Top Items:
Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Massachusetts: ‘Bottom has fallen out’ of Coakley's polls; Dems prepare to explain defeat, protect Obama — Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley.
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Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
A Trade Center image in DSCC spot — A new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee uses an unlikely symbol of Wall Street greed: the World Trade Center. — The image in the attack on Scott Brown for his alleged closeness to Wall Street pictures the Trade Center and the destroyed Marriott Hotel on its western side.
Jessica Van Sack / Boston Herald:
Poll shocker: Scott Brown surges ahead in Senate race — + Recent Articles + Recent Blog Entries + Email + Bio — Riding a wave of opposition to Democratic health-care reform, GOP upstart Scott Brown is leading in the U.S. Senate race, raising the odds of a historic upset that would reverberate …
Discussion:
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Josh Kraushaar / Scorecard's Blog:
Obama heading to Massachusetts for Coakley — President Obama will be heading to Massachusetts to campaign for Martha Coakley this Sunday, according to two senior sources informed of the president's decision, a last-minute effort to give the Democrat a needed boost in the Senate race.
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
OK, It's a Toss-Up — Earlier today I tweeted about how there wasn't enough evidence to describe the Massachusetts special election as a “toss-up”, as some other forecasters have done, based on the information available to us at that time. — Well, now there's some new evidence.
Mickey Kaus / Kausfiles:
How Health Care Reform Could Crash — Poll watcher Sean Trende (if that really is his name) thinks Massachusetts GOP challenger Scott Brown may have peaked too soon. Hmm. Doesn't necessarily look like it. .... Mark Blumenthal has some guidance for reading and reconciling all the Mass. polls …
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Scott Brown Voted Against Giving Help To 9/11 Recovery Workers — One month after the September 11th attacks, Scott Brown was one of only three Massachusetts State Representatives to vote against a bill to provide financial assistance to Red Cross workers who had volunteered with 9/11 recovery efforts, we've learned.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Washington Monthly, The Corner on National …, The New Republic and AMERICAblog News
Jonathan Martin / Ben Smith's Blog:
Obama to campaign for Coakley — BOSTON — President Barack Obama will campaign for Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley on Sunday, POLITICO has learned, a sign that Democrats believe the seat remains winnable enough that it's worth risking the president's prestige.
Discussion:
Washington Times, The Strata-Sphere, The Daily Dish, Hotline On Call, The Note, Washington Post and Dennis the Peasant
Dorothy Rabinowitz / Wall Street Journal:
Martha Coakley's Convictions — The role played by the U.S. Senate candidate in a notorious sex case raises questions about her judgment. — The story of the Amiraults of Massachusetts, and of the prosecution that had turned the lives of this thriving American family to dust, was well known to the world by the year 2001.
Discussion:
The Natural Truth, The Jury Box, The Corner on National …, NO QUARTER, Riehl World View, Betsy's Page and Michelle Malkin
Roger L Simon / Pajamas Media:
Massachusetts shocker: Brown Up 15% in Pajamas Media/CrossTarget Poll — A new poll taken Thursday evening for Pajamas Media by CrossTarget - an Alexandria VA survey research firm - shows Scott Brown, a Republican, leading Martha Coakley, a Democrat, by 15.4% in Tuesday's special election for the open Massachusetts US Senate seat.
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Breaking: Obama To Campaign For Coakley — The White House says that President Obama will campaign for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon. Why? — (1) The White House has decided to OWN the race in Massachusetts, despite faulting Coakley for running a sleeper of a campaign since the primary.
Brian McGrory / Boston Globe:Race is in a spinout — Martha Coakley made a jaw-dropping …
Discussion:
Power Line, Boston Herald, Pundit & Pundette, Clusterstock, Gateway Pundit and protein wisdom
Michael Cooper / New York Times:3rd-Party Candidate Named Kennedy Could Tip Senate Race in Massachusetts
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Ben Smith's Blog, The Note, Boston Globe, Bloomberg, The Caucus, The Daily Dish and PoliBlog
Charles Krauthammer / Real Clear Politics:
The Fall of Obama — WASHINGTON — What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world. Now President Obama's approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent — and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an (elected) president's second year.
Discussion:
The New Republic, The Atlantic Business Channel, The Greenroom, Political Punch and Commentary
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David Brooks / New York Times:
The Underlying Tragedy — On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Discussion:
Atlantic Correspondents, Clive Crook, BBC, Achenblog, The Foundry, FP Passport, Matthew Yglesias, The Awl, The Anchoress, TPMCafe, The Moderate Voice, EconLog, Cafe Hayek and AmSpecBlog
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Coakley's conscience clause — Martha Coakley is taking fire this morning for her explanation to a radio interviewer of her attack on her opponent's support for a religous exemption that would, she said, allow medical staffers to deny emergency contraception to a rape victim.
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Andy Barr / The Politico:
Rush ‘meant’ what he said about Haiti — Rush Limbaugh is not backing down from his claim that President Barack Obama is trying to score political points off the earthquake in Haiti. — Challenged by a caller during his show Thursday, Limbaugh said: “If I said it, I meant to say it …
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, The Swamp, Little Green Footballs, The Confluence, Firedoglake and Shakesville
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Mark Silva / The Swamp:
Bill Clinton: Haiti's rebirth, an opportunity — In the sobering controversy that has arisen this week - say it isn't so - over the contribution of humanitarian and U.S. aid to Haiti, some question what will become of all the money. — They're suggesting, basically, that some or much of the money …
Discussion:
La Plaza
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Jordan Fabian / The Hill:Obama to meet with Bush, Clinton on Haitian relief
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
Ezra Klein:
Cynicism on the excise tax — “Unions get a special two-year exclusion from the [excise] tax,” comments Megan McArdle. “Presumably, the unions plan to go back and get their exclusion extended every few years.” Tyler Cowen agrees with her, commenting that this will “increase the rate of unionization …
Discussion:
TalkLeft, Matthew Yglesias, Gateway Pundit, The Atlantic Politics Channel and The Incidental Economist
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New York Times:
Pentagon Report on Fort Hood Shooting Details Failures — WASHINGTON — The military's defenses against threats from inside its own ranks are outdated and ineffective, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Monday as he described the findings of an Army review of the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas.
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Outside The Beltway, Online NewsHour, Main Justice and Truthdig
David Axelrod / Washington Post:
What Karl Rove got wrong on the U.S. deficit — For its Topic A feature last Sunday, The Post invited a panel of political operatives to offer their advice to the Democratic Party on strategy for 2010 [Sunday Opinion, Jan. 10]. Improbably, one of the operatives asked was Karl Rove …
Discussion:
msnbc.com, The Fix, The Hill, The Politico, Raw Story, The Foundry, Daily Kos, Think Progress, Politics Daily, Washington Monthly, TPM LiveWire and The Swamp
Roxana Tiron / The Hill:
Skelton opposes repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell' — The leading House Democrat on military policy said Friday that he opposes repealing the law that bans openly gay people from serving in the military. — Seventeen years ago, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) played a major role in crafting …
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