Top Items:
Wall Street Journal:
Pressure Builds on Obama to Shake Up Inner Circle — Some high-level Democrats are calling for President Barack Obama to remake his inner circle or even fire top advisers in response to what many party strategists expect to be a decisive defeat on Tuesday. — Tensions have come to the surface …
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Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
5 Reasons Democrats Could Beat the Polls and Hold the House — It was hard to pinpoint exactly when in the night things started to go wrong. But at some point, a trash can was knocked over in John Boehner's office in the Rayburn House Office Building. A half-hour later on the other side of town …
David Brooks / New York Times:
The Second Marriage — The heavens rejoiced. Two years ago as Democrats cruised to power, Washingtonians felt a jolt of electricity in the air. News organizations published picture books celebrating the dawning of a new age. I distinctly remember seeing angels and cherubs drunk at the bar …
Discussion:
The Politico, Firedoglake, Washington Monthly, CNN, The New Republic, Commentary and NewsBusters.org blogs
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
House Forecast: G.O.P. Plus 54-55 Seats; Significantly Larger …
House Forecast: G.O.P. Plus 54-55 Seats; Significantly Larger …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Zandar Versus The Stupid, TRAIL BLAZERS, The Daily Beast and Club for Growth
The Cook / NationalJournal.com:
The Cook Report Issues Final Forecast: GOP Gains 50 to 60 Seats in the House
The Cook Report Issues Final Forecast: GOP Gains 50 to 60 Seats in the House
Discussion:
Weekly Standard, Opinionator, msnbc.com, FiveThirtyEight, Sabato's Crystal Ball, New York Magazine, Pajamas Media, The Other McCain, The Reaction, The Rothenberg Political …, Left Coast Rebel, Gateway Pundit, Scared Monkeys, Sister Toldjah, National Review, Liberal Values, Right Wing News, Broward Politics and Hot Air
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
Record Midterm Enthusiasm as Voters Head to Polls — Republican enthusiasm exceeds that for either party in prior midterm election years — PRINCETON, NJ — Americans' enthusiasm about voting exceeds the recent midterm election high set four years ago, with 50% of Americans and 53% …
Discussion:
Gateway Pundit, Wake up America and AMERICAblog News
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Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Final Gallup enthusiasm gap: nineteen points
Final Gallup enthusiasm gap: nineteen points
Discussion:
Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog
Ezra Klein / Washington Post:
DNC election day talking points
DNC election day talking points
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, The Plum Line and Weasel Zippers
Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Cornyn: GOP would ‘welcome’ party switch by Joe Lieberman — Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Senate Republicans would “welcome” any Democrats who wish to switch parties and caucus with the GOP. — Cornyn, the head of Senate Republicans' campaign efforts, floated the possibility …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Wake up America and TRAIL BLAZERS
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Geoff Earle / New York Post:
Voters to show ‘Dem’ no mercy
Voters to show ‘Dem’ no mercy
Discussion:
Pirate's Cove, The Moderate Voice, The Page and Politifact.com Truth …
Stephen Dinan / Washington Times:
Independents desert Democrats
Independents desert Democrats
Discussion:
protein wisdom and Pat Dollard
Washington Post:
Companies may have to make amends after midterm elections — Republicans have a message for the businesses that worked closely with the Obama administration over the past two years on key controversial issues: We won't forget. — Take the case of Wal-Mart, the behemoth big-box retailer that liberals have long loved to hate.
Discussion:
PostPartisan, Don Surber, Pat Dollard, Ezra Klein, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The New Republic
Michael Kinsley / The Politico:
U.S. is not greatest country ever — When foreign car companies started opening factories in the United States, back in the 1980s, it seemed like an act of obeisance. The plants didn't make economic sense — Americans had to be paid so much more — but this was a tactful bit of tribute to Empire Central.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, Pirate's Cove, Weasel Zippers and Pat Dollard
Max Read / Gawker:
'John Boehner: Stop Using My Dad's Name as a Punchline, You Asshat.' — Republican House minority leader John Boehner has been using a dumb—trust me, really dumb—line involving Johnny Cash in some recent speeches. Cash's daughter Roseanne doesn't think much of that. And she let Boehner know, by calling him “asshat.”
Discussion:
Mediaite, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Big Hollywood and Raw Story
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J.P. Freire / Beltway Confidential:
Crazed Democrats in Virginia attack opponents, throw signs — If you thought negative campaign ads were a problem in this election, perhaps you haven't spent enough time in Virginia's 5th district. This video depicts two men unleashing a string of racial epithets at members of Americans for Prosperity, who took the video.
Discussion:
Pirate's Cove and Instapundit
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Mytheos Holt / National Review:
Remember 2008... When all those nauseating, over-produced faux-musical Obama ads came out? Well, someone noticed a few discrepancies between what those slick ads promised and what actually happened in the intervening few years and pointed them out in this highly amusing video parody:
Discussion:
Moe Lane, Sister Toldjah and Proof Positive
Paul Krugman:
Focus Hocus Pocus — If there's one piece of conventional pundit wisdom that annoys me most, it's the constant refrain that Obama was wrong to pursue health care, that he should have focused on the economy instead. — For the question people saying this never answer is, what would that focus have consisted of?
