Here's some more for you on Rudy Giuliani's preparations to sell himself to social and religious conservatives, which we wrote about below. Terence Jeffrey, the editor of the conservative weekly Human Events, has dug up some old quotes from Rudy on abortion and same-sex marriage, and in a piece called "Forget It, Rudy," Jeffrey concludes that Rudy doesn't have prayer, as it were, of surviving the GOP primary:

He has no chance of winning the Republican nomination, and, even if he did, he would not make a good president. His views on core cultural issues are too radical.

Giuliani is not just pro-abortion, he is pro-partial-birth abortion. He has not flinched from defending the legality of the gruesome practice that the late Democratic Sen. Patrick Moynihan of New York described “as close to infanticide.”

“I am pro-choice. I’m pro-gay rights,” Giuliani said in 1999, when he was contemplating a Senate campaign. When a reporter asked if he at least favored a ban on partial-birth abortion, Giuliani said, “No, I have not supported that, and I don’t see my position on that changing.”

Giuliani’s pro-gay rights position is so extreme, he advocated stripping away the special legal status of traditional marriage. In 1998, he pushed a municipal ordinance that wiped out all distinctions between married and unmarried couples in New York City law, regardless of their gender. The late Cardinal John O’Connor gave a sermon from the pulpit of Saint Patrick Cathedral condemning Giuliani’s proposal. “It is imperative, in my judgment,” said the Cardinal, “that no law be passed contrary to natural moral law and Western tradition by virtually legislating that marriage does not matter.”

Giuliani did not back down. “What it really is doing is preventing discrimination against people who have different sexual orientations, or make different preferences in which they want to lead their lives,” he told the New York Times in response to O’Connor’s sermon.

Giuliani understood the link between allowing people to urinate on the streets with impunity and New York City’s overall decline. Outside New York, on the Republican campaign trail, he is sure to meet many voters who understand that his positions on abortion and marriage do to our national culture exactly what the street people and pub crawlers did to New York.

As noted below, Giuliani is telling his big-bucks fundraisers that his positions on these issues are not as black and white as they've been made out to be. But those above quotes are nothing if not black and white, so it will be interesting indeed to see how he goes about persuading people to see shades of gray in them.

Dem Gov. John Lynch, re-elected with 74% of the vote this year, will not be running for Senate in 2008, the Manchester Union Leader reports. Had he run, he would likely have been the strongest possible Democratic candidate.

First-term GOP Sen. John E. Sununu might still be in danger, though — this year's elections saw a full-scale Democratic takeover of what was once the New England region's Republican stronghold.

Here's another interesting nugget about Rudy Giuliani's big rollout of his new big-bucks fundraising team that we mentioned earlier today. In the Times's piece today on this, there's a description of a private meeting where Rudy told his new fundraisers why his social liberalism wasn't as big a liability in a GOP primary as it seemed:

In interviews, several of [Rudy's new fundraisers] said the former mayor had discussed his potential liabilities in a Republican primary — perhaps the greatest being his liberal views on social issues like abortion and gay rights.

“Certainly one of the first questions that was asked was how his views on things like gun control and pro-choice and gay marriage would affect the views of the party in terms of nominating him,” Mr. Immergut said.

“He talked specifically about what his views on those issues were, and he said that his own view was that when he was able to engage in conversations with party members who were more on the right, they could understand that his views were not as black and white as they had been painted.”

Mr. Immergut added, “He said that for many important issues, his views would be right in sync with the huge majority of Republicans.”

Translation: Giuliani is laying the groundwork to make the case to social conservatives that he isn't the social liberal he's been made out to be. Maybe he'll blame the liberal media for painting him as a liberal, or something.

Seriously, Rudy's impending effort to pull off a convincing ideological self-transformation is going to form one of the more interesting storylines to watch as we move into the Presidential race. As someone who's seen him up close undergoing previous political mutations over the years, I can tell you that he's way better at distancing himself from the reality of his own past -- and sounding awfully sincere in the process -- than many people might think. So: Will the big news orgs hold Giuliani accountable for his own past statements and positions on issues important to GOP primary voters, or will his designation by the media as an "independent" Republican who allegedly says what he thinks earn him the same kind of hands-off treatment the big pundits and commentators have tended to grant to fellow "straight-talker" John McCain? We'll find out soon enough.

Here's a rundown of the latest developments in the yet-to-be officially decided House races:

Fl-13: Problems still abound in this district, where about 15 percent of all Sarasota County voters using touch-screen machines didn't register a choice in the Congressional race. Lawyers for Dem Christine Jennings recently complained that GOPer Vern Buchahan is purposely stalling the audit of the voting machines by failing to offer up his an expert to participate in the process. A manual recount is underway, but the audit by the state is Jennings only real chance to successfully contest the election. Paul Kiel has more on this race over at TPMMuckraker.

