memeorandum: Harold Ford, mulling an NY Senate run, says Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is ‘weak’ (David Saltonstall/NY Daily News)

11:15 AM ET, January 19, 2010

Top Items:

Obama plans combative turn — President Barack Obama plans a combative response if, as White House aides fear, Democrats lose Tuesday's special Senate election in Massachusetts, close advisers say. — “This is not a moment that causes the president or anybody who works for him to express any doubt …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Swamp, Firedoglake, Los Angeles Times, Commentary, American Conservative …, Sister Toldjah, Don Surber, The Strata-Sphere, JammieWearingFool, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Wizbang, Dennis the Peasant, The Hill, Left Coast Rebel and The Lonely Conservative

Johnny Dollar / Olbermann Watch:

Joe Scarborough Slams ‘Reckless’ Olbermann for Unhinged Personal Attacks on Scott Brown! — Here is what the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann spewed tonight (via The Right Scoop): — Moments later, in a rare example of criticism from his own colleagues, his diatribe was blasted by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough:

Discussion: StoryBalloon.Org/Videos, Gateway Pundit, Another Black Conservative, NewsBusters.org, Weasel Zippers, Scared Monkeys, Pajamas Media and Sister Toldjah

New York Times:

Democrats May Seek to Push Health Bill Through House — WASHINGTON — The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders, scrambling for a backup plan to rescue their health care legislation if Republicans win the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday, have begun laying the groundwork …

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, AmSpecBlog, Prescriptions, Wall Street Journal, Wonk Room, New Deal 2.0, Hot Air, The Politico, Clusterstock, Hit & Run, The Hill, Betsy's Page, NewsBusters.org, CNN, AMERICAblog News and ABCNEWS

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

538 Model Posits Brown as 3:1 Favorite — The FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecasting Model, which correctly predicted the outcome of all 35 Senate races in 2008, now regards Republican Scott Brown as a 74 percent favorite to win the Senate seat in Massachusetts on the basis of new polling from ARG …

The Politico:

Finger-pointing begins for Dems — CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As voters head to the polls in Massachusetts, nervous Democrats have already begun to blame one another for putting at risk the Senate seat Ted Kennedy held for more than 40 years. — Many angry Democrats blame their candidate …

Discussion: Roll Call, Taylor Marsh, Wall Street Journal, Hot Air, American Conservative … and The Lonely Conservative

David Catanese / The Politico:

New poll: Brown up 9 — A new InsiderAdvantage poll conducted exclusively for POLITICO shows Republican Scott Brown surging to a 9-point advantage over Martha Coakley a day before Massachusetts voters trek to the ballot box to choose a new senator. — According to the survey conducted Sunday evening …

The Politico:

Five things to watch in Mass. — The stakes for Tuesday's special Senate election in Massachusetts couldn't be higher. At play: the Democrats' 60-seat supermajority — and, potentially, the fate of President Barack Obama's signature health care reform legislation.

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …, Ben Smith's Blog, The Washington Independent and The Page

Boston Globe:
All eyes on Bay State ballot

Discussion: Boston Herald, msnbc.com, The Caucus and Wall Street Journal

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Good news: Obama to take “combative” approach to Brown victory

Discussion: Pajamas Media, YID With LID, Townhall.com and Riehl World View

Eugene Robinson / Washington Post:
Tough lessons from Obama's first year

Discussion: The Note, Commentary, Tennessee Guerilla Women, USA Today and Prairie Weather

Jake Sherman / The Politico:
Rep. Anthony Weiner: Health care may be ‘dead’ if Scott Brown wins

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog and The Page

John Bresnahan / The Politico:
NRSC worked under radar in Mass.

