Debate of Duh Nation

From POLITICO:

Rick Perry battled a withering barrage of attacks in his first debate as a presidential candidate Wednesday night, at times stumbling in the face of harsh criticism – and difficult questioning – at the POLITICO/NBC debate.

But Perry proved himself to be an aggressive, often caustic debater, waiting only a few moments to go on the attack against his top rival, Mitt Romney, for his jobs record as governor of Massachusetts.

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It’s Burnt and Made With Devilled Ham

From The Guardian:

It was easy wandering round the corridors of Congress yesterday to spot who had won the debt standoff. In huddles with party colleagues or heading off to caucus meetings to discuss the details of the deal or standing in front of TV cameras, it was the Republicans who had all the smiles.

Democratic members of Congress looked uneasy, at times shifty; and some downright were angry. “If I were a Republican, this is a night to party,” Emanuel Cleaver, a Democratic member of the House from Missouri, told MSNBC. Cleaver, a Methodist pastor and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which met to discuss its reaction to the deal, dismissed it as a “sugar-coated Satan sandwich”.

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The Right’s Guff

From John Avlon at THE DAILY BEAST:

The cycle of over-reach and backlash is in over-drive these days—with significant implications for the 2012 presidential election. In pivotal swing-states where voters narrowly elected Republican governors in 2010—like Florida and Ohio (with 47 electoral votes between them)—evidence of buyer’s remorse is piling up fast.

The latest sign: on Tuesday, Alvin Brown became the first Democrat elected mayor of Jacksonville—Florida’s largest city—in 20 years.

Just seven months ago, Republicans swept the Sunshine State with Tea Party-backed candidate Rick Scott winning the governor’s office with a 1.2 percent margin of victory.

But instead of consolidating support by reaching out and winning over the reasonable edge of the opposition, as popular past Republican governors like Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist have done, Scott continued with his campaign posture of refusing to talk to the press. He canceled a $2 billion federal high-speed rail project and is seeking to delay (and functionally deny) implementation of an anti-gerrymandering reform ballot referendum overwhelmingly passed in 2010.

Now Rick Scott finds himself the least popular newly elected governor in Florida history. It’s not just a matter of the honeymoon being over—this looks like a drunken Vegas marriage heading for a shotgun divorce.

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The Hot Seat

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

The resignation of scandal-plagued Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), and the expected appointment of current Republican candidate Rep. Dean Heller to the seat, could portend a political mess of a wholly different sort: A special election for Heller’s House seat — and the conundrum for Republicans posed by the potential candidacy of their losing U.S. Senate nominee from 2010, Sharron Angle.

Angle, who lost the 2010 Senate race despite the national Republican wave — due to controversy over extreme statements about “Second Amendment remedies” to Democratic policies, and her statements in favor of phasing out Social Security and Medicare — has already been running for the House seat, along with retired Navy Commander Kirk Lippold, who was chief officer of the U.S.S. Cole when it was attacked by al Qaeda in 2000. In addition, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki and state GOP chair Mark Amodei are reportedly considering the race.

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Rick Scott, Floridiot

From Bob Norman’s Pulp (Blog) at  BROWARD PALM BEACH New Times:

A group called Public Policy Polling (PPP) discovered the obvious: Floridians are having some dramatic buyer’s remorse when it comes to electing fraudster Rick Scott as governor.

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A poll of 500 Floridians found that his approval rating from diehards remained about the same as a similar PPP poll in December — 32 percent. But the percentage of those who disapprove of the governor rose from 43 percent all the way up to 55 percent.

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Walker vs. Walk-Out

From msnbc:

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Scott Walker on Friday ruled out a compromise proposed by a key union to retain collective bargaining rights in exchange for public workers accepting benefit cuts.

At a press conference, Walker said he could not consider the offer by the largest state workers union because it only covered some public employees and came late in the process.

Walker and other Republicans have been trying to pass a controversial bill that would end a half-century of collective bargaining for most public workers in Wisconsin.

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Snow Flaky

From POLITICO:

NEW YORK CITY – There’s nothing like a bitter winter storm to put Northeastern pols in the hot seat. And this week’s massive snowfall across much of New England and the northern Mid-Atlantic region seems to have done the trick.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent a second day Tuesday batting back questions about his administration’s response to the Christmas weekend deluge, urging citizens to stay calm while city agencies work to clear the streets.

Across the river in New Jersey, Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s team is struggling to explain how both the governor and his second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, ended up on out-of-state vacations during a widely forecast blizzard.

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Harry Reid Mans Up!

From POLITICAL HOTSHEET at CBS NEWS:

The race for Senator in Nevada came down to which group was motivated to vote more for their candidate. The winner is incumbent Harry Reid, who was able to beat back a formidable, Tea Party-backed Republican opponent. Preliminary results from the CBS News exit poll in Nevada showed that 11% percent of the electorate decided whom to vote for within the last three days or sometime within the last week. A majority of this group went to Reid, the Democratic incumbent […].

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