By 1924, La Follette was serving his fourth term as a United States Senator. He left office as Governor in January, 1906.

     What we're looking for is an established progressive who'd be willing to take the criticism that he or she is hurting the party by running against the President. It would be nice if he or she had a safe seat, and even better if the primary for it came months after the presidential primaries.

     One possibility could be Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin of Madison. I can't imagine that she'd do it, but she's a solid progressive, the first open lesbian in Congress. She wins easy reelection, her district doesn't have a large percentage of African-Americans, and the congressional primary isn't until September. 

     After the 2004 election, Missouri had a Republican governor and two Republican senators. In 2006 Claire McCaskill defeated Sen. Talent, and in 2008 the Democrats regained the governorship when the unpopular Republican incumbent didn't bother running for reelection.

     Last Tuesday, there was what appeared to be a serious contest for the Republican senate nomination between a Washington insider and a teabagger-backed candidate. There was no serious contest in the Democratic primary. The weather was brutally hot.

    As you point out, Missouri voted for the winner in every presidential election of the 20th century except for 1956. I don't see how that squares with the notion that it was "once a Democratic bastion". If anything, it was a Republican bastion in the 1980s, when it went for the Republican presidential and gubernatorial candidates three times, and the Republicans won three of four races for the U.S. Senate.

     It is possible that Missouri is trending Republican at this point, but it is equally possible that this is merely a short-term deviation attributable to the lack of a contested Democratic primary, the economic downturn, and the fact that President Obama seems to be less popular here than in other swing states.

     Didn't the DNC or the DSCC, I forget which, spend $500,000 on ads praising Nelson after the health care reform bill passed?

     Not that she has a very good chance. But if she gets reelected, she'll be another Lieberman, going out of her way to punch the people who put her into office, but then supported her primary opponent after she turned on them.

     I think it's inevitable that when she loses the Village will blame it on the hippies and the "Union bosses": how poor little Blanche had to use all the money the corporations gave her to fend off a primary challenge, and then the hippies and the "Union bosses" wouldn't even help her in the general election.

     Her loss will stand as a warning to Mary Landrieu, John Barrow, and other Blue Dogs: the Democratic base isn't going to sit back and watch you vote against their interests, then turn out and vote for you just because you have a "D" next to your name. The corporations brought you to this dance--dance with them. We've got a full dance card working for people in 35 other senate races who will keep faith with us.

     Reid hasn't moved at all: it's just that his opposition is weaker. But even that shows Reid's underlying weakness, as he has been unable to capitalize on his opponents' problems to improve his own numbers, as might have been expected.

     I still think it would be best for the Democratic party and the progressive movement to have Reid replaced as Senate Majority Leader, and the only way that seems likely to happen is if Reid loses his seat.

      But I agree with others that Reid still has a chance to win.

     It's an important point that the membership of the party is taking charge and rejecting the advice of the Washington Democratic establishment. But this comes down to a sloppy lead sentence by some DC insider nobody ever heard of writing for an organization nobody should pay any attention to.
     He got it right on the second pass by referring to "the Washington Democratic establishment". And the situation in Hawaii is attributable not so much to Democratic division as to a very poor state law mechanism for filling vacant seats with no primary and no run-off. But as to Politico generally, don't give them any notice--it only encourages them.

For the Libs to help labour - it would be seen as the the coalition of losers

     Yes, I suppose "some people would say" that.

     However, this particular "coalition of losers" got well over 50% of the vote, while the Tories got 37%. So after 13 years out of power, facing a divided opposition and a very unpopular Prime Minister, with a young, glib and telegenic candidate, the Tories could not command the support of 3 out of 8 voters. But they should nevertheless be handed power because the alternative "would be seen (presumably by those who voted Tory, and the British equivalent of Beltway Insiders) as the the coalition of losers"?

     It's obvious that the biggest political problem the UK has is that their elections do not produce governments that command anything near majority support among the voters. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are committed to changing that system; the Tories are foursquare against any change. What needs to happen is what Alex Salmond is proposing--a coalition of Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the SDLP, to fix the electtoral system, then another election to elect a House more representative of the popular will.

     You say Labour and the Lib Dems can't reach 236, but it's arguable that only 220 are needed. It should be 326 and 320.

     Do they really need 326? Five of the MPs elected Thursday are members of Sinn Fein, but they won't take their seats because they won't pledge loyalty to the Monarchy. So it will only take 323 votes to defeat a No Confidence motion.

     Hank Johnson, not Brown.

     Well, my point was not that he would be elected, but that he's the best bet for the nomination.

     The Republicans still have winner-take-all primaries, and many of them are only open to registered Republicans. In a multi-candidate field, Perry could win with only 20-25%, and with the support of Texas oil and gas money, he'd probably have more financial support than anyone else. And I'm not sure that threatening secession is a negative among Republicans these days.

Surely there must be some governors, not known nationally, who can emerge.

     Well,we're about 21 months away from the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. If anybody's going to emerge, they'll probably need to do so by summer of next year.

     Among the current Republican governors, Rick Perry and Mitch Daniels seem like the most likely, though they were George W. Bush's Lieutenant Governor and Budget Director. Schwarzenegger's ineligible, and the Republican base hates Crist. Sonny Perdue of Georgia would not be a credible candidate. And Jan Brewer of Arizona, who inherited the job from Janet Napolitano, may not even win the Republican nomination for a full term.

     Clinton Rossiter wrote in the 1960s that a viable Presidential candidate needed to be from a state bigger than Kentucky, which then had nine electoral votes. Other than President Clinton, I can't think of a President since Franklin Pierce who came from a state smaller than Kentucky. And I believe I have already mentioned every current Republican governor from states with more than nine electoral votes (including Pawlenty), except for the two elected in November, 2009, McDonnell and Christie, who are not really in a position to run for President a year after taking office.

     I think if I had to pick one pony to bet on to win the Republican nomination, it would be Rick Perry.

     When you look at it, it's just stunning.

     A one-term governor of a medium sized state. A half-term governor of a state with a population under 1 Million. A former governor of the smallest Southern state. A former House Speaker who last won an election 12 years ago. A Congressman from Texas. A two-term governor of a medium-sized state, who won his two races with 45.7% and 50.5% of the vote. A two-term Senator from a large state who got beat 59-41 running for a third term 4 years ago. A Congressman from Indiana. And the Governor of Mississippi, who will be 65 on Election Day, 2012. And there's very little difference between any of them on policy issues.

     This from a party that's won 7 of the last 11 Presidential elections. We've been saying for some time that the Republican Party is increasingly irrelevant as its older, White base dies off. This is proof of it.

     The problem with the Rasmussen polls is that they feed the narrative of Republicans in resurgence, Democrats in disarray. And that has an effect on fundraising, on the motivation to work on a campaign, and on the voting behavior of a small but not negligible group of voters who like to be on the winning team.