Washington to get it passed:

"The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don't. I work for the American people," says Obama. "I didn't come here to do the same thing we've been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November."

GOP Response: Senator Burr Blasts Deficit Spending
In this weekend's Republican response, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) -- who voted for the Bush tax cuts and expansions in entitlement spending -- denounces the deficit spending being conducted under President Obama:

"Looking at the spending priorities of Democrats in Washington in the proposed budget and over the past month, it's hard to escape the reality that for the first time we could see the American Dream vanish," says Burr. "Now, instead of working hard so our children can have a better life tomorrow, we are asking our children to work hard so that we don't have to make tough choices today."

CPAC Honoring Limbaugh
The 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference third and final day is today, featuring such speakers as Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, Phyllis Schlafly, Bill Bennett, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and others. The crowning moment will come at 5:30 p.m. ET, when the "Defender of the Constitution Award" is presented to Rush Limbaugh.

No Obama Or Biden Events
President Obama and Vice President Biden do not have any public events scheduled for today.

Pawlenty: GOP Must Reach Out To 'Sam's Club Voters'
During his speech at CPAC, Minnesota Governor and possible presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty made the case that the Republican Party has to reach out to working-class "Sam's Club Voters." Pawlenty declared that the GOP must speak "with a feel and concern and tone and an understanding of the importance and the challenges of the working class of this country," also adding: "And it doesn't mean we have to sacrifice our principles to do it."

Romney: Bush Should Done A Stimulus; GOP Needs A Spokesperson
In an interview with the Politico, Mitt Romney criticized George W. Bush for failing to propose his own stimulus plan last fall, "so that in September, October, November, December, there would have been a stimulus plan," rather than the one eventually passed by President Obama. Romney also got to the bottom of the problem now facing the GOP: "What's challenging about being in the minority is we don't have a spokesperson for our position who lays out a plan."

Labor Unions Aiming For Reconciliation, New Federation
The Associated Press reports that the top labor unions are negotiating to re-forum under a single new federation, four years after several AFL-CIO member unions broke away to form Change to Win. "There's obvious benefits in terms of efficiency, message delivery, financial savings and a host of other reasons," said former House Dem Whip David Bonior, who has been brokering the discussions. "You can always be more effective if you're talking in one house as opposed to three."

Bunning Denies Story About Threatened Resignation
Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) is denying reports that he threatened at a Washington fundraiser to resign his seat -- and thus let the Democratic governor appoint his replacement -- if Republican leaders keep trying to pressure him into retirement. "It's not true," he told Roll Call in a statement. "I intend to fulfill my obligation to the people of Kentucky. If you are going to write something like this, you'd better make your sources known because they are lying."

Barack Obama

Grover Norquist on Bush and CPAC

Matthew Cooper | February 27, 2009, 6:42PM

Grover Norquist, the conservative activist and head of Americans for Tax Reform, chatted wih TPM about the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and how enthusiasm is still high among Republicans even after last year's electoral drubbing. He also explains how the conference has approached one of the most famous conservatives of all: George W. Bush.

MN-SEN

Dem Election Worker: Coleman Camp's Story About Duplicated Ballots Happened -- I Was There

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 6:36PM

The Coleman campaign could potentially be in some serious hot water in their effort to prove that double-counting of absentee ballots occurred, after it was revealed that they concealed evidence involving the testimony of a key witness, Republican precinct worker Pamela Howell.

But here's the thing about Howell's testimony: The story itself appears to be true. Democratic precinct worker Shawn Isenhart, who served in the same precinct with Howell, confirmed to me that there was indeed a failure to properly label the original and duplicate copies of a few damaged absentee ballots in that precinct.

Isenhart was there when the precinct workers realized what had happened, which was the key event in Howell's testimony. He thinks it happened to around six ballots, but could possibly as high as 15.

These instances of human error, when election workers failed to fully prepare and label the copied ballots, were the first step that created the potential for a very small number of votes to be counted twice during the recount -- or in some cases the opposite occurring, and the vote not counted at all. This was due in large part to the rules that both campaigns had agreed to in conducting the recount, for how to handle these ballots, and which the Coleman campaign has since declared to have been improper and illegal.

However, my own observation after speaking to Isenhart is that this doesn't really redeem Team Coleman. If anything, it shows just how sloppy and reckless they've been in making their case.

Read more »

KY-SEN

Report: Bunning Threatens Revenge Against GOP, To Resign And Hand Seat To Dems

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 5:01PM

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) is now making a very interesting threat to his national party: If you keep trying to force me into retirement, I'll just resign -- and hand the seat to the Democrats.

Bunning reportedly said at a campaign fundraiser in Washington that the rumors being spread about his possible retirement, or of a potential Republican primary challenger, have been hindering his fundraising efforts. "I would get the last laugh," Bunning said, according to three sources speaking to the paper. "Don't forget Kentucky has a Democrat governor."

Bunning has previously threatened to sue the NRSC if he gets a primary challenger. If he were to take this revenge on them through this particular method, that would immediately bring the Democrats to 59 seats. Add in an Al Franken victory in the Minnesota election dispute, and you now have 60 seats -- the filibuster-proof majority.

One of the Courier-Journal's sources was clearly worried: "It's not because he's old and senile -- he's always been like that. He'll tell you what he thinks."

Late Update: Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that Bunning is a brilliant strategist, if this is indeed true. It's the political equivalent of nuclear brinksmanship, with the threat of mutually-assured destruction as a safety mechanism against widespread war and conflict.

George W. Bush

CPAC: Lots of Bush Bashing, No McCain Bashing

Matthew Cooper | February 27, 2009, 4:50PM

One of the interesting things at CPAC is the extensive Bush bashing. Newt Gingrich, this morning, attacked the "Bush-Obama" policies on bailouts and stimulus. John Bolton attacked Bush's policies on Iran and North Korea. Not surprisingly, Ron Paul took extensive shots at Bush. (He also fired at broadside at U.S. entry--in World War I.) I guess we shouldn't be shocked that conservatives are putting distance between themselves and the unpopular former president. What is surprising is that there are no shots at John McCain for his campaign or his moderate positions on climate change and immigration. It's all about Bush. I have a video coming up soon with Grover Norquist in which he offers some thoughts on the topic.

MN-SEN

Independent Minnesota Senate Candidate: If There's A Do-Over, I'll Run -- And I Might Win

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 4:44PM

Today I had the opportunity to speak with Dean Barkley, the Independence Party candidate who received 15% of the vote in the Minnesota Senate race, and he confirmed to me that if there is indeed a new election -- an idea that Norm Coleman has been floating -- he will be a candidate.

Barkley doesn't think a do-over will actually happen -- nor does he think it should happen -- and he traces the Coleman rhetoric to one reason. "Well that's probably because they're coming to the realization that they're gonna lose. It's that simple," said Barkley. "He's lost some pretty significant motions and decisions in court the last week, and I think he's coming to the realization that he's not gonna prevail in the finality. So obviously if you don't want to lose, you're gonna do everything you can to muddy up the waters."

But if it does happen, Barkley is in. "I wouldn't mind having another shot at the apple -- bring it on," Barkley told me. "If it was a do-over with everybody, not just Coleman and Franken. They seem to think they're the only two people with a stake in the outcome."

He added: "I might win it this time, after the behavior of those two."

Read more »

LA-SEN

Yet Another GOP Primary Challenger Against Vitter?

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 4:05PM

It's looking more and more like Senator David Vitter (R-LA), the staunch social conservative whose career became mired in the D.C. Madam prostitution scandal in 2007, will have a very interesting re-election campaign on his hands for 2010, with yet another name being floated as a potential primary challenger.

Former Rep. John Cooksey, who ran for Senate in 2002 and came in third place with 14% in the multi-party open primary that Louisiana used at the time, is reportedly prepared to spend $200,000 of his own money on the race if a draft site shows him that he could get enough support.

Fun fact: Cooksey got in trouble during the 2002 cycle when he compared turbans to diapers, prompting the NRSC to recruit another Republican to get into the race against Dem Senator Mary Landrieu.

There are already two others who are considering getting into the GOP race, as well: Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, who would be challenging Vitter from the standpoint of a Christian Right activist, and porno star Stormy Daniels, who would wage a campaign to highlight Vitter's personal hypocrisy.

Republicans

Mitt Romney on Obama

Matthew Cooper | February 27, 2009, 3:28PM

Your reporter tried to get a little private time with the former Massachusetts Governor but the throng around Mitt Romney was such that we wound up piggy backing on the interview of Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Here it is:

Barack Obama

Tom DeLay Speaks

Matthew Cooper | February 27, 2009, 3:19PM

On "Radio Row" at the CPAC you'll find pols lined up to talk with conservative talk show hosts. After he stepped away from speaking with G. Gordon Liddy, TPM caught up with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay about where the GOP is heading and should head:

MN-SEN

Coleman Lawyer To Court: We Don't Want To Un-Count Votes -- But You Have To

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 1:57PM

In addition to this morning's fireworks in the Minnesota courtroom, the court also just heard arguments on a very interesting motion from Team Coleman: That the court must take their ruling from two weeks ago to apply strict standards for letting in new ballots, and apply it retroactively to all the absentee ballots that were let in on Election Night.

The obvious problem here: There is no way to directly subtract votes, because the envelopes and the ballots were de-coupled on Election Night, and there is no way to reunite them.

Coleman lawyer James Langdon suggested a possible remedy -- though he's not advocating this yet -- would be to do a pro-rata reduction. That would be to take the number of invalid ballot envelopes, and proportionately deduct votes from each candidate according to the county or precinct results. Later on, he was even clearer in saying this was the only remedy.

Read more »

Pres '12

Poll: GOP Field For 2012 Wide Open, Palin Has Small Lead

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 1:33PM

A newly-released CNN poll, conducted just over a week ago, asked Republicans their choice for the 2012 nomination: Sarah Palin 29%, Mike Huckabee 26%, Mitt Romney 21%, Bobby Jindal 9%, Someone Else 10%. The margin of error is ±4.5%.

Bear in mind this poll as done before this week's address to Congress by President Obama -- and thus before Jindal's response speech.

So who knows what impact the speech has had on Jindal's numbers. It raised his name recognition, certainly -- but it wasn't exactly a good speech, and he's been ridiculed on all the late-night comedy shows. That, and it obviously predates today's news that he completely lied during his speech about his experiences in Hurricane Katrina.

Then again, Rush Limbaugh has been rallying the Republican base against the liberal media's ganging up on Jindal, and also against the Republicans who have joined in.

Republicans

David Keene Speaks

Matthew Cooper | February 27, 2009, 12:02PM

David Keene is one of the most important figures in the conservative movement. As Chairman of the American Conservative Union, the former aide to Bob Dole wields considerable behind-the-scenes influence in the movement. He spoke with TPM about what the movement needs to do and how this period in the wilderness compares with 1977 and 1993.

MN-SEN

Secret Coleman-Lawyer E-Mails Reveal Intentional Hiding Of Witness -- Franken Camp Wants Double-Count Claim Thrown Out Completely

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 12:01PM

All hell just broke loose in the Minnesota courtroom, with Al Franken's lawyers catching Team Coleman in the act of yet more concealing of evidence -- and they've now made a motion to totally strike the Coleman camp's claims about double-counting of ballots, which the Coleman camp has hoped to use to subtract over 100 votes from Franken's lead.

You might remember that on Wednesday, the Coleman team was caught having withheld notes given to them in early January by Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis. (Note: Minnesota precinct workers are selected by partisan identification, and then buddied up across party lines to keep it running smoothly and honestly.) The court then struck the witness' testimony, relating to double-counting of votes -- but then turned around yesterday and reversed themselves, after the Coleman team said it had been an honest oversight -- that there was no bad faith involved.

This morning, Franken lawyer David Lillehaug was restarting his cross-examination of Howell, and inquired as to whether there had been any further communications between herself and Coleman. The answer was yes -- and Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble then had to cough up some private e-mails he'd sent to Howell in early January.

"Pam, the legal team and campaign have made a strategic litigation decision to hold off from having you sign and us file your affidavit at this time," Trimble (or possibly his assistant, Matt Haapoja) wrote on January 6, saying this was being done "to avoid tying you down to any particular testimony and to avoid having to disclose your name and statement."

