Election night (parties): Herrera's wins in a landslide...
Election night (parties): Herrera's wins in a landslide... Look! I'm relaxing. See?! PALM TREES. We had a choice last night, and thank God I chose correctly. No, I'm not talking about "voting." I'm talking about which election night party to attend. Both City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Treasurer Jose Cisneros were having shindigs. Herrera's event was held in North Beach's celebrity-haunt Tosca . Cisneros' soiree was at Lime , in the heart of the Castro. Dennis once called me to tell me I was...

NYT: GOP Is Ripping Itself Apart & Off-Year Elections Don't Matter (Unless Dems Win): PHOTO
The G.O.P. had two big victories yesterday in off-year Elections, winning the race for Governor in New Jersey and Virginia for the first time since 1997. The New York Times's coverage was dominated by three themes used to explain away the success of Republicans: The Republicans won by appearing moderate. The congressional race in upstate New York revealed deep divisions within the G.O.P. These off-year Elections don't mean much anyway (except when Democrats win). 1) Republicans Won by...

Analysis: Election lessons will shape '10 campaign: PHOTO
WASHINGTON — Lessons from the off-year Elections: The president's influence is limited, independents rule, incumbents beware, issues trump ideology and, once more, "It's The Economy, stupid."

Gone With the Wind: PHOTO
After the election last November I noted that "for the first time since Reconstruction, the South will be almost completely shut out of national power....This is the first time this will be true in well over a century." Over at the Economist , an exile from Dixie puts a little more meat on those bones.  During the 90s and early oughts, he notes, Washington was almost completely controlled by Southerners: Clinton, Gore, Gingrich, Armey, Lott, Bush, Frist, and DeLay.  "It...

Stuever: It's about the work
Michael Calderone's POLITICO.com blog examines the press, with a focus on 2008 election coverage. Provides a behind-the-scenes view into major print, television, and online media outlets. Includes breaking news items, spot analysis of trends and ideas, and a closer look at the personalities who shape today's political coverage

Axelrod to ABC News on Voters' Economic Anxiety: "There is a Heavy Burden That Falls on the Governing Party. That's Just Something You Accept. That's Part of the Deal"
This afternoon we spoke with White House senior adviser David Axelrod about the election results.

White House: Election Results No Reason to Change: PHOTO
(CBS/Mark Knoller) President Obama was in no mood to talk about the election results as he walked from the Oval Office this morning to Marine One idling on the South Lawn. He ignored pleas from reporters to offer some comment on yesterday's vote that included Republican victories in the only two states with gubernatorial Elections: New Jersey and Virginia . He had campaigned and raised money in both of those states. On three visits to New Jersey, he did five rallies and/or fund-raisers for...

Steele: Election Results Show "Transcendent" GOP
Washington — An ebullient Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele asserted Wednesday that GOP victories in governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia demonstrate "a transcendent party" on the move again. The White House said the Elections were not a repudiation of President Barack Obama. "We're not crowing, we're just smiling," Steele said in a nationally broadcast interview. "I think it's a bellwether for the party ... You look at where we were nine months ago." Steele said he believes...

Sarah Palin Commends "Future Citizen-Candidates": PHOTO
(AP Photo/Harper) "The race for New York's 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010," according to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate enthusiastically endorsed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the special election. Hoffman managed to push the Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race days before the election, but the Democrat prevailed Tuesday night. The loss, coupled with two big gubernatorial wins for more...

The Associated Press: White House: Tuesday's GOP wins not about Obama
Washington — The White House says that Republican wins in two governors' races were not referendums on the president. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday that voters went to the polls in Virginia and New Jersey to work through "very local issues that didn't involve the president." The presidential spokesman said voters were concerned about The Economy. He said "I don't think the president needed an election or an exit poll to come to that conclusion." By...

Perspective: PHOTO
Despite the loss in Maine, Dale Carpenter remains upbeat: With close popular votes in two states in the last year, little prospect of additional anti-SSM state constitutional amendments, coming legislative action in more states and D.C., the first-ever electoral victory for civil unions in an election last night in Washington state, Gay Marriage completely secure in four of five states that still have it, and a federal Marriage amendment in rigor mortis, the question is not really whether, but...

The Associated Press: Iran police, protesters clash at US Embassy rally
Tehran, Iran — Iranian security forces beat anti-government protesters with batons Wednesday on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover. The counter-demonstrations were the opposition's first major show of force on Tehran's streets in nearly two months. The opposition sought to display unity and resolve after relentless crackdowns on their Protests following the disputed June presidential election. Though the crowds were far...

