In case you missed the news over the weekend, the Tea Party folks go their first genuine GOP scalp: Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT). Bennett is extremely conservative, but occasionally cooperates with Dems on bipartisan legislation. So he’s gone.

The Aspen Institute announces a new year-long forum on globalism and democratic values on the internet in light of the China-Google conflict.

What’s the GOP plan for killing the Kagan nomination? Take a listen for yourself.

We’ve got exclusive audio of the GOP’s lead Court strategist, Curt Levey, briefing RNC leaders on the plan to take Kagan down. Check it out.

There was a bit of press attention to the RNC’s Friday afternoon announcement that Michael Steele had fired RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart. Also fired though was his deputy Debbie LeHardy. And it seems she may have been more directly misreporting expenses — stuff that could take the RNC’s money woes from bad press to outright criminal liability.

Club for Growth takes credit for taking out Sen. Bob Bennett (R) in the Utah GOP convention.

Republicans were loving ex-hospital Columbia HCA CEO Rick Scott when he was running and funding a kamikaze ad campaign (Conservatives for Patients Rights) against Health Care Reform. Then he decided to he needed to run for Governor of Florida against the GOP’s annointed candidated, Bill McCollum.

I always feel a little bad for Michael Steele since his job requires quite a lot of him. Now he’s slamming Elena Kagan for praising Thurgood Marshall when he said that the original constitution was ‘defective’ because of its embrace of slavery.

Really? Can’t we agree the whole constitutional embrace of slavery was a bit of a problem?

Elena Kagan has written, perhaps to her regret, that the modern-day judicial confirmation process is without substance and “takes on an air of vacuity and farce.” It’s a remark Republicans have seized on in demanding more specific answers from nominee Kagan.

We’re getting anecdotal indications that the decline of the newspaper business, particularly the withering of the size of newsrooms, is having a practical impact on the 2010 congressional election campaigns. I’m curious to know if you’re seeing evidence of this, too.

I was talking to a candidate last week in one of the high-profile 2010 races. Campaign coverage has just about evaporated in this candidate’s state, I was told, because there are so few reporters left, and those who are still around have bigger priorities, especially this far out from Election Day. As a result, it’s hard for the campaigns to get any traction with messages or story lines, and voters are much less engaged.

That’s not the first time we’ve heard this complaint from campaigns. It’s happened often enough now that I wonder if it’s part of a larger pattern. Intuitively it seems plausible enough, but I’m very curious how broad the pattern is.

I’d love to hear from our readers who are local journalists and editors. But I’m especially interested in what campaign consultants and political types have to say. Are you seeing this too? How are you adapting to it? What changes has it forced you to make in how you campaign? Shoot us an email to the tip line at the top right of this page. As always, it will be confidential.

Our Kagan nomination live blogger Andrew Pincus takes stock of the Day One narrative on the Kagan nomination.