Read more »

Barack Obama

Revolutionary Road

Matthew Cooper | February 27, 2009, 9:45AM

The Conservative Poliitical Action Conference is brimming with colorful characters looking to ban gay marriage, legalize online poker, help Israel keep every inch of the west bank, and generally stir things up. These are a few of the people I spoke with yesterday at the CPAC meeting in Washington.

First, one of the many groups dedicated to putting the kibosh on gay marriage:

You wouldn't think of poker as a conservative issue, but one of the stars of professional poker, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, is on the board of the Poker Players Alliance which seeks to legalize poker and its attendant gambling online and in parlors everywhere:

There were no shortage of defense-of-Israel groups, mostly with a conservative Christian bent. In fact, one of the more popular lapel pins at the convention is an Israeli and an American flag together. Here's what concerned one activist had to say:

Michael Steele

Steele's New GOP Message: "My Bad"; Bachmann To Steele: "You Be Da Man!"

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 9:11AM

Michael Steele sure has an interesting idea for how to rebrand the Republican Party: Loudly announcing at CPAC that they messed up, and pledging to do better now.

"Tonight, we tell America: we know the past, we know we did wrong. My bad," said Steele. "But we go forward in appreciation of the values that brought us to this point."

But Steele rejected the idea that the recent elections meant the ideological ground had shifted. "I am here tonight to reject the idea that defeats of the past are a repudiation of core conservative values and principles," he said. "Nor do I believe that those defeats are a sign of things to come."

And check out this latest development in Steele's campaign to create a hip-hop image for the GOP. Michele Bachmann praised Steele's speech: "Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man."

And no, this is not from The Onion.

Barack Obama

TPMDC Morning Roundup

Eric Kleefeld | February 27, 2009, 9:00AM

Today: Obama Giving Speech On Iraq Pullout Timeline
President Obama will be speaking at 11:45 a.m. from the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina, where he will be laying out his plan for a withdrawal from Iraq. The plan will involve the withdrawal of combat troops by August 2010, with a residual force of 30,000-50,000 troops to continue training the Iraqis through December 2011.

Biden Holding Meeting On Middle Class Issues, Green Economy
Joe Biden is at the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia today, where he will be leading the first meeting of the Middle Class Task Force, focusing on the creation of green jobs, accompanied by several cabinet and task force members. This evening, Biden and his wife Jill will be speaking at the Delaware State Education Association Winter Advocacy Retreat in Rehoboth, Delaware.

WaPo: Obama Iraq Plan Faces Opposition On The Left
The Washington Post reports that Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan is not impressing other Democrats, and that not one member of the Dem Congressional leadership supported it during a meeting last night between Obama and members of Congress. Chuck Schumer declared that a withdrawal "has to be done responsibly, we all agree. But 50,000 is more than I would have thought, and we await the justification."

NYT: Obama Budget Repeals Reaganism
The New York Times examines President Obama's budget, marveling at its program of progressive taxation and other measures to address income inequality. The Times declares: "The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters."

Obama To Meet With Australian Prime Minister
The Obama Administration has announced that the president will be meeting March 24 with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, at the White House. The two leaders will discuss the financial crisis, Afghanistan, climate change, nuclear proliferation and other issues.

Report: Pelosi To Refuse Contributions From Banks
Roll Call reports that Nancy Pelosi will refuse campaign contributions from banks, in the wake of their opposition to a mortgage reform bill. Pelosi made the announcement at a Democratic caucus meeting yesterday morning -- perhaps a signal to other members that they should follower her lead on this.

Senate Votes For D.C. Representation In Congress
The Senate voted last night by 61-37 to pass a bill to to give the District of Columbia a full vote in the House of Representatives. The bill will be signed into law by President Obama, but will immediately face a court challenge on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

Another Ad Ties GOP Leaders To Rush Limbaugh
The labor-backed group Americans United For Change has this new ad out, attacking the Republican leadership for saying "No" to President Obama's stimulus plan, and connecting them to Rush Limbaugh's "I want him to fail" policy:

"So who are Republican leaders listening to?" the announcer asks, followed by Limbaugh's "I want him to fail." The ad is going up on national cable and in the D.C. media market -- essentially aimed at the political class and higher-information voters who watch the news.

MN-SEN

Minnesota Court Opens Door To Counting More Votes -- And Who Will Benefit Is Not Yet Known

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 6:41PM

We're really now in crunch-time in Minnesota, with the court handing down one important ruling after another -- and they just did it again.

The court has released a new order, co-signed with the consent of both sides' lawyers, to deal with the problem of what have come to be known as "3-A" ballots -- a category where a newly-registering absentee voter included their registration form inside the internal secrecy envelope containing the ballot, rather than immediately within the outer envelope as it was supposed to be done.

When the ballots arrived during the election, many counties rejected them because of a failure to register to vote. But other areas would open up those secrecy envelopes, with the election workers staying blind to the actual vote inside, and feel around for a registration card in order to help get that vote counted.

The court has now commanded the counties to open the ballots on a long list of potential 3-A's -- a little bit over 1,500 envelopes -- to look for registration cards, and to organize a full listing of ballots with complete registrations, incomplete registrations or no form at all, and to get the job done by this Wednesday.

The ballots with valid registrations are not being counted yet -- but this is the first step in getting there.

So who would stand to benefit from this?

Read more »

MN-SEN

Minnesota -- The Spin Doesn't Stop

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 6:00PM

The fireworks have been continuing today at the local level in the Minnesota election trial -- and the national parties got involved in Washington, too, the place where this election could finally be decided.

At a Democratic leadership press conference today, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer responded to a question about the case by saying they expected it to be wrapped up and for Franken to be seated in weeks. "The projections -- and they're not locked in -- are that this should all be finished by the very beginning of April," said Schumer.

Schumer did acknowledge that the process isn't over, but predicted that it will end. "The people of Minnesota are very fair people, and they'll grant him appeals," Schumer said. "But sooner or later this is going to come to an end."

Harry Reid chimed in: "There's going to come a time when Coleman's going to have to recognize that he's lost -- he's lost this election. This should have been over a long time ago."

This prompted an angry statement e-mailed out from Michael Steele, who accused the Dems of trying to short-circuit the process in Minnesota:

The people of Minnesota expect and deserve a fair election process that ensures every valid vote is counted and counted only once. As it stands now, there are thousands of absentee ballots that have not been counted and potentially hundreds more that have been counted twice. Instead of attempting to short circuit election law, the Senate Majority Leader should focus on the out of control spending going on in Washington. Once the recount is completed, I fully expect Senator Coleman to be where he was on election night: in the lead. When that happens, we will welcome back a senator who values fiscal responsibility, lower taxes and will not vote to saddle future generations with unprecedented debt. I join my fellow Republicans in standing firmly behind Norm Coleman and his pursuit to ensure no Minnesota voter is disenfranchised."

And the spin keeps going in Minnesota, too.

Read more »

MN-SEN

Minnesota Dem Chairman: Coleman's Talk About Do-Over Election "Shameless Scheme"

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 5:27PM

Brian Melendez, the state Democratic chairman in Minnesota, just gave TPM this statement in response to Norm Coleman's comments that a do-over election could be necessary:

Former Senator Coleman's sudden interest in a "do-over" election is astonishing both for its ignorance of the law and for its ignorance of political reality -- or at least his feigned ignorance. First, the people of Minnesota went to the polls in November and elected a new United States senator; it's bad enough that Norm Coleman has been aggressively trying to disenfranchise so many of them throughout the recount and now during his election-contest trial, but now he wants to disenfranchise all of them.

Norm Coleman is a lawyer and he knows better. I hope that Governor Pawlenty will quickly disown Coleman's shameless scheme for a back-door appointment that will get him back the seat that he couldn't hold on to in a free and fair election.

Coleman has every right under the law to contest his recount loss, but he and his spinmeisters need to show some respect to Minnesotans' intelligence by acknowledging the fairness of our justice system and not fabricating scenarios that disregard Minnesota law.

Barack Obama

A Choice, Not an Echo

Matthew Cooper | February 26, 2009, 5:11PM

Zesty and dated rock tended to accompany speakers here at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Creedence Clearwater Revival "Down on the Corner" for John Bolton, Smashmouth's cover of "I'm a Believer" for Mike Pence, early Beatles--"Love Me Do"--at the Building a Conservative Hispanic Coalition seminar and Kenny Loggins hit from the Top Gun soundtrack, "Danger Zone". If Lee Greenwood is here, I haven't heard him.

In addition to the speakers and seminars, there's a giant exhibition area where different conservative outfits are peddling their wares. My favorite bumper sitcker for sale was "Obama Bin Lyin'. Impeach Him Now." I picked up an "It's OK to be Ex Gay" button. There are rows and rows of conservative talk show hosts broadcasting from here and a bloggers row. There are pro life groups and pro gun groups and anti global warming groups. I was handed an ice cream sandwich by a woman dressed as a polar bear. When I asked her what she was advocating she lifted her mask and cheerfully told me that the polar bears were fine and that conservative principles would do more for the environment than government.

We have some videos coming that will, if you haven't watched any of the proceedings, give you a flavor of the conservative movement as it deals with its exile.

A couple of thoughts.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that most people here think that what cost them the election was not adherence to conservative principles but deviance from them. In this view, Republicans were too squishy and moderate. They carried the weight of Congressional scandals, bloated budgets and GOP-sponsored social initiatives like No Child Left Behind and the expansion of Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit. There's not a lot of soul searching about policy.

I was surprised by the session on building a Hispanic Conservative Majority. It wasn't that well attended but those conservatives who went got to hear a blistering attack on the anti-immigration tone and policies of the Republican party and a passionate plea for an immigration policy that doesn't revolve around deporting illegal immigrants. If there's going to be a rethinking of Republican orthodoxy maybe it'll be here.

In general, though, the faithful are sticking to their creed. When Tucker Carlson, the conservative commentator, suggested that conservatives ought to start more New York Times media outlets of their own, dedicated to reporting, he got jeers. He tried to make it clear to the crowd that he thought the Times was liberal and distorting but they were at least dedicated to fact gathering. This small bit concession to the Times was too much for some in the crowd.

More later when we get the videos.

MN-SEN

Coleman Camp Finally Admits It: The Missing Ballots Existed

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 4:51PM

The Coleman campaign may have just given away the store on a very important point in their challenge to the Minnesota election results -- conceding that missing ballots from the recount that were still included in the final numbers did in fact exist.

During the recount, a deep-blue Minneapolis precinct came up with over 130 less ballots than were counted on Election Night, costing Al Franken a net 46 votes. The city eventually concluded that an envelope full of ballots labeled "1 of 5" was missing. After it wasn't recovered, the state canvassing board agreed to revert to the Election Night total for this precinct, rather than disenfranchise these voters.

The Coleman campaign vowed to contest it in court. Their position had been that there was no evidence the ballots existed, citing an earlier hypothesis by the city that ballots might have counted twice by the machines on Election Night -- which the city had quickly discarded when the precinct roster nearly matched the number of Election Night votes. And even if they do exist, the Coleman camp has still said they can't be included in the recount.

Read more »

MN-SEN

Colorful Coleman Spin-Man Withdraws From Courtroom

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 3:51PM

Ben Ginsberg, the Coleman spokesman/lawyer who has held colorful press conferences attacking the court, the reliability of the election results, and just about everything under the sun that looked bad for Norm Coleman, is no longer seeking to actually work for Norm in the courtroom.

Ginsberg, who was on George W. Bush's legal team during the Florida recount in 2000, has been holding his daily press conferences since the beginning of this trial, billing himself as a Coleman attorney. But it was only last week that he filed his motion for admission pro hac vice -- the filing that an out-of-state lawyer is supposed to make in order to appear before a local court.

Just today, Team Coleman submitted this motion to withdraw the request, which hadn't yet been granted: "Mr. Ginsberg will not participate in the trial and no longer seeks the court's permission to do so."

