Let the record reflect that George W. Bush is handing off a recession to Barack Obama:

The U.S. economy fell into a recession last spring and will contract sharply this quarter as more than 200,000 workers per month are added to the rolls of the unemployed, a survey said on Monday.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Professional Forecasters removed some of the glow from an earlier report showing industrial output rebounded in October after hurricane disruptions produced a stunning fall in September.

[...]

The Philadelphia Fed's survey predicted gross domestic product would shrink by 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter, a sharp downgrade from the previous prediction of 0.7 percent growth.

It said the U.S. economy entered a recession in April and that it will last 14 months, which would make it one of the longest recessions since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

While there may be efforts by some on the right to cast blame for the state of the economy early next year on the Obama, it's clear that any downturn began earlier during the watch of the Bush administration. In light of these data showing that a contraction in the economy began seven months ago, it is even more clear that the foot-dragging of both the White House and Congressional Republicans at a time when Democrats were calling for more robust stimulus measures -- and, I might add, an end to the War in Iraq, which comes at a great cost to this country -- was monumentally misguided. The only question, now, is whether Republicans will continue on the path of obstruction or, if instead, they will allow the Congress to move forward with the types of changes so required to begin to heal the ills in the economy

A stunning rebuke of Joe Lieberman from the man who chaired his 2004 Presidential campaign:

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a close ally of Sen. Joe Lieberman, said the Connecticut Independent should pay a price for his campaign attacks against President-elect Barack Obama.

"There need to be consequences, and they cannot be insignificant," Carper said in a Monday interview with The Hill.

Carper, a fellow centrist who was Delaware campaign chairman for Lieberman's  failed bid for president in 2004, said he and many other Senate Democrats are disappointed and even angered by their colleague's sometimes-inflammatory rhetoric during this year's presidential campaign.

[...]

Carper did not rule out stripping Lieberman of his coveted gavel running the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, or imposing other sanctions like taking away seniority on other committees or a subcommittee on Armed Services.

[...]

"I'm very disappointed as a friend and a colleague," Carper said.

Carper is exactly the type of Senator I expected to at least silently vote for Lieberman maintaining his chairmanship tomorrow, if not additionally speak out on Lieberman's behalf. After all, Carper, like Lieberman, has been closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council and, as noted above, Carper served as Lieberman's campaign chairman just four years ago. Moreover, Carper even backed Lieberman after the he had lost his Democratic primary and had decided to run as an Independent back in August 2006.

If the Carpers of the Senate aren't in Lieberman's camp, how is he expecting to get a majority of the caucus on his side to keep his chairmanship?

Eric Cantor, who is soon to be the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, has some tough words for his party.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, poised to ascend to House Republicans' No. 2 leader this week, said the Republican Party in Washington is no longer "relevant" to voters and must stop simply espousing principles. Instead, it must craft real solutions to health care and the economy.

The problem is, for all of the talk from Cantor, in reality all he and the House Republicans are offering is more of the same.

Mr. Cantor said Republicans should "be very wise about the battles we fight," but that they should fight every time there's a principle involved. For example, he disagrees with pundits who say Republicans should forgo issues such as immigration.

"It's not a dead issue. It's about how do we go about finally enforcing the law, and that's both in the interior as well as at the border," he said, adding that Democrats are likely to overreach if they go for a bill that offers citizenship to illegal immigrants, which he said is "amnesty."

Fine by me. If House Republicans want to hew to the type of knee-jerk conservatism that has lost them close to 60 seats during the last two election cycles, then they very well may find out that 60 isn't the limit on the number of seats they can lose. And specifically on the issue of immigration, if the Republicans want to write off Hispanic voters for a generation -- in effect doing to the entire Southwest (and in fact also large swaths of the rest of the country, too, including states like Virginia, Florida and Iowa) what they did to California, changing what was once a swing state into a deep blue one -- I say go ahead; a Democratic House majority with 270 or 280 or 290 members wouldn't be a terrible thing for the country.

The Hartford Courant has the details:

Senate Democrats will decide by secret ballot Tuesday whether to take away Sen. Joe Lieberman's chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee -- a post from which he oversees U.S. security issues, as well as the operations of a wide segment of the federal government.

This cuts in one of two directions. On one hand, the secrecy of the ballot could serve to benefit Joe Lieberman. While there is a great deal of discontent -- and rightly so -- with Lieberman's conduct (not only campaigning on behalf of John McCain and in opposition to Barack Obama, but also campaigning on behalf of Senate Republicans in competitive or potentially competitive races against Democratic challengers), if the Democratic base can't figure out which Democratic Senators are voting to support Lieberman, accountability will be difficult to achieve. The Netroots can try to limit this by pushing individual Senators to come clean about how they intend to vote, or after the fact how they voted, though this would be an arduous process, and success wouldn't be assured.

