2012 Congressional

On the April 10 edition of Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski openly endorsed Democratic candidate for US Senate, Elizabeth Warren. The left-wing Harvard professor "should win," Brzezinski proclaimed counseling Bay State voters that while incumbent Scott Brown was "great," his Democratic opponent was "fantastic." [Audio here, video after the jump]

Well, the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, apparently has Missouri Democratic Congressman and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver's back. As of 2:40 p.m., there is no national story relevant to Cleaver's unpaid $1 million-plus loan at the wire service's national site, even though information published by the Kansas City Star late Friday evening (interesting…

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) responded Tuesday to Barack Obama calling his budget proposal "a radical vision on our country." Talking to Fox News after the President spoke at the Associated Press's annual luncheon, Ryan said, "I seem to have three certainties in my life - death, taxes and bitter partisan attacks from President Barack Obama" (video follows with transcribed highlights and…

Today's starter topic: Will the GOP take the Senate this fall? National Review blogger Jim Geraghty thinks that prospect is not as certain as previously thought: A Republican-controlled Senate in 2012 looks less likely than it did a few weeks ago, but the prospect for GOP gains is still quite solid.

Charlie Rose surprised Rep. Paul Ryan on Tuesday's CBS This Morning by promoting the latest smear from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Rose displayed their fake horror-movie poster with Ryan's face beside House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner. It included the caption, "Just when you thought Medicare was safe, THEY'RE BACK. This time, they want to finish it…

It didn't take long for Republicans to get bashed during David Letterman's interview with Michelle Obama Monday night. In the middle of an election year, the CBS Late Show host actually asked the First Lady, "Has your husband ever come home and said to you, 'Oh, that John Boehner, what an idiot?'” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On Thursday's CBS Evening News, Elaine Quijano touted a charge from Pennsylvania Democrats that the new voter I.D. law there "targets poor and elderly voters." Quijano also spotlighted that, according to unnamed "Pennsylvania court officials," there were no cases of "voters convicted of fraud in the last five years." However, in late 2010, the AP reported on a credible allegation of voter fraud…

In a heated exchange Thursday between CNN’s Zoraida Sambolin and Samuel Wurzelbacher, also known as “Joe the Plumber,” Sambolin dug up comments he made about “gay people” in 2009, causing Wurzelbacher to quip that "this is TMZ. This isn't CNN, is what you're saying." Sambolin also questioned his qualifications to run for office, and mislabeled his liberal opponent as a "conservative Democrat…

On the Chicago Tribune's Web site and in its print edition today, columnist Clarence Page asks hopefully "Could this be the end of Limbaugh?"   Seizing on the usual Democratic points regarding Rush Limbaugh's comments about law student Sandra Fluke, Page writes that Limbaugh wasn't suspended, "despite his breathtaking assault against a private citizen whose only crime, after all, was to…

Since Senator Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) surprising announcement that she won't be seeking reelection in November, the media have been doing a victory lap blaming her decision on the lack of moderate Republicans in Congress. Yet an op-ed she published in Friday's Washington Post suggests her dissatisfaction with government stemmed from the behavior of Democrats that have controlled the Senate…

On Thursday's CBS This Morning, anchor Charlie Rose spotlighted the apparent "the disappearance of political moderates" in Congress in the context of Republican Senator Olympia Snowe's retirement. Correspondent Nancy Cordes gushingly asked Snowe, "Was it just getting too lonely to be a moderate Republican in the Senate?" CBS also listed several "moderate" senators who are actually liberals.…

On Thursday, New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman fretted over the lack of GOP centrists (a common and long-lasting theme in Timesland) after news broke of the surprise retirement of "fed up" moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine: “After Many Tough Choices, the Choice to Quit.” As Weisman tells it, it was the rise of those distracting “social issues” that sent Snowe over the…

In a recent article on Politico.com,  Jonathan Allen laughably labeled two out of three soon-to-be retired Democratic senators -- Joseph Lieberman(I-Conn.)* and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) -- alongside Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine).   Allen did correctly label the retiring Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) as a moderate, a tag that makes more sense given his voting record. [h/t e-mail tipster James…

MSNBC on Wednesday brought on Ed Schultz, a man who once decried Republicans as killers who profit off of "corpses," to lament the decreasing number of moderate, temperate voices in the U.S. Senate. Host Chris Jansing mournfully discussed Senator Olympia Snowe's retirement and how there is "so much noise on the extremes." Schultz, who once trashed Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut,"…