The real question now is whether Ginsberg will still continue to hold his amazing press conferences -- for example, yesterday he made a now-debunked charge that a heavily Dem county had illegally included 300 bad absentee ballots -- or whether he's now out of this case completely. We could find out tonight.

MN-SEN

County Says "Illegal" Votes Cited By Coleman Camp Are Really Legit

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 2:59PM

Oh, boy. Yesterday, Coleman spokesman/attorney Ben Ginsberg held a dramatic press conference to announce that 300 clearly invalid absentee ballot envelopes -- roughly 150 of them weren't even signed by the voters -- had been improperly opened and counted Election Night in the Democratic stronghold of St. Louis County (Duluth). It was a major part of the Coleman camp's push to undermine the legitimacy of the whole vote count, possibly in pursuit of a new election.

But now Noah Kunin at The Uptake looked into this with the county officials, showing them quite a few examples, and they've told him a different story: It appears these were not actually the envelopes used by those voters -- they were for in-house use by the local election workers, and these votes were legal.

Read more »

MN-SEN

Court Sides With Franken, Forbids Coleman From Sneaking New Evidence In

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 1:13PM

The Minnesota election court giveth to Coleman, and now they taketh away.

After granting Coleman mercy on a serious defeat he had suffered yesterday, the court has now shot him down on a separate matter, granting in full a Franken motion to forbid Coleman from obtaining questionable evidence from the counties, in Coleman's effort to get more ballots for himself counted.

Two days ago, the Coleman camp sent e-mails to county officials, asking them to certify that selected absentee voters whose ballots have been rejected did in fact meet all the legal requirements pertaining to voter-registration, and that they didn't also vote on Election Day. Coleman was pursuing one side of his case -- that votes for himself weren't counted that should be -- and wanted local officials to be able to phone it in rather than come to court. The Franken camp filed a motion in limine to forbid this maneuver, arguing it violated the rules of evidence by seeking out new documents without the ability to properly cross-examine the officials.

The court said that Coleman can submit pre-existing government documents such as voter registrars, Election Day precinct rosters, etc. But this new evidence simply isn't trustworthy -- they would be new judgments of government officials, specifically solicited by a single party in the middle of litigation.

Read more »

Israel/Palestine

John Bolton: The Mustache Lives

Matthew Cooper | February 26, 2009, 1:08PM

If you imagine Paul McCartney at Shea Stadium in 1965 you have some idea of the reception that the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, gave John Bolton this morning. The former United Nations Ambassador packed the largest ballroom at Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel and delivered a rousing speech filled with attacks on the Obama administration but also plenty of broadsides aimed at George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice. He ripped the administration for ruling out the use of force to stop the Iranian nuclear program and he denounced the multilateral, six-party talks that the Bush administration initiated to thwart North Korea's nuclear ambitions. According to Bolton, the talks succeeded only in giving the Pyonyang regime another five years to perfect its nuclear program and strengthen its missile capacity.

He saved his strongest attacks for the Obama administration, saying that it had appeased Russia during the campaign when then Senator Obama called on both sides of the Russian-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia to show restraint. He condemned Hillary Clinton for not making more of human rights issues on her recent trip to Asia and said that the administration's diplomatic approaches to Iran and North Korea were only allowing both nations to fuel their nuclear ambitions.

When it comes to Israel, Bolton was especially hard on the administration saying that "for those who thought an Obama administration would be friendly to Israel, it's time to wake up." Bolton did show moderation on some fronts. When asked by an audience member whether the policies of the Obama administration would lead to an armed revolution in the United States, Bolton said that he only wanted "a revolution at the ballot box." After his address, Bolton went to the exhibit hall where a long line of fans stood in line for him to sign copies of his latest book.

MN-SEN

Judges Show Coleman Mercy, Reverse Ruling To Strike Key Witness

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 11:16AM

The Minnesota election court just decided to cut Norm Coleman a serious break, reversing their decision yesterday to strike the testimony of a key witness in Coleman's attempt to prove double-counting of votes, after the Coleman camp failed to share evidence with the Franken side.

The court's memorandum explains why they took this severe step to begin with -- Coleman's repeated failures in the past to fully share evidence in a timely manner:

The Court recognizes that striking testimony is a severe sanction but notes that this trial has been underway for five weeks and that the parties have been repeatedly instructed of the need to supplement discovery responses. The Court believes this sanction was within its discretion in light of Contestants' repeated failures to adhere to their discovery obligations under the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure.

In plain English: The court took an extraordinary step because they were very, very angry.

Read more »

Barack Obama

Obama Budget Open Thread

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 11:04AM

The overview of the Obama Administration's first budget is now going live at the White House's site, where the public can take a look at it.

So here's an open thread for all of you to see it, scrutinize it, praise it or criticize it. We'll be looking through your comments for insights into items in the budget that may deserve more coverage and attention. So flag anything you find newsworthy. Have fun.

Obama's FY 2010 Budget Overview

MN-SEN

Norm Coleman: Maybe We Need A Do-Over Election

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 10:08AM

The talk from the Coleman campaign about how the Minnesota election results are unreliable, and that a do-over election could be an option, has now gone beyond just Norm Coleman's lawyers -- it's now coming from the mouth of Norm himself.

Coleman did an interview with Sirius conservative talk-radio host Andrew Wilkow, and discussed the campaign's argument that the court's current strict standards for allowing in previously-rejected ballots must by extension render illegal a whole lot of ballots accepted and counted on Election Night, when local election officials used lax standards:

"What does the court do?" Norm asked rhetorically. "Yeah, you know some folks are now talking about simply saying run it again, just run it again."

"Have another statewide election?" Wilkow asked.

Read more »

Michael Steele

GOP Senators Blast Steele Over Talk Of Primary Challenges

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 9:21AM

Michael Steele's back-and-forth flirtation with possible primary challenges to the party's pro-stimulus Republicans is now causing him to catch some real flak. And it's not just from those same Republican, but also from conservatives concerned about winning elections -- perhaps indicative of internal strains in the GOP between a hard-line conservative agenda, versus the basic electoral goal of winning office.

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), a pro-stimulus Republican who will be up for re-election in 2012, told Roll Call that she approached Steele about his comments and asked him bluntly: "You didn't really mean that, did you?" She said that Steele has agreed to set up a meeting with the three pro-stimulus GOPers to discuss this.

Snowe pointed out that the loss of GOP moderates, and the view that they don't belong in the party, has contributed to the party's overall decrease. "When we were in the majority, there were more of us. Now that we're in the minority, there are less of us," Snowe explained, also adding: "If that's what they want to be, well that's their choice."

And NRSC chairman John Cornyn, a right-winger whose job description right now is quite simply to elect more Republicans, said that while Steele has backed off a bit, Republicans should focus on attacking the Democrats and not each other: "We need to be finding candidates that can win in different parts of the country ... not forming circular firing squads, especially when our numbers are so small."

Barack Obama

TPMDC Morning Roundup

Eric Kleefeld | February 26, 2009, 9:00AM

Obama's Day Ahead -- Introducing His Budget
President Obama is giving a speech at 9:30 a.m. ET this morning from the White House, at which he will lay out his proposed federal budget. At 2 p.m. ET he will be meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. Then he and Vice President Biden will meet with Tim Geithner at 3 p.m. ET, and then Hillary Clinton at 3:45 p.m. ET. Finally, the president will hold perhaps the most crucial event of the day at 4:45 p.m. ET: A meeting with members of the Chicago Bulls.

Biden Meeting Kosovar Leaders
Later today, Joe Biden will be meeting with a delegation from Kosovo: President Fatmir Sejdiu, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, and Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni.

Report: Deficit To Hit $1.75 Trillion
The first Obama budget will reportedly have a projected federal budget deficit of $1.75 trillion, thanks in part to the one-time mass spending/tax-cutting from the $787 billion stimulus bill.The deficit is expected to stay at about $1 trillion for the next two years, before falling to $533 billion in 2013, after the Bush tax cuts on top-earners would have been allowed to expire.

Obama Seeks Tax And Premium Hikes On Top-Earners To Fund Health Care
President Obama will reportedly seek $634 billion over the next ten years to fund health care for the uninsured. This would be funded by allowing the Bush tax cuts on top-earners to expire, as well as taking other measures such as charging upper-income beneficiaries higher premiums under the Medicare drug plan, which was passed in 2003 without a thorough plan for how to pay for it.

Bill Clinton Gives Thumbs-Up To Obama Speech
In an interview with Greg Sargent, Bill Clinton praised President Obama's Congressional address from Tuesday night, saying it struck the right balance between optimism and realism about the current economic crisis. "I think people appreciate the fact that he's not jerking them around and [is] just telling them the way it is," said Bill. "But they do wanna know that we are gonna get out of this."

Obama's Congressional Address Gets More Than 52 Million Viewers
More than 52 million people watched President Obama's speech to Congress on Tuesday -- effectively his first State of the Union -- according to Nielsen Media Research. Note that this is only the measure of how many people watch on TV, and doesn't include people who watched it online. For comparison, then-President George W. Bush's first Congressional address in early 2001 attracted 39.8 million viewers.

Poll: Public Backs Surge For Afghanistan
A new ABC/Washington Post poll says that about two-thirds of Americans support the recently-announced increase of 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, a sharp contrast to the opposition to then-President Bush's Iraq surge in polling at the time. On the other hand, the public is split evenly on whether the Afghanistan War has been worth its costs, and only say by a 50%-41% margin that winning in Afghanistan is essential for success in broader efforts against terrorism.

Black Caucus Wants White House Involved In Census
CQ reports that the Congressional Black Caucus wants the White House to stay closely involved in the census, a direct counter-point to Republican charges that the Administration might politicize it, due to the importance the program has in allocating federal funds for various programs. Said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): "I think the census is extremely important, and support for avoiding the undercount takes leadership, and the president has to provide that leadership."

MN-SEN

Coleman Lawyer Declares Whole Election Tainted -- And Doesn't Rule Out Re-Vote

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 6:44PM

Coleman spokesman/lawyer Ben Ginsberg is really stepping up the rhetoric about how the entire vote count in Minnesota is tainted and unreliable -- and he is quite conspicuously not ruling out the idea of asking for a do-over election.

Ginsberg just held a dramatic press conference in the hallway of the court building, with six easels containing photocopies of absentee ballot envelopes that were already accepted and counted on Election Night. Ginsberg said he had 300 examples of ballots from St. Louis County (Duluth), a Democratic stronghold, where the voters clearly didn't follow instructions and the ballots should not have been accepted.

Ginsberg said this didn't just impugn the reliability of the recount -- it showed the illegality of Election Night totals, too, with the number of illegal votes far greater than the "erstwhile margin" of the race: "It also means with this sort of overwhelming evidence that were the court to certify the Election Night results they would be including illegal votes. And the court's charge is to count legal votes, and that would be a clear contradiction."

Read more »

MN-SEN

Minnesota Judges Strike Key Coleman Witness, After Failure To Share Evidence

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 4:57PM

The Minnesota election court just laid down some serious punishment against Norm Coleman's legal team, granting Team Franken's motion to strike the testimony of a key witness involved in Coleman's claim that absentee ballots had been double-counted.

This came about because the witness, election worker Pamela Howell, had typed up some personal notes weeks ago and gave them to the Coleman campaign, who then failed to properly share them with Franken. Without Howell's testimony, the Coleman camp's efforts to show double-counting have been unambiguously damaged.

"The court will issue a written order with further explanation," said Judge Elizabeth Hayden. That further explanation should be interesting to read.

Read more »

John Boehner

Boehner: GOP Policies Are Politically Harder, Dems Offer Free Lunch

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 4:30PM

The Wall St. Journal reports that John Boehner made an interesting observation about the Republican Party's problems: It's simply harder to sell their own ideas to the public, compared to the easy answers offered by the Democrats.

"We have a tougher job than our friends across the aisle. They've been offering Americans a free lunch for the last 80 years, rather successfully," Boehner said, at a lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "Those of us that believe in a smaller, more accountable government, we have a tougher time making our principles relevant to the American people. But it's our challenge, and we've got to do it."

A note about free lunches and small government: Boehner voted in 2003 for the Medicare drug bill, a mega-expensive expansion of entitlement spending with no method laid out on how to pay for it. And the modern GOP's platform is based largely on tax cuts, with the constant claim that they'll result in even more revenue.

