Looking to settle score, GOP seizes on Reid gaffe

Moments before midnight on Friday, Marc Ambinder blogged at The Atlantic about some of the “juiciest revelations” in “Game Change,” a behind-the-scenes book on the 2008 presidential campaign by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. According to the authors, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was bullish on Barack Obama’s chances at becoming the first African-American president because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Cable news conservative Carlson launches Daily Caller

The offices of the Daily Caller evoke a long-ago era of journalism, circa 2005 or 2006, before The Los Angeles Times closed its big-city bureaus, The Washington Times fired 60 percent of its staff, and magazines from Gourmet to Portfolio shuttered for lack of revenue. A staff of 21 reporters and editors sit in blindingly white offices and a wide-open center space, cranking out content for the site’s January 11 launch. Other possible hires walk in and out of Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson’s office, past a lounge inhabited by liquor bottles and a sleeping dog, and decorated by clocks that tell the time in far-flung and random locations: Pyongyang, Jackson Hole, Washington, Honolulu.

GOP plan to ‘repeal health care’ faces high hurdles

As soon as the Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Dec.24, Republicans and conservative activists started making a promise to voters. Give them a victory in the 2010 midterm elections, and they’ll repeal the bill.

The ACORN Obsession, holiday version

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., one week off of his ACORN forum, tweets evidence that the White House served ACORN-shaped treats at a Christmas party last night.

Stacked GOP ACORN hearing finds reason to investigate further

WASHINGTON– As legislators streamed into the room around him, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, peered over his glasses at the roughly 60 people who’d come to this special hearing.

“I’m glad to see this turnout so early in the day,” said Smith. (The hearing began at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday) “Today’s hearing is an opportunity for Republicans to move forward on this issue of importance to the American people.”

The RedState/Jeff Sessions filibuster: Just say ACORN

Eight months ago, President Obama nominated Indiana judge David Hamilton for a seat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. As Jeffrey Toobin reported, it was an uncontroversial, Republican-backed choice intended to “begin a profound and rapid change in…

Anti-tax movement ponders two big defeats

Election night was bittersweet for Andrew Moylan. The young government affairs manager of the conservative National Taxpayers Union was watching returns in Asheville, N.C., with fellow attendees of the conservative State Policy Network’s annual meeting. Early in the night, the gubernatorial races in Virginia and then New Jersey went to the Republicans. Moylan, however, was watching the returns on two anti-tax, anti-spending ballot measures in Maine and Washington. Those weren’t turning out so well.

“I care a lot less about Republicans than I do about policy,” Moylan said. “So it was depressing to watch those numbers come in.”

Bachmann anti-health reform ‘House Call’ as intraparty hijacking

There are a few telling details about yesterday’s rally against the House’s health care reform bill that got lost in the coverage. The rally was not planned by the GOP leadership, which was focusing on a 12-hour online health…

Conservatives rework rhetoric after high-profile New York loss

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. –Slightly before midnight on Tuesday, reality reared its ugly head. Hoffman lost to Democrat Bill Owens, who became the first member of his party to represent this region of New York in Congress since the 1870s. The margin when Hoffman conceded was slightly more than 4,000 votes. Nothing went right. Owens won his base in the northeastern part of the district, and he won or held his own in the parts of the district that Scozzafava–who endorsed Owens after leaving the race–represents in the assembly. Hoffman underperformed in the Syracuse, N.Y., suburbs that neither candidate had political ties to, even though polls had him leading by a 2-1 margin there.

Biden backs Owens, slams Limbaugh in heated New York race

WATERTOWN, N.Y. – Rallying support for Democratic congressional candidate Bill Owens before Tuesday’s special election in NY-23, Vice President Joe Biden today told a mostly full room at the North Side Improvement League to “teach a lesson” to right-wing activists. Ideological activists, said Biden, forced Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race because they couldn’t brook “dissent with their neoconservative views.”