memeorandum: Democrats Outrun by a 2-Year G.O.P. Comeback Plan (New York Times)

4:45 PM ET, November 4, 2010

Top Items:

Patrick O'Connor / Washington Wire:

McConnell: No Mood for Compromise — An emboldened Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell isn't in the mood to compromise following the party's historic gains in the House. — The Kentucky Republican is expected to tell a conservative audience later today that the White House can either …

Discussion: Moe Lane

Mike Lillis / The Hill:
Harkin warns: No repealing or defunding healthcare reform on my committees

Discussion: CNN

Manu Raju / The Politico:
Mitch McConnell doubles down against President Obama

Discussion: CNN, Jay Bookman, Outside the Beltway, Firedoglake, Washington Monthly, SpeakEasy, Raw Story, TPMMuckraker and The Hill

The Politico:
GOP senators fight over failure

The Huffington Post:
Gibbs: Obama Will Listen To GOP Pitch On Extending Tax Cuts For Wealthy

Discussion: Washington Monthly, PERRspectives and The Plum Line

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
White House: Time for 2012 politics is ‘not now’

Discussion: The Politico and Booman Tribune

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Defining “compromise” — Can we please bag this idea …

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Booman Tribune

David Jackson / USA Today:
Obama, McConnell dispute the meaning of Tuesday's election

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Fox Nation

J. Taylor Rushing / The Hill: Senate Dems warn GOP not to block legislation

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Pulling a Clinton? — John Harris, the noted Clinton biographer …

Discussion: TalkLeft

Wall Street Journal:
The Boehner Evolution — House Republicans and the challenge of divided government.

Discussion: Betsy's Page and Booman Tribune

New York Times:

Democrats Outrun by a 2-Year G.O.P. Comeback Plan — The PowerPoint slides presented to House Republicans in January 2009 seemed incongruously optimistic at a time when the very word “hope” belonged to the newly ascendant Democrats and their incoming president, Barack Obama.

Discussion: The Hill, Wake up America, Weigel, American Power, New York Magazine, Washington Monthly, Prairie Weather, TPM LiveWire, The Monkey Cage, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Politico, Outside the Beltway, JustOneMinute, Mother Jones, Wall Street Journal and The Maddow Blog

The Politico:

Michele Bachmann bid adds drama to the GOP leadership race — House Republicans look like they've largely been spared any uncomfortable leadership races as they cruise into their robust new majority, except for one little speed bump: Michele Bachmann. — The often fiery and always …

Discussion: Political Correction RSS, Washington Monthly, CNN, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Daily Beast, The Moderate Voice, ThinkProgress, TRAIL BLAZERS, Daily Kos, RedState, Outside the Beltway and New York Times

George F. Will / Washington Post:

A recoil against liberalism — Unwilling to delay until tomorrow mistakes that could be made immediately, Democrats used 2010 to begin losing 2012. Trying to preemptively drain the election of its dangerous (to Democrats) meaning, all autumn Democrats described the electorate as suffering a brain cramp …

Discussion: The New Republic, Balloon Juice, Achenblog, Commentary, Betsy's Page, The Glittering Eye and No Left Turns

The Politico:
Michele Bachmann bid adds drama to the GOP leadership race

Discussion: Politics Daily and The Note

The Politico:
John Boehner's boys: The new power club

Discussion: New York Times, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, Guardian, Democratic Strategist and The Caucus

Jsimoncnn / CNN:

CNN Poll: Obama vs. Palin in 2012? — Washington (CNN) - His party got its clock cleaned in Tuesday's midterm elections, but according to a new national poll President Obama remains competitive in hypothetical 2012 presidential election matchups, especially against Sarah Palin.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Real Clear Politics, GOP 12, Mediaite, ABCNEWS, The Note and AmSpecBlog

Rasmussen Reports:
GOP Voters Like Three Candidates Best for 2012

Discussion: The Daily Dish and GOP 12

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:
Looking at the 2012 Presidential Field

Discussion: CNN and Outside the Beltway

J. Taylor Rushing / The Hill:

You think '10 was tough? Check out '12 — For the first time in two cycles, Democrats will have more seats up for grabs than the Republicans, and the party could see its shrunken majority erased altogether. — Several of the senators up for reelection came in on the 2006 Democratic wave …

Discussion: Donklephant, Sister Toldjah, Hot Air, Riehl World View, Gateway Pundit and iOwnTheWorld.com

Jeremy P. Jacobs / Hotline On Call:

Devastation: GOP Picks Up 680 State Leg. Seats — While the Republican gains in the House and Senate are grabbing the most headlines, the most significant results on Tuesday came in state legislatures where Republicans wiped the floor with Democrats. — Republicans picked up 680 seats …

Discussion: Hot Air, The Atlantic Online, Sister Toldjah, Los Angeles Times, Weasel Zippers, Raw Story and Right Pundits

