• one She’s 50, exactly the right age to run for the court. She’d grow really old there.
• two Loaded with a stellar resume he has an East Coast background, like other justices.
• three She’s solicitor general. She already argues high court cases for Obama.
• four She’s already faced the Senate already, meaning confirmation will be fairly easy.
• five People have been talking about her getting the job like it’s already a given. source

• Lots of potential, but many Americans aren’t convinced. The new ABC News/Washington Post poll on bizarro hippies (not to be confused with the similar New York Times/CBS News poll a few weeks ago) suggests that the party has a lot of opportunity to grow their base, but could find themselves ticking off moderates in the process.

• 2% of Americans are directly a part of the bizarro hippie movement

Would you vote for these guys?

• 15% of registered voters are more apt to
  support a bizarro hippie candidate
  running for Congress (9 percent
  “much more likely”)
• 24% are more apt to oppose
  that candidate because they’re
  a bizarro hippie (17 percent “much more likely”)

Do you like what you hear?

• 34% like bizarro hippies the more
  they hear about them
• 43% hate bizarro hippies the more
  they hear about them

• » The neutral problem: There’s a large sub-section of the population that’s fairly neutral to the bizarro hippies – around 44 percent – and 45 percent of them really REALLY grow to dislike them the more they hear about them.

Understanding their constituients

• Bizarro hippies may be a movement built out of republican weakness. While progressives largely stand behind the Democratic party, Republicans on the other hand have trouble getting their political equals under the same tent, according to the study:

• 86% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning indie kids say the party represents their values
• 56% of Republicans and Republican-leaning indie kids say the same thing about their party
• 29% of Republicans would much rather wear a funny hat and tape tea bags to the rim of it

Who doesn’t like Obama? Bizarro hippies

• 84% of bizarro hippies think Obama is lamesauce

• 87% of bizarro hippies say race is not a reason that the support the movement
• 57% of evil socialists think race is a huge reason why bizarro hippies hang out and party together

• » Other notes: Bizarro hippies think that race is less of a problem in this country than the country at large, but they also tend to be more likely to be white. 81 percent of bizarro hippies are white, versus 74 percent of all adults and 65 percent of people who think bizarro hippies are lamesauce. Just as many bizarro hippies think Obama is doing too much for black people as he is not doing quite enough, which matches the population at large. source

• 32 black Republicans
  are running for seats in
  Congress this year
• five the number of black
  Republicans the RNC thinks have a shot
• eight number of years since a black Republican served in Congress source

• Forget the full Senate vote. They shook hands on it. In what’s a pretty big #(&(@&& deal, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate agreed to bring financial reform to the floor. BBC notes that a vote failed three days in a row, but eventually went through after Democrats nearly forced an all-night session. Republicans claim they won some concessions, though. While Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, who’s been working with bill mastermind Christopher Dodd, says he still disagrees with many parts of the bill, but has been promised that Republican amendments would be considered. So that’s something. source

• Harry Reid’s Nevada seat is currently listed as “toss-up.” The Washington Post put together this huge map suggesting what’s happening with all of the major Congressional races this year. There are a LOT of toss-up states in the Senate alone. Is it enough to switch the balance of power significantly? We’ll see. source

• I hope tomorrow we can get those votes; we may not, but I hope we do because we need to move forward.
• Sen. Christopher Dodd • Regarding his push for a financial reform bill. He hopes to pull at least one Republican over with a bipartisan bill. Sen. Richard Shelby is currently working with him to make it happen. For what it’s worth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks it’s going to happen. “We don’t have a bipartisan compromise yet, but I think there’s a good chance we’re going to get it,” he says. source

• Dude paid some big bills at a fairly bad time to pay big bills. The former New York congressman, who left in a storm of scandal, tickling and general idiocy, paid off nearly $70,000 in bills (including to a campaign manager) in the days after he left office. So that’s getting investigated. On top of that drama, House Ethics Committee thinks his case is worthy of its own investigative SUBCOMMITTEE. You’d think he hit on some pages over IM or something. source

• I didn’t need a secret memo from Mr. Gates to ascertain that. We do not have a coherent policy… We have to be willing to pull the trigger on significant sanctions.
• Sen. John McCain • Speaking on Fox News Sunday this morning. The senator claims that the secret memo leaked by the New York Times yesterday merely states the obvious. He wants to push for more sanctions, saying the U.S. has long held a loaded gun at Iran’s head but has been afraid to “pull the trigger.” Somebody likes using metaphors to get his point across! source

• $40,000 check just as Massa quit source