New York Times:
“If there was still any thought that President Obama and Senator John
McCain might eventually move past their once-bitter White House rivalry
toward a cooperative governing agenda, it was all but dashed on
Wednesday.”

Politico: “There’s a new gang of senators who ran their campaigns as unabashed progressives and won… But the question in a divided Senate is whether the new liberals will be hard-liners who refuse to compromise with the tea party types on the other side of the aisle or negotiators, like Kennedy, who made deals with Republicans ranging from Ronald Reagan to Rep. John Boehner to George W. Bush. In the modern Senate, it’s a lot harder to do the kind of work that won Kennedy fans on the Republican side.”

Sen.-elect Angus King (I-ME) said that he could announce a decision on which caucus to join in time for tomorrow’s party leadership elections, Roll Call reports.

While King is widely expected to caucus with the Democratic majority, he still has not ruled out joining the Republicans.

Politico: “Angus King is gunning for a seat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, using his leverage as the potential 55th vote for Democrats in a bid to win a spot that would otherwise be off-limits for a newly elected freshman.”

“The chances are good, but not guaranteed, that Elizabeth Warren will secure a highly coveted seat on the Senate Banking Committee, a move that would dramatically elevate her campaign against Wall Street excess,” Reuters reports.

Warren “is a logical fit
for the committee, even though it is rare for a freshman senator
to get such a plum assignment.”

CNBC: “If Warren is kept off Banking the official rationale will be that she lacked the seniority to land a seat on committee… But don’t be fooled by formalism. The seniority rule is informal and could, of course, be waved to seat Warren on banking. It’s really up to Reid as Senate Majority leader to make committee assignments. If he wants Warren on the committee, she gets the seat. If she doesn’t want her on the committee, she won’t. This is a matter of discretion.”

Wonk Wire: The anti-banker joins the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was taken to the emergency room at University Medical Center in Las Vegas following a traffic accident, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.

A Las Vegas police spokesman said Reid was the only person transported to the hospital, mainly for “minor rib injuries.”

Former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) has died at age 82, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

“On Monday mornings when I get up, I get up about 4:30 to catch a flight to come back up here. And I’ve noticed that I have an attitude problem, I don’t want to come anymore. And the reason I don’t want come anymore is because we’re not doing anything to address the real problems that are in front of our country.”

— Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), quoted by ABC News on the Senate floor.

Nate Silver‘s latest forecast has the odds of Democrats retining control of the U.S. Senate after November’s election — either by having at least 50 seats and the presidency, or 51 without it — have increased in recent weeks to a 70% chance.

“The trend toward Democrats is a relatively recent one. Part of the shift may reflect the bounce President Obama received from the Democratic convention… But our analysis also suggests that the Democratic advantage has probably been building over the past few weeks, and may not have any one root cause. Instead, Republicans risk death by a thousand cuts, with a gradual deterioration in their standing in several important races, and their inability to field optimal candidates in others.”

Former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), who survived a brain tumor and non-Hodgkins lymphoma, is ailing from another form of cancer that flared up several weeks ago, according to CNN.

Several sources tell the Allentown Morning Call that Specter is very sick.

The New York Times looks at the political evolution of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

“Absent is the maverick who bucked his party on the environment and campaign finance, and verbally towel-snapped Republicans and Democrats alike on the Senate floor. Gone, too, is the far-right leaning Mr. McCain of 2010, who found himself in a primary fight back home that caused him to retreat from his stances on immigration and global warming.”

“Mr. McCain instead appears to have entered Version 3 of his long and multipronged Senate career — partisan warrior and party stalwart. He takes to the Sunday TV talk shows, the Senate floor and the Capitol hallways that are filled with more reporters than mosquitoes at a garden party to press his party’s agenda on taxes, military spending and national security.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told TPM that new revelations about Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital mean he’d have trouble gaining U.S. Senate approval for pretty much any appointed job.

Said Reid: “He not only couldn’t be confirmed as a cabinet secretary, he couldn’t be confirmed as dog catcher.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was asked whether he plans to bring the Dream Act to a vote in an effort to get Republican senators on record on the immigration issue.

His response: “I don’t want to answer that question. That’s a clown question, bro.”

Reid, of course, was repackaging a comment made last week by Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper that quickly went viral.

[Read more…]

Many assume Angus King (I) would caucus with Democrats if elected to the U.S. Senate because he also supports President Obama for re-election, but the former Maine governor tells USA Today he hasn’t made a decision.

Said King: “I don’t know why they’re making that assumption. It’s all going to depend on what the situation is when I get there, and that will depend to some extent on what the numbers are… I might be able to make a pretty good arrangement that will allow me to maintain a significant amount of independence in exchange for one vote, perhaps, to organize the Senate. In other words, if all I have to do is vote once to organize the Senate and establish the majority leader and then I’m a free agent, that might be the way to do it.”

Joshua Green: “Let’s take only the Obama presidency. Had the filibuster not applied,
the United States would have a market-based system to control carbon
emissions, which would limit the damage from global warming, vitalize
the clean technology sector, and challenge other large polluters like
China and India to do the same. The new health care law would have a
public option. Children of undocumented immigrants who served two years
in the military or went to college could become US citizens. Women paid
less than their male colleagues because of their gender would have
broader legal recourse against their employers. Billionaires would not
be able to manipulate the political system from behind a veil of
anonymity.”

A video shows Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) received a less-than-hospitable reception at the Alaska Republican Party Convention as she tried to introduce Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY).

Alaska Dispatch: “Murkowski has faced some tough crowds in the past, particularly in 2010 when she was running for re-election against Joe Miller in the midst of a tea party uprising. But all of that was supposedly behind her. Her win in an historic write-in campaign against Miller seemed to take the wind out of the tea party movement in Alaska. For various reasons, like Alaska’s weird economy and geography, the tea party wasn’t gaining as much ground as in other states. That all seemed to change as Murkowski stood before her fellow Republicans at the Hilton in downtown Anchorage on Friday.”

[Read more…]

“The most articulate and talented teleprompter reader in America.”

— Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), quoted by the New York Times, mocking President Obama in 2010.

“I left my last page of the speech, does anyone have my last page? Did I Ieave it with you?”

— Rubio, while giving a speech today at the Brookings Institution.

[Read more…]

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) teaches a political science class at Florida International University in Miami “on Mondays and Fridays, when the Senate is typically off (a workload that provides its own instruction on how Washington operates),” the Tampa Bay Times reports.

“Rubio does not dish Senate gossip or inveigh against President Barack Obama, as he often does in his other job. His lectures are in every sense academic, students say, only drawn from real-time experience.”

A video shows Rubio teaching a class “on why political compromise is so elusive.”

[Read more…]

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) told WPRI-TV that when he was a Republican U.S. Senator he ate lunch each week with four other GOP moderates: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Jim Jeffords of Vermont and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. They referred to themselves as “the Mod Squad.”

“In 2001, Jeffords left the party to caucus with the Democrats. In 2006, Chafee lost his seat to Sheldon Whitehouse after a primary challenge from the right. In 2009, Specter switched parties and went on to lose his first Democratic primary. And on Tuesday, Snowe shocked Washington by announcing her retirement… The last remaining member is Collins, who was re-elected in 2008.”