Newt's Worst Enemy?

Meet the guy who might have kept Newt Gingrich (and Rick Perry) off the Virginia Primary ballot.

The Year In Photos

Words and phrases that weren't part of the global lexicon when 2011 started: Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and Fukushima.

Full Circle

With the Iowa caucus a week from tomorrow, the thing that jumps out to me now is how much the race, at this stage, looks pretty much like we expected it to all along.

Romney is not looking very good in Iowa, where a more conservative/fringe candidate could very well beat him. He's running strong in New Hampshire, where he has long been favored in part because he owns a home there and has high name recognition as the former governor of Massachusetts where the Boston media market saturates much of New Hampshire. That leaves a lot riding on the outcome in South Carolina.

That's the basic dynamic of the race that we expected all along. The big difference is who the main alternatives to Mitt now are: Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

Signatures That Will Live in Infamy

Stung by his failure to get on the ballot in Virginia, Newt (through his campaign manager) has taken to Facebook likening his set back to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ...

Newt and I have talked three or four times today and he stated that this is not catastrophic - we will continue to learn and grow. Remember that it was only a few months ago that pundits and the press declared us dead after the paid consultants left. They declared that the decision not to compete in the Ames Straw Poll would mean that Iowans would ignore us. Some will again state that this is fatal.

Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941: We have experienced an unexpected set-back, but we will re-group and re-focus with increased determination, commitment and positive action. Throughout the next months there will be ups and downs; there will be successes and failures; there will be easy victories and difficult days - but in the end we will stand victorious.

Your Top Ten Posts of 2011

What a long strange trip it's been.

2011 started with tragedy with the Gabby Giffords shooting, then shifted to high drama with the roiled politics of Wisconsin and the killing of Osama bin Laden and finally settled into a ever-deepening farce as the White House and Congress battled over the debt ceiling and then jousted over whether jobs were a bigger priority that budget cutting.

Which TPM posts did you like the best?

Judged by your readership (i.e., page views), here are the Top Ten TPM Posts of 2011 ...

Note Well

One of the major effects of the 2010 Republican wave election was the subsequent passage of a raft of voter ID laws and other legislation aimed at curtailing voting rights across the country. The aim, often little disguised, is to reduce voting among racial minorities, students and poorer voters generally, all of whom tend to vote disproportionately for Democrats. The voter suppression lobby has gained a number of key court decisions over recent years. So it has been a looming question just how big an effect the clampdown on voting will have on the 2012 election.

Breaking Voting Rights News

Justice Department will block South Carolina's new voter ID law, saying it disproportionately impacts minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act, according to a letter sent to the state by DOJ and obtained by TPM.

You can read the letter here.

The Ron Paul Files

A sampling of the most virulent excerpts from Ron Paul's now-notorious newsletters.

Mutual Admiration Society

What's with Jon Stewart and Ron Paul?

You.Are.A.Robophobe

It's probably not the most effective form of political protest you'll ever see, but a 'gay robot' confronted Michele Bachmann in Iowa yesterday. Happy holidays... or something.

The Big Win

President Obama and congressional Democrats are doubtless savoring their pretty thorough victory in their standoff with House Republicans over an extension of the payroll tax holiday. The congressional spit fights to come will soon take off some of the sheen.

But perhaps the real political win - the one with real electoral implications - is that more Americans now know that they actually have a payroll tax cut to lose, and the President emerged looking most like the one who wants to keep them from losing it.

Spiking The Eggnog

What's that? You didn't know it was almost Christmas?

Let Fox & Friends fix that for you.

Deny! Deny! Deny!

The Ron Paul camp is now denying to TPM that Paul himself wrote the circa 1993 direct mail piece that Reuters first reported about last evening. So let's unpack this.

Green Means Go

The top 5 green-car stories of 2011.

Toxic

Newly unearthed direct mail piece signed by then-Rep. Ron Paul circa 1993 and pitching sales of his newsletters refers to "the coming race war in our big cities" and the "federal-homosexual coverup on AIDS."

In the case of some of the toxic stuff in his newsletters, Paul has claimed not to have known about or sanctioned the content. But in the case of this mailer, his campaign says he's not denying having written it.

Merry Christmas!

Brent Bozell goes on Fox News last night and calls President Obama a '"skinny, ghetto crackhead."

All Done--For Now

The House just passed the payroll tax holiday extension. So that pushes this whole mess off until ... February. That's when things get really contentious.

It's Up To The House Now

The Senate just passed by unanimous consent the slightly tweaked version of the payroll tax deal it already passed a week ago. That clears the way for the House to pass it as well, expected shortly.

For students of congressional procedure, the more precise way to phrase this is that the Senate has agreed to deem the tax cut extension passed as soon as it passes the House. The reason for that is all tax bills must originate in the House.

But the procedural niceties aside, the Senate has in essence officially signed off on the deal.

It's Gay Marriages' Fault

LGBT apology to just-resigned Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch: "We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry."

Boehner's Words for the Ages

So John Boehner has given his surrender press conference. But there were some things he said in his very dispirited recitation that I suspect we'll be hearing in TV commercials next year. I get the sense that Boehner's been beat up so bad over the last 72 hours that he just couldn't get the candor in check.

You know, sometimes, it's hard to do the right thing. And sometimes it's politically difficult to do the right thing. But, you know, when everybody called for a one year extension of the payroll tax deduction, when everybody wanted a full year of extended unemployment benefits we were here fighting for the right things. May not have been the politically the smartest thing in the world, but let me tell you what. I think our members waged a good fight.

And then a bit later ...

If you can get this fixed, why not uh, why not do the right thing for the American people - even though it's not exactly what we want?

Video after the jump ...