NDTV.com:

34 warships sent from US for Obama visit — New Delhi: The White House will, of course, stay in Washington but the heart of the famous building will move to India when President Barack Obama lands in Mumbai on Saturday. — Communications set-up, nuclear button, a fleet of limousines …

Discussion: Telegraph, theblogprof, Israel Matzav, Weasel Zippers, JammieWearingFool, JOSHUAPUNDIT, Right Wing News, Pundit & Pundette and Don Surber

R. Jeffrey Smith / Washington Post:

In new memoir, Bush makes clear he approved use of waterboarding — Human rights experts have long pressed the administration of former president George W. Bush for details of who bore ultimate responsibility for approving the simulated drownings of CIA detainees, a practice …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Emptywheel, democracyarsenal.org, The Maddow Blog, Washington Monthly, TPMMuckraker, ThinkProgress, Raw Story and Guardian

Cubachi:

Governor Christie to cut 1,200 public sector jobs, saving NJ millions — When Governor Christie set his sights on reducing the size of government and the debt in the Garden State, he is keeping that promise. — The governor announced that beginning January, he'll cut 1,200 state jobs saving New Jersey taxpayers $8.8 million.

Discussion: Beltway Confidential and Liberty Pundits Blog

Chris Megerian / New Jersey Online: Gov. Christie says N.J. to shed at least 1,200 public employees by next year

Anchorage Daily News:

Write-ins to be counted sooner than expected — LAWYERS LINE UP: Murkowski, Miller camps gird for tally tussle. — Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Wednesday she's confident that she's won Alaska's contentious Senate race but is starting a legal fund and bringing up election lawyers to fight an expected battle over the results.

Discussion: The Washington Independent and The Page

Andy Barr / The Politico:
Sarah Palin takes victory lap

Discussion: The Awl, New York Magazine and CNN

Joe Klein / Swampland:

Blue Dogs Dumped — Bill Galston has an elegant statistical analysis of what happened on Tuesday: it wasn't so much that Republican enthusiasm was up or Democratic fervor was down—there was a near symmetrical shift from blue to red among independents. This stands to reason …

Discussion: Balloon Juice and NewsBusters.org blogs

William Galston / The New Republic:
It's the Ideology, Stupid

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Patterico's Pontifications and Guardian

National Review:

The Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward — Have an intelligent message, and fight for your right to be heard. — Now that the dust has settled on the 2010 midterm elections, it's slowly becoming clear just how monumental the results really are. We saw an extreme left-wing agenda suffer a crushing defeat.

Discussion: CNN and Los Angeles Times

Latino Decisions:

How the National Exit Poll Badly Missed the Latino Vote in 2010 — By: Gary Segura & Matt Barreto — Latino Decisions estimates differ significantly from the network exit polls and this raises the question of whether we, or they, have a systematic flaw (complete Latino Decisions Election Polls posted here).

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog, The Washington Independent, National Review, Texas on the Potomac and Crooks and Liars

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
Did Polls Underestimate Democrats' Latino Vote?

Discussion: The Washington Independent, Pew Hispanic Center, Michelle Malkin and The Monkey Cage

Ben S. Bernanke / Washington Post:

What the Fed did and why: supporting the recovery and sustaining price stability — Two years have passed since the worst financial crisis since the 1930s dealt a body blow to the world economy. Working with policymakers at home and abroad, the Federal Reserve responded with strong …

Discussion: Grasping Reality …, Hit & Run, Hot Air, Daniel W. Drezner, New York Times, Economist's View, Dean's World, Outside the Beltway, naked capitalism, YID With LID, Paul Krugman, Macro and Other Market Musings, The Big Picture and Guardian

The Politico:

Top Blue Dog calls for Pelosi to quit — An elder statesman of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition is calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to step down from party leadership after a historic election in which she presided over the loss of 60 seats and control of the House.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Gateway Pundit

Clay Dillow / Popular Science:

Tired of Repetitive Arguing About Climate Change, Scientist Makes a Bot to Argue For Him — Getting into a climate change debate on Twitter could be even more exhausting than it sounds now that a software developer named Nigel Leck has automated the process.

Discussion: Raw Story

Nicholas Stephanopoulos / The Huffington Post:

A Rare Progressive Success — What's Your Reaction: — Tuesday was a disaster for Democrats, of course, but it was perhaps the best day ever for a cause that many progressives hold dear: redistricting reform. In California, Proposition 20 passed with over 60 percent of the vote …

truth-out.org:

Bill Moyers: “Welcome to the Plutocracy!” — Bill Moyers speech at Boston University on October 29, 2010, as a part of the Howard Zinn Lecture Series. — I was honored when you asked me to join in celebrating Howard Zinn's life and legacy. I was also surprised. I am a journalist, not a historian.

Discussion: SpeakEasy