Yet alternatively, and I believe more likely, the secrecy of the ballot hurts Lieberman. The Senate is a collegial place, largely because any one Senator can go to great lengths to hold up virtually any piece of legislation and thus no Senator wants to get on the bad side of another Senator for want of not having their own bills obstructed. It is likely a result of this fundamental aspect of the chamber that just a small handful of Democratic Senators have gone on the record in opposing Lieberman's bid to maintain control over the Senate's oversight panel. But as the vote on his chairmanship will be secret, and thus Lieberman will not know for certain who voted against him, Lieberman's ability to retaliate against individual Senators will be greatly curtailed.

In either case, we shall know very soon whether or not Lieberman will be able to hold on to his chairmanship or, if alternatively, he is given a consolation prize instead.

Looks like J Ro and I are thinking alike. I finished this post about a minute after he hit post on his.

Over at The Next Right, Patrick Ruffini writes that with regards to the future of the Republican Party, "Center vs. Right is the Wrong Debate." Moreover, he writes, "American elections are by and large not referendums on ideologies. They are contests of personality, optics, and performance in office." I'd recommend you read the piece if you get the chance.

There's certainly something to the argument, particularly that the attractiveness of the candidate and the broader environment in the country weigh heavily on elections. But I do not believe this tells the whole story. Take a look, for instance at the recent track record of the Club for Growth, the aim of which is to shift the Republican Party to the right.

As the Republicans gather all over the place to mull their future, one group wants to single out the conservative Club for Growth for hurting the party with moderates. In particular, the League of Conservation voters says it's finding it difficult to find moderate pro-environment Republicans to support, because the Club has been so successful knocking them off in GOP primaries. But the LCV notes the Club's record in general elections is not good. Club-backed candidates -- who defeated some Republicans the LCV would have supported or have supported -- lost congressional elections last week in MD-01, MI-07, and ID-01. In addition, their New Mexico Senate candidate also lost (and lost badly). Has the Club been too pure and ended up nominating candidates that are too conservative, allowing Democrats to win in places like, well, Idaho? The Club is going to have some defending to do (particularly with its donors) about how well the conservative purity game is playing out on the trail.

On the down ballot level, it's very clear that the Republicans have lost seats as a result of ideology in recent cycles. To take one example, in Maryland's first congressional district, which is mentioned above, moderate Republican Wayne Gilchrest would almost undoubtedly have won reelection this month had he not been defeated by a far-right, Club-sponsored candidate in the GOP primary; instead, Democrat Frank Kratovil is the Congressman-elect. To take another example, which isn't mentioned above, the Republicans likely would not have been able to retake Kansas' second congressional district had they nominated conservative Jim Ryun instead of moderate Lynn Jenkins to take on freshman Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Boyda. Similarly, moderate GOP Senator Susan Collins was about the only potentially vulnerable Republican hailing from a blue state to win reelection (and handily) this fall. And the list goes on.

More broadly, ideology -- and particularly Americans' reaction to Republican conservatism -- was one of the keys to spelling the doom of George W. Bush's presidency. Hurricane Katrina, and the federal government's inability to deal with the disaster, were clearly the straw that broke the camel's back. However, even before Katrina, Heckuva Job Brownie, etc., it was Americans' disgust and antipathy towards Bush's attempt to partially privatize Social Security -- an ideological move if there ever was one -- that began to drive some who had previously supported the President to begin to oppose him. In short, here ideology mattered, and the far right stance of the GOP cost the party support and votes.

And just to add one more point, Ruffini writes, "The Democrats did not have to change their ideology to win." In some regards this is true, but in others it isn't. Take the issue of guns, which played no small part in the defeats of Al Gore and John Kerry. The Democrats have by and large given up on the idea of gun control, recognizing that it has been a political loser; they dropped their ideological stance on the issue, thus neutralizing it as an effective electoral tool for the other side, and were able to win.

I don't expect any Republicans to listen to me when I suggest that they should move to the center instead of the right, because clearly it's in my interest (at least on the policy level) for the party to be more accommodating of the agenda of Barack Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill. But if they believe that ideology had nothing to do with their decline in recent years, I do believe they are mistaken.

