Wicked Witch of Washington Says Demonrats Hitting Campaign Trail With 'Spirit of Optimism'...

Towey's Hypocritical Hooey: Bush 'Faith Czar' Complains About Politicization Of White House Faith-Based Office
Under James Towey, the White House faith-based office was used to promote Republican Candidates in tight House and Senate races. James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush, had an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal recently carping because President Barack Obama has used his administrations faith-based offices to let Americans know about the New Health-care law. Towey says if he had politicized his...

Tin Ears and pride going before the fall
At least, let’s hope : Hours after adjourning a week early and punting on Tax Cuts and appropriations bills, House Democratic Leaders offered a broad defense of their agenda, framing their accomplishments as historic while casting Republicans as obstructionists not worthy of the public trust. Speaking in a studio in the Capitol Visitors Center, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Democratic Congressional...

News Corp. Gives to Business Group
By NEIL KING JR. News Corp. has made another prominent Election-year contribution, this time a $1 million gift to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The contribution comes roughly four months after the company stirred criticism in Democratic circles for giving $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. It was one of the largest corporate donations to the GOP group this Election season. While not an overtly partisan group, the Washington-based Chamber of Commerce is investing millions in...

San Fran Nan: Dems Will Hit Campaign Trail With Spirit of Optimism
Pelosi told reporters yesterday that her radical party members left the halls of Congress this year with a spirit of optimism. Maybe she missed this ad … Democrat Rep. Earl Pomeroy, who voted with Pelosi 97% of the time, is now running a pro-Bush ad in North Dakota. He doesn’t sound very optimistic. The Hill reported: House Democratic leaders on Thursday defended their move to cut the legislative session short so lawmakers could return to the Campaign Trail. In the wake of...

And They're Out Congress Flees Unfinished Business, Partisan Sniping, For Campaign Trail
Source: Associated Press Washington (AP) -- Battle-weary members of Congress are coming soon to neighborhoods near you to Press for re-election, more willing to Campaign before angry constituents than to Compromise in Washington on Tax Cuts, child nutrition or a federal Budget. Democratic congressional leaders decided to call off Controversial votes on taxes and President Barack Obama's latest spending requests and instead pass a temporary bill to keep the government running through November....

Change of guard offers Obama new tack
Better known for his inventive use of expletives, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama s outgoing Chief of Staff , on Friday choked up when the time came to say farewell to his colleagues. I know that I pushed you all very hard, Mr Emanuel told a gathering of White House staff. But I did it in service to the president, and I believe that our whole country is better off for it. The change of management at the White House may seem academic just a month before what looks likely to be a very...

White House 'enforcer' quits post
US President Barack Obama has announced the Resignation of his hard-hitting Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who is poised for a bid to be mayor of Chicago. Mr Obama said the "least suspenseful announcement of all time" was a bittersweet moment for the White House. Pete Rouse, who served as Mr Obama's Chief of Staff in the US Senate, will be Mr Emanuel's interim replacement. The US president described Mr Emanuel as "one of a kind". Continue reading the main story...

Obama hails departing Rahm Emanuel, the #$&@)* tough guy who chokes up anyway (SFW)
Rahm Emanuel, the savyy, rough-talking top aide to President Obama , left his White House job today to return to what every Windy City pol regards as the Big Leagues, the nation's No. 3 city where he'll seek to become head of the long-dominant Democratic machine that he once served as a go-fer. He must register his candidacy by Nov. 22. Obama gave his longtime political friend a send-off full of bounteous praise (see full text and video below), and what sounded like a mayoral...

Pelosi: Democrats will hit campaign trail with a 'spirit of optimism'
House Democratic Leaders on Thursday defended their move to Cut the legislative session short so lawmakers could return to the Campaign Trail. In the wake of Republican attacks, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top lieutenants stood firmly behind their overhauls of healthcare, Wall Street Regulation and Student Loan policies as both historic and fiscally sound. After a flurry of votes on Wednesday and a Campaign strategy session with President Obama at the White House on Thursday,...

Conservative House Dem Features Boehner in Ad
In perhaps the most striking example of a vulnerable Democrat racing away from the national party as the Midterm Elections near, Rep. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.) is running a TV ad that features side-by-side photos of him and Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio). The spot touts that he "votes 80 percent with the Republican Leader." Several House Democrats have run ads that speak out against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) by name, but Bright appears to be the first Incumbent to feature Boehner, her...

Big Interview: Goolsbee Defends Obama Record on Business
By Sudeep Reddy The new chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers brushed off business leaders’ criticism of the Obama Administration, arguing that President Barack Obama has repeatedly Cut business taxes and is pushing measures to help companies expand. The president has been under fire from business executives and corporate lobby groups for everything from an alleged personal hostility to business to the details of his high-profile Health-care, Tax and...

Democrats' new strategy for midterm success: More Barack Obama on the campaign trail
You think I’m kidding. Democratic congressional leaders used a White House strategy session Thursday to push President Barack Obama to be more aggressive in helping them Campaign in the final weeks before November’s Elections, multiple senior Democratic sources familiar with the meeting tell CNN. According to the sources, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the president that congressional Democrats want to see more of the kind of Campaign rally and Rhetoric he displayed this week in...