MN-SEN

Coleman Camp Gets Caught Not Sharing Evidence With Franken Side, Coaching Witness

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 4:05PM

Norm Coleman's lawyers just had a very awkward moment in court, in their attempt to prove that absentee ballots were double-counted -- it turns out they've failed to share evidence with the Franken camp, involving a key witness.

The Coleman camp called Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis, who said she heard another election judge exclaim that they had forgotten to properly label duplicates of absentee ballots that had been too damaged for the machines to count. She also said she did not recall whether they had made a note of this in the precinct incident logs.

Franken lawyer David Lillehaug then got up, setting out to impugn Howell as an unreliable, partisan witness. She admitted that she called up Coleman's legal team during the recount, informing them of the problem. Lillehaug then asked her if she'd spoken to the lawyers before her testimony today. "Not today," she said. He then asked if she ever spoke to them about her testimony. Yes, she did.

It was then revealed that several weeks ago she made notes on her computer, taking down the information she would need to know for her testimony. She gave a copy to the Coleman side -- and the Franken camp had never received it.

(By the way, this exchange included a fun bit where Lillehaug asked if her notes had a file name, and she said no. After some more direct questions, she said it was saved on her machine under the name "testimony.")

There then followed a contentious sidebar, after which Judge Elizabeth Hayden confirmed with lead Coleman lawyer Joe Friedberg that he would be willing to serve a copy to Franken. They then went into a brief recess.

Read more »

MN-SEN

Coleman Trying New Maneuver To Get Approval On Ballots

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 2:24PM

After a series of rulings that have seriously hurt his ability to get new votes into the count, the Coleman campaign is now trying to pull off something of a Hail Mary pass to get ballots in -- and of course, the Franken camp wants to stop them.

Yesterday, the Coleman camp sent e-mails to county officials, asking them to certify that selected absentee voters whose ballots have been rejected did in fact meet all the legal requirements pertaining to voter-registration. The Franken campaign jumped on this immediately, sending messages to the counties to not respond, and filing a motion with the court to forbid it.

This morning's arguments got pretty heated. Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton argued that this violated all the basic rules of evidence -- officials are being asked to phone it in, rather than testify in court and be subject to cross-examination.

Read more »

Bailout

Financial Firm Claims it Had No Position on Employee Free Choice -- While Lobbying On It

Elana Schor | February 25, 2009, 1:52PM

Reuters picked up TPMDC's story from yesterday on the union federation Change to Win's request to deny bailout money to Principal Financial Group.

Curiously, Principal executives told Reuters that they have "not taken a position on the Employee Free Choice Act, nor do we plan to take such a position."

The company did not deny lobbying on the union-organizing legislation in its statement, so we can only presume that spent money last year to tell Congress it took no position on the Secret Ballot Protection Act, which appears on its public disclosure reports. That Secret Ballot plan was intended as a direct counter-attack on the union-backed Employee Free Choice push, as this statement from a supportive conservative group makes clear.

A response to Principal from Change to Win's Michael Garland, director of value strategies for the union's investment group, follows after the jump.

Read more »

Barack Obama

Budget Experts Take the Pelosi Challenge: How Much Could We Save by Leaving Iraq and Letting Bush Tax Cuts Expire?

Elana Schor | February 25, 2009, 1:25PM

At the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently examined the impact of three alternative "policy scenarios" on our current budget deficit, expected to hit $1.5 trillion for 2009. Their conclusions were fascinating -- or troubling, depending on your degree of fiscal hawkishness.

Pelosi Scenario One can be defined as the nation's real status quo, assuming that the stimulus bill remains a one-off law that does not change future budgetary estimates. The alternative minimum tax is also assumed to be indexed for inflation every year -- something Congress never fails to do -- and current spending on Medicare doctors' fees as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are assumed to continue at their current rates. The result is unnerving:

Read more »

Health Care

Reid: Health Care Coming in the Summer

Elana Schor | February 25, 2009, 12:56PM

The substance of health care reform is on everyone's mind in the Capitol these days, as Republican senators examine just how much cooperation is possible with the president's party. But what's been less clear is the timeframe for consideration of a major health bill ...

... until Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) just cleared it up. "I'd like to get health care started before the August recess," he told reporters today. Started, but not necessarily finished -- when leaders give themselves a deadline, they tend to choose their words carefully. Sounds like GOP hopes for "regular order" might become reality.

Barack Obama

Democratic Spending Bill Reverses Infamous Bush Rule on Endangered Species

Elana Schor | February 25, 2009, 12:19PM

The $410 billion government spending bill that's poised to pass the House of Representatives today contains a lot of good new science and sex-ed policies -- but that's not its only hidden gem.

The bill also authorizes a reversal of last year's controversial Bush end run around the Endangered Species Act, which would allow oil rigs and highways to be built anywhere in the U.S. without independent reviews of their potential impact on the surrounding wildlife populations. As Bloomberg reports:

Read more »

LA-SEN

Vitter Facing Possible Circus Primary: Christian-Right Activist And Porn Star

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 11:54AM

Louisiana politics is known for being a bit weird compared to the rest of the country, and it's starting to look like this cycle will be no exception -- with scandal-plagued GOP Sen. David Vitter facing a potential primary challenge from a major Christian-Right activist on the one side, and a porn star on the other.

You might remember this funny moment from the scandal, when Vitter drove into a parking lot sign in his rush to get away from reporters:

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, told the Politico that he's considering a primary challenge against Vitter, whose conservative reputation has been damaged by his implication in the D.C. Madam prostitution scandal: "I will say this: I have people in Louisiana encouraging me to consider it."

Meanwhile, porn star Stormy Daniels is publicly contemplating a bid in the Republican primary herself, in order to cast light on Vitter's moral hypocrisy. So Vitter could be facing clowns to the left of him, and jokers to the right. But which is which?

To answer that, let's ask the question: Just who is Tony Perkins?

Read more »

Republicans

All Bailed-Out Banks Can Get Citigroup's Good Deal -- And Guess Which Party is Raising the Alarm?

Elana Schor | February 25, 2009, 11:45AM

The wall-to-wall media coverage of President Obama's speech last night pushed the growing controversy over bank nationalization into the business pages this morning, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made a stunning admission yesterday before the Senate Banking Committee.

The government's latest rescue offer to Citigroup, in which Uncle Sam would convert its preferred-stock investment in the bank into common stock -- forgoing the 5% dividend and extra rights that preferred shareholders enjoy -- isn't just available to Citi, as Bernanke said yesterday. Any of the 19 banks that are in line for upcoming Treasury Department "stress tests" can get a preferred-to-common conversion if expected capital losses materialize.

Giving major banks another break at the taxpayers' expense would seem to be a highly controversial proposition in Congress, particularly when the conversions are expressly designed to help Citigroup and its cohorts do better on the "stress tests." But so far, the only lawmakers raising red flags on the stock conversions are Republicans.

Read more »

Bobby Jindal

Jindal Speech Gets Bad Reviews -- On The Right

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 10:48AM

The reviews have been coming in on Bobby Jindal's response speech to President Obama's address to Congress, and he's getting a lot of negative feedback ranging from the content to the awkward delivery -- and that's from a lot of conservative outlets.

David Brooks was decidedly nonplussed:

"But to come up at this moment in history with a stale 'government is the problem,' 'we can't trust the federal government' -- it's just a disaster for the Republican Party," said Brooks.

Read more »

Arlen Specter

Steele Keeps Door Open For RNC to Abandon Specter In Primary

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 9:47AM

In an interview today on Morning Joe, Michael Steele seemed to be trying to back off of his prior statements about how Arlen Specter could face a primary challenge for supporting the stimulus bill -- but in the process, he only ended up saying that the RNC might not support Specter:

See more at MSNBC.com.

Pat Buchanan pressed Steele to affirm that he would welcome a primary challenge. "Of course, the Senator's gonna have to account to the primary voters," Steele said. "He's gonna have to go through that gauntlet first and stand before those voters, and address a core question."

Steele said that the GOP "lost its mind" over the last few years on spending and small government, and that the stimulus was "a core principled vote" on Republican ideas about government and the free market.

Thus, Steele concluded: "So if the primary voters there have some strong voice, and certainly the state party of Pennsylvania does not put in place an incumbent protection, then the RNC will honor that."

As we've previously reported, Steele has gone back and forth on this one, after he first said on the Neil Cavuto show that pro-stimulus Republicans could be denied support. He then swung away from that, telling TPM that the decision is up to the state parties, rather taking a single position on it as the national chairman. And now he's heading back somewhat to the anti-Specter position, emphasizing on a morning show all the ways Specter betrayed core Republican ideas.

TPMDC Morning Roundup

Eric Kleefeld | February 25, 2009, 9:04AM

Obama's Day Ahead: Introducing The Commerce Secretary
President Obama and Vice President Biden will be speaking at 11 a.m. ET to introduce the newest nominee for Secretary of Commerce, widely expected to be former Washington state Governor Gary Locke. At 12:30 p.m. ET, Obama and Biden will hold a closed meeting with the Democratic leadership in Congress. At 3 p.m. ET, Obama and Tim Geithner will meet with the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees.

Stevie Wonder Performing For Obamas At The White House
President Obama and the First Lady will be hosting Stevie Wonder at the White House tonight, as he performs for them and accepts the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize. The event begins at 7:25 p.m. ET.

Biden Holding Economic Recovery Meeting
Vice President Biden is holding the first meeting today for the Recovery Plan Implementation, scheduled for 9:45 a.m. ET. Meeting participants include Accountability Board Chair Earl Devaney, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, OMB Director Peter Orszag, and others.

Obama Set To Announce Iraq Withdrawal Plan Soon
President Obama is expected to announce some time soon his plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, with a residual force of between 30,000 and 50,000 U.S. troops to train and advice the Iraqi Security forces -- and a complete withdrawal would follow by December 2011. No official date has been set for the announcement, but a White House official told the Associated Press that it might come up during a trip to North Carolina this Friday.

Specter: "I'm Going To Have A Primary"
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) told CQ that he knows he'll likely face a stiff primary challenge in 2010, thanks to his support for the stimulus bill. Specter told the paper that an unnamed Republican colleague approached him in the party cloakroom to say how proud he was of Specter for taking a risk to help pass the bill. So Specter asked if his colleague would vote for it. "No, I might have a primary," the unnamed GOPer said, to which Specter replied: "You know very well that I'm going to have a primary."

Roll Call: Even Ex-Congressmen Can Still Get Earmarks
Roll Call reports that Congress is poised to vote for an omnibus budget bill carrying over from last year, which not only includes earmarks but has earmarks from people who are are no longer in Congress. A standout is former Rep. David Hobson (R-OH), who will have successfully brought home $3.8 million for a supercomputing platform and $2.8 million total for two colleges in his district.

The Hill: Obama's Speech Just Getting K Street Started
The Hill predicts that Obama's speech from last night will be a "starter pistol" for lobbyists, who will seek to shape the agenda on issues like energy, healthcare, education and financial services. For example, the American Petroleum Institute and its opposite number the Environmental Defense Fund were right out the gate with statements commenting on the convent of the speech.

Barack Obama

Another Poll Shows High Marks For Obama Speech

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 11:15PM

Another national poll is out testing the reaction to Obama's speech, with CNN showing that speech-watchers came away feeling optimistic and reassured.

The numbers: 68% of viewers said they had a very positive reaction, compared to 24% somewhat positive and only 8% negative. And an astonishing 85% said the speech made them feel more optimistic about the direction the country is headed in (though granted, feeling more optimistic than before might be a low bar), and only 11% said it made them more negative.

And 82% of speech-watchers say they support Obama's economic plans as outlined in the speech, with only 17% against.

A caveat from CNN polling director Keating Holland: "These are great numbers for Obama, but they are no better or worse that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush got after their first speeches to Congress."

The numbers are also distorted somewhat, in that CNN estimates the viewing audience was 8-10 points more Democratic than the general public. But even if we subtracted 10 points from all the positive numbers above, that's still more than pretty good.

