Part One of Three of Larry J. Sabato on STATEHOUSE ROCK: 36 Governorships on the Chopping Block in 2010 Every midterm year, the lion’s share of the attention seems to go to the U.S. Senate and House contests at the national level, even though the governorships are arguably more important. Despite the unusual all-Senate match-up of Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008, the statehouses are still the incubators for most modern presidents (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, G.W. Bush). Moreover, the 36...

In my humble opinion, Chas Freeman was a disaster waiting to happen and belongs nowhere near US intelligence and foreign policy. This Democrat is grateful that the Obama administration has come to its senses. Eric Fingerhut at JTA asks ‘The Freeman fight: Was it all about Israel?’ JTA: Obama team’s intel pick pulls out Freeman slams ‘Israel lobby‘ Rosner’s Domain: Freeman’s out, but “Freeman formula” very much alive The Hill: Controversial intelligence...

CNN: Car-truck crash kills Zimbabwe prime minister’s wife, injures him Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was in stable condition and recovering from head injuries Friday night after a car wreck that killed his wife, Susan, medical sources told CNN. The crash, on a busy two-lane highway between Tsvangirai’s hometown of Buhera and the capital city of Harare, comes just weeks after the start of a power-sharing agreement between Tsvangirai and his political rival, President Robert...

Washington Post: Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius accepted President Obama’s nomination to become Health and Human Services Secretary this afternoon, according to administration officials. Sebelius will replace former senator Thomas A. Daschle, who withdrew from consideration last month.

Part Three of Three of Larry J. Sabato on SENATE 2010: A Three-Peat for Democrats or Comeback for the GOP? Two weeks ago we discussed the basic framework for 2010′s thirty-six Senate elections. Last week we reviewed the seventeen Democratic Senate seats that are on the ballot in the midterm year. Now let’s see how the nineteen Republican-held seats for 2010 are shaping up in the initial stages: MORE

Chicago Sun-Times: BURRIS’ SON GOT STATE JOB FROM BLAGO The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Blagojevich’s administration hired Roland W. Burris II as a senior counsel for the state’s housing authority Sept. 10 — about six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped a $34,163 tax lien on Burris II and three weeks after...

Rhodes Cook: NOT YOUR FATHER’S DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS The last two Democratic presidents have a lot in common. Like Bill Clinton before him, Barack Obama is a gifted 40-something politician, a strong orator with a high likeability quotient, and a successful candidate who captured the White House by running on a platform offering big change. And like Clinton, Obama begins his administration blessed with large Democratic majorities at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, the Democratic...

Part Two of Three of Larry J. Sabato on SENATE 2010: A Three-Peat for Democrats or Comeback for the GOP? Last week in the Crystal Ball, we looked at the historical background of off-year Senate elections and laid the groundwork for the earliest possible projection of the 36 contests on the ballot in 2010. This week we call the Senate roll among sitting Democrats to see who appears safe and who might be in trouble. Next week, in our final round-up, the Republican seats will be under the microscope. In...

Sacramento Bee: Budget plan goes to Schwarzenegger after Legislature’s OK The deal is done. — The California Legislature voted early today to approve a massive budget package of tax increases, spending cuts and borrowing to close a $40 billion deficit after granting major concessions to one holdout Republican senator.

Apparently there was a ‘minor’ nuclear accident in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month. AP via Washington Post: Nuclear-armed submarines from Britain and France collided deep under the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month, causing damage to both vessels but releasing no radioactivity, a British official said Monday. The New York Times: The two submarines are at the core of their countries’ nuclear forces, each carrying a battery of intercontinental ballistic missiles equipped with multiple...

The gavel has pounded, the financial stimulus bill has passed through the Senate. Next Stop: Obama’s Desk. MSNBC: Senate approves stimulus bill

NOTE: One of the two links to Larry Sabato’s article was broken. It has now been fixed and the post has been moved up. TMV regrets the error. Larry J. Sabato on SENATE 2010: A THREE-PEAT FOR DEMOCRATS OR COMEBACK FOR THE GOP? Part One of Three It’s never too early for the Crystal Ball to look ahead to the next election. But unlike the Wizard of Oz’s phony orb (when he’s still the Kansas medicine man who peeks into Dorothy’s purse for photos of Auntie Em), we try to...