Today's count out of Alaska shows Democrat Mark Begich's lead over incumbent Republican Senator Ted Stevens growing -- though still a bit short of the .5 percentage point lead necessary to forestall a mandatory potential recount.

Ted Stevens (R-i): 137,937 votes (47.02 percent)
Mark Begich (D): 138,959 votes (47.37 percent)

As of 9:34 PM Eastern

Votes still remain to be counted, but from the last tally Begich's lead has grown from 814 votes to 1,061 1,022 votes, and from .29 percentage points to .36 .35 percentage points. The trend clearly looks good for Begich -- even the Stevens camp freely admits as much -- but here's to hoping Begich is able to clear that .5 percentage point mark so that this race can be settled relatively more quickly than it would if it went to a mandatory state-funded recount.

Jeff Merkley, who last week defeated incumbent Republican Senator Gordon Smith in Oregon, has become the first newly elected Senator to use his campaign's email list to fundraise for Jim Martin in Georgia, a source involved in Democratic politics informs me. Here's a good chunk of the email, which I received from the Merkley campaign under the Senator-elect's name earlier this morning.

While the election is over in Oregon, it continues in Georgia. Jim Martin is locked in a tough runoff with Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss. We currently hold 57 seats in the U.S. Senate - just three shy of having enough votes to end the Republican obstructionism that has paralyzed the Senate over the past two years.  We need to have Jim Martin in the Senate to work with President-elect Obama and me to fix our economy and make Washington work for working Americans.

Help Jim Martin so he can join me in the U.S. Senate --  donate $25, $50, or $100 to his campaign right now.

Let me tell you a little more about Jim Martin: Jim is a Vietnam veteran who served in the Georgia House of Representatives for 18 years.  He has been a leader on the issue of health care and has paid particular attention to expanding access to health care for Georgia's children.  Jim Martin has never backed down from a tough fight and we need someone with his courage and compassion in the U.S. Senate.

I urge each and every one of you to join me in supporting Jim Martin's campaign.

If this is any indication of the type of Senator Merkley will be -- and I do believe it is -- then you can see why it was so important to us at MyDD to add him (as well as Martin) to the Road to 60 Act Blue page.

Merkley is a team-builder. I have seen this first-hand, with the then Oregon House Democratic leader helping his caucus pick up the majority for the first time in 16 years back in 2006. As a part of that effort, Merkley was more than willing to assist the clear underdog campaign I was working on that fall to unseat the then-House Majority Leader Wayne Scott, doing an event in the district and generally being helpful to the campaign.

Now, just a week and a half out from winning a close Senate election, Merkley is already putting his resources to bear to help his caucus and his party, fundraising for Martin in Georgia. Very impressive, indeed. If you, too, want to help out, head over to the Road to 60 page and make a contribution of your own to the cause.

John Boehner has been more or less an abject failure as House Republican Leader, overseeing the loss of between 50 and 60 seats over the last two cycles and generally being ineffective in marshaling his caucus to do much of anything productive or positive for the American people. But might the House GOP move to pick an even weaker leader? Here's Patrick O'Connor:

GOP Rep. Dan Lungren (Calif.) may challenge House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) for the top spot in the Republican Conference, GOP insiders said.

Lungren's office would not comment on Thursday other than to say that he will have an announcement today.

Lungren would be a long shot to defeat Boehner, or win any other leadership post. Lungren served in Congress for a decade starting in 1978 before leaving Capitol Hill to become California attorney general. After eight years in that post, he unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1998. Lungren was then re-elected to the House in 2004.

What do we know about Dan Lungren? O'Connor mentions that Lungren "unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1998." That's an understatement. That fall Lungren pulled in just 38.38 percent of the vote against as the Republican nominee in an open seat election against the not exactly charismatic Democrat Gray Davis. To put that in perspective, that's the worst showing of any major party gubernatorial candidate running in a general election in the state in the last 20 years. To put it in even more perspective, it's the worst showing of a major party gubernatorial candidate running in an open seat general election in the state since Upton Sinclain garnered 37.75 percent of the vote in the 1934 election -- but even then Sinclair could blame at least part of his poor showing on the presence of a Progressive candidate pulling in about 13 percent of the vote.

Lungren's record of weakness doesn't stop there. Just this month, Lungren nearly pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory -- an move usually reserved for Democrats -- when he only narrowly won reelection against a relatively unknown challenger in a district that had tended to lean about 7 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections.

So if that's the direction House Republicans want to go -- someone defined by their own electoral weakness rather than by having shepherded his caucus to defeat in two straight elections --  fine by me.