Barack Obama

First Post-Speech Poll Shows Bounce For Obama On Economy

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 11:04PM

CBS News is first out the gate with a survey testing the reactions to the Sort-of-State-of-the-Union speech, with a Web-based poll by Knowledge Networks showing respondents' views of Obama before and after the speech.

The first number out so far: 62% of speech-watchers before the speech approved of President Obama's plans for dealing with the economy. Afterwards, the number increased to 79%.

But this one is the biggie: Before the speech, only 35% thought Obama's economic plans would personally help them. After the speech, that number jumped up to 52%.

Note that the increase in the number of people who thought Obama's plans would help them was the exact same number as the increase in those who approved of his policies.

George W. Bush

Leahy: Hearing on Post-Bush Truth Commission Coming in 'About A Week'

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 11:01PM

After the president's speech tonight, I caught up with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who confirmed that he will hold a hearing on the proposed "truth and reconciliation commission" to investigate abuses committed during the Bush years.

Salon first reported Leahy's plans for a hearing, which the chairman said would come in "about a week or so," as soon as he could get his desired witnesses to confirm their attendance. When pressed on who those sought-after witnesses might be, Leahy declined to elaborate. Stay tuned...

Barack Obama

Congressional Reactions to Obama's Speech

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 10:20PM

Below are some excerpts from notable reactions to President Obama's speech tonight ...

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), a key GOP ally of the White House:

Recognizing the financial strain the price of health care is placing on millions of families and employers, the President rightly made clear his intent to reform the health care system through reducing costs and increasing coverage for the more than 47 million Americans without health insurance. As we work to address this mounting crisis, it is also imperative the administration include a wide-range of Republican voices as well - because we can only create a sustainable health care system for the future if it is built on strong bipartisan support and results from a clear and transparent process. Every major legislative initiative, from Medicare to Civil Rights to Clean Air, has enjoyed strong support from both parties because representatives from both sides of the aisle were at the conference table.

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Barack Obama

The Scene in the Chamber: Unlikely Hugs and Surprising Applause

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 10:01PM

Before every State of the Union, the House chamber becomes a fascinating theater of social networking among the nation's most influential individuals -- and today's presidential speech, while not an official SotU, was no exception.

The most gregarious lawmakers, including Reps. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and Jean Schmidt (R-OH), clustered in the front of the aisles to greet incoming senators and secure a plum position to shake the president's hand (think of this as the Michele Bachmann / Joe Lieberman seat).

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy was one of the few House members who made a point to buttonhole senators during the wait for the president to arrive. In McCarthy's case, she stood at the side of Sen. Robert Menendez (NJ), the Democratic campaign chief who could hold the key to her primary effort against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) next year.

When the president's Cabinet members began entering the chamber, cheers seemed to break out every minute.

Read more »

Barack Obama

The Presidential Address

Matthew Cooper | February 24, 2009, 8:49PM

Tonight we'll be using this space for your comments on the president's address and the response from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, I've been asked to make some comments along the way--in the comments section itself--and give the discussion some direction.

We hope you'll share your thoughts.

Here are a few things on my mind going into the speech. While I have an embargoed copy of the speech, I haven't read it. First, how well can he make the case that we need to fix health care now? Second, will he be able to strike the right balance between optimism and realism about our economic problems? I'm interested in Jindal's response. Is it pure rejectionism? Does he have anything new to offer besides cutting taxes.

Come join the conversation.

Stimulus

Democratic Governor Considers Turning Down Stimulus Cash!

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 8:36PM

We now have another governor who says he's thinking about turning down the small portion of the stimulus package for unemployment benefits -- and he's a Democrat???

"We are evaluating this piece of money, whether it makes sense for us to take it," Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. "We may well be one of the states that say we can't take on that portion of it."

Well, if this guy was ever on the HHS short-list before...

MN-SEN

Minnesota Court Denies Coleman's Attempt To Un-Count Ballots He'd Previously Agreed To

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 7:53PM

The Minnesota election court has just handed down another key ruling, totally denying Norm Coleman's attempt to undo his previous agreement that 933 previously-rejected absentee ballots be included in the recount -- and which favored Al Franken by a 176-vote margin.

The two campaigns had previously entered into a stipulated agreement three weeks ago, which had been formalized by the court through an order declaring the ballots were legal, and directing the Secretary of State's office to redact identifying numbers that had been placed on the ballots and their envelopes just in case they were to be removed later -- an action that had also violated the secret ballot.

But then Coleman filed a motion on Friday, asking for an injunction to stop the redaction of those identifying numbers -- a declaration that they were nullifying their agreement, on the grounds that the court's ruling for strict standards in accepting additional rejected absentee ballots had to be applied retroactively.

After some very heated arguments on Friday, the court has denied the injunction -- and declared that Coleman is stuck with the agreement that he made, that these ballots were legal:

The binding stipulation and Order of February 3, 2009 are dispositive of Contestants' motion. Both campaigns have been completely and ably represented by counsel throughout these proceedings. The stipulation was drafted by counsel and signed by sophisticated parties familiar with the subject matter. The Court presumes the parties were apprised of the risks and benefits associated with entering into this agreement.

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Barack Obama

GOPers: Health Care Debate Doesn't Have to Look Like Stimulus Struggle

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 7:52PM

As President Obama takes the podium in the Capitol tonight, members of both parties are looking ahead to the next legislative challenge and wondering whether the stimulus bill -- which began with noble goals of bipartisanship but ended in an acrimonious round of finger-pointing -- will set the tone for the early days of the administration.

All signs are pointing to health care reform as the next issue topping the agenda for the White House and Congress. So will Republican senators close ranks against the popular president on health care, leaving the majority Democrats to horse-trade their way to a slim 60-vote victory?

Senior GOP senators have a clear, and perhaps surprising, answer to that question: they're ready to work with the president's party on health care.

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MN-SEN

Franken Team Demolishes Huge Set Of Coleman Ballots

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 7:03PM

Today was another fun day in the never-ending disaster that is the Minnesota trial. The Coleman campaign presented this week about 100 absentee ballots that they said were wrongly rejected because local officials mistakenly believed the witnesses weren't registered voters. And then Franken lawyer David Lillehaug demolished them.

Lillehaug went over the voter registration system with state Elections Director Gary Poser, showing that many of these witnesses weren't actually registered at the time they signed those ballot envelopes.

Lillehaug went over ballot after ballot, getting Poser to say that they were properly rejected, either because of this witness issue or for another registration problem. The Star Tribune estimates it at around 100 ballots -- which would be roughly the total amount in the latest batch -- and that sounds about right.

At one point, Lillehaug asked if Coleman's people had asked how to properly read the database.

Now this isn't a surprise that so many ballots offered by a campaign would be struck down. The point here is that Lillehaug was damaging what seemed to be some of Coleman's better prospects.

Read more »

Barack Obama

Gibbs Previews Obama Speech to House Dem Aides

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 5:06PM

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs briefed House Democratic press secretaries behind closed doors this afternoon, giving a preview of tonight's presidential speech on health care and the economy.

Gibbs told the aides that the president broke bread with major news anchors this afternoon, depicting himself as "Dr. Obama" (as Katie Couric put it) and the nation as a patient in need of a positive diagnosis.

So it's safe to say that tonight's speech will be optimistic -- but will it break news? What's gone under-reported in the anticipation of Thursday's White House budget release is the fact that the plan will be a broad outline. The full Obama budget isn't expected until April, as this Politico story notes near the bottom.

NY-20

GOP Candidate: If I Answer Stimulus Question, You Might Ask About Iraq

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 5:01PM

Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate for Kirsten Gillibrand's former House seat, sure has an interesting rebuttal to Democrats attacking him over his refusal to say how he would have voted on the stimulus bill.

Tedisco told the New York Times that if he answered this hypothetical question, it would only open the door: "It won't just be this, it'll be, 'How would you vote on the war in Iraq?'"

Isn't he now just leaving himself wide open for questions about Iraq?

MN-SEN

DSCC Spokesman: The Least The GOP Can Do Is Buy Coleman Lunch

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 4:52PM

So what should we think of the fact that Norm Coleman is still attending Senate GOP policy lunches, even though he's not a Senator?

Here's what Eric Schultz, the new DSCC spokesman (and a former communications man for Franken) told us when we asked him for comment on the story: "Springing for lunch is the least they can do for using his prolonged and increasingly desperate legal battle to obstruct the Democratic agenda."

Schultz is referring here to the widespread perception that this lawsuit is only being done in order to prevent Al Franken from being seated, thanks to the unique Minnesota law that prevents certification of a victory while a legal contest is still going, and which has made it a lot harder for Dems to reach 60 votes on cloture motions.

MN-SEN

Coleman Declares Full Vote-Count Crucial For Consent Of The Governed

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 4:23PM

Norm Coleman appeared yesterday on the Armstrong Williams radio show, and the Minnesota GOP has posted this interesting excerpt of Norm responding to Williams' question regarding how Minnesotans feel about their current lack of full representation.

"Those of us who have had the honor to serve as public servants, public officials, we serve with the consent of the governed," Coleman said. "You're not gonna get that consent if the governed -- if the citizens -- don't think the guy who got the most votes is the guy that got elected, the guy that sits in the office."

He later added: "But people in Minnesota understand that you've gotta get it right."

Where were you eight years ago, Norm, when we really needed you?

IL-SEN

Durbin Asks Burris To Resign

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 4:04PM

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) just told reporters that he asked Roland Burris (in a very polite manner) to resign. And Burris said no.

"If I were in your shoes, I would consider resigning," Durbin said, reciting what he told Burris.

Durbin said he also asked Burris whether he would be running for a full term in 2010, and Burris said he hasn't made up his mind. Durbin then recalled telling Burris that it would be very difficult to win either the primary or general elections.

"What I've done is, I made my recommendation to Senator Burris," Durbin said. "And he's told me clearly that he will not resign."

Durbin added that he doesn't have much persuasive power with Burris -- he previously advised Burris during the Blagojevich scandal to not seek or accept the appointment, and Burris did that, anyway.

RNC

Steele Backtracks on Punishing GOP Senators Who Voted For Stimulus

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 3:59PM

Josh just posted the video of Michael Steele's appearance on Fox News yesterday, when the national Republican chairman suggested that he would be open to denying political funds to the three GOP senators who supported the economic stimulus law.

See more at Foxnews.com.

It sounds like a brash bit of moxie from Steele. But when I asked him about it today -- the RNC chief joined ex-Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) as an official lunch guest of Senate GOPers -- Steele backtracked.

"It's totally up to the state parties," he told me, in a stark contrast to his comment on Fox that he would "talk to the state parties" about withholding funds to the three stimulus-supporting Republican senators. (The three in question: Arlen Specter, up for re-election in Pennsylvania next year, and Mainers Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both out of cycle in 2010.)

Incidentally, the Senate Republican campaigns chief, John Cornyn (TX) was also bearish on Steele's initial vow. When I asked if he was open to blocking party aid to the three Cornyn said simply: "We're going to support incumbents."

Bailout

House Dems Ask Obama's Bank to Give Back Bailout Money

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 3:46PM

[ed. note: This post has been edited from the original, which incorrectly noted that the winner of last week's Northern Trust golf tournament had received a phone call from the president.]

When it rains, it pours ... hours after a major labor group asked the Treasury Department to deny bailout money to a bank that dropped half a million dollars on lobbying in three months, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) is telling another bank to give back some of its government aid right now.

In a letter to Northern Trust -- which, it should be noted, is the president's personal bank -- Frank and every Democrat on his committee chastise bank president Frederick Waddell for sponsoring a lavish golf tournament in Los Angeles and giving out Tiffany souvenirs to clients while taking taxpayer money.

"We insist that you immediately return to the federal government the equivalent of what Northern Trust frittered away on these lavish events," the Democrats wrote to Waddell.

The Democrats' full letter to Northern Trust is after the jump.

Read more »

Business Lobby

Banking Industry Asks for Leniency on 'Minor Violations' of Truth in Lending Act

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 3:30PM

The House is on the verge of taking up a mortgage aid proposal that would, for the first time, allow judges to modify the terms of primary mortgages for individuals facing bankruptcy -- a reform known as the "cram-down."

