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Just 32% of Tea Party candidates win — A Don't Tred On Me flag flies above protesters at a rally in April in Macon, MO. — From NBC's Alexandra Moe — For all the talk of the Tea Party's strength - and there will certainly be a significant number of their candidates in Congress …
Discussion:
The Sundries Shack, Questions and Observations, Marginal Revolution, Taegan Goddard's …, Outside the Beltway, Left Coast Rebel, The Mahablog, The Confluence, The Daily Beast, The Hill, TPMDC, NO QUARTER, PERRspectives, Mediaite, The Maddow Blog, TalkLeft, The Caucus, Wall Street Journal, CNN and New York Times
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The Tea Party Takes On Washington — The full measure of the Tea Party's electoral triumph won't become clear until Alaska tallies its write-in ballots, which could take several weeks. But the movement's impact on Tuesday's elections has been unmistakable.

Tea Party: now for the Presidency
Discussion:
CBS News and Samizdata.net


GOP senators fight over failure — Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party's failure to capture the Senate. — With tea party-backed candidates …
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GOP senators fight over failure — DeMint's actions have enraged many Republican senators, aides and consultants, many of whom were exchanging cutting emails about him late Tuesday and early Wednesday as it became clear the party would fall short in the Senate.


The Boehner Evolution — House Republicans and the challenge of divided government. — John Boehner is no Newt Gingrich, which suits the current public mood. Americans have had their fill of triumphalism and revolution in a House Speaker. But Barack Obama is also no Bill Clinton …
Discussion:
Betsy's Page and Booman Tribune
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Mitch McConnell doubles down vs. President Obama — An emboldened Sen. Mitch McConnell on Thursday will declare that President Barack Obama must be defeated in 2012 because Republicans “can't plan” on the White House to listen to voters and cooperate on some of his party's top political priorities.
Discussion:
SpeakEasy

Golf and banter won't suffice for Boehner, Obama relationship
Discussion:
The Note, Time and First Draft

Reid is ‘begging’ for Republican input; criticizes GOP and the media
Discussion:
The Politico

Reid: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repeal depends on GOP cooperation
Discussion:
The Politico, Raw Story and TPMMuckraker

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:
Daniel W. Drezner, naked capitalism, The Big Picture, Guardian, Macro and Other Market Musings and Eschaton
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The Mountain Labored, and Gave Birth to a Mouse
Discussion:
MarketWatch, Crooked Timber and Paul Krugman

Exclusive: Speaker Nancy Pelosi Says She Has ‘No Regrets’ — Pelosi Tells Diane Sawyer She Hasn't Thought About Her Future Yet — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today she has “no regrets” one day after a Republican landslide stripped her of the power that defined her historic tenure as the first female Speaker of the House.
Discussion:
Online NewsHour, The Sundries Shack, The Politico, Scared Monkeys, Gateway Pundit, Politics Daily, Weasel Zippers, IMAO, TPMDC and The Note
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Sarah Palin takes victory lap — Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin is out with a new video Thursday touting the victories of her chosen candidates - brushing aside the many that fell to defeat on Tuesday. — “Across the country, everyday Americans are standing up and they're speaking out …
Discussion:
CNN, The Awl and The Daily Caller
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Palin Emerges with Even More Clout
Discussion:
JOSHUAPUNDIT, Mediaite, Don Surber, The Caucus, No More Mister Nice Blog, Pajamas Media, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Beltway Confidential and GOP 12

‘Sorry, mom!’ …
Discussion:
Politics Daily, Mediaite, Raw Story and PopEater

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 …


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:
Washington Monthly, Outside the Beltway, Mother Jones and Prairie Weather


Washington, Alaska races not over — One of the lingering, unresolved Senate races was taken off the board late Wednesday afternoon, when Sen. Michael Bennet was declared the winner in his agonizingly close Colorado matchup with tea party Republican Ken Buck.
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Ouster of Iowa Judges Sends Signal to Bench — DES MOINES — An unprecedented vote to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices who were part of the unanimous decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the state was celebrated by conservatives as a popular rebuke of judicial overreach …
Discussion:
Politics Daily, The Snitch, GayPatriot and Election Law

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:
Achenblog, The Glittering Eye, Betsy's Page, Daily Kos and No Left Turns

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:
ThinkProgress, Washington Monthly, Emptywheel and TPMMuckraker


The sad tale of the Democrats who hated the unemployed — Last summer, we met the Democrats who hated the unemployed — the 16 House votes from the majority party against an emergency extension of unemployment benefits. They were: — John Adler, D-N.J. — Brian Baird, D-Wash.
Discussion:
Chicago Sun Times and The Mahablog

Obama Doesn't Get It — President Obama came close, but he still just cannot admit that his radical policies and their effects on the economy are the cause of his devastating political rebuke. For most of his press conference, an oddly depressed Obama voted present, as he all but said that the problems …
Discussion:
Questions and Observations, Politics Daily, FOX News Radio, Viking Pundit and The New Republic


Donk Depression — So much for “America the liberal.” — Barack Obama's election, The New Republic's John Judis wrote two years ago, “is the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 1990s, was delayed by September 11, and resumed with the 2006 election.”
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, IMAO, Guardian and National Review

GOP groups coordinated spending — Barack Obama pushed them together. Old habits and secretive instincts nearly kept them apart. — But in the end, a cadre of big-money Republican outside groups worked together to spend millions to take down the Democratic House majority …
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars
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You know who was a big loser in this election? George Soros. — While Democrats went out of their way to portray the Koch brothers as evil billionaires puppeteering this election, I'd venture they feel pretty good about the outcome. However, after last night I'd venture that that George Soros is one unhappy Hungarian.
Discussion:
Bloomberg