Plouffe stepping up role as adviser to White House  —  David Plouffe, the man who managed President Barack Obama's campaign, will be taking on an expanded role as an outside adviser to the White House, according to sources familiar with the plan, a move that comes just days after a stunning defeat …

24 States' Laws Open to Attack After Campaign Finance Ruling  —  In Wisconsin, conservative and pro-business groups said Friday that they were considering a lawsuit to block a proposed law that would ban corporate spending during political campaigns.  —  In Kentucky and Colorado …

J.D. Hayworth says he'll run against John McCain  —  Former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth says he is planning to run against John McCain for his U.S. Senate seat.  —  Hayworth, a Republican, told The Associated Press late Friday he stepped down as host of his radio program on KFYI-AM, a conservative radio talk show in Phoenix.

Right-Wing Flame War!  —  Charles Johnson has been writing a blog for almost as long as the word “blog” has existed.  A bearish, gentle-voiced, ponytailed man who for three decades enjoyed a successful career as a jazz guitarist accompanying the likes of Al Jarreau and Stanley Clarke …

Massachusetts Is The Mob  —  From Charles Blow [sic] in the NY Times: … All hope is lost.  Barricade the doors.  Draw the curtains on the windows.  Prepare the safe room for the next three years.  Here they come:  —  Would it be completely childish of me to bring this out of storage?

ggordon  —  ...and thank you Mr's.  McCain and Feingold.  And to think - I held my nose and voted for McCain for president.  —  As a life long Republican - conservative first - interesting that the national party would pick a guy who had anti-Constitutional views.  I know, it's just one law.

Enough Is Enough  —  Why we can no longer remain on the sidelines in the struggle for regime change in Iran.  —  From the magazine issue dated Feb 1, 2010  —  Two schools of thought have traditionally competed to determine how America should approach the world.

The Lady and the Arlen  —  This is not the hour of the good loser in Democratic circles.  —  On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann called Scott Brown, the senator-elect from Massachusetts, “an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against women …

Paul Krugman For The Fed  —  The case for Ben Bernanke's reappointment was weak to start with, weakened with his hearings, and is now held together by string and some phone calls from the White House.  Bernanke is an airline pilot who pulled off a miraculous landing, but didn't do his preflight checks …

More Bitter Ironies  —  Two great reads from two great Boston newspapers, in the post-Brown election era.  —  Gray ladies* first.  Boston Globe: “Liberal bastions lament as the blue fades.” … That's a pretty bitter irony.  Sounds like those people need to get out more.

Obama's Train Wreck of a Town Hall in Ohio — By: Jim Geraghty  —  Earlier this week, during a radio interview, I had said that Obama's appearance for Martha Coakley on Sunday was one of the least effective stump appearances I had seen from a president.  A lot of factors contributed to that …