I think Huckabee's doing a remarkable job of maintaining his position considering how much more exposure Romney, Palin, Gingrich and Pawlenty are getting. I haven't put a lot of thought into it at this point, but he's the one that scares me the most right now.

I'd like to think the ad script writes itself, but I strongly suspect nobody at the DNC or DSCC will find this worth campaigning on at a time when the airwaves are basically wide open.

Look at the differences between age groups, gender groups, and regional groups -- they are small and probably not significant. So the topline results may be off (but to a certain extent, that's what the MOE is for), but even if we took the most generous subgroups as the actual representation of the GOP it still makes them look completely bonkers.

Assuming this is true, I don't get how it would affect much of anything. A voter who wanted to vote for Brown either just leaves it or says something to the polling official. A voter who wanted to vote for Coakley or anyone else either notices it and says something, or doesn't notice it and tries to submit and overmarked ballot. Does MA not have something in place to check if people are screwing up their ballots? I know that in Wisconsin, for example, if you try to submit an over or undermarked ballot the machine spits it out the first time so you can confirm your intent. It seems like the only way this gets votes to Brown is if someone came out to vote but decided to abstain in the Senate race, assuming there's anything else on the ballot.

...I'm impressed that you've managed to miss Indiana. The state boasts of itself as the "crossroads of America," but it's not far from the truth, especially if you're just considering America east of the Mississippi. It's on the way to everywhere!

I can actually buy this given the position the GOP is currently in. What does a Congressional majority in 2011 get them? The existing Democratic majority is already not getting done on their major initiatives, and Obama will still be president during the next Congress. If their goal is to take everything back in 2012, establishing the party as even more conservative in 2010 would presumably create an ideologically purer first-Congress majority than the second-Congress majority that could come out of the '10 elections.

Now, strategically, I think that's pretty dumb, in large part because the "moderates" that they're so concerned about are generally down-the-line conservative votes, like Lindsey Graham. But the conservative movement has the Legend of Goldwater as Reagan's Stalking Horse in its DNA and good luck trying to stop them re-enacting it every time the party hits the skids.

The best comparison might be John Edwards, who never really stopped running after 2004.  It certainly didn't help him at all.

there is a shocking lack of crisis management on the part of Amazon going on here.

I don't find it that shocking.  This seems to have been going on for a while, but it's spiked big time today.  Today's Easter Sunday and probably a lot of Amazon employees are hard to get hold of; even on a regular Sunday I imagine the speed of response would be lacking.

...but why does NY allow candidates to run in districts that aren't their primary residence?  Does this mean that Michael Bloomberg could buy a cottage up near the border, then buy himself a rural seat in Congress if he wanted?

Well, about one thing: Steele shouldn't be spending all his time going on TV, telling people he's the head of the Republican Party, etc.  I don't get the feeling Steele has the first clue what a party chair is supposed to do; I certainly don't recall Howard Dean, who became chair of a troubled party committee with a much higher national profile than Steele has, making wooing the media his top priority in 2005.  Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with Steele being an incompetent party chair, but I can see why Limbaugh would be nonplussed with his tenure so far.

Whenever I think Maureen Dowd can't get worse she proves me wrong.

Not as exciting a year for me as 2007, but still a fair amount of travel.

Chicago, IL
Pittsburgh, PA*
Milwaukee, WI
Rochester, WI
Harvard, IL*
Houghton, MI
Dubuque, IA*
Amana, IA*
Iowa City, IA*
Playa del Carmen, Mexico*
Cleveland, OH*
Cincinnati, OH*
Columbus, OH
Louisville, KY*
St. Louis, MO
Carbondale, IL* (moving there in August!)
Effingham, IL*
New Orleans, LA*
Grand Rapids, MI
State College, PA*
Brooklyn, NY (first time by car, yikes)

That's a pretty weak rebuke, as rebukes go.  "We'll find out soon enough, so let's all calm down" is different than "This behavior is irresponsible, and unless somebody has some evidence they ought to cool it."  By the standards of Republican behavior during this whole thing it's pretty terrific, but let's not go overboard.

Doing literally nothing for two years isn't stepping out of line with his gavel?  Here's a question: Is there anything at all that Lieberman could do that would suggest he ought to face even the slightest consequence?  Seriously, this is a committee that he did nothing with in the last Congress.  The offer is for him to keep his seniority, stay in the caucus, and chair something else.  This is the least possible consequence that could come from him a) failing to lead his committee in any way, b) endorsing the Republican presidential candidate, c) speaking at the GOP convention, d) campaigning for GOP Senate candidates (that is, campaigning against the majority he now wants to be a part of), and e) suggesting that the Democratic presidential candidate might be a Marxist.  Why should he take from this the message he better not use his committee against Obama, or else?

With respect, you and Reid's staffers are missing the point.  Saying that "threatening a filibuster has taken over the same role as actually performing one" is a nice passive way of pointing out that the Senate leadership has simply decided to require supermajorities for everything.  This is an affirmative step, it didn't just happen.  And I should add that this seems to be endemic to Senate Democrats -- Barbara Boxer said at the convention that "60 is the new 50."  There is absolutely no reason this ought to be so, save that Reid has decided it ought to be so.  He could fix this in January, and suddenly Lieberman matters a lot less, as do Nelson, Landrieu, etc.  60 is an artificial hurdle that gains us nothing and helps the Republicans by obscuring their agenda.  If you make them stand in the chamber and talk for days -- that is, actually filibuster -- their strategy will collapse.