Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who’s eying a run for governor: “If I’m governor, I’ll cavort with showgirls and I’ll keep drinking my gin and betting on anything that moves.”
If Martha Coakley wins tonight, the health care reform calculus is simple. But let’s assume she doesn’t, in which case it gets much more complicated. There’s a lot of talk about ‘Plan B’ — how much time will Dems have before Scott Brown is seated? Will the House liberals accept the senate bill word for word with no revisions? Will conservative and swing-district House Dems and refused to support what they already voted for, despite the senate bill’s being more conservative than the original House one?
I think this is very simple. And we’re about to see what the congressional Dems are made of. Obama too. Read More
Tea party activists in Florida file lawsuit against a GOP consultant and his ally over who has the right to use the name “Tea Party.”
Gotta love this quote that one of the plaintiffs gave TPMmuckraker:
We have a very successful movement, similar to the Civil Rights movement, or women’s suffrage. And we have a political entity that’s trying to take advantage of that. They’re trying to take that success and momentum and hijack it for their own political and/or personal needs.
As Arlo Guthrie would say, “Friends, they may thinks it’s a movement.”
Jon Stewart ain’t too happy with this Massachusetts debacle either. Watch.
Local media is reporting heavy turnout in today’s election in Massachusetts. But the reports we’re getting from people in strong Democratic districts describe light morning turnout, at least compared to what people remember in 2008.
I’m not sure the 2008 presidential is a fair point of comparison. And anecdotal reports only have so much value. But this is what we’re hearing.
I won’t lie. I’ve been drawn in with fascination by the latest battle in the late night wars. (I also rubberneck at car accidents.) Jay Leno addressed the mess on his show last night. Watch.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ended the post-9/11 protocol for his military aides of wearing fatigues to work: It’s back to their business uniforms. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
An old friend of mine checks in from Massachusetts, TPM Reader JF:
Arrived at my polling station before it opened. 32, grey skies, and light snow falling. Not great weather. Only three people in line. My precinct is a diverse mix of upper to lower class residents – post gentrification yuppies, gays, and working class residents from the local public housing. The voting station is in the lobby of public housing. All the voters I saw in my 15 minutes at the station were white men and woman from the more affluent class of the neighborhood – lots of iPods headphones. A big contrast to the presidential election and even the Senate primary election. Doesn’t look great.
From TPM Reader BK …
I called into Mass. today via Organizing for America and it did not give me a good feeling about tomorrow. The people I spoke with who said they would vote for Coakley were clearly already going to the polls; my call wasn’t necessary. But considering that I was presumably calling a list of reliably Democratic voters (the script was GOTV, not persuasion), I got too many Brown voters.