The bankruptcy law change is backed by the Obama administration as well as Citigroup (which is increasingly looking like a ward of the Obama administration). But the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and other K Street players are no fans of the cram-downs plan.

In a letter sent today to every House member, a group of financial lobbying giants urges Congress to reject the cram-downs bill. Lobbyists are especially concerned about language in the bill "provid[ing] that even minor violations of the Truth-in-Lending Act (TILA) could result in a home equity loan or even a mortgage being disallowed in bankruptcy."

You read that right: K Street is asking Congress to permit lenders to get away with minor violations of the TILA, a 40-year-old law that was passed to protect consumers from banks that hide punitive terms in the fine print of loans.

Read more »

IL-SEN

Burris Told To Resign By...David Vitter

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 2:24PM

Senator David Vitter (R-LA), whose career became mired in controversy back in 2007 when he became implicated in the D.C. Madam prostitution ring, is now calling upon Roland Burris to resign.

That's right. Vitter is challenging someone else's ethics and fitness to serve in the Senate.

In an interview with The Hill, Vitter dismissed any idea that his own personal scandals made him a hypocrite for calling upon Burris to quit. "I honestly don't know anybody who would compare these situations," he told The Hill on Tuesday. "They are dramatically different."

There are differences, obviously. Burris' scandal involves being metaphorically in bed with somebody.

MN-SEN

Coleman Still Attending GOP Caucus Meetings -- Even Though He's No Longer A Senator!

Elana Schor and Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 1:38PM

It turns out that Norm Coleman is still a member in good standing of the Senate Republican Conference -- in fact, it just so happens that he attended today's party lunch meeting on the Hill, and was also there for Inauguration Week.

What makes this remarkable is that Coleman isn't actually a member of the United States Senate anymore. Remember that his term expired this past January 3, and Minnesota has been without a Senator because of his lawsuit bottling up Al Franken's amazingly-narrow win.

"He's always welcome," Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told TPMDC, adding that "we still think he has a very good opportunity" to win.

It's unclear whether Alexander has actually been watching the trial, which has seen some key rulings lately going against Coleman's position, diminishing the likelihood of a Coleman victory. In fact, the Coleman camp's press operation has taken to openly attacking the court's rulings.

We will say this: The fact that Coleman doesn't actually have a vote probably makes Jon Kyl's whip operation a lot easier.

Democrats

Court-Appointed Receiver Asks Dems, GOPers to Give Back Stanford Cash

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 1:34PM

Several members of Congress are choosing to donate political contributions from accused fraudster Allen Stanford to charity -- with the notable holdouts being Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who has hung onto 4/5 of his Stanford cash, and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX).

But the Dallas Morning News reports that lawmakers may not have a choice in the matter anymore, now that the court-appointed receiver who's managing Stanford's assets has asked both the Republican and Democratic campaign committees to give back all the cash. From the Dallas report:

Ralph S. Janvey, who was appointed by the U.S. District Court in Dallas to take control of Stanford's assets, asked Democratic and Republican national political committees on Monday to return donations from Allen Stanford and his company's political action committee.

Stanford, his employees and his corporate PAC gave $250,125 to the NRCC since 2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Stanford entities gave the most to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee - $965,500, according to the center.

Janvey's request does not appear to have been sent to individual members of Congress (yet), but the Dallas paper adds that Sessions has already donated $2,000 to charity to offset his Stanford cash, and is considering getting rid of the rest of the $40,000-plus he received.

Late Update: As the AP reported last night, Janvey's letters seeking a political-cash refund are "highly unusual." The practice is common with charitable donations given by individuals before their assets are frozen, but rarely occurs with campaign donations. Here's how Janvey put his request:

Read more »

Republicans

Inside that Conservative Tea Party

Matthew Cooper | February 24, 2009, 1:32PM

For those of you who think that conservatives are Luddites and only liberals have really mastered the tools of the digital age, listen to what happened to me on Friday.

Sick as a dog, I was lying in bed around 6 PM with my BlackBerry watching the chat on Twitter. I'd been following Newt Gingrich for awhile and I noticed he'd been chatting with Michael P. Leahy, the founder of something called Top Conservatives on Twitter.

As I lay sneezing and wheezing, Leahy was, before my eyes, using Twitter to organize dozens of rallies across the country to protest the economic policies of the Obama administration all under the heading of a National Chicago Tea Party. The reference to the Windy City is, of course, a homage to Rick Santelli's cri de coeur. Leahy notes that other conservatives had been toying with the idea of a tea party, pre Santelli, including Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds and the Managing Editor of the American Spectator J. Peter Freire. But it was Santelli's screed combined with Twitter that brought it all together so quickly.

The speed with which Leahy found people to sponsor events, design a logo,even come up with Revolutionary War reenactors was startling.

Just a week later, on Friday, conservatives will gather in about 35 cities across the country to fight what they see as profligate policies that reward irresponsibility.

I spoke with Leahy this afternoon. He was at his home near Nashville. Raised in an Irish Catholic family in Oswego, New York--he tells me that he's actually third cousins with Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat--the 54-year-old went to Harvard undergrad and Stanford business school. An entrepreneur, he worked in enterprise systems and computer marketing and became a conservative in the mid 80s having grown up in a JFK-admiring home. Now he's published a few conservative tomes and devotes considerable energy to Top Conservatives on Twitter.

By now everyone knows Twitter but what's less well known is the so-called hashtag or tick tac toe symbol that often accompanies Twitter messages. It's used to identify a message so that it can be easily grouped with other like minded souls. On Sunday, for instance, I Twittered some comments about the Oscars and ended each post with "#oscars"

In the conservative world, #TCOT is the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. Karl Rove uses it regularly. So does Newt. If you want to be in the conservative dialogue that's where you go. It's now the most popular hashtag on Twitter. All of this makes Leahy an important facilitator in the conservative movement.

I'm not sure what will become of these rallies. I know I don't agree with Leahy's claim that Obama is "moving us toward European socialism." I think Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and the Bush administration started the government interventions and any president would have continued them in this climate. And I don't really see how tax cuts and less government will get us out of this mess. But the ability to fire up a nationwide protest movement so quickly is impressive to me and should be a reminder that liberals have no monopoly on technology and innovation.

MN-SEN

Coleman Lawyer: "We Made A Horrendous Error" In Vetoing That Ballot -- Please Count It

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 1:19PM

In the Minnesota trial today, lead Coleman lawyer Joe Friedberg made a very frank admission: The Coleman campaign made a mistake in personally rejecting a ballot they now want opened up and counted.

This all goes back to the state Supreme Court's controversial decision for how to deal with wrongly-rejected ballots, which gave the campaigns a veto power over each individual ballot as the local officials sorted through them again back in December.

It has been repeatedly shown during this trial that the Coleman camp's newer list of ballots that they say were wrongly thrown out -- indeed, their Web page about the issue describes "the thousands of Minnesotans the Franken campaign is seeking to disenfranchise" -- includes multiple votes that their own campaign specifically vetoed before.

But now Friedberg said of one particular ballot: "We made a horrendous error by challenging it, and I assume you would agree." After some more back and forth, he added: "But just so it's to be understood, we want the ballot to be opened and counted."

As I've previously pointed out, the Republican Party's phone calls to check how people voted, and to select them for inclusion as Coleman witnesses, didn't happen until after the vetoing process. So Team Coleman was missing data at the time for how some people had voted.

Read more »

KY-SEN

Bunning: If NRSC Runs Candidate Against Me, I'll Sue!

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 12:59PM

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) really is resisting the apparent efforts by the GOP establishment to usher him into retirement rather than deal with a vulnerable incumbent. In fact, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports that he's now threatening to sue the NRSC if he gets a primary challenger -- and he might even take action on a separate matter against a specific, challenger, too!

In response to rumors that the national GOP is trying to recruit a challenger, Bunning said: "I would have a suit against the (National Republican Senatorial Committee) if they did that," Bunning told reporters on Tuesday. "In their bylaws, support of the incumbents is the only reason they exist."

Bunning also raised a point against state Senate President David Williams (R), who has spoken to national leaders about mounting a campaign. It turns out, Bunning says, Williams still owes him $30,000 in campaign money that Bunning's campaign committee gave as a loan, and which was due back this past January 1. So who knows, Williams' first task if he does declare a candidacy might be to raise $30,000, to give right back to a very demanding creditor/opponent.

It's unlikely that the national party would go so far as to openly support a challenger -- but any failure to actively help out Bunning would speak volumes, and send all the messages to donors and activists that a challenger would need.

Barack Obama

Mitch Daniels, Brian Schweitzer at the NGA

Matthew Cooper | February 24, 2009, 12:19PM

Stopped by the National Governors Association meeting yesterday.

I don't want to sound like a bad David Broder parody, but you are impressed at these things by the earnest, bipartisan tone. By the time I got there, a lot of the bigger names with presidential ambitions had cleared out leaving those who wanted to sit through the Danish Energy and Climate Minister's talk on cap-and-trade. At the conference, I spoke on camera with Hawaii's Linda Lingle, Indiana's Mitch Daniels, South Dakota's Mike Rounds, Vermont's Jim Douglas and Montana's Brian Schweitzer.

My interview with Lingle should be available later. She cited an interesting exchange with Obama over those TARP recipient junkets. My videotalks with Douglas and Rounds look like something out of Cloverfield and could lead to nausea so we won't post those but I'll sum them up later.

Meanwhile, here's Daniels. I thought it interesting that the Indiana Governor, who served as George W. Bush's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was hopeful about Obama being able to fix entitlements and was, at first blush, supportive of the "health reform is entitlement reform" concept.

Montana's Brian Schweitzer discusses a behind-the-scenes moment at the White House with President Obama as well as why the Santelli effect isn't quite catching on in Montana.

MN-SEN

More Minnesota Comedy: Franken Camp Picking Out Votes From Coleman's List

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 12:15PM

The race to find new ballots in Minnesota just keeps getting funnier.

A few weeks ago, Norm Coleman came up with a list of 4,800 rejected absentee ballots for review and possible counting, the majority of which the local newspapers noted came mostly from areas that voted for himself.

Now the Franken camp has submitted just under 1,600 ballots of their own -- to be more exact, about half the list are newly-selected ballots, mostly from pro-Franken areas, and the other half is an agreement with some ballots from Coleman's list.

And as the Star Tribune has discovered, the Franken camp has managed to pick ballots from the pro-Franken parts of the state that happened to be within Coleman's tilted list.

Is this what Minnesota has come to -- cherry-picking from the cherry-picking?

Barack Obama

Polls Suggest People Like Bipartisanship -- Just Not Right Now

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 11:44AM

A new pair of seemingly contradictory polls show that Rahm Emanuel might just be right in his pronouncements about bipartisanship -- the public wants the Obama Administration to try, but isn't placing too high a premium on success at it.

Check out this number from the new ABC/Washington Post poll:

What's more important to you - that political leaders (stick with their positions on important issues, even if it means a lack of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans); or that political leaders (try to cooperate across party lines, even if it means compromising on important issues)?

Stick with their position 31%
Try to cooperate across party lines 66%

And now take a look at this CBS/New York Times poll, as noted by Greg Sargent:

Which do you think should be a higher priority for Barack Obama right now -- working in a bipartisan way with Republicans in Congress or sticking to the policies he promised he would during the campaign?

Bipartisan 39%
Sticking to his policies 56%

The same question was asked about Republicans working with Obama, and it was a pretty lopsided result: Bipartisanship with Obama 79%, versus Sticking to Policies 17%.

As with many seeming variations in the polls, this comes down to how the question is asked. People like bipartisanship as an ideal, no doubt about it. But when faced with the facts of these specific politicians, pitting the popular Obama against the unpopular Republicans, the verdict is very clear.