Bloomberg Brushes Off Talk Of 'Narrow' Victory
He ran the most expensive self-financed political campaign in U.S. history, but now Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to portray his narrow victory for a controversial third term as part of a national trend against incumbents. In many ways, the 2009 Elections were like a season of the CBS hit Reality show "Survivor." The "tribe" has spoke, and Bloomberg was the only contestant not voted off the island. "

Tapper: Obama didn't watch HBO doc about himself on election night
Fox News, Rush Limbaugh say Obama watched doc about himself on election night; Rush says HBO doc's butt-kissing could cause 'anal poisoning' ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper is disputing a Fox News report that President Barack Obama spent Tuesday evening watching a Documentary about himself instead of incoming election results. "Gibbs did NOT say that POTUS [President Obama] watched the HBO film last night," Tapper wrote on his Twitter account . "I think someone must have...

Maine Voters Said Yes on 1 and Yes to Marriage Inequity: PHOTO
In more bad election news, yesterday voters in Maine said yes to Question 1 , overturning the state's marriage equality law. Prerna Lal at Dream Activist reminds us how this ties into the Immigration issue: Why should an average non-gay DREAM Act student care about my queer rants? Because like your families, like the Mejia-Perez family, our non-straight families are also scrutinized, separated and pulled apart since the law refuses to recognize them and grant them full and equal rights. Quite...

Christie's Winding Route to NJ Governor: PHOTO
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Chris Christie thought his political career was over 12 years ago when he was bounced from a primary election for a county board. Christie, practically a born politician who campaigned as a teenager with future Gov. Tom Kean Sr., was president of his class at Livingston High School and of the student body at the University of Delaware. He was a one-term incumbent on the Morris County Board of Freeholders when he lost the primary. But his political career was revived through...

Cable News Ratings: Fox News Tops Election Coverage
Net averaged 4 million total viewers from 8-11 p.m. By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/4/2009 5:34:32 PM FOX News topped Nov. 3 election night coverage that featured Republican gubernatorial upsets in Virginia and New Jersey. From 8-11 p.m. when returns were trickling in, FOX News averaged 4 million total viewers with 1.1 million among News' target demographic of 25-54 year olds, according to Nielsen. MSNBC was second in total viewers attracting 974,000. But the network was edged out...

6 Funniest Take-Downs of Media's Election Coverage
Ethan Miller/Getty Images Whether liberal or conservative, most pundits argue that this week's Elections portended changing political tides going into the 2010 midterm Elections. But a contingent of the political punditry warns we're reading way, way too much into idiosyncratic local, not national, Elections. Now as the coverage on the meaning of the Elections reached feverish heights, so did the exasperation of media critics who just couldn't take it any more. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart...

Sarah Palin: A Victory for Common Sense and Fiscal Sanity
Congratulations to the New Governors-Elect of Virginia and New Jersey! I'd also like to offer a special word of support to the New Lieutenant Governor-Elect of New Jersey, Kim Guadagno, the first woman to hold that office. Of course, the real victors in this election are the ordinary men and women who voted for positive change and a return to fiscal sanity. Your voices have been heard. The race for New York's 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010. The issues of this election...

Fox News Takes Tuesday Night
On an off-year election night of local victories for Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia, the FOX News Channel saw dramatic gains in viewership, Nielsen ratings showed on Wednesday. Lower voter turnout figures suggest that the public mostly shrugged at the local races. The cable News channels CNN and MSNBC posted average ratings, despite special election coverage. But FOX News — which Bill O’Reilly, its top host, called a “traditional right-leaning network” on Tuesday...

Barbara Walters to interview Sarah Palin
Barbara Walters will interview former Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for a five-part series, ABC News announced today. The interview

Political Parties Weigh 2010 Strategies
WASHINGTON -- Republicans and Democrats began readjusting strategies as they sifted through the results of Tuesday's off-year Elections for clues about how to gain ground in next year's nationwide Congressional campaigns. In the meantime, the debate in Washington on issues such as Health Care, Climate Change and Immigration could be affected by the way the political calculus was changed by Tuesday's results. Democrats remain solidly in control of Congress. But some Democrats who must seek...

Obama turns to policy
MADISON, Wis. – Faced with fresh Democratic setbacks on the one-year anniversary of his historical election, President Barack Obama tried to change the topic. The White House had scheduled for Obama to be far from Washington Wednesday, sending him to Wisconsin to discuss a safe topic on his policy agenda – education – among the most friendly of audiences – school children. But the president and his aides couldn’t escape the questions Tuesday’s Elections...

Engineering defeat
Here's a new video montage we put together showing how Fox's coverage of the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District empowered Republican teabaggers to push aside moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava in favor of a hard-line conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, allowing the first Democratic victory in the district since the Civil War: To give you an idea of how much attention Fox paid to NY-23 before the election, the video clips used in this montage were drawn from more than...

The Lesson Republicans Must Learn from Virginia and New Jersey
Last night's election results in Virginia and New Jersey sent a clear message: to win Elections these days, you have to win the independent vote. According to Politico 's tally of the exit polls , Virginia Republican Bob McDonnell captured 62 percent of the independent vote, while Democrat Creigh Deeds received only 37 percent. New Jersey's New Governor, Republican Chris Christie, won 58 percent of the independent vote, while incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine received only 31 percent.