The Hollywood Liberal

Boehner, on track to lead House, reaches out to tea party as GOP wins majority
Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) tapped the activist energy of the tea party movement to help his party make gains Tuesday night. At the same time, he raised tens of millions of dollars from a network of lobbyists and corporate friends that he had long cultivated, placing him at the nexus of what could

In memoir, Bush says he considered dropping Cheney from 2004 ticket
In his book “Decision Points,” former president George W. Bush writes that he briefly considered dropping his vice president, Richard B. Cheney, from his 2004 reelection ticket but said he still considers Cheney a steady adviser who helped him achieve his goals.

Senate leader Reid fends off challenge by tea party’s Angle in Nevada
LAS VEGAS – Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid of Nevada beat back a scrappy challenge from tea party favorite Sharron Angle, offering Democrats a rare and high-profile victory on an otherwise difficult night for Democrats across the nation. The Associated Press and several news networks called…

Exit Polls: Unprecedented White Flight from Dems
David Paul Kuhn, RCP
Democrats performed worse with whites on Tuesday than in any other congressional election since the Second World War.Democratic problems with whites stretch back nearly a half-century. Political white flight changed course with the implosion of George W. Bush's presidency, the Republican Party and the economy in September 2008. Receive news alertsIt's now as if the chasm between whites and Democrats never narrowed. Democrats' bad old days are back.Republicans won whites in Tuesday's national House vote by a 22-percentage point margin (60 to 38 percent) according to…

A No-Confidence Vote for Obama
Richard Cohen, Washington Post
Elections are about many things: local candidates, the economy, the national picture and, of course, that indefinable something we call the zeitgeist — a Teutonic shrug of the shoulders meaning who the hell knows. But this election, while about all those things and more, was also about the commanding loss of public approval, even respect, accorded Barack Obama, and his odd, if inadvertent, cooperation in his own vilification. He is a man who blurs his own image and has allowed others to define who he is and, more often than not, who he is not.

Less Government, More Freedom
Sen. Jim DeMint, Wall Street Journal
Congratulations to all the tea party-backed candidates who overcame a determined, partisan opposition to win their elections. The next campaign begins today. Because you must now overcome determined party insiders if this nation is going to be spared from fiscal disaster.Many of the people who will be welcoming the new class of Senate conservatives to Washington never wanted you here in the first place. The establishment is much more likely to try to buy off your votes than to buy into your limited-government philosophy.

The Unhappy Electorate

Lunatic Notion of American Exceptionalism
Peter Beinart, Daily Beast
Last night’s biggest loser was not the Democratic Party. Democrats will rebound. In fact, the GOP’s victories probably improve Barack Obama’s chances of reelection since he can now position himself as a check on Republican radicalism, as Bill Clinton did in 1996. The real loser is Keynesianism: The idea that when businesses and individuals stop spending, government must. That idea will not rebound; it’s over for this period in economic history.