Alan Abramowitz on The False Hope of Bipartisanship It’s not a matter of “if.” It’s a matter of “when.” As in, when will all of the feel-good rhetoric about Democrats and Republicans joining hands to solve the nation’s problems come to an end and open partisan warfare resume in Washington? In fact, that time may already be here. Despite Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to Republican leaders and conservative intellectuals since his election and his...

BBC: Russian and US satellites collide US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date. The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said.

Most of the votes have been counted (it’s the middle of the night in Israel). Out of the 33 political parties participating, 5 major and 7 minor parties have elected one or more MKs (Members of the incoming Knesset): Haaretz: With 88 percent of the votes counted, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s Kadima Party is in first place with 29 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party following closely behind with 27 seats. As the vote progresses, Labor stands...

Washington Post: Tentative Deal Reached on Stimulus Bill Compromise Believed to Slash $90B in Spending, Tax Cuts Purported deal reached in closed-door negotiations among a bipartisan group of senators as debate on more than $900B bill continued on Senate floor.

MSNBC just announced that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is having surgery in NYC today for early-stage pancreatic cancer. She is 75 years old. AP via Washington Post: Ginsburg Is Hospitalized With Pancreatic Cancer

Alan Abramowitz on Playing it Straight: The Minnesota Model of Election Administration Late night comics have feasted on the disputed U.S. Senate race between the incumbent Norm Coleman and the Democratic challenger and former comedian Al Franken. News coverage has ridiculed the campaign’s hypocrisy and hyperbole. Commentators have lampooned inconsistencies and missing ballots, with one New York Times op-ed claiming that the outcome was “doomed” and should be decided by a coin...

Alan Abramowitz on Did the Wall Street Meltdown Change the Election? A Reply to James Campbell According to James Campbell, the mid-September financial crisis hit the 2008 presidential election like a bolt out of the blue, transforming it from a horserace in which John McCain had a real chance of victory into a one-sided contest in which Barack Obama enjoyed a decisive advantage. Campbell’s claim is another version of the Wall Street meltdown theory that has been advanced by a number of conservative...

MSNBC announced that Tom Daschle has withdrawn his nomination for HHS Secretary. An analysis from earlier today about how Killefer’s problems hurt Daschle: The Fix: How Killefer Hurts Daschle

Nancy Killefer, Chief Performance Officer Designate

James E. Campbell on The 2008 Election in Perspective: The Unexpected Wall Street Meltdown Election Some political analysts have interpreted the 2008 presidential election as an ordinary retrospective election. With a very unpopular Republican incumbent presiding over unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a weak economy, 2008 appeared to be a Democratic year. As the often insightful Larry Sabato put it in his recent essay, “any mainstream Democratic candidate was destined to win in 2008.”...

Rhodes Cook on THE GEORGIA SENATE RUNOFF: THE FIRST SHOT OF 2010? The 2008 election these days may seem long ago and far away. But it is worth remembering that while the Republicans had a bad time at the polls in November, they fared well in the array of contests that concluded the election cycle in December. The GOP scored two House wins last month in Louisiana, including the improbable upset of Democrat William Jefferson by a little-known Republican, Anh Cao. The latter became the first Vietnamese-American...

Chicago Tribune’s Clout Street Blog: Senate removes Blagojevich from office 5:02 p.m. Quinn takes charge Gov. Patrick Quinn has signed the oath of office. He did so in his lieutenant governor’s office as Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias watched. A member of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s security detail entered Quinn’s office and is standing guard, as are other state police officers, following the vote. During the vote, Quinn could be seen walking back and forth. 5:01 p.m....

A month or so back I attended a lecture presented in Cincinnati by Ismail Khaldi, a Bedouin shepherd boy and Sunni Muslim from the Galilee who is now an Israeli diplomat. He currently serves as the State of Israel’s deputy consul general in San Francisco. An interesting speaker, he shared his life story with us. Now I see his name in the news: Druze, Bedouin diplomats wage PR war: Reda Mansour, Ismail Khaldi defend Gaza op to CNN, Berkley faculty, and Muslim protestors in US A Druze ambassador...