LA-02: The runoff election between two Democrats, Rep. William Jeffereson and Karen Carter, will occur on Dec. 9.

NC-08: GOP Rep. Robin Hayes' lead over Dem Larry Kissell narrowed to 400 votes Friday after six counties reported official election results. Four more counties still need to report their official results. The Hayes campaign has petitioned for the majority of provisional ballots to be thrown out.

NM-01: Republicans are again claiming victory for Rep. Heather Wilson as the final tally is expected to be finished Friday afternoon.

OH-02: Local boards of elections will begin counting more than 8,200 provisional ballots on Monday. Democrats are complaining that confusion of voter ID laws will cause many votes to not be counted.

OH-15: The final count will be delayed until Nov. 27 because of new rules for counting provisional ballots. About 19,500 absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted in the district. GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce currently leads Dem Mary Jo Kilroy by 3,536 votes.

TX-23: The runoff election between GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla and Dem Ciro Rodriguez has not been officially scheduled yet, but will occur no sooner than Dec. 12.

WY-AL: Dem Gary Trauner has officially decided against seeking a recount solidifying GOP Rep. Barbara Cubin's victory.

For a complete look at all the results of the midterms, check out TPM's Election Central Scoreboard here.

Even as the big news orgs today were all over the story of how allegedly divided and dysfunctional the Democrats are, some Republicans were saying some pretty divisive-sounding stuff this morning about new GOP House Minority Leader-elect John Boehner and whip-elect Roy Blunt, both of whom were elected today:

“It’s going to be difficult for people outside the Beltway to believe we’re for reform…We’re going to need to have some stark contrasts" with the Democrats come January, Flake said, adding that he’s "worried" the new leadership team won’t provide that.

In other words, Flake was saying that Boehner and Blunt make the party look corrupt. The Republicans are pretty divided, too, it seems.

In a move that would seem to further indicate he is preparing a run for President in 2008, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been aggressively courting top fundraisers for President Bush known as "Pioneers" and "Rangers."

"I can't tell you the number of people who have called me and said, 'Mitt's called me,' " one major GOP fundraiser told the Boston Globe. If he were to run, Romney would join former NYC Mayor Rudy Giulliani, Sen. John McCain, Rep. Duncan Hunter and former WI Gov. Tommy Thompson in the expanding GOP fold.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on a new ad being run in Pennsylvania by the pro-choice, moderate Republican group “Real Republican Majority.” The ad asks the question, “What is the Republican Party today?” It then contrasts Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan with the likes of Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell, and Rick Santorum. The group bought the ad time before the election, banking on a defeat of Santorum and Republicans in general.

The original version of the ad featured local favorites Arlen Specter and Tom Ridge among the moderate heroes of the Republican Party. But in the end neither man wanted to be associated with the group or its message and both were dropped from the final cut. In a letter to the group Mr. Specter stated, "I do not want to be associated with any advertisement that criticizes our fellow Republicans."

Representative-Elect Hank Johnson may have added a brand-new order of business to freshman orientation: assuring Capitol Hill Police that they won't get punched. Johnson — who defeated Cynthia McKinney in the Democratic primary — had just such an encounter with the same policeman whose altercation with McKinney ended her career, the Associated Press reports. Johnson told the AP that after apologizing on behalf of his constituents for any embarrassment the incident may have caused the officer, he also added, "I told him if he ever asked me to comply, that I would, that he wouldn't have to worry about that." Good to know.

Rudy Giuliani has taken another step forward towards his Presidential run, assembling a team of fundraisers drawn in part from George W. Bush's fundraising circles, the Associated Press reports. He's enlisted billionaire Texas oil mogul T. Boon Pickens, a longtime Bush and GOP contributor who's given $3 million to the Swift Boat Vets, Dallas billionaire Tom Hicks, and Anne Dickerson, a longtime Bush fundraiser who will be Giuliani's national fundraising director. According to the AP, Giuliani held a meeting with his new committee of fundraisers in New York on Wednesday. Somehow we don't think it's a coincidence that Giuliani's camp leaked word of his new financial team late yesterday -- that is, when John McCain was giving two speeches that the national press is billing as the opening shot of McCain's Presidential bid.

Sue Kelly has finally given up and conceded defeat to rock-star-turned-Congressman-elect John Hall, says the Poughkeepsie Journal. After a court-mandated tally of all oustanding paper ballots, Hall held a lead of 4,300 votes. Hall was at first seen as a long shot, but he enjoyed high-profile backing from the likes of Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle and Nancy Griffith, helping him to raise the money and earn the media attention that enabled him to win a crowded primary and subsequently oust Kelly.

