Free Republic

Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh has decided against a run for governor in 2012, robbing Democrats of their top recruit in the Hoosier State. "After careful consideration, I have concluded that the appropriate decision is not to be a candidate for governor of Indiana in 2012," Bayh said in a statement released to the Fix. ""The principle reason for my decision is the welfare of my twin sons." Bayh's decision leaves the Democratic field wide open. Reps. Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill, both of whom lost races this fall, are likely to consider the Bayh-less contest. Others mentioned include Rep....

BATON ROUGE - State Sen. John Alario, a former two-time House speaker and a fixture in state politics for nearly four decades, is now a Republican. After weeks of saying he was likely to abandon his Democratic allegiance by the end of the year, Alario quietly made it official late last week. "I just casually went in and took care of it," Alario, of Westwego, said. "I had been pondering it for some time and didn't want to make a big deal of it." With Alario's switch -- and the recent defection of Sen. John Smith of Leesville from the...

Athens state Rep. Doug McKillip becomes the most recent Democrat to defect and become a Republican in a district which is predominately Democrat. The Republicans now hold 114 seats in the Georgia House, but if you add Milledgeville’s independent Dixiecrat Rusty Kidd, it really makes it 115. Kidd sided with Georgia Republicans over Obama's health care law and has supported the building of private prisons in Milledgeville. At the moment, the magic number for Georgia House Republicans to get a supermajority has been reduced to five. The flurry of political defections have given the Georgia GOP its biggest majority since...

ALBANY — The state Senate will return to Republican control in January. A judge on Saturday certified a result that showed a Long Island Republican won a key seat in the Nov. 2 election, meaning the GOP will have at least a 32-30 edge over Democrats when the Senate’s new session starts next month. (A pending recount in Westchester County could give the GOP a 33-29 majority.) The result gives Republicans their only power base in a state where Democrats hold the Assembly and the three statewide offices: governor, comptroller and attorney general. The final tally in the Long Island...

Joining the parade of House Democrats who joined the Republican Party since the Nov. 2 election, Sen. Tim Golden of Valdosta announced Monday he will join the GOP caucus. Golden, recently elected to an 11th term in the General Assembly, becomes the first Democrat to switch parties in the Senate. Five House members have left the Democratic caucus for the GOP. “I am changing my party affiliation in order to better represent the views of the majority of my constituents and my own conservative, pro-business philosophy,” Golden said in a statement. “Our state continues to face great challenges. As a...

Friday was not a good night for President Barack Obama in the ratings. He got a shellacking there, too, to follow the one in the midterm elections. His conversation with Barbara Walters placed second in total viewers to a rerun of CBS’ “Blue Bloods” and third in the 10 p.m. time slot in the 18-to-49 age group. On that count, Obama was behind Tom Selleck and NBC’s broadcast of the fantasy film “Enchanted.” The Walters interview averaged 5.7 million viewers for ABC. The “Blue Bloods” repeat, the second of two Friday night, pulled in 7.6 million for CBS. Here are...

Robert Decheine, chief of staff to Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ), was arrested in Gaithersburg, Md. last Friday on charges of soliciting sex from a minor. Decheine, who had been with the Democrat's office since 2003, was fired immediately after the congressman consulted the House Counsel about his arrest, Rothman spokesman Aaron Keyak told The Hill in a statement. Decheine was arrested as part of a sting targeting people interested in sex with minors -- the first one ever launched by the Gaithersburg Police Department, according to a press release provided to TPM. Eleven arrests were made during the operation, which...

Rep. Solomon Ortiz conceded to his Republican challenger Monday night, according to a regional representative of the National Republican Congressional Committee who is in Texas’ 27th district. The Texas Democrat called challenger Blake Farenthold, a former radio talk-show host, as the last county in his district worked toward wrapping up its recount. The Farenthold victory brings the net Republican House pickups this cycle to 62 seats, with four House races still outstanding from the midterm elections. The Republican was on Capitol Hill last week for freshman orientation. Ortiz asked for the recount, which cost him $23,500, after the original unofficial...

ATLANTA (AP) - Republicans in the Georgia House have expanded their majority in the House, adding two South Georgia Democrats to their ranks. State Reps. Ellis Black and Amy Carter announced Monday that they're joining the House Republican Caucus. The new defections mean Republicans have 113 seats in the House, just seven seats shy of a 120-member supermajority. There are also 66 Democrats and one independent in the chamber. Black, who represents Brooks and Echols counties, said conservative leadership is lacking in the current Democratic Party. Carter, whose district includes parts of Lowndes county, said she can best represent her...

Four members of the Alabama House of Representatives announced Monday they are switching from the Democratic Party to the GOP. Steve Hurst of Munford, Lesley Vance of Phenix City, Alan Boothe of Troy and Mike Millican of Hamilton announced their switch during a morning press conference in Montgomery. 91Share 44 Comments The four changes take the Republican numbers in the House from 62 to 66, giving them a majority that could pass any constitutional amendment, provided the caucus voted together. "After speaking with each of these fine legislators in depth, I know their decisions come after much thought, deep deliberations...

