Media darling Sen. Barak Obama, who says he might consider a 2008 presidential run, has hit a rough spot on personal ethics.

Jane at Firedoglake has some thoughts on this, and says "the bloom is off the rose."

Finally, someone makes some sense on Howard Dean. The Hotline's Marc Ambinder:

Three years ago, Howard Dean-style politics was too outré for the Democratic Party to bear. Today, arguably, Dean Politics is Democratic politics. Embedded within Dean's campaign theme was a broad critique of the Republican approach to power. Iraq was simply its worst manifestation. But Dean also evinced his distaste with Republican "corruption." He talked about how Democrats - and independents and even Republicans -- were interested in results, not ideology. In his eyes, Americans wanted a fresh approach. He urged, first Democrats, then Americans, to take their country back. . . .

Leave the Internet aside: the architecture of Dean Politics has become the de mode style for the entire party. Dean promoted a vocal, confrontational style of campaigning, one that did not cede an inch to Republicans. His primary campaign was predicated on a 50 state strategy. He urged Democrats to adopt issues that would drive wedges between the Republican base and the party’s weaker adherents (mostly in the suburbs). He rejected the politics of inoculation, pronouncing himself proud to be the talisman of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He intuited that the party (and voters) wanted the Democrats to be the opposition party.

. . . [G]ive Dean credit for setting the tone and style of Democratic politics. Successful, Democratic politics, that is, in an environment that Dean first detected three years ago.

This is what we were talking about. (I was not a Dean supporter for President, but for DNC Chair.) Opposing. Fighting. Standing up. This is what Dean embodied and what the Netroots urged. Good for Ambinder. H/T atrios.

If you thought you've seen the end of Senator Trent Lott, think again.

In 2002, Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) was forced to step down as Senate Majority Leader after he made racist comments implying he was in favor of segregation at a birthday party for former Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), who once ran for President on a segregationist platform.

Monday night, Lott announced his plan to run for Minority Whip, which would place him in the number two position among Senate Republicans. Although Lott has remained quiet about his intention to seek a leadership position, The Hill newspaper noted, "Few on Capitol Hill would second-guess Lott's prowess at backroom maneuvering."

The Hill has the story.

On Sunday, Contessa of MSNBC and I discussed whether the Dems can deliver on their promises in Congress and on Russ Feingold's statement he won't run for President in 2008.

The LA Times has an interesting article about the expectations of progressive groups, members of which worked hard for the Dems in the election and are expecting action, not compromise, on their issues. Among them: the repeal of the worst provisions of the Patriot Act.

Turning off those new voters could undermine Democrats' hopes of solidifying their new majorities and taking the White House in 2008. But to the leaders of interest groups who are core supporters of the Democratic Party, and who had been barred under Republican rule from the inner sanctums of power, the new Congress means a time for action, not compromise.

"We are not going to let them off the hook," said Caroline Fredrickson, the ACLU's legislative director, of the newly empowered Democratic leaders in Congress. "We will hold their feet to the fire and use all the tools we can to mobilize our members."

Other issues and groups with high expectations:

In some ways, it is unfortunate that the Media is waking up to the silliness of their "Conservative" Dems meme. But they are. And Jon Tester is leading the way:

For all the talk about the new Democrats swept into office on Tuesday, the senator-elect from Montana truly is your grandfather's Democrat -- a pro-gun, anti-big-business prairie pragmatist whose life is defined by the treeless patch of hard Montana dirt that has been in the family since 1916.

It is a place with 105-degree summer days and winter chills of 30 below zero, where his grandparents are buried, where his two children learned to grow crops in a dry land entirely dependent on rainfall, and where, he says, he earned barely $20,000 a year farming over the last decade.

. . . "You think of the Senate as a millionaire's club -- well, Jon is going to be the blue-collar guy who brings an old-fashioned, Jeffersonian ideal about being tied to the land," said Steve Doherty, a friend of Mr. Tester's for 20 years. "He's a small farmer from the homestead. That's absolutely who he is. That place defines him."

Paul Krugman also understands. More on the flip.

Connecticut voted for the Iraq Debacle. Anyone who saw Joe Lieberman on Meet the Press today must accept this.

He joined McCain in calling for more U.S. troops in Iraq.