Election Central has just obtained a letter that has been sent by the conservative Blue Dog Coalition of Dems to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging that she back Rep. Jane Harman to chair the Intelligence Committee.

As the panel's ranking Dem, Harman is the logical choice for the Intel committee. But Pelosi -- who failed today in her bid to install Jack Murtha as House Majority Leader over the Blue Dog-backed Steny Hoyer -- appears to have been pushing Rep. Alcee Hastings for the Intel gig. The letter -- which was voted on and given the necessary 2/3 vote to make it an official Blue Dog position -- suggests that Pelosi may be about to get hit by another revolt against her pick by rank-and-file House members. The letter reads:

As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we are writing today to express our strong support for our colleague Congresswoman Jane Harman's appointment as Chair of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence...

We have given our full confidence to Congresswoman Harman to lead the Intelligence Committee and respectfully request that you do the same.

Full letter -- which you can view in our TPM Document Collection -- after the jump.

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Failed GOP Senate candidate Tom Kean, Jr., is mulling a second Senate run in 2008 against Dem Frank Lautenberg, according to The Hill. "He is not closing the door on that option," a Kean spokesman says. Kean lost to Dem Robert Menendez by eight points last Tuesday -- a fact that will no doubt be thrown at him by his '08 GOP Primary opponents should he actually decide to give it another try.

Another election postcript regarding religion: According to the National Catholic Register newspaper, the Dem victory was fueled in part by surprising gains by Dems among Catholic voters. The Catholic paper reports that Catholics—who make up 26% of the vote—went Democratic by more than ten points, 55%-44%. By contrast, in 2004 the Catholic vote was evenly split between the parties. In an interesting footnote, the paper also notes that the elections were a blow to the "pro-life" movement, though it finds a silver lining. "Republicans lost 18 members with mostly or all pro-life voting records," the paper says, "but it does not appear that many — if any — lost because they were pro-life."

Here's another interesting election postscript: A much-ballyhooed campaign by a group called the Republican Jewish Coalition to win Jewish voters to the GOP has proven to be a miserable flop, the Washington Jewish Week reports. The group — which includes former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer among its board members — made a great show earlier in the cycle of boasting that the GOP's pro-Likud stance would translate into huge gains among Jews. Didn't happen, though. National exit polls cited by the paper show that Democratic support among Jews went from 74% in 2004 to ... 87% in 2006. A message to the RJC from us here at Election Central: Mazel tov! View some of the RJC's lurid but wholly ineffective flyers after the jump.

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It looks as if the midterm elections may claim another casualty: The career of Johanna Goldsmith, the perky actress who said, "Harold, call me!" in the RNC's infamous "bimbo" ad. The actress tells the Houston Chronicle's political blog that she's worried that the ad will forever typecast her as an actress who plays...blond bimbos. "I can be serious," Goldsmith tells the Chronicle. "I can be a mom." As it happens, however, her next role, is not that of a mother. She'll be playing the trophy wife of an Italian mobster. As the Chronicle notes wryly: "No stereotype there."

Here's a pretty good indication of the sort of treatment Rudy Giuliani can expect from the big news orgs if he runs for President: It appears CNN has invented a new political category that Giuliani can call his own. From CNN:

McCain's name recognition can only be matched by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who filed papers with the Federal Election Commission to form a committee last week. The moderate conservative's performance in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks earned him praise and fame across the nation.

"Moderate conservative," eh? As TPM reader JG, who sent this in, puts it:

So now they've invented a new classifaction just for their sweetheart. He gets to be both a moderate and a conservative. This way, the conservatives are re-assured, as are the general public. Will they describe Hillary -- or any of the Democratic contenders -- as "moderate progressives"? Don't hold your breath.

Good idea. We won't.

Roll Call is reporting that Steny Hoyer has just been elected House Majority Leader:

Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.) has beaten Rep. John Murtha (Pa.) in the race for House Majority Leader for the 110th Congress. Hoyer received 149 votes, Murtha 86.

Update: The Associated Press confirms it:

House Democrats have chosen Rep. Steny Hoyer as House majority leader, the No. 2 leadership post, a Democratic spokeswoman said.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi was unanimously named speaker-elect by House Democrats earlier Thursday, the first woman set to take a post that constitutionally is second in line of succession to the presidency.

"We made history and now we will make progress for the American people," the Californian told members of the rank and file moments after her selection.

She vowed that after 12 years in the minority, "we will not be dazzled by money and special interests."...

