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Reid cancels Senate’s weekend sessionBy Josiah Ryan - 07/22/11 11:21 AM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) canceled all weekend work for the Senate on Friday, saying it is no longer necessary. "It looked earlier this week like the Senate would have to originate legislation perhaps as soon as today to avoid default,” he said. "Circumstances have changed. The Speaker of the House and the president have been working to reach agreement on a major deficit-reduction measure.” Reid said that constitutionally, any such measure would have to originate in the House anyway, so there is little the Senate can...

Reporting from Washington — Indiana, a state which President Obama flipped from red to blue in his 2008 election victory, became the Republican Party's first pickup in a U.S. Senate race Tuesday. At 7 p.m., multiple outlets projected that former Sen. Dan Coats would defeat Democratic Rep. Brad Ellsworth to claim the seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Evan Bayh.

Democrats in Indiana have tried to paint Dan Coats as a lobbyist interloper while Brad Ellsworth has campaigned on the hope that Indiana voters have a case of collective amnesia. The latest Rasmussen survey of likely voters shows that strategy succeeding as well as anyone could have predicted. Coats has a 21-point lead over Ellsworth, who barely makes out of the twenties: Indiana still has the look of a likely Republican Senate pickup, with former Senator Dan Coats remaining comfortably ahead of his Democratic opponent Brad EllsworthThe latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state finds Coats...

Can Dan Coats win?? I know he's up in the polls, but he hasn't lived in Indiana for years, and even made jokes about it. Also, the Dems in Indy have been hammering Coats on his lobbying activities, which could definitely strike a chord in the anti-Washington, anti-elites environment. Ellsworth is a partisan Democrat who voted for Obamacare, but he is pro-gun and pro-life. Any Indy freepers care to disagree with me?

Dan Coats (R-IN) won the Indiana GOP Senate primary last night, defeating several primary challengers, including former Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) and RedState’s golden boy State Sen. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN). Coats will now go on to face likely Democrat challenger Brad Ellsworth, who was a member of the Stupak-12 who caved at the end. Barring some unforeseen circumstance, Coats is likely to win handily and would represent a Senate pickup in the seat being vacated by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN). Coats is a good guy. He’s a former Senator and a solid conservative with a lifetime ACU rating of 90%....

INDIANAPOLIS -- Former Sen. Dan Coats surged back four other Republican Senate hopefuls to clinch the party's nomination Tuesday night. GOP leaders had high hopes that Coats, a senator for about eight years in the 1990s, would be a shoo-in for the nomination. National Republicans have backed him since he launched his campaign in February, shortly before Democrat Evan Bayh made his surprise announcement that he wouldn't seek a third term.

With half of the precincts reporting in the GOP Senate primary race, former Indiana senator Dan Coats is preparing to celebrate. Coats shot to an early lead and is holding strong while his opponents Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler are splitting the rest of the votes. The Coats campaign has a small ballroom at the downtown Indianapolis Marriott hotel booked until midnight. Coats has already practiced his victory speech on the podium at the hotel. But the Republican Senate hopeful still has to beat four other candidates in Tuesday's primary election. State legislator Marlin Stutzman is said to have the...

New poll in the IN Senate race's GOP primary! Done yesterday. Out today. It was commissioned by SC Senator Jim DeMint's PAC...the Senate Conservatives Fund. Wenzel Strategies Research out of Columbus OH did the work. Here are the results: Undecided 30% Dan Coats 28% John Hostettler 18% Marlin Stutzman 18% Richard Behney 3% Don Bates Jr. 3% The survey was of 801 like Republican primary voters...again all spoken to yesterday over the phone. The margin of error for this poll is plus/minus 3.43%. REPORTER INTERPRETATION: Coats...the best known candidate is out in front outside the margin of error. But...and this...

NRSC Chairman John Cornyn said today that Florida’s GOP Senate primary has been “a learning experience” for him. If we’ll remember back to last year, Cornyn’s NRSC recruited (then Republican) Governor Charlie Crist to challenge the already announced conservative darling Marco Rubio for the open Senate seat left by the departure of Mel Martinez. Of course Rubio didn’t need a challenger, and should have been allowed to run uninterrupted from Washington. Cornyn sees that wisdom now. “In this political environment it’s not necessarily helpful for candidates running in the states to have the national party chairman” endorse them. No joke....

Here in Indiana, several candidates for May's upcoming Republican primary are being challenged by party officials on the grounds that they are not entitled to run. One candidate who asked to remain anonymous says he is a long time registered Republican and is being challenged on the grounds that he voted in 2008’s Democratic primary. He states, “I am a long time listener to the Rush Limbaugh show, during the primary season he came up with the strategy he called “operation chaos.” Thinking it would be fun to participate in upsetting the Democrats election plans, I did, never thinking it...

