The headline: "Mitch McConnell Lost His Testicles and Now Infects the Senate GOP with a Cancer"

The first sentence: "Allow me to be blunt."

Is there anything more to say?

It's a little outside our usual realm, but this article from the Atlantic (hat tip to Greater Greater Washington for pointing this out), really touches on a lot of the same things I've been talking about in my series on Building a Voter File:

Just a few days after Apple’s iPhone launched, a trip planner for the San Francisco Bay Area’s subway system, BART, appeared in the iTunes application store, which sells iPhone and iPod software for download. User reviews were mixed. But I was still floored. How could a local government agency move so quickly?

Turns out, it didn’t. In 2007, Google engineers asked public-transit agencies across the country to submit their arrival and departure data in a simple, standard, open format—a text file, basically, with a bunch of numbers separated by commas—so Google Maps could generate bus and subway directions. A handful of agencies, including BART, decided to go a step further and publish that raw data online. Once they did that, any programmer could grab the data and write a trip planner, for any platform.

The whole article goes on to discuss some potential impacts of open APIs on government agencies and how the public could use their data.  It gives you hope, no? Read the whole thing.

Appropos of Dirty D's post, there were a few major developments on the DNC/organizing front today.  First of all, WaPo reports that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine will head the DNC; he will work part-time from Richmond until January of 2010, with day-to-day operations being overseen by Edwards and Obama staffer Jennifer O'Malley-Dillon.  Secondly, Marc Ambinder has a post that lays out an expanded role for the DNC in field organizing ("the fifty-state strategy on steroids") as well as some staffing changes for the future iterations of Obama for America.  Both are worth reading in their entireity.

An interesting request from the Next Right:

An open question to readers and other bloggers: What policy should Republicans be advocating and pursuing to limit government and regain popular support?

Bear in mind, I'm not asking what pie-in-the-sky policies you would like to see, or what "principle" you would love to see enacted.  I am asking for policy proposals that would be...

• Electorally viable (i.e., it would help win elections)
• Relevant to current issues (i.e., the electorate and public officials would prioritize it)
• Focused on fixing the structural problems that create bigger and more costly government

Suggestions right now are all over the map, ranging from the semi-comical ("Revive the Brilliant Pebbles program to defend against an Iranian electromagnetic pulse attack!") to the usual warmed-over red meat ("Drill here, drill now, pay less") to honest-to-god thoughtful self criticism ("Taking about fiscal restraint, balanced budgets, or lower spending will not affect a single election after the incomptence of the Bush Admnistraiton and the Republicans in Congress.")  Overall it's an interesting read, and I'm glad that Henke wants to engage in that conversation, even if I hope he doesn't get anything useful from it.

UPDATE: On the other hand, I can see Yglesias' point although I think he overstates it a little.

This summary of all the reasons that the GOP is in a deep hole and won't be climbing out anytime soon--from Tom Edsall at the Huffington Post--is sure to fill you with holiday cheer.

OK, maybe your version of holiday cheer doesn't mean "revelling in the destruction of your enemies".  Don't judge my family! I had an almost normal childhood!

Via Steve Benen, Politico is reporting that the RNC will launch an in-house think tank to get its policy groove back:

The think tank will be called the Center for Republican Renewal, and it has been mentioned as part of RNC Chairman Mike Duncan's platform for reelection, but was begun shortly after the election as a new RNC office, separate from the campaign, a Republican official said.

Though Washington has many conservative think tanks, many inside the party and the conservative movement viewed November's failures as, in part, a product of stale ideas, and like the Democrats after 2000, some in the GOP have called for a revival of the conservative intellectual infrastructure.

Read more...

Of the people who say that they are undecided in a poll, how many are really undecided, and how many will claim to be undecided while secretly leaning one way or another? Even the respondents might not know for sure, but some Canadian psychology researchers have applied a fascinating way to find out (h/t to the Frontal Cortex):

This is the first installment of what promises to be an extremely interesting series by Jay at RealClearPolitics.   It takes a detailed geographic look at the opposing Democratic and Republican coalitions in Ohio, and gives a summary of who these people are and what they're voting for.  Later entries will address other swing states.  Definitely worth checking out if you're a political junkie.

Admin Update: Two of us have actually given this guy $8.34. Who says blogs aren't effective?

I'll be back later with a more substantive post, but I thought that this comic was appropos, especially panel 5.