And they're out! Congress flees unfinished business, partisan sniping, for campaign trail
Fark Battle-weary members of Congress are coming soon to neighborhoods near you to press for re-election, more willing to Campaign before angry constituents than to Compromise in Washington on Tax Cuts, child nutrition or a federal Budget. Article continues below Democratic congressional leaders decided to call off Controversial votes on taxes and President Barack Obama's latest spending requests and instead pass a temporary bill to keep the government running through November. Some Democrats...

Democratic Leaders Huddle With Obama on Campaign, November Agenda (CQPolitics.com)
Congressional Democratic Leaders headed Thursday to the White House to discuss Campaign strategy with President Obama and the agenda for the Lame-duck session that begins Nov. 15. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Obama was hosting a lunch meeting with him, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, D-S.C.; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill. "We're going to talk a whole gamut of issues...

Campaign Trail: Cookbook author jumps in
CHARLESTON — There are 32 days left until the Nov. 2 General Election. There are 2 days left to register to vote. Charleston chef joining race for U.S. Senate

Campaign trail: Haley missed more than half of all roll call votes in the House
There are 34 days left until the Nov. 2 General Election. There are 3 days left to register to vote.

Vulnerable Dems " including Kosmas " running away from Pelosi
| Digg it CQPolitics has an interesting piece this morning about how vulnerable Democratic House members are avoiding as much as possible being associated with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , who’s become a target of a lot of Republican commercials this fall. Here’s what it says about U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas of New Smyrna Beach. Asked whether she would like Pelosi to come to her district prior to the Midterms, freshman Rep. Suzanne M. Kosmas would say only, I pretty much...

The Incompetence of Robert Gibbs
If you were uncertain about just how inept a Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is, watch this clip . It shows the White House media corps (to its credit) pressing Gibbs to explain how he can blame Republicans for holding Middle-class tax relief hostage when: (a) no bill has been introduced; and (b) House Democrats have enough votes to pass Legislation without any GOP support. The problem Gibbs faces, of course, is widespread Democratic defections from Obama and Pelosis agenda, not GOP...

Firing Pelosi is Only Half the Solution
One of the beautiful things about the U.S. Constitution is that it enables the people to affect change in government in many different ways. In fact, the Constitution provides a means for a revolution every two years if the people will it. Members of the House of Representatives must face election every other year, and so it is theoretically possible for the entire House to be replaced in an election, although it is normally unnecessary for such a radical shift. Since the House...

Insiders Find Pelosi And Palin Lacking Compared To Other Surrogates
By James A. Barnes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) may have guided Democrats to their majority in the House of Representatives, but according the latest National Journal Congressional Insiders Poll, many of her colleagues are not looking to her to help them win their own races this year. This week, 35 Democratic Members of Congress responded to the poll. They were asked whom they would like to have campaign for them in the fall and given a list of 6 options: Joe Biden , Bill Clinton , ...

Obama seeks divine intervention on health care
The call included the administration’s highest-ranking Health Reform officials: Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, White House Office of Health Reform director Nancy Ann-DeParle, and Assistant to the President for Special Products Stephanie Cutter. Joshua DuBois, director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Partnerships, gave Activists a rallying cry: “Get the word out there, get information out there. Make use of the resources we’ve described...

What Are Superdelegates?
With a close Democratic race for the presidential nominee, the role of delegates and super delegates could become increasingly more important leading up to the Democratic National Convention in August. Former Democratic Strategist David Sirota and political legal analyst Stanley Brand explain why superdelegates are important. Copyright © 2008 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. MICHEL MARTIN, host:...

Where We Went Wrong
Somewhere along the road to a "permanent Majority," the Republican Revolution of 1994 went off track. For several years, we had confidence in our convictions and trusted that the American People would reward our efforts. And they did. But today, my Republican friends in Congress stand on the precipice of an electoral rout. Even the best-case scenarios suggest wafer-thin majorities and a legislative agenda in disarray. With eight days before the Election, House Speaker-in-waiting Nancy...

In Florida, Sebelius lobbies seniors on health reform
The Obama Administration's top Health official was in Florida Friday touting the benefits of the new Health Reform law to a group most likely to vote in November's Midterms: Senior Citizens. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius conceded that the sweeping Reforms are a great deal to digest, but she blamed much of the public's confusion on the misleading statements of Republicans through the initial debate and now on the Campaign Trail. The many consumer benefits under...

Emanuel Makes Departure Official
By LAURA MECKLER European Pressphoto Agency Barack Obama hugs Rahm Emanuel after announcing that Mr. Emanuel has resigned as White House Chief of Staff and will be replaced by Pete Rouse. In early 2006, when then-Sen. Barack Obama was denying any interest in running for president, Pete Rouse was quietly writing a plan to guide the campaign.   Rahm Emanuel Departs White House 2:47 Former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel left his post at the White House today to return to Chicago, where...