–As Kate writes, political posturing pervades ahead of Thursday’s health care summit with Democrats and Republicans scrambling to score points. There’s plenty of that to come in the next 48 hours.
–To wit: Obama communications chief Dan Pfeiffer offers to post a Republican plan on the White House blog in a transparently backhanded …
Tonight the Senate will vote for cloture on Harry Reid’s stripped down jobs bill. No one knows – not Mitch McConnell and not the majority leader – if Reid will have the votes (so their offices say). But tonight’s vote is exactly the kind of thing that American voters have come to hate about the Senate: the bill is widely …
–Republicans in Congress still seem a little thrown off by the health care summit and haven’t yet settled on a message going in. Andrew Sullivan notes some inconsistency. They also haven’t decided which way to go on the Senate jobs bill.
–Former GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee, now running as an independent, makes the case for a third …
Although we’ve been talking for more than a year about the “Obama health plan,” the fact is, there hasn’t been one–until now. The NYT got a preview of at least part of the proposal that the White House has promised to post on the internet tomorrow.
Where most of the discussion in recent months has been about the question of how to …
CPAC this year is younger than ever and, as Katy Steinmetz and I discovered, young = party!
Take a stroll through CPAC’s exhibition hall this year and between the proffered candy, bumper stickers and key rings you can’t help overhearing some heated debates. At the end of the first row of exhibitors, next to the National Rifle Association, is a booth for the
Indiana Rep. Brad Ellsworth is stepping into the breach left by Evan Bayh’s surprise retirement and is expected to announce a Senate bid later today.
Widely viewed as a recruiting win for the DSCC, Ellsworth’s entrance into the race allows Democrats still reeling from the Indiana Senator’s high-profile withdrawal to breathe a little …
That’s what Congressman Joe Sestak, a retired Navy Admiral, is suggesting. Here’s the account in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) said yesterday that the White House offered him a federal job in an effort to dissuade him from challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in the state’s Democratic primary.
The disclosure
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–It looks like the White House feels they have forged enough consensus on health reform to confirm that details of a plan will be posted early next week. The deal reportedly consists of a reconciliation package that follows the basic framework of the House and Senate bills. However, many Democrats in Congress say they haven’t seen it, …
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference launched today in Washington DC. I’ll be heading up to the Marriot Wardman in Woodley Park shortly to check out some of the afternoon festivities. But I caught Marco Rubio – probably the most anticipated speaker of the three-day event — on C-SPAN this morning.
The former speaker …
Back in the days when I first arrived in Washington, Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming was one of my favorite people to seek out. That was pretty much the case with just about every other reporter in town, too. Simpson was always good for a salty quote; more importantly, he had a way of looking at things that made you consider them in a …
–One of the few areas of comity and cooperation between the parties during the Obama administration has been education policy. The Washington Post reports this morning that Democrats and Republicans in the House are taking a bipartisan stab at rewriting No Child Left Behind.
–It looks like the White House may have a deal on forming …
—Tech President charts the origin of that jobs graphic.
–A politician may finally be allowed to use John Mellencamp songs at rallies: John Mellencamp.
–It’s impersonation day; the NRCC channels Nancy Pelosi in a fundraising e-mail and Charlie Crist ghostwrites a CPAC address for Marco Rubio.
—Bush 43 asks, “Who the [heck] is …