Pelosi's remarks were relayed by officials inside the closed-door caucus.

In the wake of James Carville's assaults on Howard Dean, the Hotline now reports that Rahm Emanuel is moving to distance himself from Carville and patch things up with Dean:

According to sources in the DNC and DCCC, Emuanel called Dean this morning to distance himself from the tone and general tenor of Carville's remarks. In a short conversation, Emanuel acknowledged that he shared some of Carville's opinions about the DNC's priorities but said he did not share Carville's wish that Dean ought to be ousted as DNC chair.

Dean called Emanuel on election night, and the two had a friendly conversation, according to sources affiliated with both men.

When their schedules permit, Dean and Emanuel will meet privately to discuss their plans for the 2008 cycle. Both sides hope to reach, in advance, an understanding about how the Democratic party committees will fund state parties and candidate committees.

Also note the email from former DNC big Donnie Fowler: "Why should anyone want to mess with the team that won these remarkable results?" Er, yes. Why indeed?

Ah, signs of the Times. From the paper's front page, above the fold:

Not to quibble, but the term "fingerpointing" is generally ascribed to those who are trying to blame each other for losing, not those who are ascribing blame for not having won by an overwhelming enough margin.

Yesterday, it finally became official: The Dems pulled off a complete shutout over the Republicans, who didn't pick up a single governorship or seat in the House or Senate. This is now certifiably the case because Dem Rep. John Barrow has officially won reelection to his Georgia Congressional seat (though GOP challenger Max Burns could potentially seek a recount). All the remaining undecided races are for GOP-held seats. Incidentally, Georgia was one of the very few fronts where the GOP was eyeing potential pickups, because a recent redistricting made Barrow and fellow Georgia Dem Rep. Jim Marshall vulnerable. Dems have now won both races.

Update: Now it's really, really official. GOP candidate Burns is declining to seek a recount, according to CQ Politics.

It looks like it took only took a week for a casualty of 2006 to look ahead to 2008. The Manchester Union Leader reports that GOP Rep. Jeb Bradley, wiped out in the Dem wave that hit New Hampshire especially hard this year, is "in all likelihood" looking at a comeback bid in 2008. If Bradley goes ahead with it, it could provide a test scenario to see if this year's Dem takeover of historically-Republican New Hampshire is just a temporary shift or a full-scale realignment.

For those of you who've decided that the choice between Steny Hoyer and Jack Murtha for House Majority Leader isn't exactly a reassuring one, this won't make you feel any better. A press release from the good-government group Public Citizen touting the group's new comparison of the ethics records of Hoyer and Murtha has just landed in our in-box, and when you look at their records side by side, the overall effect is, to put it charitably, less than flattering to both men. More after the jump.

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With Chuck Schumer heading into a second term as DSCC head, who will be his new GOP adversary? Bob Novak predicts today that the job will go to Sen. John Ensign, R-NV. Novak says it's not a job anyone would want, given the likelihood of more GOP losses in the Senate in two years. "Ensign's skills will be put to the test mightily," Novak says. "Republicans' outlook in the Senate for 2008 is bleak."

Only two days after Rudy:

McCain making his Presidential exploratory committee official tomorrow, The Hotline says. McCain's new web site is here.

Update: Speaking of Rudy and Presidential ambitions, Ben Smith of The Daily Politics has an interesting take on why Giuliani chose to set up a New York State committee, rather than one with the FEC, thus limiting his fundraising ability:

Rudy's gamble in incorporating a state committee that doesn't have to report fundraising was that he could get a wave of national media attention without inviting unwelcome scrutiny.

He got the wave of attention, and his committee, because of the way it was incorporated, won't have to declare whether he's actually starting to raise the kind of huge money $50-$100 million by the end of next year is the estimate -- he'll need to run for president.

The decision to do it this way, however, also deepens his insider problem, the worry that he isn't, ultimately, going to run.

Democracy Corps, the polling firm of Stan Greenberg and Roberg Shrum, has just released an extensive analysis of the Dem victory, and it concludes that the election represented a watershed meltdown for the conservativism which has been dominant since 1994:

2006 was a meltdown election -- the meltdown of the Gingrich-Bush conservative model for politics and governance -- that gave Democrats control of both the House and Senate and a large majority of the governorships and state legislatures...

On November 7th, the American people voted not just against Republicans; they voted against their model for governance that got them bogged down in war, aligned with corrupt, special interests rather than people, and unable to govern competently on important issues.

Democracy Corps' full analysis here.

