Is bankruptcy the way out of states’ fiscal morass? Writing in the DC Examiner, Michael Barone says states like California and Illinois can’t expect much federal help for their desperate financial problems now that Republicans control the House of Representatives–but maybe Congress would pass legislation allowing them to declare bankruptcy. A Depression-era law allows local […]

U.S. Senate candidates who more people “liked” on Facebook or “followed” on Twitter were most likely to win their races, Jennifer Schlesinger reports at ABC, and money didn’t necessarily translate into social media popularity. Of 118 Senate races tracked by Facebook, the candidate with the most “likes” won 77, or 71 percent. Candidates with the […]

Most Americans think incoming Congressmen who campaigned against federal health care reform should turn down government-provided coverage once they’re in office, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey. That opinion was strongest among Republicans, 58 percent of whom said reform critics should decline the coverage. The poll was done a week after a Republican […]

Another example of how changing telephone use is complicating polling: Pew Research and others have made persuasive arguments in recent years that pollsters who call only landlines and not cell phones tend to produce results skewed toward Republicans. But in a new report, Pew says the cell phone-landline effect is even more complicated than that. […]

Maybe it means anyone who talks about a “permanent majority” has no notion of history. In any case, Duke PhD candidate David Sparks has assembled a video depiction of presidential electoral results for the 20th Century that, as he says, “is a reminder that what constitutes ‘politics as usual’ is always in flux.” The YouTube […]

Not that we’d ever say so ourselves… but the National Journal did in Hotline On Call’s “Ultimate State-by-State Guide to Political Media:” “For a small state, Connecticut has extremely good in-depth political coverage, spearheaded by the Connecticut Hearst papers, Hartford Courant, New London Day and the New Haven Register. New York City papers like the […]

It looks like Lisa Murkowski has won her write-in campaign to return to the Senate, despite the refusal of her Tea Party- and Sarah Palin-backed opponent to concede, and the Alaska Republican isn’t happy with some of her GOP colleagues, Alexander Burns says in Politico. She’s been particularly critical of Palin and South Carolina Sen. […]

The appearance of the “s-word” in Chris Dodd’s Twitter feed drew national attention, at least from bloggers, and a quick apology from the outgoing Connecticut senator’s staff. But as Reuters notes, it wasn’t all bad: Dodd gained at least 90 followers after the message, “U love torturing me w this shit” appeared. Dodd’s staff soon […]

Everyone knows politicians can get in big trouble when they use someone else’s words without attribution–just ask Joe Biden. But as Carl Cannon notes in Politics Daily, they rarely get called on spurious attributions. From Tocqueville (who did not say, “America is great because America is good”) to Truman (who never advised, “If you want […]

Nearly 70 percent of Americans say they “rarely” or “never” use a cell phone while driving, a new Quinnipiac Poll says, and almost two thirds say they think a national ban on the practice is a good idea. Predictably, reported on-the-road cell phone use is highest among younger Americans, while support for a ban increases […]

Democrats concerned about climate change need a new strategy, Sen. Joseph Lieberman acknowledged at a meeting of senators who backed the cap-and-trade legislation he and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts proposed last year. “Whether we like it or not, cap-and-trade has no chance of passage in the next Congress,” Lieberman told Politico after the meeting. […]

If you thought the political advertising was over the top in Connecticut, be thankful you weren’t in the Cleveland or Columbus areas in October. Hotline On Call reports that by Nielsen’s tally, nearly a quarter of all advertising broadcast in those two Ohio markets in the month preceding Election Day was political in nature, putting […]

Did Joe Lieberman’s “incoherent intransigence” on a piece of the health care reform bill contribute to Democrats’ losses Nov. 2? Ezra Klein suggests Lieberman’s dogged opposition to allowing uninsured adults over 55 to buy into Medicare may have hurt the party’s performance. That provision, which died after Lieberman threatened a filibuster, would have taken effect […]

Calling it a “national catastrophe,” an urban education group Tuesday released a study showing a vast achievement gap between black and white male students in the country, and suggesting that poverty is only part of the cause. The report, by the Council of the Great City Schools, finds for example that only 11 percent of […]

Not only did Rep. Jim Himes keep his seat in a bad year for Democrats, but he also was one of only eight of his party’s incumbent House members to win by a larger margin than in 2008. Two years ago he squeezed out longtime GOP Rep. Chris Shays by a narrow 3.8 percentage point […]