Stimulus

Schumer To White House: Governors Can't Turn Down Part Of Stimulus

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 11:23AM

Chuck Schumer is calling for a crack-down on Republican governors who want to turn down part, but not all, of their state's stimulus funds -- for example, Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour refusing increased unemployment benefits -- releasing a new letter to the White House arguing that the law doesn't allow this, and asking the Obama Administration to tell governors that it's all-or-nothing:

As you know, Section 1607(a) of the economic recovery legislation provides that the Governor of each state must certify a request for stimulus funds before any money can flow. No language in this provision, however, permits the governor to selectively adopt some components of the bill while rejecting others. To allow such picking and choosing would, in effect, empower the governors with a line-item veto authority that President Obama himself did not possess at the time he signed the legislation. It would also undermine the overall success of the bill, as the components most singled out for criticism by these governors are among the most productive measures in terms of stimulating the economy.

Schumer also takes a shot at the governors who are turning down parts of the package, accusing them of having political motives:

No one would dispute that these governors should be given the choice as to whether to accept the funds or not. But it should not be multiple choice. The composition of the package was rightly dictated by economic considerations; we should not let the implementation of the package be dictated by political considerations.

It should be noted that it would be politically untenable for a governor to turn down all of their state's haul. So if the White House were to adopt Schumer's interpretation, they would really be making these governors an offer they can't refuse.

Democrats

$410B Spending Bill Strikes Blow For Truth-Based Sex Ed, Science

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 11:05AM

I reported yesterday that the Democrats' new $410 billion government spending bill fails to restore the Medicaid family-planning aid provision that got unceremoniously sliced from the stimulus bill last month.

But while the spending bill -- which increases spending levels between now and October by $20.5 billion -- includes a flurry of provisions reversing controversial Bush-era policies on abstinence-based sex education.

Read more »

Dick Cheney

Liberal Coalition Says Forget the Truth Commission, Bring on the Special Prosecutor

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 10:08AM

Washington has been dominated for weeks by the debate over forming an independent "truth and reconciliation commission" to uncover details about human rights and civil liberties abuses committed during the Bush administration. Prominent Democrats from Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT) to Rep. John Conyers (MI) to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) have indicated their support for the concept.

But one day after Barack Obama's Pentagon was lambasted by human rights groups for reporting that conditions are humane, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups is done with taking it slow. In a statement released this morning, the 20-plus groups ask Attorney General Eric Holder to directly appoint a special prosecutor to probe former Bush administration officials.

It remains to be seen whether today's statement will move minds in Congress, where the "truth commission" plan remains controversial. Still, this call is a perfect illustration of John Judis' recent message to the American left: Expand the playing field, and do not let the White House be the most left-leaning force in the capital.

The full statement is after the jump:

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Bailout

EXCLUSIVE: Unions Ask Geithner to Deny Bailout Plea From Lobbying-Mad Financial Firm

Elana Schor | February 24, 2009, 9:26AM

The labor federation Change to Win (CtW) is taking a major step today in the effort to restrict bailed-out bank lobbying. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, CtW Chair Anna Burger makes a direct request that Principal Financial Group's $2 billion TARP application be denied due to its lobbying bonanza. As Burger puts it:

Read more »

Barack Obama

TPMDC Morning Roundup

Eric Kleefeld | February 24, 2009, 9:01AM

Obama's Day Ahead: The First Speech To Congress
President Obama is meeting at 10:30 a.m. ET with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, the first foreign leader to come to the United States to meet with Obama. At 4:30 p.m., Obama and Vice President Biden are meeting with Robert Gates. And then at 9 p.m. Obama will address a joint session of Congress to lay out his budget -- effectively his first State of the Union Address.

Biden Meeting With Hillary This Morning
Vice President Biden is meeting with Hillary Clinton for breakfast at the Naval Observatory, probably to discuss Hillary's recent overseas trip to Asia. He will then head to the White House to attend Obama's morning meetings with advisors, and will be at the Capitol tonight for Obama's speech.

Polls Show Continued High Approval Before Speech
The new CBS/New York Times poll gives President Obama a 63% approval rating and 22% disapproval, going into his first speech to Congress, and the new ABC/Washington Post poll put his approval at 68%-25%.

Poll: Public Expects Good Speech
A new CNN poll says that 28% of Americans expect Obama's speech tonight to be excellent, 44% expect it to be good, 19% say it will be okay and only 8% believe it will be poor or terrible. These high expectation are down slightly from where they were for his inauguration speech -- and like his approval ratings themselves, the decline seems to be fueled by Republicans dropping off as the honeymoon effect wears off.

Jindal Giving GOP Response
Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA), who has rejected a small portion of the stimulus money that was headed for his state, has been tapped to give the Republican response to Obama's address. As the Washington Post points out: "In picking a governor to deliver tonight's speech, GOP leaders are acknowledging that without a majority in Congress, the big ideas necessary to rebuild their party are likely to come from state capitols."

Ted Kennedy To Be Absent From Obama's Speech
Ted Kennedy will not be attending Obama's speech to Congress tonight. A spokesperson told The Hill that Kennedy is staying involved in with health care policy, and is in "constant" contact with the White House and Congressional leaders and holding regular meeting on health reform.

NRCC To Members: We'll Help Those Who Help Themselves
Roll Call reports that the NRCC is seriously retooling its program for endangered incumbents, with the message that members will have to actively raise money for themselves if they expect the national party to also help out. An NRCC source told the paper: "If we are serious about winning elections, then there needs to be a commitment to increasing the level of accountability and putting an end to political bailouts."

Utah GOP Governor: Republican Leadership In D.C. "Inconsequential"
In an interview with the Washington Times, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) ridiculed the Republican leadership in Washington: "I have not met them. I don't listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential - completely."

MN-SEN

Minnesota Court: No To Coleman, And Yes/No/Maybe To Franken

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 11:15PM

The Minnesota election court handed down two rulings tonight, one of which should be regarded as an unambiguous defeat for Norm Coleman -- and the other should probably leave Al Franken cautiously optimistic.

First, the court completely denied Coleman's motion to launch a class-action suit on behalf of all 11,000-plus voters whose absentee ballots have still not been counted. The court found that the state's election laws make clear that individuals may apply to have their ballots counted, but that groups cannot be created and represented for this purpose.

The court also handed down a summary judgment on Franken's efforts to get some of his own votes counted, and they've given him a go-ahead on 12 individuals to be accepted and counted at a later time. And to give you an idea of how strict a standard they're using here, there are 38 others on Franken's list they're refusing to count at this time.

That kind of stringency isn't very good news for Coleman, as he's trying to get a lot of his own votes in that the court hasn't ruled on yet. And considering he's the one who's actually behind right now, this question has a lot more urgency for him.

Read more »

MN-SEN

Coleman Lawyer: We'll Rest Our Case This Week! (Maybe)

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 6:54PM

Here's some provisionally good news from Minnesota. Coleman spokesman/attorney Ben Ginsberg told reporters at a press conference that they expect to be done presenting their case by the end of this week.

Ginsberg did add, however, that this announcement came "with all the caveats about -- heck, I don't know what'll end up happening."

They don't expect to be calling any more rejected voters, though -- probably a good move, considering the judges singled out one of their witnesses as an example of an illegal voter.

After Coleman rests, the ball will be in Franken's court. And after Franken rests, we'll get a decision. And then...the appeals!

(Ginsberg press conference via The Uptake.)

MN-SEN

Minnesota Trial Hashes Out Possible Double-Counting -- And Coleman's Role In Creating It

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 6:48PM

The Minnesota election trial centered on a major claim of the Coleman campaign, claiming that absentee ballots were accidentally double-counted and gave an illegitimate leg-up to Al Franken.

The problem for them, though, is that this possibility came about under procedures to which they had agreed.

This all goes back to a procedure in Minnesota to make duplicates of absentee ballots that were too damaged to run through the machines on Election Night. After discussions with the two campaigns, state Elections Director Gary Poser created a rule for how to sort them in the recount. Unfortunately, scattered cases of negligence in creating or labeling the duplicates and originals introduced a bunch of problems.

Lead Coleman lawyer Joe Friedberg questioned Poser about all of this, and even brought up an e-mail where Poser admitted to an unhappy county election official: "I don't disagree, I lost that battle."

Read more »

Barack Obama

Obama's Teach In

Matthew Cooper | February 23, 2009, 4:57PM

The scene was incredible really, a press conference with members of Congress and think tankers instead of reporters asking questions. I've really never seen anything like it and whether it and events like it can really change the tone in Washington, of course, remains to be seen. One indication it won't? This statement from Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare--the subject of much discussion at the Fiscal Responsibility Summit.

"Fixing America's long-term fiscal problems is a major issue, so I very much appreciate attention being paid to finding solutions. I hope today's summit marks the beginning of the kind of dialog, education and cooperation it will take to achieve a sustainable budget policy.

"I'll be working in the Senate as the Ranking Member of the Finance Committee and a senior member of the Budget Committee for fiscal responsibility and an honest accounting of how Congress and the administration tax and spend. The current administration inherited a $1 trillion deficit, and in just the first few weeks it added another $1 trillion to the debt with its economic stimulus bill. The bill included new and expanded entitlement programs, and if they're made permanent, they'll add at least another $2 trillion to the deficit.

"Looking ahead, we're hearing from some people that we can't reform government entitlement programs until we reform the entire health care system. The problems with our health care system need fixing, but for a lot of people, health care reform is code for spending more, not less. American taxpayers are being asked to swallow a lot right now, and it brings to mind the old joke about Wimpy's hamburgers. Wimpy said, 'I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.' There's too much of that kind of attitude in Congress and the White House today."

KY-SEN

Bunning "Apologizes" For Predicting Justice Ginsburg's Death

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 3:50PM

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) has issued a statement apologizing for his public pronouncement at a local GOP dinner in Kentucky, that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be dead in nine months:

"I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsburg," said Bunning. "That certainly was not my intent. It is great to see her back at the Supreme Court today and I hope she recovers quickly. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family."

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported over the weekend that Bunning had told the Hardin County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner that he supports the appointment of conservative judges -- an issue that will be even more important because of Ginsburg's cancer. "Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live after (being diagnosed) with pancreatic cancer," Bunning said.

Late Update: Here's the audio from Saturday night, courtesy of the Courier-Journal:

Democrats

The Government Will Stay Funded ... But Family Planning Aid Looks Shut Out

Elana Schor | February 23, 2009, 2:51PM

The White House fiscal responsibility summit and the recently passed economic stimulus law continue to take up much of the capital's attention today -- but don't forget the $410 billion spending bill that the House is slated to approve by Thursday. The government is technically only funded until the first week of March, meaning that time is short to wind up the 2009 appropriations cycle.

Want to know what's in the massive spending measure? You can download each section of the bill right here.

But a more important question might be what's not in the 2009 spending bill. The Medicaid family-planning aid that was removed from the stimulus amid Republican attacks, for one, is nowhere to be found in the Health and Human Services title of the 2009 spending measure.

One wonders if that absence will draw fire from women's health advocates, some of whom believed the family-planning provision could make a quick comeback after it got dumped earlier this month. When GOP governors such as Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty are using Medicaid family-planning money as an excuse to cut their budgets, how can congressional conservatives get away with slamming the program as taxpayer-funded abortions?

New CBS News Communications Exec Called Obama "Incredibly Dangerous" For Israel

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 2:39PM

Five years after that whole mess over forged documents about then-President Bush's service in the National Guard, CBS News sure seems to be trying awfully hard to convince the GOP that they aren't a Dem outlet.

Here's a very interesting piece of information about Jeff Ballabon, the Republican lobbyist and political strategist who was just hired by CBS News to be the new CBS News senior vice president for communications. During the 2008 election, Ballabon wasn't shy about courting Jewish voters and telling them just how dangerous Barack Obama is when it comes to Israel.

Here's what he told the Orthodox paper Hamodia:

Obama is incredibly dangerous. Not because he is evil, but because he is naive. Agreeing to meet -- without any pre-conditions -- with the terror-supporting president of Iran shows his naivete. And even his Jewish advisors want to pressure Israel to divide Yerushalayim and to make sacrifices of defensive positions against the will of the military and security experts in Israel. They want desperately to appease the UN, the Europeans, the Arabs.

On the bright side, Ballabon is denying an allegation that he called Democrats evil. Greg Sargent reports:

"I never said Democrats are evil," he told me by phone just now. "My mother is a Democrat."

