I argued again and again and again that not opening Palin up to the press right off the bat was a horrible idea.
Now, upon further reflection, it seems she agrees…

The biggest mistake made was that I could have called more shots on this: the opportunities that were not seized to speak to more Americans via [...]

She tried to hold fundraisers to drive down the total, but after Bill’s post-presidency fundraising was revealed recently, I can understand why she put a stop to it and just ate the remaining.
But that doesn’t mean she’s out of the woods yet…

According to fillings with the Federal Election Commission, Mrs. Clinton forgave a total of [...]

It’s official. She wants it.
And frankly, it could be refreshing to have somebody who hasn’t been a diehard political operative in that seat.
From Politico:
Her move raises the pressure on New York Governor David Paterson either to choose her or to select someone else soon, as Kennedy’s rivals for the seat have already begun to [...]

The latest estimate of turnout in the 2008 General Election says that turnout was at the highest level it’s been since Richard Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey:
Ahead of today’s vote of the electoral college to certify Barack Obama as the president-elect, a George Mason University professor announced yesterday that voter turnout in last month’s presidential election [...]

 
Former Illinois Governor George H. Ryan (above) is the Republican who preceded Democrat Rod Blagojevich in the Springfield state house and may soon be joined by Blagojevich at the nearest Federal Big House.  Ryan, who served one term as Governor from 1999 to 2003, was convicted in 2006 for his role in the widespread illegal [...]

Following up on the previous post…here’s the video of Powell questioning Palin’s wisdom when she talked about “small town values.”

I always thought that the whole “Real America” talk was remarkably dumb because it alienated more voters than it drew in…and I’m glad to see that Powell shares that view.
What’s more, the GOP often romanticizes [...]

I never understood why Republicans were so hot to talk about Reverend Wright in the general election when so much had been said in the primaries, but many in the GOP are still slamming McCain for not “getting tough.”
Well, guess what? McCain’s own people said that “getting tough” could have destroyed him.
From Politico:
John McCain’s top [...]

The most important endorsement of the 2008 Election speaks out about why he thinks the Republicans lost by such a significant margin.
From CNN:
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria for Sunday’s “GPS” program, President Bush’s former secretary of state said his party’s attempt “to use polarization for political advantage” backfired last month.
“There is nothing wrong [...]

More evidence that Joe Wurzelbacher knows little more than what his gut tells him:
Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”
Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, [...]

It’s a bit of a snoozer, and outside groups created numerous Wright ads that had absolutely ZERO effect, but let Republicans keep telling themselves that McCain lost because he wouldn’t play tough and run this.

At the end of the day, this election didn’t come down to character. McCain’s campaign tried to make it about that [...]

MSNBC checks out the new Congressman we wrote about yesterday here and here.

One thing I want to focus on is how House Minority leader John Boehner characterized this victory…
In a memo to colleagues called “The Time is Cao,” Boehner says that Anh “Joseph” Cao’s win over Jefferson in a heavily Democratic district points the way [...]

One of the biggest surprises over the weekend was the defeat of popular, but indicted, Representative William Jefferson for Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district.
But should it surprise anybody that voters preferred Anh Cao’s message of pragmatic politics? Because after reading even a little bit about this guy, I would have cast my ballot for him [...]

In a grim election year, the Republicans can at least take solace in the fact that they didn’t lose to a guy who was caught with $90,000 in his freezer. With the defeat of William Jefferson of Louisiana, Republican Anh “Joseph” Cao has proven that even amidst a Democratic sweep and even in a heavily [...]

It was reported after the election ended that the link between Obama and Ayers was first introduced on the campaign trail prematurely by Palin, and then McCain was forced to join in. But the blogs were talking about them long before that.
One meme even emerged that Ayers wrote Obama’s first book, and even though [...]

The recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken has ended and Norm Coleman still holds on to a razor thin lead, but it’s not over yet:
Like the election itself, the Senate recount has ended — except that it hasn’t.
At 11:29 a.m. Friday at the Wright County Government Center in Buffalo, state [...]

Obama’s golden wordsmith, Jon Favreau, is the guy on the left, and while this is certainly a big nothingburger, he has still had to apologize for it.
From Wash Post:
Asked about the photos, Favreau, who was recently appointed director of speechwriting for the White House, declined comment. A transition official said that Favreau had “reached out [...]

…and why they’ll continue to lose if they continue to push the same tired, bogus memes like “media bias” instead of taking responsibility for their shoddy policies and hyperpartisan, win-at-all-costs behavior.
Succinctly described here by John Cole…
The Republicans did not lose because of media bias. Dan Rather wasn’t in New Orleans knocking water bottles out of [...]

The Democrat’s dream of a supermajority is dead, at least until 2010.
Also, Saxby Chambliss has the world’s biggest left hand.
From CNN:
Chambliss, a freshman Republican senator, was projected to win more than 50 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s rematch against Democrat Jim Martin.
The election is playing off the results of November 4, when Chambliss failed [...]

It seems fairly clear that turnout for today’s Senate runoff in Georgia will be nowhere near the levels reached on November 4th:
ATLANTA — Georgia voters encountered short lines but heavy campaigning Tuesday on the morning of the state’s runoff election for the Senate between the incumbent Republican, Saxby Chambliss, and Democratic challenger Jim Martin.
Polling stations [...]

Looks like he added over $100M to his fundraising total in October alone, and between raising money for the DNC, his transition and the inauguration, Politico speculates that Obama is set to become
Politico runs the numbers…what say you?
The vast majority of the donations were generated during the unusually long primary and general election campaigns. [...]