2009 Election Results - What it all Means
So, as we sit here 24 hours after the 2009 election, what exactly does this all mean and portend for the next 12 months? I think there are 2 big take-aways from this election: The Obama name has lost some of it’s shine (e.g. the Democrats are not going to be the new permanent majority) and that the Republican party has some issues they need to work out . . . bear with me on that last one. First, it’s pretty clear that, to some limited extent, that this was a referendum on the job...

Democrats debate course following election losses: PHOTO
Democrats on Capitol Hill began a nervous debate Wednesday about the course President Obama has set for their party, with some questioning whether they should emphasize job creation over some of the more ambitious items on the president's agenda.

Election Analysis: Virginia, New Jersey Races Showing Voters Changing Course
As the final votes were being counted, it was possible to draw some lessons from Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in Virginia and the close, three-way Governor's race in New Jersey, never mind that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has taken to saying that the Elections don't mean much. Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine voted out. (Image: WENN)

Election results rattle some Democrats
Reporting from Washington and Madison, Wis. - Even before voters went to the polls this week, moderate congressional Democrats were anxious. Would the swing voters who coalesced around Barack Obama almost exactly one year ago stay with the Democrats or defect to the Republicans? The answer came Tuesday night as Republican gubernatorial candidates swept to power in New Jersey and Virginia, with the help of large packs of self-described independents. Exit polls circulating on the House floor...

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

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...

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...

Gartley, Amesbury set to roll
William Amesbury and Tina Polachek Gartley are tired, but they also are eager to assume their new roles as judges on the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas. Amesbury, 61, and Gartley, 43, won election to the county court on Tuesday and they will begin their duties on the first Monday in January. They will replace President Judge Chester Muroski , who is retiring, and Judge Joseph Musto, who was filling the unexpired term of former Judge Michael T. Conahan , who resigned in 2008 prior to being...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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

The Politics of Obesity: VIDEO
As you may be aware, there were a number of exciting odd-year election results earlier this week. The GOP got its first good electoral News since 2004, as Republican Bob McDonnell defeated his Democrat opponent Creigh Deeds to succeed outgoing Dem Gov. Tim Kaine in Virginia. (Fun fact: Virginia limits its Governor to one term. Talk about laboratory of Democracy.) More surprisingly, in Democrat stronghold New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie defeated the incumbent Governor John Corzine. Corzine...

Where Was The DNC?: PHOTO
Adam Serwer says Obama lost last night: As for The Biggest Loser last night, I'd say the president, but not because these Elections are a "referendum" on his agenda. That happened in 2008...No, Obama is a Loser for backing two losing Democratic gubernatorial candidates while staying relatively silent on Maine's referendum. Just as this country will one day look back in shame at discrimination against same-sex couples, so should President Obama feel regret, wondering if things...

CNN Poll: 54 percent approve of Obama
One year after he won a historical presidential election, a slight majority of Americans approve of the job Barack Obama's doing in The White House.

Conservatives on NY-23: We didn't lose
Conservative grass-roots activists asserted Wednesday that third-party candidate Doug Hoffman’s loss in a New York special election was no setback but, rather, signaled a victory for the burgeoning political movement. Hoffman , who surged to the brink of victory after becoming a rallying point for disaffected Republicans and tea party activists, lost to Democrat Bill Owens 49 percent to 46 percent in a contest that grabbed national headlines. “I think time was the biggest factor,...

Crist orders April 6 general election to pick Wexler's successor
Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered Feb. 2 primaries and an April 6 general election to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton. Wexler is leaving Jan. 3, in the Middle of his seventh term, to head the nonprofit Center for Middle East Peace and

Carly Fiorina Enters California Senate Race to Unseat Barbara Boxer: PHOTO
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of technology giant Hewlett-Packard, announced her campaign for the U.S. Senate Wednesday. Her entry into the race as a business-oriented, moderate Republican immediately raised the stakes in the 2010 California Senate contest in both the primary, which will include conservative assemblyman Chuck DeVore, as well as the general election contest against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Speaking to supporters in Orange County, Fiorina promised to use her business...

54% of Americans approve of Obama
A slight majority of Americans approve of the job Barack Obama is doing in The White House one year after he won a historical presidential election. In a

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...

Huck: Dede nomination 'a train wreck'
Former Arkansas Gov. and 2008 GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that Dede Scozzafava’s nomination was a “train wreck.”  Speaking about the contentious special election Tuesday in upstate New York's 23rd District, Huckabee criticized both Scozzafava, the Republican nominee, and the way in which local GOP officials gave the state assemblywoman the party nod.  “The process by which she was selected was in fact the train...