Here's under-the-rader story the blogosphere has missed: Congressman-Elect Steve Kagen, D-WI, officially has the first scandal of his political career: his son was caught at an airport screening with a marijuana pipe, but no actual marijuana. Oddly enough, Kagen is a doctor who ran on a platform of universal healthcare ... and easier access to drugs. We here at Election Central think this was obviously not what he intended.

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, hasn't even taken office yet, but he already appears to be charting his own route in Congress. The Associated Press reports that Ellison skipped a swanky private White House reception for other freshman Congressman hosted by President Bush -- and went to a reception for the AFL-CIO instead. "It wasn't even a close call," Ellison says. "Maybe one day I'll get to meet the president. He's the president, and I respect him in his role as the president, but I have exceedingly sharp differences with him on a policy level." Somehow we doubt that Ellison's complete lack of interest in hobnobbing with Bush will make him any more popular with his many conservative critics.

Election Central just spoke with a staffer for a Dem House member who supports Steny Hoyer for Majority Leader, and we got some decent perspective on the race. The staffer expects Hoyer to win by 10-20 votes, due to an established track record of working with members as Minority Whip. "He's proven his skills in listening to members, and working together with them." Also: Nancy Pelosi "wasn't seen to be too active" in supporting Jack Murtha after initially sending out the letter endorsing his candidacy, but the pace has picked up since then.

GOP Rep. Barbara Cubin has hung on to win a seventh term over Dem challenger Gary Trauner, the Associated Press is reporting. Though Cubin prevailed by just over 1,000 votes -- 93,336 to 92,324 -- it wasn't enough to trigger an automatic recount. Just for the heck of it, we're wallowing in a bit of nostalgia for sleazy GOP attack ads and bringing you a relic of the campaign -- an NRCC ad attacking Trauner for being from New York.

“It just doesn't sit well to have pictures out there of the future potential leader of our nation in a Marilyn Monroe wig and a strapless, beaded evening gown."

-- Pro-life activist Colleen Parro, quoted by Newsday, on the troubles a Rudy Giuliani Presidential bid might encounter among social and religious conservatives

Over at TPM we've been soliciting questions from readers for Steny Hoyer, the frontrunning candidate for House Majority Leader. You generously sent in a whole bunch of good questions, and we pulled out a few and posed them to Hoyer in an interview this morning. Here are Hoyer's answers:

TPM Reader RS:

The remarkable cohesiveness in the Democratic caucus over the last two years, particularly over Social Security, was the root of our success in this election. That momentum requires an incredible amount of support for our Leaders, Pelosi and Reid. We need to stick together now more than ever, and some of us are concerned that the Democrats in Washington have failed to learn that lesson. Murtha is known to support Pelosi whole-heartedly. What would you say to reassure those of us who are concerned that you may not throw your support as completely to Pelosi?

I have been very supportive in helping create the most unified Democratic Party in half a century. Nancy and I have created cohesion. That was critically important to our success and will be critically important as we move forward. It will certainly be my intention to do in coming years as I have done in the last four, that is, work very closely with Nancy Pelosi to create the cohesion that will be essential to the new direction of Congress and the Country.

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In what may be a preview of his own Presidential campaign strategy should he run, Newt Gingrich writes in the latest edition of his Winning The Future e-newsletter that in order to regain the majority, Republicans have to abandon the Bush White House. Gingrich:

Are House Republicans electing leaders to represent House Republican values and strategies to the White House or leaders to represent the White House to House Republicans? Over the next two years, House Republicans and the White House will have very different institutional interests and very different time horizons. If we want to regain majority status, we have to focus on the building of a grassroots coalition which supports real change in Washington.

Gingrich earned 7% in a recent Gallup poll of Presidential contenders. Gingrich's full "Open Memorandum to House Republicans" here.

Trent Lott's comeback from disgrace -- he was ousted as Senate Majority Leader in 2002 after a racially charged gaffe -- is official. CNN is reporting that Lott has been elected Senate Minority Whip by a single vote. So praising segregation is no longer a liability in today's GOP, as long as it happened a few years ago.

After a protracted and excrutiatingly tense recount, Dem Joe Courtney appears to have clinched a win in the race for Connecticut's Second District, ousting GOP Rep. Rob Simmons by all of 91 votes, the Associated Press is reporting. Courtney received word of his victory last night at dinner with other Dems in the Capitol, where he's already assumed the role of incoming Congressman, according to the Hartford Courant. "Courtney received a bear hug from Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the architect of the party's House victory," the Courant notes. "The closeness of the contest has spurred a new nickname for Courtney in Washington: 'Landslide Joe.'"

House Democrats are set to elect their new Majority Leader on Thursday via secret ballot. The race recently took a turn for the ugly over the last couple days, particularly for the brand-new batch of freshman lawmakers.

