Obama pleads for patience from Stewart on ‘Daily Show’  —  President Obama took to The Daily Show on Wednesday as part of his effort to motivate the young voters who propelled him into the Oval Office in 2008.  —  The president, who faces a possible GOP takeover of the House in less than a week …

Tea party antics could end up burning Republicans  —  The tea party's volatile influence on this election year appears to be doing more harm than good for Republicans' chances in some of the closest races in the nation, in which little-known candidates who upset the establishment with primary wins …

Obama says he's evolving on gay marriage  —  President Barack Obama told a group of liberal bloggers Wednesday that his views on same-sex marriage, which he has previously opposed, are evolving and that society is moving in the direction of granting marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Republicans Win House, Get No Mandate in Poll Favoring Clinton  —  Republicans are poised to retake the U.S. House next week without a mandate from voters to carry out their policies, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.  —  The minority party, whose supporters are more motivated and enthusiastic …

Karl Rove questions Sarah Palin's suitability for president  —  Karl Rove, the former senior adviser to George W Bush, has cast doubt on Sarah Palin's viability as a White House candidate, questioning if the American people thought she had the “gravitas” for the “most demanding job in the world”.

WHAT SHARRON ANGLE CONSIDERS ‘WICKED’.... In some uses of slang, I suppose “wicked” could be flattering.  If Chuckie Sullivan says, “My friend Will Hunting is wicked smart,” it's intended as praise.  —  When extremist Senate candidate Sharron Angle characterizes Social Security as “wicked …

Boehner To Appear with Nazi Reenactor  —  I'd thought Richard Iott had been put out to pasture after news broke that his main hobby was Nazi reenacting.  After that Rep. Eric Cantor (R) denounced him.  And then everything pretty much went down hill from there when he started saying …

Florida Democrat Leads Quinnipiac University Governor Poll for First Time  —  Florida Democrat Alex Sink leads Republican Rick Scott in the race for governor of the fourth- most-populous U.S. state for the first time in a Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters.

2010 Electorate Still Looking More Republican Than in the Past  —  GOP Election Day advantage aided by surge in independents who lean Republican  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup's latest figures on the composition of the 2010 electorate suggest that, consistent with an earlier Gallup report …

Matthews: How Long Before We See Tea Partiers Start Showing Up in Uniform, 1930s Style?  —  Chris Matthews, on Wednesday's Hardball, not so cryptically compared the actions of Republican volunteers to that of Nazi-style tactics from the 1930s as he claimed the restraining of a MoveOn.org activist …

Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law … Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.  —  Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.  —  “The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing …

Channeling Milton Friedman  —  Enough about John Maynard Keynes.  We can be sure the 20th century British economic giant would advise more government spending to spur U.S. economic growth with consumers and businesses so hesitant and short-term interest rates at zero.

Thuggish behavior stains Kentucky  —  The ugliness outside a U.S. Senate debate in Lexington Monday night was not a mere act of incivility.  It was a violent assault.  —  It was the kind of thuggish intimidation you expect against a political protestor in Tehran today or a civil-rights marcher in Birmingham in 1963.

DNC Asks Pentagon for Info on Romney, Others  —  DNC Requests Records Related to Palin, Romney, Seven Other Possible 2012 Contenders  —  The Democratic National Committee formally has asked the Pentagon for reams of correspondence between military agencies and nine potential Republican …

Arkansas School Board Member Wants ‘Fags’ To ‘Commit Suicide’ And To ‘Give Each Other AIDS And Die’  —  Last week, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) asked people to “Go Purple” to call attention to the suicides of six teenagers who were victims of homophobic bullying.

Homeowners Facing Foreclosure Demand Recourse  —  Ricky Rought paid cash to the Deutsche Bank National Trust Company for a four-room cabin in Michigan with the intention of fixing it up for his daughter.  Instead, the bank tried to foreclose on the property and the locks were changed, court records show.

Memo Leak: Barney Frank Challenger Within Margin of Error  —  We obtained a Bielat campaign internal memo on their polling from last week showing the race is a statistical dead-heat against incumbent Congressman Barney Frank.  The memo, sent from an anonymous source, illustrates and echoes …

High court blocks write-in list decision  —  After a day's worth of back-and-forth, the Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday said voters can look at a list of certified write-in candidates when they go to the polls.  —  The Supreme Court's decision late Wednesday blocked a lower court ruling …