Whether it’s Republicans begging New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) to run for president or President Obama being forced to simultaneously reassure and reprimand his base over the weekend, The Note points out, “The overall restiveness of voters out there should not be underestimated.”

“When almost 80 percent of voters say they believe the country is on the wrong track and more Americans than ever identify themselves as independents the major parties have to recognize that the same-old, same-old campaign strategies just aren’t going to cut it this time. We’ve also been struck by the number of seasoned campaign pros who are convinced that this will be the year where a strong third party candidate will emerge. Let the speculation continue.”

Prepare for another day of chatter about whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) will run for president. But this video compilation is pretty much all you need to see to know he’s unlikely to run.

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A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania finds that by a 52% to 40% majority, voters want to continue the state’s current winner-take-all Electoral College system, rather than switch to a system proposed by Republicans where Electoral College votes are awarded based on the winner in each congressional district.

Voters say by a 57% to 32% that Republicans want to switch to a district-by-district count to help Republican presidential candidates, rather than to better reflect the will of the voters.

Sarah Palin suggested to Fox News that being president might be too limiting:

“Does a title shackle a person? Are they — someone like me, maverick, you know, I do go rogue, and I call it like I see it, and I don’t mind stirring it up…. is a title and is a campaign too shackling? Does that prohibit me from being out there, out of the box, not allowing handlers to shape me?”

Florida “is expected to move its presidential primary to the last day in January 2012, a move likely to throw the carefully arranged Republican nominating calendar into disarray and jumpstart the nominating process a month earlier than party leaders had hoped,” CNN reports.

“If that happens, it would almost certainly force the traditional early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada to leapfrog Florida and move their primaries and caucuses into early- to mid-January.”

Ben Smith: “Florida’s likely decision to move its primary into late January will strain the RNC’s
carefully-constructed primary calendar. It could produce total chaos; or
it could just bump the process forward a few weeks, leaving it in
similar shape.”

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (D) said the country should suspend congressional elections for two years “so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election,” the Raleigh News and Observer reports.

Said Perdue: “I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”

Update: Was Perdue joking, as her staff now claims? Audio of her remarks was just posted.

The Concord Monitor reports that mayoral candidate John Cook spent a night in jail “after he was charged with disorderly conduct and exposing himself to two Concord police officers.”

“Cook has had three run-ins with the Concord police in recent years that have led to criminal charges, including a 2005 incident when he allegedly kicked two police officers as they took him to Concord Hospital while he was ‘heavily intoxicated,’ according to court records.”