Discussion:
Economist's View, Washington Monthly, The Plum Line, Hullabaloo and Eschaton
Colby Hall / Mediaite:
Keith Olbermann Suspends ‘Worst Persons’ Segment Until Further Notice — Longtime fans of Countdown may have been disappointed to learn tonight that one of the franchise segments, “Worst Persons,” is no longer - at least for the time being. Why? Well as host Keith Olbermann explains in the segment below …
Discussion:
iOwnTheWorld.com, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Caucus, The Powers That Be, Hot Air, Tuned In and Raw Story
Daniel Davies / Standpoint:
Rushdie on Jon Stewart — In my previous post about Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam I quoted Salman Rushdie's surprise that Jon Stewart had given a starring role at his “Rally for Sanity” to a crooner who had previously opined that Rushdie deserved to die for deciding of his own free will to abandon Islam and criticise its texts.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Solomonia, NewsBusters.org blogs, Hot Air and Patterico's Pontifications
Jay Nordlinger / National Review:
Voting — Concerning my trip to the polls this morning, a few observations (remember how WFB would begin a column that way?): — 1) I guess that, if I live to 112, I will always have the same memory, when waiting to cast my ballot. It is of the first time I voted. I was a freshman in college.
Discussion:
alicublog
CEPR:
Deficit Commission Plots to Overhaul Social Security Behind Voters' Backs — That is what the NYT reported today, although it used somewhat different language. It told readers that: — “The group, which has a Dec. 1 deadline for recommending how to reduce the annual deficits swelling the federal debt …
Discussion:
New York Times and Firedoglake
Myglesias / Yglesias:
Official Election Predictions Post — When all the votes are counted, I think there'll be 232 House Republicans. They'll be joined by 49 Senate Republicans, which is going to set off an interesting frenzy of efforts to entice Senators Nelson, Lieberman, Landrieu, and Pryor to switch parties …
Discussion:
TalkLeft, The Monkey Cage, POLISING and Swampland
Nick Baumann / Mother Jones:
The Real Prize in Tuesday's Elections — The GOP is hoping to redistrict dozens of Dems out of their congressional seats—and if things go their way in the Rust Belt, they just might pull it off. — Post Comment — Forget the Senate and House. That's short-term thinking.
Discussion:
Zandar Versus The Stupid, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Daily Kos and Mother Jones
Dorothy Rabinowitz / Wall Street Journal:
Why Obama Is No Roosevelt — Roosevelt: ‘Your government has unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear the worst without flinching and losing heart.’ Obama: We don't 'always think clearly when we're scared.' — Whatever the outcome of today's election, this much is clear …
Discussion:
Fausta's Blog, Betsy's Page, Wonkette, Viking Pundit and Commentary
Ray Rahman / Mediaite:
Bill Maher Stands By Mohammed Remarks: 'I Don't Need To Apologize For Being A Proud Westerner' — Bill Maher showed up on CNN to talk about comments he made on Real Time regarding the ‘alarming’ number of ‘baby Mohammeds’ in England. Maher told Wolf Blitzer that he felt no need to …
Discussion:
Althouse, Big Hollywood and Weasel Zippers
Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
O'Donnell receives most coverage of 2010 candidates — Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell didn't get too much national media coverage before upsetting the Republican establishment and winning the Delaware primary in September. But since then, O'Donnell's been all over the news …
Discussion:
Ezra Klein, Ben Smith's Blog, Gawker, Mediaite, Outside the Beltway, Weasel Zippers, The Political Carnival and Romenesko, more at Mediagazer »
Scott Wong / The Politico:
Rand Paul: ‘We will challenge’ Mitch McConnell — Rand Paul, the Republican Senate nominee in Kentucky, says that if he's elected he would not be an automatic vote for the state's senior senator, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who did not back him in the primary but supports him now.
Discussion:
CNN, AmSpecBlog and Washington Monthly
Neil King Jr / Washington Wire:
Coons Camp Expresses Turnout Worries — Most polls have predicted that the closely watched Delaware Senate race between Democrat Chris Coons and Republican tea-party favorite Christine O'Donnell was going to be anything but close. One poll last week had Mr. Coons up by 10 points …
Paul Krugman:
Math Rage — A number of my recent blog posts have involved pointing out adding-up constraints: you can't have some people spending less than their income unless others spend more than their income, all the world's currencies can't devalue against each other, etc..
Discussion:
Scripting News
Toby Harnden / Telegraph:
Midterms 2010: Americans aren't stupid - but they are angry with Barack Obama — Today's mid-term elections will highlight the divide between Barack Obama's big government and disaffected voters, says Toby Harnden. — It has been easy this year to present the American mid-term elections …
Discussion:
The New Ledger and RedState
James Hohmann / The Politico:
Third Way aims for front and center — The long-simmering battle between moderates and liberals for the soul of the Democratic Party is about to explode. — That presents a golden opportunity for Third Way, a five-year-old think tank that remains largely unknown outside the Beltway.
Discussion:
Daily Kos, Oliver Willis, Guardian, AMERICAblog News, Washington Wire and Time
Ezra Klein:
What will a GOP win mean for health-care reform? — The question is not whether Republicans want to repeal the health-care overhaul. They do. “We offer a plan to repeal and replace the government takeover of health care,” reads the 2010 Republican Agenda. — The question is whether they'll succeed.
Discussion:
National Review