With the vote three days away, House speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made the unusual move of publicly endorsing John Murtha's (D-PA) bid for the post. Her own staff admitted the move was "risky" -- after all, a Murtha loss would leave the speaker-elect with egg on her face, before she even had the opportunity to take power.

On the other hand, if Murtha wins after Pelosi has publicly named him her man, she gets to be "a beautiful Margaret Thatcher," one Democratic lobbyist said: a strong-willed female leader who gets what she wants and isn't afraid to put her reputation on the line.

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Is Rudy 90 percent likely to run for Prez? Jason Horowitz of The Politicker blog has just spoken to Steve Malanga, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who says he's been in touch with Rudy Giuliani advisers, and Malanga claims that these Rudy types put the odds that Rudy will run at "90 percent":

"Having talked to some of the people in Rudy's administration, I think they give it up to 90 percent chance that he will run," said Malanga. "The odds seem to be in favor of it."

Malanga also offers up what will soon be the standard-issue spin from the Rudy camp as to why a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights Republican who advocated for putting corrupt former top-cop Bernard Kerik in charge of Homeland Security will be able to survive a GOP primary: The GOP's losses last Tuesday will make voters more receptive to an "independent" Republican like Rudy. "The far right, the Christian right, is likely to have less influence in the next election within the party," Malanga claims. "Moderates are going to be looking for a candidate with broader appeal."

The Steny Hoyer camp just sent out a release touting the support of nine ranking members of the House for Hoyer's bid to become House Majority Leader. Here are the nine:

REP. JOHN DINGELL: Ranking Member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Ranking Member on the House Government Reform Committee REP. BARNEY FRANK: Ranking Member on the House Financial Services Committee REP. TOM LANTOS: Ranking Member on the House International Relations Committee REP. JIM OBERSTAR: Ranking Member on the House Transportation Committee REP. BART GORDON: Ranking Member on the House Science Committee REP. IKE SKELTON: Ranking Member on the House Armed Services Committee REP. BENNIE THOMPSON: Ranking Member on the House Homeland Security Committee REP. JOHN SPRATT: Ranking Member on the House Budget Committee

For those of you who would rather pore over the minutia of Dem intraparty politics right now than go out to a bar for an after-work martini, we're bringing you the full text of the letter -- yes, all of it -- from the nine members to colleagues urging a vote for Hoyer. View it after the jump.

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Three days ago, Joe Lieberman said on Meet the Press that he couldn't rule out the possibility of flipping to the GOP. From the MSNBC transcript:

MR. RUSSERT: If in fact they ask for discipline in the Democratic caucus, and you start to feel uncomfortable with it, would you consider crossing across the—going across the aisle, and joining the Republicans, if they gave you the same chairmanship that you had, and respected your seniority?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah. Well, that’s a hypothetical, which I’m, I’m not going to deal with here. I’m going to be an optimist...I’m not ruling it out, but I hope I don’t get to that point.

Today, Lieberman encountered some of his Democratic colleagues, and it certainly doesn't appear that they're holding his comments against him. From a report just posted on CNN:

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who bolted the Democratic party after losing a primary election this year to run as an independent, won a standing ovation at a closed meeting of all Senate Democrats Tuesday.

Lieberman was introduced by Democratic Leader Harry Reid who, according to Lieberman, told his colleagues that, "families go through crisis but we survived and I just want to welcome back Joe Lieberman."

What do you make of this? That Lieberman's veiled threat is working? That senior Dems don't take his threat seriously in the least and think it's just empty posturing designed to get attention? That senior Dems never took the challenge to Lieberman by Ned Lamont and Connecticut Dem primary voters seriously? My money's on the latter two. What do you readers make of this?

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) cast himself as the "compromise candidate" between current Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and conservative upstart Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) on Monday. Speaking to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Barton said he is hoping for a second ballot in Friday's leadership elections, which he feels would increase his chances of winning. "I feel really, really good that there's going to be a second ballot," he told the paper. "I feel really, really good that I'm going to be on the second ballot and I feel really, really good that I'll do well on the second ballot."

Dem Patricia Madrid's hopes of ousting GOP Rep. Heather Wilson appear to be dwindling amid rising tensions surrounding the counting of the last votes in New Mexico's first district. Wilson leads by a mere 1,487 votes, but with election workers slogging their way through the remaining 3,756 provisional and absentee ballots and determining which are qualified and which aren't, Dems are conceding to the Albuquerque Tribune that they'd need to win an overwhelming majority of them to prevail. As the paper notes, tensions are rising around the legal ins-and-outs of the count -- and a final result isn't expected until Friday evening. More here.

