In an internal RNC memo obtained by TPM Election Central, chairman Mike Duncan acknowledges that the GOP has lost its reputation as a “party of ideas” and warns against “falling back on ideology alone.”

It’s going to take a lot of money to make the rich people rich again.

Barack Obama announces his appointees for key science offices — and in a not-too-subtle swipe at the Bush Administration, promises to make sure that ideology will not trump the facts. That and other political news in today’s Election Central Saturday Roundup.

The Fed has set up something called the TALF, the Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility, which will offer “low-cost three-year funding to any US company investing in securitized consumer loans” including hedge funds.

Says the Financial Times (reg.req.), “Since the credit crisis erupted, hedge funds have complained that they cannot get the leverage they need to arbitrage away excessive spreads and meet high hurdle rates of return.”

Hundreds of thousands of orders pour in for Turkish shoe thrown at President Bush.

A veteran staffer in the SEC’s enforcement division tells TPMmuckraker’s Zack Roth that the agency is in a “state of complete panic” over Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion fraud.

At the same time that the agency is trying to unravel the unprecedented decades-long scheme, staff is being ordered not to destroy any records related to its earlier investigations of Madoff because of inside and outside probes into the SEC’s own role in not catching Madoff sooner.

Meanwhile, paranoia has set in, we’re told, and junior staff has been ordered to go back and review other cases the SEC has closed in recent years out of fear that violations may have been missed in those cases, too.

Dick Cheney declares that Joe Biden wants to diminish the office of vice president. That and other political news in today’s Election Central Sunday Roundup.

The only mild consolation to be found in Vice President Cheney’s latest round of anti-constitutional ridiculousness is the thought that we’ll be rid of him in about a month. Cheney said today that if Joe Biden “wants to diminish the office of the vice president, that’s obviously his call.” But let’s be really frank on this one. The vice president has no substantial powers at all. None. He or she can break ties in the senate. They have the key role of succession. And as a practical matter they can play an important role as the president’s partner — the chief executive’s inability to fire the VP serving as a benign form of independence within the White House, in terms of giving advice . But the very fact that we can even be having a conversation about the prerogative powers of the vice presidency is a testament to the world of Alice in Wonderland constitutionalism that has been a hallmark of Cheney’s time in office.

The Obama team’s Blago report expected to be out no later than tomorrow. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

It was Cheney v. Biden on the Sunday shows as the departing and incoming vice presidents exchanged blows over executive power. And did Dick Cheney really tell Senator Pat Leahy to “bleep himself”?

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.