Asked whether he would have any impact at all on editorial content at CBS, Ballabon said: "No."

But Ballabon wouldn't comment further, and he declined to say whether he still thinks Obama is "incredibly dangerous."

Barack Obama

Ex-Citigroup Exec Replaces Ex-Defense Lobbyist Obama's Responsibility-in-Contracting Session

Elana Schor | February 23, 2009, 1:44PM

When an early copy of the agenda for today's White House fiscal summit leaked out on Friday, I half-jokingly questioned the wisdom of choosing Bill Lynn -- a former senior lobbyist for defense giant Raytheon who had to get a waiver from administration ethics rules to join the Pentagon -- to help lead a session on responsibility in contracting and procurement.

Now the final list of speakers at today's summit has been released, and guess who mysteriously disappeared from the list? Instead of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Transportation Secretary (and earmark fan) Ray LaHood, and Lynn, the Procurement session will now be led by Napolitano, Rahm Emanuel, and Jacob Lew.

Lew, incidentally, comes to the administration from Citigroup, where he headed an alternative investments unit that "ran up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses last year on [an] esoteric collection of investments ... even as they collected seven-figure salaries and bonuses," as the New York Times reported earlier this month.

I hate to ask the same question twice, but on a day when Citigroup is generating headlines like this one, is Lew the best choice to replace Lynn on this "fiscal responsibility" panel?

Barack Obama

The Liberal Entitlement Conference

Matthew Cooper | February 23, 2009, 1:28PM

There are plenty of reasons liberals should like today's entitlement summit. My colleague, Elana Schor, notes them here and TAP's Ezra Klein here. Bob Greenstein, head of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, made the liberal case for alarm in his remarks. He notes that the problem is primarily a health care problem If health care costs could just be brought in line with economic growth we'd be largely okay. "We will need to act before mounting debt and interest payments make this problem worse than it already is. The mere fact that Greenstein has such a prominent role addressing the conference ought to be of comfort to liberals. If that wasn't enough, OMB Director Peter Orszag made it clear that "health care reform is entitlement reform."

Social Security

The Story Behind That Scrapped White House Social Security Task Force

Elana Schor | February 23, 2009, 1:00PM

The New York Times reports this morning that the White House had abandoned plans to unveil a Social Security "task force" at today's fiscal summit, raising the question of whether the Obama administration is ready to conduct separate debate over the long-term health of Social Security and Medicare -- or whether the tired canard of "dangerous entitlement spending" will continue to rule the political roost.

One liberal activist who weighed in against the proposed task force told me that some within the administration are ready to attempt "one more fix" for Social Security, thinking of the 70-year-old benefits program "as an equation to be solved" and the Obama team as the mathematicians on the case.

Read more »

MN-SEN

Coleman Camp Accuses Franken Of Cherry-Picking -- After They've Been Caught Doing It Themselves

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 11:57AM

Now this is funny. In the Minnesota Senate trial, the Coleman campaign is now accusing the Franken team of cherry-picking votes.

Coleman spokesman Mark Drake told Minnesota Public Radio that Franken's revised list of rejected absentee ballots, which are being submitted for review and potential counting, is skewed towards Franken-supporters. "The time has come for all the valid votes of Minnesotans to count, not just the ones that favor one candidate over another," said Drake, projecting a high-minded image of small-d democracy.

Keep in mind that the Coleman camp insisted early on in this trial that they weren't cherry-picking, and for all they knew they might have been advocating on behalf of unopened votes for Franken. But during the trial, they've been very clearly revealed to have cherry-picked their own votes. And local newspapers have shown how tilted his own list is.

Read more »

Housing/Foreclosures

GOP Housing Feud Goes From Simmer to Boil

Elana Schor | February 23, 2009, 11:00AM

We told you last week about a growing note of discord between House and Senate Republicans' political message on mortgage aid. While House conservatives lambaste the Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure plan as too pricey, their Senate counterparts are continuing to back a $121 billion-plus mortgage proposal from Columbia University professor and former Bush economic adviser Glenn Hubbard.

Now the intra-party tension over housing is becoming harder and harder to mask, as Roll Call reports (sub. req'd):

The [Senate GOP's] plan would potentially cover trillions of dollars of real estate and cost taxpayers up to $300 billion in subsidies. It's the sort of big-government spending plan that House Republicans have been railing against -- at least when they come from the lips of Democrats.

But House Republican leaders have avoided criticizing their more centrist Senate brethren, preferring to focus their fire on Democratic plans to bail out struggling homeowners instead, like Obama's $275 billion proposal announced last week to rework distressed mortgages to prevent foreclosures.

Social Security

Will the White House Avoid the 'Entitlement Spending' Trap?

Elana Schor | February 23, 2009, 10:45AM

As President Obama's "fiscal responsibility summit" consumes much of Washington's oxygen today, a critical question is being largely ignored in the mainstream media: Will this administration dispense with the notion of an overall "entitlements" crisis and begin treating Social Security and Medicare like the separate issues they are?

The New York Times raises the issue, in a back-handed fashion, by reporting that congressional Democrats are warning Obama against attempting to shore up Social Security's long-term fiscal health. Per the Times:

Those who oppose action said Mr. Obama must focus on his bigger priority -- health care legislation to expand access to insurance and reduce the costs of care. They argue that success there would help control the unsustainable growth of Medicare and Medicaid, the government's other major benefit programs, which together pose a far greater fiscal problem.

It's not clear which Capitol Hill Democrats helped quash the idea of announcing a "Social Security task force" during today's fiscal summit -- but Obama would be well-served to heed their advice.

Read more »

Barack Obama

Poll Analysis: Fall In Obama Approval Fueled Entirely By Republicans

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 9:55AM

A new polling analysis from Gallup shows a very interesting piece of data within the slight decline of President Obama's approval rating, down from its 68% honeymoon rating when he took office, to 63% now. Not only is the dip fueled solely by a fall in Republican support -- in fact, his ratings have gone up slightly among everyone else.

Between the polling sample from January 21-25, compared to February 9-15, Obama's ratings went from 90% to 94% among self-identified liberal Democrats, from 87% to 88% among moderate Dems, from 80% to 84% with conservative Dems, and from 47% to 50% among independents. On the other hand, his approval fell from 53% to 47% moderate Republicans, with a plummet of 36% down to 22% with conservative Republicans.

Obama's ratings are still very strong, and it appears the dip in his ratings is coming from people who were unlikely to have approved of him in the first place, but for the honeymoon factor. Everyone else, on the other hand, is either staying the same or approving even more.

Barack Obama

TPMDC Morning Roundup

Eric Kleefeld | February 23, 2009, 9:01AM

Obama To Pick Interior Dept. Inspector General To Oversee Stimulus
President Obama will reportedly appoint Earl Devaney, the Interior Department inspector general responsible for investigating the Abramoff scandal, to be the chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, overseeing the economic stimulus program. Obama is expected to announce the pick today.

Obama And Biden Speaking to Governors, Addressing Fiscal Summit
President Obama and Vice President Biden are speaking at 10:15 a.m. ET to the National Governors Association, where they will discuss what governors can do to implement the economic stimulus program. At 1 p.m. ET they will be delivering opening remarks to the Fiscal Responsibility Summit, with closing remarks at 4 p.m. ET.

Biden Meeting With George Clooney To Discuss Darfur Conflict
Vice President Biden is holding a closed-door meeting tonight with George Clooney, to discuss the Darfur conflict and Clooney's recent travels there.

GOP Looks Back To Early 90's For Opposition And Comeback Strategies
The Politico reports that Republicans are quite consciously looking back to the strategies employed during the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency, in their opposition to President Obama's policies now. Grover Norquist said there are two choices: "One is 1990, [President George H.W.] Bush gets together with the Democrats at Andrews Air Force Base, raises taxes and loses the next election. The other is 1993, Democrats have a series of proposals to spend and tax. Republicans vote no and regain the House and Senate."

Feingold And Dreier Pitch Special Senate Elections To Illinois
Russ Feingold and Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) have co-authored an op-ed piece for the Chicago Tribune, finding a likely positive audience in the push for a constitutional amendment to end gubernatorial appointments to Senate vacancies in the wake of the recent controversies. "In the age of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, the backroom dealing isn't staying in the backroom anymore," the two write.

Bunning Predicts Ginsburg's Death, Blasts GOP For Lack Of Support
In explaining his commitment to ensuring the appointments of conservative judges, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) told a local Republican dinner on Saturday that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has nine months to live. "Bad cancer. The kind that you don't get better from," Bunning said. He also criticized his national party for not giving him sufficient financial support, also claiming a lack of support for conservatives Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn and...David Vitter.

George P. Bush Attacks Pro-Stimulus Republicans On Fiscal Responsibility
George P. Bush, the son of Jeb Bush, spoke to a national conference of Young Republicans over the weekend and criticized certain unnamed Republicans -- understood to be Florida Gov. Charlie Crist -- for supporting the stimulus package. "We as conservatives have to ultimately balance the federal government's checkbook," the younger Bush said -- possibly unaware of certain events over the last eight years.

GOP Sen. Shelby Questions Obama's Citizenship

Eric Kleefeld | February 22, 2009, 1:19PM

Oh, brother. The conspiracy-mongering that Barack Obama is secretly a Kenyan citizen who has hidden his real birth certificate has now found its way into the utterances of a United States Senator: Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama.

"Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate," Shelby said on Saturday, in response to a constituent's question at a public event. "You have to be born in America to be president."

Click here for FactCheck.org's debunking of this whole business.

Late Update: Shelby's spokesman has responded to the story, telling Ben Smith that it's a "distortion." The spokesman says Shelby mentioned the birth certificate as a "throwaway line" in explaining the qualifications for office, and that Shelby "doesn't have any doubt" of Obama's eligibility.

Barack Obama

TPMDC Sunday Roundup

Eric Kleefeld | February 22, 2009, 12:57PM

Obama Plans To Cut Deficit -- From Enormous Down To Huge
President Obama is reportedly planning a budget policy that would cut the deficit in half by cutting the budgets for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and by ending the Bush tax cuts for individuals making over $250,000. But here's some math to show just what a tough job he has ahead of him: The deficit would still be $533 billion by the end of his first term, down from the $1.3 trillion he inherited from George W. Bush.

Obama Hosting Governors At The White House Tonight
President Obama and the First Lady are hosting the National Governors Association for dinner at the White House tonight, with entertainment by Earth, Wind and Fire. Expect this to be a huge, momentous gathering -- and that's just Earth, Wind and Fire.

Sanford: Clyburn's Accusation About Stimulus Money "Is Absurd"
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) fired back at House Majority whip James Clyburn (D-SC) for saying his potential refusal of stimulus money was a "slap in the face" to his African-American constituents. "I think that any of us as governors -- and we do have 50 different incubators of different ideas and trying to get it right within our respective states, trying to make the judgment as best they can," said Sanford. "But the idea that color would filter into that decision-making process is absurd."

Barbour Accuses Obama Of Waging Permanent Campaign
In an interview with CNN, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), a former RNC chairman, noted that President Obama has been promoting the stimulus plan in swing states like Colorado, Indiana and Florida. "He's going to those places for a reason," Barbour said, attributing this development to the campaign skills of David Axelrod. "And so this is what we've become accustomed to, the perpetual campaign."

Feds Question Burris About Blago
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that federal authorities questioned Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) at his lawyer's office on Saturday, regarding the Blagojevich case and the circumstances of his Senate appointment. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Franken Camp Files New Ballot List
The Franken campaign has filed an amended list of 1,585 rejected absentee ballots that they say should be reconsidered for counting. Quite interestingly, nearly half of them were already on Norm Coleman's list of 4,800 -- but the conventional wisdom has been that both sides pick ballots that they believe will skew towards themselves. Does the Franken campaign know something that Team Coleman doesn't?

Schwarzenegger: GOP Is Creating Insecurity, Should Work With Obama
Appearing on This Week, Arnold Schwarzenegger criticized the Republican Party in Washington for being overly ideological, and not working constructively with President Obama. "They should make an effort to work together and to find what is best for the people," said Arnold, "because by derailing everything, it's not going to help anybody, and it creates instability and insecurity."