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Michael Steele said it was “curious” on why the White House would ask New York Gov. David Paterson (D) not to run for reelection in 2010.

“I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for reelection,” Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), said on CBS’s Face The Nation.

Steele was commenting on a report in The New York Times that said an intermediary of President Barack Obama sent word to Paterson that he should not run, considering his low approval ratings. Asked by host Bob Schieffer if race played a role in the White House’s decision to ask Paterson to back off from campaigning, Steele said he didn’t think so.

“It raises a curious point for me. I think Gov. Paterson’s numbers are about the same as Gov. Corzine’s. The president is with Gov. Corzine,” Steele said.

Good Neil Lewis NYT story on John Edwards today–not much news that a local TV station, the National Enquirer and even kausfiles didn't have more than a month ago, except this fabulous nugget (from Ex-Fall Guy Andrew Young's book proposal):

Mr. Young says that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reflects conservatives' growing confidence when he taunts Democrats, saying "I'll bet you never dreamed you'd look back at Jimmy Carter as the good old days."

Republicans at the Values Voter Summit Saturday talked of a growing political rebellion in the country, even as they acknowledged Democrats currently have the upper hand.

Romney recalled the euphoria among Democrats at the time President Barack Obama was elected.

"A year ago, there were quite a few people who were ready to write off this movement. They were enthralled by Barack Obama's promise of near-Biblical transformations," Romney said in comments prepared for Saturday's meeting. "Well, he can still spin a speech, but he can't spin his record."

Dinner with Sarah Palin for $63,500?

That's what the winner of an eBay auction is forking over to chow down with the former Alaska governor, her husband, Todd and five guests.

Seven people bid a total of 61 times, starting with an opening bid of $25,000. The winner bid 27 times before winning with the $63,500 bid.

The proceeds will go to "Ride 2 Recovery," a charity that provides wounded veterans with bicycles and organized rides to help in their mental and physical recovery.

"Todd and I are so happy to help such a worthy organization," Palin said September 10 on her Facebook page.

Calling soda the new tobacco, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will introduce legislation this fall that would charge a fee to retailers that sell sugary beverages.
Newsom would need voter approval to tax individual cans of soda and sugary juice, but only needs approval from the Board of Supervisors to levy a fee on retailers. His legislation would charge grocery stores like Safeway and big-box stores, but would not affect restaurants that serve sodas.

Newsom wouldn't say how much the stores would have to pay or how the city would spend the fees. When he first floated the idea in 2007, he said the money would go to his Shape Up San Francisco exercise program and for media campaigns to discourage soda drinking.

The Obama administration on Friday urged a U.S. court to dismiss a lawsuit by gay married couples from Massachusetts who say they were unlawfully denied federal marriage benefits.

President Barack Obama won strong support from gays during his presidential campaign and has pressed for repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

But the gay community has been angered by the Obama administration's defense of the law in court proceedings. Justice Department officials say they are obligated to defend federal statutes when they are challenged.

"The story of the spectacular rise and fall of John Edwards, with its sordid can't-look-away dimensions, is moving slowly but deliberately to its conclusion here in North Carolina," the New York Times reports.

While Edwards "remains largely secluded at his 100-acre estate," he is said to be "moving toward an abrupt reversal in his public posture; associates said in interviews that he is considering declaring that he is the father of Ms. Hunter's 19-month-old daughter, something that he once flatly asserted in a television interview was not possible."

However, friends of Mr. Edwards and his wife Elizabeth "say she has resisted the idea of her husband's claiming paternity" and "has yet to be brought around."

Also buried in the story is a revelation taken from Edwards aid Andrew Young's book proposal: "He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the

A federal appeals court overturned hard-fought campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling on Friday that will make it easier for independent political groups to raise and spend money to influence elections.
The three-judge panel struck down regulations intended to blunt the power of such organizations, including the controversial Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn.org, which drew heavy criticism for spending tens of millions of dollars on aggressive advertisements during the 2004 presidential campaign.

The ruling, if it stands, could provide a boost to Republicans and their allies as they try to win back Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012. Outside conservative groups could become particularly important in countering the fundraising juggernaut of President Obama, who shattered past records by raising more than $750 million during his 2008 campaign.

Yes, First Lady Michelle Obama is now aggressively crusading for her husband’s health care takeover under the guise of championing woman who have been “crushed” by the system.

One woman Mrs. Obama won’t be spotlighting?

The mother of Dontae Adams.
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Read all of Michelle Malkin's piece.

Since their election disaster, the right has used new media to gather strength, culminating in last weekend's huge protest.
Erik Telford remembers all too vividly the dark cloud hanging over him on 5 November 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected president. For the internet strategist at the rightwing campaign group Americans for Prosperity, election night was a double disaster. Not only had Obama won the votes, he had outwitted his Republican opponents in his use of new media tricks such as email recruiting and social networking.

"The left was far ahead of us. The efforts that Obama put into internet campaigning and what he accomplished were extraordinary," Telford says.

That cloud hung over the conservative movement for many weeks. A sense of crisis set in, he recalls, with bloggers, strategists and Republican politicians scrambling in different directions.

"There was a real lack of leadership, a lot of confusion."
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Twitter turned the tide for the RIGHT

Unemployment rose in 27 U.S. states in August, with California and Nevada reaching record levels of joblessness.
Rhode Island rounded out the list of states with the highest level of unemployment since data began in 1976, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. California’s unemployment rate reached 12.2 percent and Nevada’s climbed to 13.2 percent.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has raised the stakes against Israel by describing the Holocaust as a lie, just as world powers are trying to decide how to deal with the nuclear ambitions of an Iran in political turmoil.

"The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim," he told worshippers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel "Qods (Jerusalem) Day" rally.

"Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty."

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered – a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.