It’s now almost three weeks since election day. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. All of the ballots in the NY25 congressional race have been counted and Ann Marie Buerkle has won the election. Republican Ann Marie Buerkle leads in the 25th District by about 567 votes. The tally among Wayne County absentee ballots was 790 for Buerkle, 521 for Maffei. Maffei has so far not conceded the race. More than 160 ballots were challenged by either campaign for a judge to examine, but that doesn’t appear to be enough for Maffei to bridge the gap, even if they all...

A message posted on WashingtonIndependent.com late yesterday announced that it is the latest newspaper to fold due to financial hardships. Here's the post, written by editor Aaron Wiener: Nearly three years ago, The Washington Independent was launched as a bold experiment in online journalism. The idea was to combine hard-nosed investigative reporting with all the web had to offer: the nimbleness of real-time coverage, the interactivity made possible by this new thing called blogging, and the ability to create a narrative that was bigger than the sum of its parts. The results were spectacular. We won awards for our reporting...

MONTGOMERY — Voters decimated legislative Democrats on Nov. 2, and on Monday four re-elected state House members are expected to enhance the new Republican majority by switching parties. Democratic Reps. Alan Boothe of Troy, Steve Hurst of Munford, Mike Millican of Hamilton and Lesley Vance of Phenix City are expected to announce their switch on Monday, legislators said. The Senate has 22 Republicans, 12 Democrats and 1 independent. House and party members said they do not believe any Democratic senator will switch, although some have been asked. Voters also changed the racial makeup of the House and Senate. Within legislative...

PIERRE, S.D. (KTIV) - Saying "voters want change", South Dakota State senator-elect Eldon Nygaard, of Vermillion, has made a change, too. He's now a Republican. Nygaard served in the South Dakota House from 2006 to 2010 as a Democrat. But, in a statement, Nygaard said he believes he can better-serve his constituents in Pierre as a Republican. "I firmly believe that I can represent my District's needs in Pierre more effectively as a member of the Republican Party. My past four years in the House have been marked by a bi-partisan approach to working for my district and the people...

Two long-time South Georgia Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday made the switch to the Republican side of the General Assembly. Reps. Bob Hanner of Parrott and Gerald Greene of Cuthbert are now listed on the Georgia General Assembly’s website as being Republicans. Neither lawmaker could be reached for immediate comment, but the office of Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, confirmed the changes Tuesday. But Hanner has served as a Democrat in the House since 1975 and Greene was sworn in in 1983, also as a Democrat. Hanner and Greene join Rep. Alan Powell of Hartwell in leaving the Democratic Party for...

U.S. News & World Report, once part of the triumvirate of newsweeklies but reduced now to a spare monthly, will print its last issue for subscribers in December. Its news content will now exist exclusively and free on the Web, though the magazine will still publish eight single issues a year. The move is the culmination of a long process inside U.S. News to gradually de-emphasize the printed magazine and shift focus to its highly influential and profitable rankings guides for institutions like colleges and hospitals. U.S. News had been scaled back in stages as the economics of publishing each...

(CNN) – President Barack Obama is contending with the lowest approval rating of his 20-month presidency, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll finds. The president's approval rating now stands at 42 percent – an all time low in CNN polling and 8 points lower than where Obama was only three weeks ago. Moreover, 56 percent of all Americans think the president has fallen short of their expectations. The president's sagging poll numbers couldn't come at a worse time for congressional Democrats, themselves facing a nine-point deficit in the so-called "generic ballot" question heading into the midterm elections. In fact, the...

The new Fox News poll of the Delaware Senate race shows Democratic nominee Chris Coons continuing to enjoy a double-digit lead against Republican Christine O'Donnell. The numbers: Coons 54%, O'Donnell 39%. The survey of likely voters has a ±3% margin of error. There is no previous Fox News poll of this race. However, this poll was conducted through a Rasmussen offshoot, Pulse Opinion Research, which performs made-to-order robopolls. The previous Rasmussen poll from last week, taken right after O'Donnell's upset win in the primary over moderate Congressman Mike Castle, gave Coons a lead of 53%-42%. This poll also confirms the...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday predicted to The Hill that Democratic senatorial candidate Chris Coons will safely win the Nov. 2 general election against GOP nominee Christine O'Donnell. Reid talked up the New Castle County executive following a memorial ceremony on the Capitol's East steps to comemorate the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. O'Donnell on Tuesday night won the GOP nomination to face Coons in November — a result that has split the national Republican Party. But Reid said Coons would have won even if Rep. Mike Castle (R) had prevailed over O'Donnell. "I'm going to be...

Donald Trump is offering to buy out one of the major investors in the real estate partnership that controls the site near ground zero where a Muslim group wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque. In a letter released Thursday by Trump's publicist, the real estate investor tells Hisham Elzanaty he would buy his stake in the lower Manhattan building for 25 percent more than whatever he paid. Trump says he's making the offer not because he thinks the location is spectacular but because it would end "a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation." It's unclear whether...