LA Times | Crucial vote to advance Senate healthcare bill seems assured

The last of three Democrats whose support was needed to allow debate on the bill after Thanksgiving says she’ll vote to move the measure along, but all warn they still have doubts.

Big Government | Joe Lieberman will pay

Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion | Absolute control by the fed. Yes, it really is that bad

The Hill | 60 was always the key

Hot Air | Reid should be careful citing Orwell

Michelle Malkin | Proves you can buy your way to 60

The Moderate Voice | Hope Reid did his home work

American Thinker | Bruce Walker

The pattern over the last several years has been clear in the old major democracies of Europe and North America: the left simply ceases to appeal to voters anymore. The right — whatever that is supposed to be these days — resembles the Republican Party in America. It has yet to clearly carve out what it is for, and it instead represents an anti-left vote.

Washington Post | Paul Kane and Perry Bacon Jr.

Senate Republicans have lined up in staunch opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, rejecting concerns about alienating the growing Hispanic vote.

Even before debate began Tuesday night, almost three-fourths of the Senate Republican Conference had already announced opposition to the first Latina ever nominated to the nation’s highest court. The party’s 2008 standard bearer, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), joined the chorus of opposition this week, and no likely contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has spoken in support of confirmation.

National Review Online | Larry Kudlow

Are Republicans too pessimistic about the economy? I put this question to Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) this week, and it would be hard to describe his response as optimistic. The senator trash-talked Vice President Joe Biden’s recent defense of the stimulus in the New York Times, and he warned that any economic rebound will be short-lived because of the runaway spending-and-borrowing plans of the Obama administration.

Truth be told, respected economists like Donald Marron, Keith Hennessey, Bruce Bartlett, and Kevin Hassett have all carefully chronicled the fact that the Obama stimulus package does not feature any real fiscal multipliers. They say the bulk of the package consists of transfer payments to individuals and states, along with tax credits that will produce no real incentive effects to spur economic growth.

Fox News | No Author Listed

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said Wednesday she will step down this fall to challenge fellow Republican Rick Perry for governor in 2010, setting the stage for what will be a crowded race to replace her.

Hutchison told WBAP radio of Fort Worth-Dallas in an interview that she’ll quit the Senate in October or November, signaling that she will return to Texas full time to campaign for the governorship as soon as this fall. She reiterated that she would formally declare her candidacy in August.

“Then the actual leaving of the Senate will be some time — October, November — that, in that time frame,” Hutchison said.

Voice of America | VOA News

A key U.S. Democratic senator says his party cannot pass a health care reform bill in the Senate without support from minority Republicans.

Senate budget committee chairman Kent Conrad said Sunday on U.S. television network ABC Democrats do not have the votes to pass a bill despite holding a 60-seat majority in the 100-member assembly.

• Democrats: GOP votes needed to pass health bill | Tom LoBianco

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | James O’Toole

A new Quinnipiac poll depicts an unsettled governor’s race taking shape before a fluid Pennsylvania electorate.

The survey found Tom Corbett, the Republican attorney general, in the strongest position of any of the likely 2010 contenders, but even he remained an unknown to a majority of the voters. On the Democratic side, none of the likely candidates had made much of an impression on the electorate.

One of the poll’s more intriguing findings was that, nine months after President Barack Obama’s landslide win in the state, a generic Republican candidate edged a hypothetical Democratic candidate for governor with independent voters tipping the balance in the GOP direction.

Next year’s elections for senator and governor will be watched for evidence of whether Pennsylvania, once a classic swing state, has continued a trend toward a more reliably Democratic stance. Amid dismal approval ratings for the state’s most prominent Democrat, Gov. Ed Rendell, the findings provide a snapshot of a state still up for grabs despite recent Democratic gains in party registration and a string of successes in presidential and statewide contests.

The New York Times | David Brooks

We’re only in the early stages of the liberal suicide march, but there already have been three phases. First, there was the stimulus package. You would have thought that a stimulus package would be designed to fight unemployment and stimulate the economy during a recession. But Congressional Democrats used it as a pretext to pay for $787 billion worth of pet programs with borrowed money. Only 11 percent of the money will be spent by the end of the fiscal year — a triumph of ideology over pragmatism.

Then there is the budget. Instead of allaying moderate anxieties about the deficits, the budget is expected to increase the government debt by $11 trillion between 2009 and 2019.

Fox News | Serafin Gomez

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a possible 2012 contender, says the route to the White House goes through the state houses.

Even though the GOP has suffered significant losses in the last two national elections, Barbour said the GOP must first win back gubernatorial seats in upcoming elections in order to re-take the bully pulpit.

“There is nothing that’s going to happen in 2009 and ‘10 that will affect the 2012 presidential election as much as how Republicans fare in the 2009-’10 elections,” Barbour told FOX News in an interview Saturday during the National Governors Association meeting. “I’m going to spend my political energy and time in electing Republican governors.”

Washington Post | Ben Pershing

Shut out of power across the capital and facing a 60-vote Democratic majority in the Senate, Republican candidates are working to balance the scales in at least one vital category — campaign cash.

Reports filed last week with the Federal Election Commission showed GOP hopefuls in some key Senate contests posting strong fundraising totals for the second quarter of 2009, putting them in position to try to halt their party’s recent losing streak.