Rep. Jim Moran's vow that Nancy Pelosi "will ensure" a win for John Murtha in the race for House Majority Leader has already gotten tons of attention today, but now Moran has made another little-noticed but equally curious promise of victory for Murtha. Moran is telling the Associated Press that Murtha is way ahead of rival Steny Hoyer with a whip count of 128-94. Of course, as the AP notes, promises of support from members shouldn't exactly be taken as iron-clad -- since they're made "by secret ballot, and it’s common for candidates to go into it confident of victory only to come away with a loss."

Senate Democrats elected their leadership for the 110th Congress today. Here are the results:

Harry Reid, elected as Majority Leader
Robert Byrd, elected as President Pro Tem
Dick Durbin, elected as Assistant Majority Leader
Barbara Boxer, elected as Chief Deputy Whip
Thomas Carper, elected as Deputy Whip
Bill Nelson, elected as Deputy Whip
Russ Feingold, elected as Deputy Whip
Charles Schumer, elected Vice Chair of the Conference
Patty Murray, elected Secretary of the Conference
Charles E. Schumer, elected Chairman of Campaign Committee
Byron L. Dorgan, elected Chairman of Policy Committee
Debbie Stabenow, elected Chair of Steering and Outreach Committee
Jeff Bingaman, elected Chairman of Committee Outreach
Hillary Rodham Clinton, elected Vice Chair of Committee Outreach
Blanche L. Lincoln, elected Chair of Rural Outreach

Meanwhile, the Hill notes that Hillary Clinton's decision to step down as head of the Democratic Steering Committee -- where she will be succeeded by Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow -- is "a move that clears the deck for her ambitions outside the Senate."

Gallup has just released an extensive analysis of its post-election polling data, and the polling outfit reaches a rather straightforward conclusion: Voters chose Dems because, well, they want Dems to run the country. From Gallup:

Data from the weekend USA Today/Gallup poll ratified the basic results of the election: Americans want Democrats to be in control.

Asked who they want to have more influence over the direction the nation takes in the next year, Americans by a two to one margin said the Democrats in Congress rather than Bush.

Gallup finds that 61% want Dems to have more influence over the country's direction, while 31% want President Bush to have more influence. In other interesting numbers, Gallup finds that the approval rating of the Democratic Party is 57%, as against 35% for the GOP. It also finds that while 48% of voters think the nation will be better off with Dems controlling Congress, only 16% think it'll be worse off. Gallup's full analysis here.

More twists and turns in the excrutiating recount of the vote in the race between Dem Joe Courtney and GOP Rep. Rob Simmons. From the Hartford Courant:

The roller coaster recount in the 2nd Congressional District took a sharp turn Monday afternoon when officials in one small eastern Connecticut town discovered an error that had given Democrat Joe Courtney 100 extra votes.

By nightfall, though, Courtney had gained back 40 of those votes due to the discovery of another error in another small town that had inflated the vote totals of his opponent, Republican incumbent Rob Simmons.

Later the same evening, a computation error in yet a third town gave Republicans an additional 31 votes, according to the state party chairman.

The latest: Courtney's lead now stands at 82 votes; a final decision (mercifully) is expected late tonight, when every community will have completed its recount.

Dem Darcy Burner has conceded defeat to GOP Rep. Dave Reichert in the fiercely fought battle for Washington's eighth district. Today's Seattle Times reports that Burner's decision came last night as Reichert extended his lead to a total of 4,727 with some 20,000 ballots uncounted. "Burner called Reichert on Monday night to congratulate him and will hold a news conference today in Bellevue," the Seattle Times says. "She had hoped for a miracle comeback, but her lead in King County evaporated Monday and she fell further behind Reichert in Pierce County." That leaves the total of undecided House races at nine.

Rudy Giuliani has just taken a first step towards a Presidential run, filing papers to set up an exploratory committee to raise money for a White House bid, the Associated Press has just reported:

The former mayor filed papers to create the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee, Inc., establishing a panel that would allow him to raise money for a White House run and travel the country.

The four-page filing, obtained by The Associated Press, lists the purpose of the non-profit corporation "to conduct federal 'testing the waters' activity under the Federal Election Campaign Act for Rudy Giuliani."

John McCain, who has already been designated by D.C. pundits as the chief competitor with Giuliani for the designation as leading "independent" and "maverick" GOP presidential candidate, is set to file papers for his exploratory committee this week. Looks like Giuliani beat him to it.

