links for 2009-11-20

Carly Fiorina, once the most powerful businesswoman in America and now a Republican candidate for the California Senate seat now held by Barbara Boxer, no longer sports her trademark, playful blond pixie cut. Fiorina learned she had breast cancer last February and underwent surgery in March. Just a month after finishing chemotherapy in early October, she announced her Senate run, hitting the campaign trail with a stylish buzz cut. So when the U.S. Preventive Task Force, a government-appointed panel of medical experts, announced Monday that it no longer recommends routine mammograms and breast self-exams for women under 50—and that even women over 50 should have the procedure only every other year—Fiorina, 55, had a lot to say. Had she followed those guidelines, “I’m not quite sure I’d be alive today,” Fiorina told The Daily Beast.

* Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) — According to Politico, she's already told Reid how she'll vote but she hasn't made her intentions public yet. A new poll shows her vote may be critical to her re-election prospects next year.
* Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) — She's voiced opposition to the public option, but Bloomberg notes there was a $100 million addition to the bill to win her support
* Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) — We've already documented his threats to block the public option, but he's stated publicly he'll at least vote to bring the bill to the Senate floor.
* Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — She was the only Republican senator to vote the bill out of the Senate Finance Committee, but she's also voiced opposition to the public option.

Call your Senator. Tell your Senator to vote NO on cloture on the motion to proceed. Tell your Senator that you consider a yes vote, a vote in favor of health care.

The new Rasmussen poll for the 2010 Arizona GOP Primary—John McCain 45%, J. D. Hayworth 43%—will generate a fair amount of buzz. But August is a long way away, and I assume that when McCain gets back to Arizona and campaigns, he’ll pull it out.

Still, who could help McCain beat back a populist conservative challenger? Sarah Palin. I predict that Palin will come to Arizona next summer to campaign for McCain, will make an impassioned case for him, and will help him win. She will thereby repay McCain for his confidence in picking her last year, help keep McCain as a crucial voice in the Senate for a strong foreign policy, and get credit for being a different kind of populist conservative—a Reaganite, not a Buchananite, populist—than the immigration-obsessed, voter-alienating (he was ousted in 2006 in a Republican district) Hayworth.

Favorable / Unfavorable
George Pataki: 51 / 44
Kirsten Gillibrand: 40 / 37 (chart)
David Paterson: 36 / 59 (chart)
Rudy Giuliani: 58 / 38
Rick Lazio: 36 / 44
Andrew Cuomo: 56 / 34

After emerging out of nowhere over the summer as a seemingly potent and growing political force, the tea party movement has become embroiled in internal feuding over philosophy, strategy and money and is at risk of losing its momentum.

The grass-roots activists driving the movement have become increasingly divided on such core questions as whether to focus their efforts on shaping policy debates or elections, work on a local, regional, state or national level or closely align themselves with the Republican Party, POLITICO found in interviews with tea party organizers in Washington and across the country.