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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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:
The Fix, The Politico, The Daily Caller, Washington Post, wbur.org, PERRspectives, Crooks and Liars, Commentary, Steve Kornacki, Jules Crittenden, Taylor Marsh, sisu, The Strata-Sphere, Fox News, Outside The Beltway, The Hugh Hewitt Show, Gateway Pundit, Boston Globe, Townhall.com, The Confluence, Pajamas Media, No More Mister Nice Blog, AMERICAblog News, Scared Monkeys, Daily Kos, The Note, Another Black Conservative, NewsBusters.org, RedState, PoliBlog, Power Line, Sister Toldjah and Ruby Slippers
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.
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.
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 …
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, Riehl World View, NO QUARTER, Michelle Malkin and Betsy's Page
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.
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.
Discussion:
Boston Herald, Newsweek Blogs, The New Republic, Associated Press, Democrats.com and Daily Kos
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.
Michael Cooper / New York Times:
3rd-Party Candidate Named Kennedy Could Tip Senate Race in Massachusetts — SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — In most elections, a politician calling himself the Tea Party candidate would cheer Democrats, raising hopes that he would siphon votes from Republicans by attracting some of the disaffected anti-Washington, anti-Obama electorate.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, The Note, Boston Globe, Bloomberg, The Daily Dish, The Caucus and PoliBlog
Glen Johnson / Associated Press:
Mass. Senate poll shows shift toward GOP candidate — BOSTON—A new poll in the Massachusetts Senate race shows a shift in favor of the Republican Party and a potential disaster for President Barack Obama and his Democratic political agenda in Tuesday's special election.
Discussion:
Hotline On Call, The Other McCain, Scorecard's Blog, Ben Smith's Blog, Hot Air, American Spectator, PostPartisan and AMERICAblog News
Boston Globe:
President Obama to stump for Coakley — President Obama plans to visit the state Sunday to campaign for Senate candidate Martha Coakley, according to two senior Democratic officials. — A third Democratic source said that the event with Obama would likely be held in the Boston area …
Kerry Picket / Washington Times:
Martha Coakley: Devout Catholics 'Probably shouldn't work in the emergency room'
Martha Coakley: Devout Catholics 'Probably shouldn't work in the emergency room'
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Townhall.com, Big Government, Moonbattery, The Daily Caller and Betsy's Page
Red Mass Group:
Coakley: “You can have religious freedom but you probably …
Coakley: “You can have religious freedom but you probably …
Discussion:
Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, theblogprof, RedState, Political Byline, The Natural Truth and Breitbart.tv
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
One year out: President Obama's fall — 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.
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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:
Matthew Yglesias, FP Passport, The Foundry, The Moderate Voice, The Awl, TPMCafe, The Anchoress and EconLog
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 …
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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, Washington Monthly, The Politico, Daily Kos, The Daily Dish, Think Progress, Raw Story, The Foundry, Politics Daily, The Swamp and TPM LiveWire
Marist Poll:
1/15: Dems Duke It Out for U.S. Senate Race In NY State...Gillibrand Leads Ford — Since news surfaced that former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr. is thinking about challenging fellow Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand for U.S. Senate in New York, politicos statewide and nationally have been in a frenzy.
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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, Online NewsHour, Outside The Beltway, Main Justice and Truthdig
Kathryn Jean Lopez / The Corner on National …:
Testing the Waters: Santorum Makes It Official — By: Kathryn Jean Lopez — In a letter that went in the mail yesterday to his PAC, the America's Foundation, Rick Santorum talks about his concerns about Barack Obama's first year of “Change we can't afford.”
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 …