Oh by the way, he also did not rule out caucusing with the Republicans though he said he was going to caucus with the Dems. It is Joe Lieberman doubletalk. But to be fair, he was pretty dismissive of the idea of caucusing with the GOP after that. He realized I think that his two-facedness was TOO obvious. He would need some excuse first.

Timmah was funny in that he challenged Lieberman to demand certain action for his support. Joe hemmed and hawed and said he was not going to do that.

The transcript will be available here.

Update [2006-11-12 13:35:43 by Big Tent Democrat]: atrios thinks the Iraq Study Group will say either double down, more troops, or bug out. And that Dems will be forced to acquiesce to doubling down.

I don't know what ISG is going to do, but more troops is politically untenable. It is a nonstarter. Any fool that signs on to that will be voted out in 2008. I completely disagree with Atrios. The Dems will NOT go along with that. Heck, no one will.

In a 7 page feature article subtitled "A Portrait in Power",The Chicago Tribune examines Rahm Emanuel's role in the Democratic victory on election day.

During the past year, the Tribune had exclusive access to the strategy sessions, private fundraisers and other moments that shaped this victory. The newspaper agreed not to print any of the details until after the election. Now that the votes have been counted, the story of how Emanuel helped end an era of Republican rule can be told.

He did it, in large measure, by remaking the Democratic Party in his own image.

I don't think any one person was responsible for the Democrat's win. I'm sure Howard Dean, Charles Schumer and Rahm Emanuel, as Chairs of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Demcoratic Congressional Committee, as well as the netroots, all played a part.

The article is a major puff piece for Emanuel. As to his basic strategy:

In response to Greg Sargent's strong piece on the lesson of 2006 on Iraq, Ed Kilgore tries to rewrite the DLC history of support for Bush's Iraq Debacle. First Sargent:

Early on, anyone who suggested that Dems shouldn't be afraid to call for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq or to oppose President Bush on wiretapping or torture was subjected to a steady stream of withering scorn from allegedly in-the-know pundits. Those who backed Ned Lamont's antiwar candidacy were dismissed by David Broder and others in the D.C. opinionmakers guild as crazy, extreme, beneath contempt. In one typical example last February, Marshall Wittman charged that opposition to Bush's warrantless wiretapping program showed that "the Democratic Party is increasingly under the influence of modern day McGovernites," warning: "Let's get serious." It's a good thing indeed that Dems didn't heed the advice from Wittman and others that they get "serious," now isn't it.

That is exactly right. Kilgore tries to rewrite history.

I was reading WaPo's writeup on Jim Webb and it provides two perfect examples of the silliness of the Media and its labels and David Broder's independent centrism. First this:

Webb, a former Republican and Reagan administration official, said he might be a bit of a maverick in the Senate, which could frustrate Democratic leaders who poured more than $6 million into his campaign. "I have my own views, and I have a lot of experiences, and I think I can bring the experiences I had to issues rather than having to read off a party briefing sheet," Webb said Friday in an interview.

Of course that is true, but Webb became a Democrat because he agreed with Dem positions. He is an economic populist who is against the Iraq War. The word maverick, also applied stupidly to John McCain, shows how dumb this all is - Webb disagrees with McCain on virually EVERY issue, but they are both mavericks? It is so symptomatic of the Media that rather than look at positions on issues all they can think of is in terms of labels.

It is pretty funny that the Media is trying to turn the Democratic Party into the conservative party and I am all for it. But they have run into a tough reality - the common theme of Democrats is economic populism:

[M]any of these freshmen Democrats are hard to pigeonhole ideologically. Even among the most socially conservative, there is a strong streak of economic populism that is a unifying force.

It's as if William Jennings Bryan won. I am a free trader so this is not really good news for my economic views, but facts are facts.

Kevin Drum does some very good work here:

Why do I keep writing about the exit polls? Because of stories like this from the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman:

Religious liberals contended that a concerted effort by Democrats since 2004 to appeal to people of faith had worked minor wonders, if not electoral miracles, in races across the country. . . .

Once more with feeling: in the the overall national vote, Democrats picked up 5 percentage points compared to 2004.

. . . Among weekly churchgoers they picked up 3 points.

Among white evangelicals they picked up 3 points. . . .

All true. But Kevin, Dems won independents by 18 points and that was NOT a coincidental swing. It was the Politics of Contrast. Good show on this. But don't understate the importance of the Indy swing.

See also digby.