The election happened less than a week ago and Dems aren't set to take over Congress for over two months, but CNN is already reporting that Dems are "divided":

Actually, what's happening is known as an "election." Some Dems are backing one candidate for House Majority Leader; others are backing another candidate. And for what it's worth, the New Republic quote about Nancy Pelosi that CNN is blowing up so dramatically ran in December 2005 and was attributed to an unnamed source. It's also worth noting that Republicans are going through more leadership battles than Dems are -- yet CNN's chosen storyline is that Dems are "divided."

CNN is reporting that Florida GOP Senator Mel Martinez has accepted an offer to become head of the Republican National Committee. "Under the arrangement, Martinez will remain in office and serve as the party's lead spokesman as well as take a major role in fundraising and political outreach," CNN says, citing three unnamed sources. No statement yet from Martinez. More in a bit.

Update: Here's the Associated Press's story. The AP recalls Martinez's involvement in the Terri Schiavo fiasco, which revealed his (or at least his staff's) less-than-impeccable political judgment:

Martinez started slowly in the Senate where he was embarrassed by a one-page unsigned memo that originated in his office. Written by a Martinez aide and disavowed by Senate Republicans, the memo laid out the political benefits to getting involved in the fate of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose end-of-life battle became a rallying cry for conservatives.

"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo. Its author resigned.

So it looks as if there still remain up to 20,000 votes to count in the excrutiating race between GOP Rep. Dave Reichert and Dem Darcy Burner. According to the Seattle Times, up to 20,000 votes have yet to be counted because some 100 bags of absentee ballots went uncounted because of problems relating to the bags being overstuffed. That means more waiting for a final outcome. Though Reichert's lead now stands at 3,514, Burner tells the Seattle Times she's heartened by the outstanding ballots: "If you were going to have a Democrat win this district ... this would be the way it would play out," she said.

So here's our Election Central guide to the Dem leadership fights which have kicked in now that Dems have taken back both Houses of Congress. There's less intraparty battling going on right now among Dems than among Republicans, but there's a key fight to watch, of course, in the battle between Reps. Steny Hoyer and Jack Murtha for House Majority Leader. Check out our full roundup after the jump.

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A source close to Steny Hoyer is claiming to Election Central that "over 50" members are publicly backing Hoyer's bid for House Majority Leader. The Hotline, citing media accounts and sources, reports that Hoyer leads Rep. Jack Murtha in the leadership battle with "39 public commitments to Murtha's 15," and neither side is releasing lists, so make of the "over 50" claim what you will. Yesterday soon-to-be-House-speaker Nancy Pelosi threw her support behind Murtha, a move which the Hoyer camp claims was no surprise to anyone. More coming.

President Bush's approval rating has dipped to an abysmal 33% in a new U.S.A. Today/Gallup poll just released today. The number is lower than it's ever been during the Bush presidency save for last May, when it sank to 31%. One other post-election poll -- published by Newsweek on Nov. 11 -- also found Bush scraping bottom at 31%.

The ultra-tight race for Connecticut's second district just got a heck of a lot closer. Dem Joe Courtney has lost some 100 votes due to a newly-discovered vote-counting error in the ongoing recount of the contest between him and GOP Rep. Rob Simmons, Connecticut's Norwich Bulletin is reporting:

The town clerk announced that “human error” provided 100 extra votes to Democratic challenger Joe Courtney in the 2nd Congressional District, narrowing the margin of his lead to 65 votes over U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons.

One machine had 263 votes for Courtney, not 363, as recorded on election night, said Town Clerk Susan Coutu.

The total count for Courtney in Lebanon is 1,353 and 1,585 for Simmons, she said. “It was strictly human error,” Coutu said.

Thirty-five towns are set for a recanvassing today.

Courtney's previous lead of around 165 votes had led him to declare victory, but now his lead looks to have been shaved to 65. Updates on the other nine oustanding House races here.

The current Dem pickup stands at 28 House seats, with no losses and 10 races still undecided — and the latest is that no one has conceded their races since late last week. A full rundown of where the outstanding races stand right now after the jump.

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This is a good one. Rudy Giuliani, who's preparing to decide whether he'll seek the GOP Presidential nomination in 2008, is downplaying the Dem victory in the midterms and claiming the election was very close, the Associated Press is reporting:

Former New York mayor and possible 2008 presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani has downplayed the Democrats' US election sweep of last week, describing the outcome as "real close."

"I don't see this election, any more than the one two years ago or the one four years ago, as a defining election," the New York Times quoted Giuliani as saying over the weekend in a speech at Pennsylvania's Wilkes University.

Giuliani, who's looking to persuade GOP primary voters that his social liberalism shouldn't disqualify him from earning the party's nomination, aggressively campaigned and raised money on behalf of some two dozen Republican candidates, according to the New York Times, which originally broke the story of Giuliani's comments today. Most of those candidates lost.