Discussion: Gallup, The Washington Independent and The Page

Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:
For Last Shot, the Biggest of Guns

Discussion: The Politico, BuzzFlash.org and Washington Wire

Liz Robbins / New York Times:
Riding Wave of Disaffection, Brown Pushes for an Upset

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog, Politics Daily, The Politico, Hit & Run, Gateway Pundit and Hub Politics

Jim Hoft / Gateway Pundit:
Unreal... Martha Coakley Holds Rally at MLK Breakfast With Scott …

Discussion: StoryBalloon.Org/Videos, sisu, theblogprof, RedState, The Daily Caller, Watchdog News and DaTechguy's Blog

Boston Globe:
Sen. Kerry says Scott Brown supporters engaged in bullying, threats

Discussion: The Corner on National …, washingtonalert.org, Sweetness & Light, The Confluence, Gateway Pundit, The Politico, Sister Toldjah, Riehl World View and sisu

Ezra Klein:

After the Massachusetts special election — I don't know who will win today's special election in Massachusetts. But I do know what should happen — and what can happen — after the votes are counted and the winner is seated: Democrats should pass health-care reform.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, TalkLeft, The New Republic and Prescriptions

Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:

MA SEN: Will The House Pass The Senate Bill? — Good luck with that! Not only will a Brown victory make moderates even more skittish about health care, but it will probably fortify the ten or so Democrats who've said they will under no circumstances support the Senate bill's abortion language.

Discussion: marbury

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Upset could trigger healthcare rush

Discussion: The Nation

The Note:
Pelosi: We Will Have Health Care - One Way Or Another

Discussion: Ezra Klein, Salon, The Politico, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, The Foundry, Don Surber, The Lonely Conservative, Ben Smith's Blog and The Page

Washington Post:
Senate election in Massachusetts could be harbinger for health-care reform

Discussion: The Fix, ABCNEWS, The Plum Line, The Note, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Caucus, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, National Review Online, The Politico and The New Republic

Washington Post:

FBI broke law for years in phone record searches — The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews.

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Washington Monthly, Michael Calderone's Blog, Politics Daily, Think Progress, Shakesville, TPMMuckraker, The BLT, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Emptywheel, TalkLeft and The Page

CBS News:

Poll: Most Don't Want Sarah Palin to Run for President — Posted by Kevin Hechtkopf A new CBS News poll finds that a large majority of Americans say they do not want former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to run for president. — Specifically, 71 percent say they do not want the former …

Discussion: Politics Daily, Hot Air, AmSpecBlog, Liberal Values, Raw Story and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

A Looming Landslide For Brown — Democrats can stop hoping at this point. — I can see no alternative scenario but a huge - staggeringly huge - victory for the FNC/RNC machine tomorrow. They crafted a strategy of total oppositionism to anything Obama proposed a year ago.

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Connecting.the.Dots, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Awl, Doug Ross, The Greenroom, NewsBusters.org and Dennis the Peasant

Jonathan Chait / The New Republic:
The Panic Begins — Andrew provides a good preview of the mentality …

Discussion: The Daily Dish and marbury

Kevin Drum / Mother Jones:

Obama's Discontents — Bernard Avishai on the election in Massachusetts: … The frustration on the left with Obama — and with healthcare reform specifically — was almost inevitable. During the campaign, a lot of people chose to see in him what they wanted to see …

Discussion: The Mahablog, No More Mister Nice Blog, Matthew Yglesias and TalkLeft

Bernard Avishai / TPMCafe:
Who's To Blame? — I am mostly living far from Massachusetts …

Discussion: TalkLeft

Aislinn Laing / Telegraph:

US accused of ‘occupying’ Haiti as troops flood in — France accused the US of “occupying” Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security. — The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to …

Discussion: Fausta's Blog, Instapundit and The Jawa Report

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

From Depression To Rage — We have heard a lot from those furious that Obama has not solved all our problems overnight, how they feel that this country has somehow been taken away from them, how they feel a disconnect from the president. But maybe it's time for a different kind of rage …

Discussion: The Peking Duck, QandO and The Moderate Voice

Jules Crittenden:

Democracy In The MA — Sometimes it feels like we don't get a lot of it around here. Chances to vote in elections where there is an actual choice, where there isn't a predetermined outcome. Where the outcome actually makes any difference to anything. An election where we actually …

Discussion: The Corner on National …