A notable buzz surrounded youthful Indiana State Sen. Marlin Stutzman as he was escorted around this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) by activist Donna Weisner. “Back in Indiana, they say he’s our Scott Brown,” she said proudly. Stutzman supporters elatedly boasted news of a Rasmussen poll that gives Stutzman a ten-point lead over the likely Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Evan Bayh. All this is a stunning development for the young farmer and businessman who only four years ago was the youngest member of the Indiana legislature. In Washington power circles former Sen. Dan...

The national Republican country club crowd experienced a wave of euphoria when former Sen. Dan Coats announced that he would run against Sen. Evan Bayh in the 2010 election. Bayh, who not long ago enjoyed unassailable popularity in the Hoosier State, is suddenly viewed as vulnerable since his vote for, among other things, the massive anti-gun health care overhaul. But Dan Coats does not come into the race without baggage of his own. Political pundits have already pointed out the obvious; that Coats gave up his seat rather than face Bayh in the 1998 election, and that, working as a...

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Indiana voters shows former GOP Congressman John Hostettler leading Baron Hill 49% to 31% and Brad Ellsworth 46% to 27%.

In the week since Dan Coats announced he was preparing to challenge Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, Democrats have launched a withering, no-holds-barred assault on the former Republican senator, throwing him off balance and raising questions about whether his prospective candidacy has suffered lasting damage. The oppo research mill began cranking up within hours of word last week that he was readying a campaign for his former Senate seat in Indiana. First came a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee statement referring to him as a “federally registered lobbyist whose client lists include banks, private equity firms and defense contractors.”

In the week since Dan Coats announced he was preparing to challenge Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, Democrats have launched a withering, no-holds-barred assault on the former Republican senator, throwing him off-balance and raising questions about whether his prospective candidacy has suffered lasting damage. The oppo research mill began cranking up within hours of word last week that he was readying a campaign for his former Senate seat in Indiana. First came a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee statement referring to him as a “federally registered lobbyist whose client lists include banks, private equity firms, and defense contractors.” Then Coats was blasted...

Still freshly motivated from their win in Massachusetts, Republicans are seeking out more candidates to challenge incumbent Democrats this year and have found a strong contender in former GOP Sen. Dan Coats. Coats will challenge the popular Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Republicans announced today, prompting political commentators to begin speculating over whether the GOP could pull a huge upset this year and take over the Senate. Counting the two independents who vote with them, Democrats will outnumber Republicans in the Senate 59 to 41 once Scott Brown is sworn in, and by all accounts it would be a long...

Former Indiana GOP Sen. Dan Coats is launching a political comeback, announcing Wednesday that he’s preparing to challenge Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh in a race that’s poised to be one of the marquee Senate contests of 2010.

INDIANAPOLIS - Informed and reliable sources are telling Howey Politics Indiana that former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats will announce Wednesday he will challenge U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh. The source, former aide Curt Smith of the Indiana Family Institute, said that Coats knows he has about two weeks to gather the 4,500 signatures - 500 per Congressional district - in two weeks. Coats was up for re-election in 1998 when he decided to retire, citing the pressures of constant fundraising. Bayh went on that year to defeat former Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke to reclaim his father's Senate seat. Coats was...

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition' By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 4, 2005; A01 In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation. Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Indiana Republican Senator Dan Coats will have another chance to help guide a Supreme Court pick through the confirmation process. He's been tapped to work with nominee Samuel Alito, the same job he was asked to take on for former nominee Harriet Miers. The White House yesterday named Coats and former Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie to aid Alito as the federal appeals court judge meets with senators and prepares for his Judiciary Committee hearings. Coats was in the Senate from 1989 until 1999. He resigned in February after nearly four years as the U-S ambassador...

“There is a great substance to Harriet Miers, a lady of integrity that has achieved very significant achievements for a woman,” Coats said. “We’ve had a number of distinguished Supreme Court justices who haven’t had that experience. Coats may have been chosen to shepherd Miers based on his own record as a conservative senator. In the Senate from 1989 to 1999, Coats pushed legislation to restrict abortion, tried to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts because of grants it made to artists he said mocked God, and led the opposition to allowing gays in the military.

BERLIN — A little over week ago, observers on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the political spectrum were calling September 18 a crossroads for Germany: Either Germany would choose the path of free-market reform or continue down the path of status-quo statism. But the observers were wrong. Rather than giving Angela Merkel a mandate to change course or Gerhard Schroeder a mandate to stay the course, the German electorate simply froze in the middle of the intersection. And that’s a dangerous place to be, as anyone who has tried to cross a busy Berlin street knows....

According to FOCUS Magazine (kind of German "Time"), Ambassador Daniel Coats (chief of the US mission to Germany) shall replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defence, if Rumsfeld cannot be kept in the Administration. National Security Advisor Rice should have asked Coats wether he were ready to take over the office as the chief of the DoD when she visited Berlin on May 16th, and Coats answer was positive.

U.S. ambassador to Germany, Dan Coats said on German Television, that if Germany did not change course and support the U.S., Washington would not consider them a partner anymore. He also said that the future cooperation would be in jeopardy.